SSH or VNC From Your Cell Phone?

fintler writes "Andreas Karlsson has a working release of a simple ssh client for the Ericsson P800 and is looking for a way to imput control charactors in the interface. Here is Screenshot 1 and Screenshot 2. There's also a VNC client for the Ericsson P800 (Auf Deutsch!) written by Gino Micacchi with some more screenshots here and here."

Comments

Neat hack.

[Meat Blaster]

These must be those super cellphones that are built around computers rather than the ones you get with a basic plan. Better use than games on the things, although I'm at a loss as to how you'd actually type using the twelve digit keypad.

I thought it was illegal to encrypt over wireless connections... just for speech, I guess? Irregardless, I'd definently wipe this off the phone before travelling abroad just in case.

Re:Neat hack.

[Bushcat]

I'm at a loss as to how you'd actually type using the twelve digit keypad

Maybe with this or this (the text is Japanese but the pictures are English).

Re:Neat hack.

[suwain_2]

I thought it was illegal to encrypt over wireless connections...

I don't think it is. As a ham, I know we're not allowed to use 'codes or ciphers,' but just about anything else nowadays uses encryption. WEP over wireless Ethernet. Digital spread spectrum (I suppose that's debatable on whether it's encryption or just obscurity?) on my cordless phone. The box for my cell phone bears a "RSA Encryption" logo.

It doesn't make sense from a legislative standpoint, either. The people who really have something to hide probably would do wired for added security. It'd be like saying "You can't scream codes across a crowded building," but allowing you to write them down and secretly exchange them. All you'd do is end up making it harder for Big Brother to decode, since they'd have difficulty even finding the signal if it was over wire.

I believe you're mistaken, or perhaps thinking of something else. But then again, it's also possible I'm wrong and these are just special circumstances.

Seems to me...

[jkrise]

A cellphone is less useful than a dumb VT100 terminal. Granted, you can't carry the terminal around, but if people would build a simple 80x25 screen with a tiny keyboard,that gets a login prompt from the service provider, that could be the most useful innovation since sliced bread.

Building intelligence into the client, but making data-input difficult, and not using standard protocols - seems a huge waste of money and bandwidth.

-

SSH from Nokia 3650 / 6800

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for, Idokorro Mobile, has a working client (in beta) for the Nokia 3650 & 6800. Cool stuff.

Nokia 3650?

[PhoenixK7]

Anyone know of clients of similar sorts that will run on a Series 60 Symbian phone? I've been looking around but the VNC clients that I located refused to run on the phone after installing the package.

Re:Nokia 3650?

[d99-sbr]

No, the p800 uses UIQ instead of Series 60. They are both based on Symbian 7, but while Series 60 is mostly a cell phone UI adapted for PDA use, UIQ feels more like a PDA with a cell phone extension.

Re:Nokia 3650?

[mlk]

Mine might[1], but your phone will have to support sockets, if not you could try ActiveViewer.

[1] VNC only, not SSH.

Cute...

[BiggerIsBetter]

...but how do you hack scripts in Vi with a funky cell-phone kepad? And maybe someone will implement TXT compatible shell expansion?

It's a cool idea whose time has come, but I think it'll be an emergency tool rather than a new way to work.

Re:Cute...

[mccalli]

...but how do you hack scripts in Vi with a funky cell-phone kepad?

You don't. You use a bluetooth keyboard instead.

No experience using a bluetooth keyboard with this SSHe client. However, plenty of experience using bluetooth to send text between OS X and a phone. It's certainly possible, just don't know if it's been done yet.

Anyone else know if a bluetooth keyboard compatible with phones yet exists?

Cheers,
Ian

NoMachine NX port ?

[wolruf]

Someone could also port NoMachine (GPL), it already runs on Zaurus and iPAQ Linux:
http://www.nomachine.com/documentation.php
It runs really nice on slow links.

What about J2ME

[RawCode]

Would this app (which it seems is only for that Ericsson phone) be that much more a killer app if it were done in J2ME and be available on MANY different platforms? Or is that possible given the J2ME graphics library? Surely the SSH client would be doable.

We have one for Nokia 7650/3650 and many others

[drazvan]

ActiveViewer is the first VNC client for J2ME-enabled handsets. It works on pretty much anything, from Siemens handsets to Blackberry pagers and color-screen Nokia 7650/3650. Razvan

Kyocera SmartPhone

[jarnot]

I've had these capabilities for a few years with my (already antiquated) Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone.

Palm VNC client and TopGun SSH are a bit of a strain on the phone's CPU, but still usable -- even over a dialup connection. It comes in handy if I need to access my servers when I'm away from my desk.

