[svlug] using neoteris

[George Georgalis]

Does anyone have experience with http://www.neoteris.com/

I saw a demo and was very impressed. Actually I think it was the first
commercial tech pitch that won me over.

Works like this: you connect from the internet to the 1-u server via
an ssl web browser and login. A java applit then comes up and provides
local access to servers on the other side of the neoteris device (user
auth and group permissions are for the various services).  All the ports
get multiplexed over port 443 to get through various firewalls. Locally
the java applit maps the remote host names to 127.0.0.1 and manages
whether to connect via its tunnel or directly to the host name. So if
you are using company.tld:pop3d via the neoteris ssl extranet, you can
still access company.tld:httpd across regular channels.

I've seen it work and it's a piece of cake (setup and use), can only do
tcp services, for services not predefined, requires knowledge of ports
to configure, does not handle services that can use a large number of
ports like ftp because the applit doesn't follow the connection to
determine which new port to open. Of course passive ftp is easy. It's
intel linux inside, but there is no low level access. Did I mention zero
configuration on the client? Just point your browser, login, then use
your local programs to access tunneled services.

The beta Sun JDK version will be out in 3 weeks, but the present version
uses the M$ JDK. Didn't see it, but most services are purported to work
with Linux too. (I don't understand how it can manage /etc/hosts or low
ports without root). It's not cheap; $14k, but everyone would want the
$37k setup.  However I understand it costs less and works better than
iplanet solutions.

So has anyone used it? What do you think?

// George

-- 
GEORGE GEORGALIS, System Admin/Architect    cell: 347-451-8229 
Security Services, Web, Mail,            mailto:george at galis.org 
Multimedia, DB, DNS and Metrics.       http://www.galis.org/george