Lomalarga is a VPN like software based upon SSH tunnels. It is completely open source. For the administrator it is easy to administer, declaring which hosts and ports the user should connect. For the user, it's friendly as the administrator can create an automated and preconfigured installation in Windows. User friendly. The only input required for use is:
- Start the program
- Enter a username created by the admin
- Enter the password (can be changed by the user)
- Voilà
Lomalarga solution is divided in two sections:
- Server: the administration section. Written in Google Web Toolkit and PHP. Software components involved: Linux, SSH, lighttpd, PostgreSQL, PHP and Perl.
- Client: the user section. Connects to the server using SSH protocol. Written completely in C#.
A picture is worth +1000 words. Illustration showing it:
You are connected to Internet and want to try to access a TCP/IP service behind the firewall within your organization.
You have Lomalarga Client that uses SSH to encrypt all traffic between You and Lomalarga Server and creates a tunnel between a client and a service within your organization.
The organization has Lomalarga Server, that encrypts the traffic across internet and lets you access it from Internet using the Client
Lomalarga Server must be an Internet host accessible resource. The only ports that need to be open must be HTTPS and SSH (typically tcp/443 and tcp/22, but can be changed).
All traffic is encrypted between the server and the client using the SSH protocol. Including authentication.
Administrator grants access and creates the configuration (shunnels or SSH Tunnels)
Clients access the service using the client software and only need to input the user and password. And the have the tunnels created by administrator accessible to them.
