VBMySQL.com

Introduction

In my last article, I described how to secure connections to a MySQL server using SSH port forwarding (or SSH tunneling). Responses to the article included requests for information on connecting to an SSH server running under Windows and instructions on closing a tunnel opened from within Visual Basic. In this article I will show how to use the OpenSSH For Windows tool to host SSH tunnels on a Windows server, and will also cover how to use the shellexecuteex, terminateprocess and closeHandle API calls to open and close an SSH tunnel from within VB. The instructions given will be based on a Windows 2000 installation, but should be adaptable to any NT based system.

SSH For Windows

One of the advantages of the OpenSSH project is that it is designed for portability and variations exist for a variety of platforms. Michael Johnson maintains a Windows version of OpenSSH at http://lexa.mckenna.edu/sshwindows/ which I will be using in this article. OpenSSH for Windows can be downloaded at http://lexa.mckenna.edu/sshwindows/download/releases/

OpenSSH uses components from the Cygwin project, a Linux emulator that runs on most varieties of Windows. It should be noted that OpenSSH for Windows does not create a full Cygwin installation, and will not be compatible with systems that have Cygwin already installed.

Installing SSH For Windows

Once you download and extract the OpenSSH zip archive at http://lexa.mckenna.edu/sshwindows/download/releases/ you will have a single executable with a name like setupssh371-20031015.exe which you can double-click to install OpenSSH for Windows on your system. I would recommend installing OpenSSH to the default location of c:\program files\openssh.

Creating An NT User

OpenSSH for Windows relies on the Windows NT authentication system to validate users, and as such we need to create an NT user for OpenSSH to validate against.

Open the control panel with Start > Settings > Control Panel and double-click on the Users And Passwords icon. If you login automatically without specifying a password you will find most of the form grayed out, but you can gain access to the controls by checking the box titled “Users must enter a user name and password to access this computer.”

We will need to create a user which has password-protected access to the system. If you do not plan to do anything beyond opening SSH tunnels with the account then creating a user with Guest-level permissions will be adequate. In this case I will be creating a user named ‘tunnel’ as a member of the guests group. You can create a new user by clicking the Add… button on the Users and Passwords panel.

Configuring The passwd And group Files

Configuration for OpenSSH For Windows is done through the command shell. To open a command shell select Start > Run… then enter cmd in the dialogue box and click Ok. Once in the command shell enter the following:

 cd c:\program files\openssh\bin
mkgroup -l >> ..\etc\group

This command will add your user groups (Administrator, Guests, etc.) to the openssh\etc\group file. Please note that this will import local groups only. If your NT security is based on a domain controller you will need to reference the openssh\docs\readme.txt file for instructions on using domain users and groups.

Once your groups are imported you can use the following command to import users into the openssh\etc\passwd file:

 mkpasswd -l -u tunnel >> ..\etc\passwd

This will import the tunnel user into the passwd file. While you can import all Windows users at once by omitting the -u argument and username, I would recommend only importing the specific users you intend to use for SSH access.

Starting The Server

Once our server is configured we can start the OpenSSH server with the following command:

 net start opensshd

We can also use the services manager to start the OpenSSH server and configure it to start when the system is booting. Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop and select Manage from the context menu. You can then see a list of available services by choosing the Services entry of the Services And Applications tree.

Click To Enlarge

You can then right-click on the OpenSSH Server entry and choose the Start option to start the OpenSSH server. You can also choose the Properties option and change the Startup type: option from Manual to Automatic to have OpenSSH start during your server’s boot sequence.

Once your server is running you can then connect using tools like Putty and Plink as discussed in my previous article.

Opening And Closing Tunnels In Visual Basic

In my previous article I discussed how to open a tunnel in Visual Basic using the Plink utility and the shellexecute API call. While this worked quite well for opening SSH tunnels, I failed to cover how to close the tunnels from within VB. In order to open and also close tunnels from within Visual Basic we’ll be using the shellexecuteex, terminateprocess, and closeHandle API calls.

For this project I am going to split the API calls into a separate module that will contain the following:

Option Explicit
Dim si As SHELLEXECUTEINFO

Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
    Dim exitCode As Long
    If TerminateProcess(si.hProcess, exitCode) <> 0 Then
        CloseHandle (si.hProcess)
        MsgBox "Tunnel Closed!"
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub cmdOpen_Click()
    si.cbSize = Len(si)
    si.fMask = SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS
    si.hwnd = frmMain.hwnd
    si.lpVerb = "open"
    si.lpFile = App.Path & "\plink.exe"
    si.lpParameters = "-ssh -l tunnel -pw 123456 -L 3306:127.0.0.1:3306 -batch 127.0.0.1"
    si.lpDirectory = App.Path
    si.nShow = SW_HIDE

    If ShellExecuteEx(si) Then
        MsgBox "Tunnel Open!"
    Else
        MsgBox "Opening Failed!"
    End If
End Sub

In addition I will create a form with two command buttons named cmdOpen and cmdClose (see attached project). These buttons will handle the actual opening and closing of the tunnel. Place the following code in your form:

Option Explicit
Dim si As SHELLEXECUTEINFO

Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
    Dim exitCode As Long
    If TerminateProcess(si.hProcess, exitCode) <> 0 Then
        CloseHandle (si.hProcess)
        MsgBox "Tunnel Closed!"
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub cmdOpen_Click()
    si.cbSize = Len(si)
    si.fMask = SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS
    si.hwnd = frmMain.hwnd
    si.lpVerb = "open"
    si.lpFile = App.Path & "\plink.exe"
    si.lpParameters = "-ssh -l tunnel -pw 123456 -L 3306:127.0.0.1:3306 -batch 127.0.0.1"
    si.lpDirectory = App.Path
    si.nShow = SW_HIDE

    If ShellExecuteEx(si) Then
        MsgBox "Tunnel Open!"
    Else
        MsgBox "Opening Failed!"
    End If
End Sub

This code will open the Plink tunnel and store it’s process ID in si.hProcess, allowing us to later kill the process by referencing it’s process ID with the TerminateProcess API call.

Conclusion

OpenSSH For Windows is an excellent tool for providing secure access to Windows based servers through SSH tunnels. The shellexecuteex and terminateprocess API functions allow us to not only open an SSH tunnel from within Visual Basic, but close it as well.