Re:or also maybe from the MPAA...

[diersing]

And seriously, that's about all. I've tried remote administration via my phone (Sprint A500 has a VNC client as well), Crackberry, and PDA. SSH is the best (IMHO), VNC screen rendering is impractical on such a small device (so are the other alternatives like RDesktop and TermServ). I also tried SonicAdmin without much fan fare from me.

With VPN and so many computers available at cafes, libraries, etc... I think real remote admining via portable devices is just for the 'way I'm cool' factor.

Kyocera 7135

[MrFrog8552]

I have a Kyocera 7135, and had a 6035. Both can do ssh sessions with a palm ssh client. You can use the grafiti input to send commands, not as nice as a keyboard, but I can use that a lot faster than one of those small thumb keyboards. There's also a vnc client, works alright if you're on 1rxtt network, not so good with just standard dial up (or atleast not when you have a 2480x768 X session). Not the most beautiful view, but if you need it, it works.

Possible, but not always friendly

[thrice]

I have a Treo 270 using a GPRS network, allowing for near ISDN speeds for network connections. Like other users that have posted, i regularly use a combination of TopGun SSH and Mergic VPN for getting into my corporate network when away from a computer.

From my experience, due to limited screen real estate, it's really hard to do very complex actions via this combination. However, in a pinch,
you can access a mission critical box and perform a restart of a service. With praticalities aside though, it's super cool to have this type of power in the palm of your hand (no pun intended).

I've also used VNC for the Treo using the same VPN tunneling and it's very hard to use due to bandwith restrictions.

Use a keyboard too....

[buro9]

This is a fantastic idea, but as the developers pointed out... it's a bit frustrating without the ability to CTRL + ESC.

So... the chat keyboard should work:
Chat Keyboard @ Sony Ericsson

The Sony Ericssons use the same interface as all prior Ericsson phones, and whilst they haven't updated the site accordingly, I do have my old accessories for my T29 running smoothly on my T610... namely my old data transfer cable (for syncing contacts with Outlook).

I believe that the chat keyboard above should work fine with the P800... thus solving the input method.

Does anyone have the keyboard? Can you confirm if the extra keys are on it? Maybe the developers can use key combinations (if the interfaces expose them) to emulate the CTRL and ESC keys.

Re:Screenshots

[wagemonkey]

Err, it's not Apache, but I do have a webserver on my P800 :-) It's called Prosit - if you want to know why I have a webserver on a cellphone ... um, er, ah well, I know - just because I can!

I also have myBuddies (ICQ) PuTTY and VNCviewer. And 2 browsers - a built in one for WAP and Opera for GPRS (It really is good too). It plays video (avi) and will sent photos from the built in camera by email. There are some utilies (sman and control panel), games, Java note util (standard one has proprietary format) and some crypto. I also use Mobipocket to browse offline and read books.

Downside is it 'only' has 12Mb onboard and 16Mb Memory Stick Duo and I really need to get rid of some stuff or buy a 64Mb card. Screen is quite good too for 4096 colour. If it had some sort of spreadsheet/DB util I wouldn't bother with a 'normal' PDA, I still might get one eventually. But I downloaded the SDK to see if I can whip up something in Java.
I get strange looks as my ring tone is a good quality .wav of an old-fashioned phone ringing (bells).

Re:I can see the sessions now

[4of12]

And I thought I was a lazy bastard with lots of short bash aliases to minimize typing!

I can see where these people will use up every damn single letter alias and function name around!

alias i=init
alias u=unmount
.
.

If it really takes off, then maybe the filesystem naming conventions will be next. We'll turn the tide from current verbose offerings such as "/home/joeuser" to the much more succinct "/u/ju".

Re:or also maybe from the MPAA...

[Phil Gregory]

Though I haven't tried it (my Palm Pilots have never been network-connected), GEORDI looks like it's a pretty decent interface for administering Unix (and Unix-alike) systems remotely from a PDA. Barring that, I'd probably go for ssh, but I found text-based things (text adventures, mostly) to be very annoying on the Palm.

--Phil (Now I just need to stop dropping the things...)

Re:Danger/T-Mobile Hiptop/Sidekick

[rbuysse]

I bought a sidekick about 6 weeks ago. All I have to say is "wow." It's really fun to have people make fun of you for not being able to leave the internet at home, and then ask to check their hotmail five minutes later.

It's the first mobile internet device that I've actually found useful. You get the actual page, rather than some crappy WAP version. Images are high quality, as my friends have shown me with porn... The only downside is that it doesn't support Java.

It has been a little more expensive than I would have first assumed, though... I have a nasty habit of eBaying from bars.