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LogMeTT

Useful but still somewhat buggy program (the current version shipped with Teraterm). Scheduling does not work (there are stealth entries -- if you delete entry it continued to be executed).  Group opening does not work properly, etc. 

This is an old letter from  Boris Maisuradze  describing the history of the product development (see also LogMeTT Tutorial  for quick intro into the program):

Dear LogMeTT user,

This topic briefly covers LogMeTT creation and development history. For LogMeTT description please go to Welcome to LogMeTT page.

First of all I would like to thank many people involved in TeraTerm development starting Takashi Teranishi who created the first version of TeraTerm back in 1994; ending Yutaka Hirata that is currently the main developer of this application. Without TeraTerm - LogMeTT would never exist.

Being software designer in the past my current occupation is system support analyst in big international corporation dealing with hundreds of customers world wide. Connecting remotely to customer's sites is part of my daily duties. I am big fan of TeraTerm and always use it in my work. I was aware about features of TeraTerm Macro language however lack of simple mechanism to keep TeraTerm Macro scripts organized and quickly accessible was always stopping me from using them. Eventually I decided to create a tool that will resolve this inconvenience.

The original name of LogMeTT was LogMeIn however later I learned that this name has been already taken by another company for their product and my application got it's current name - LogMeTT.

The first version of LogMeIn was released at the beginning of 2004 and I was developing it further till October 2004. Initially I was the only user of LogMeTT but then I started sharing it with my colleagues and ultimately it became so popular among them that I decided to make it available for public. More people were using the tool - more suggestions I was getting of how to improve it further and by implementing these suggestions LogMeTT was becoming more and more powerful with every new release.

By the end of 2004 I started working on the second version of the application. Almost 90% of source code was rewritten and the major changes were introduced. Plain list of connections was replaced with hierarchical tree structure and many new functionalities were added. The information about new releases of LogMeTT with added feature descriptions is available from LogMeTT support forum.

By the fall of 2004 I realized that the main inconvenience of TeraTerm Macro language, is lack of ability to open SSH2 connection directly from macro script. I had the workaround for this - I was telneting from my PC to the Unix server and then executing ssh from there but this was adding extra lines to every macro and increasing total connection time. I started searching the Internet for any information about SSH2 support from TeraTerm Macro and was lucky to find the web page of Yutaka Hirata who started further development of TeraTerm in summer 2004. I sent him e-mail suggesting few features that TeraTerm was missing at that time including SSH2 support from Macro language  and he almost immediately added them. Since then we exchanged quit a lot of mails discussing how to improve TeraTerm further. Few months later I set up TeraTerm and LogMeTT support forum on NeoCom Ltd. web site. NeoCom Ltd. is company located in Montreal, Canada and I am one of it's founders.

I would like to underline that I am developing LogMeTT during out of office hours spending my own free time and implementation of new features, user suggestions, big fixing or support of this application is done on the best effort basis which actually means whenever I will have time. If you have an idea of how to improve LogMeTT further or you want to report the bug please register in LogMeTT support forum and leave your message there.

LogMeTT was written on Borland Delphi language and is utilizing several freeware Delphi components created by other people and companies. Click on Help->About LogMeTT menu item of LogMeTT Configuration window to see the whole list on their names.

With very best regards,

Boris Maisuradze,

Montreal, June 2005

LogMeTT reminds Hummingbird Network neighborhood but has some additional functionality. For example each instance of Teraterm can have its own colors. That feature is very important for distinguishing production servers from test servers in a large corporate environment.

For a seasoned Unix admin the program has some "windows smell". For example it stores its configuration files and database as binary although neither speed not space are a problem in this type of applications.  Also it is not that easy to determine if the current configuration is saved in file or not. This way it's easy to lose some work done.

Recommended Links

http://logmett.com/

LogMeTT Tutorial

1. What is LogMeTT?

LogMeTT is a launcher application for TeraTerm -terminal emulator- macro. A user can automate login procedure to the remote host as well as running any process on the server. Though `TeraTerm Menu' is already available as auto-login application, LogMeTT has more feature than TeraTerm Menu. These features include SSH2 connection, scheduling, auto logging, color setup per the remote host and so on. In addition, LogMeTT supports the tree repository per a macro file. LogMeTT author is Boris living in USA. LogMeTT has been included in TeraTerm package.

2. What can LogMeTT do?

A user can manage an automated connection to remote hosts by using LogMeTT. Also a user can effectively administrate these configuration files because these host information can be registered as a tree repository. However, LogMeTT lacks the feature such as quick launching by keyboard shortcut which is supported by TeraTerm Menu.

3. How to launch

LogMeTT can be launched from File menu of TeraTerm. When it is activated, LogMeTT icon will appear in the notification area, far right of a taskbar.

4. Configuration

We will explain LogMeTT configurations in this chapter. A user will realize an easy-to-use automated procedrue using TeraTerm.

1. Right-click LogMeTT icon in the notification area (see upper 3. figure), and then select "Configure...".

2. Configuration dialog will appear. Click the "Settings" tab, and then select the "Run at log on to Windows" check box on the "Settings" tab. LogMeTT will be automatically launched immediately after logon to Windows.

3. When "Start logging" is checked on New Connections tab under Settings tab, auto logging will start by launching LogMeTT from TeraTerm macro (The log file is located in `TeraTerm installation directory\Logs\LogMeTTmenu name_timestamp.log').

4. When a user selects "Add Child" under "Connection" menubar, an entry will be added. A user can also select "Add Child" by right-click "This computer" on screen left.

5. Next, "Unnamed connection #1" icon will be added under "This computer". Then select the icon and rename by pressing F2 key.

6. Select "Macro" tab, and then enter a description of macro script to login to the remote host. If you want User Name to be fixed and Password to be entered via dialog box, refer to the following macro script. Alternatively, you can directly write the user's password in the macro file although it is not recommended.
*NOTICE* Refer to 5. section about the security conscious macro.

username = 'nike'
hostname = '192.168.1.3'

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

msg = 'Enter password for user '
strconcat msg username
passwordbox msg 'Get password'

msg = hostname
strconcat msg ':22 /ssh /auth=password /user='
strconcat msg username
strconcat msg ' /passwd='
strconcat msg inputstr

connect msg

7. Press F9 key for your macro script to be verified. If it is confirmed, save the macro script to the file by pressing Apply button at upper right direction.

8. A user can select the user's registered remote host configuration in the notification area.

9. If a user specifies some messages on "Popup" tab in the following window:

Then below popup message will be shown.

Popup dialog can be used to confirm a notice when a user connects to an important host or a user switches the priviledge level to the super user level. When a user presses OK button on the popup message, then the macro script will be run. Otherwise when a user presses Cancel button, then the macro script will be cancelled.

10. On "Colors" tab, a user can modify TeraTerm coloration for each connection. Like as Popup dialog, this tab can be used to change coloration. It prevents a user miss operation.

11. On "Schedule" tab, a user can automatically run the macro script. By using this feature, a user can do as follows.

• Power cycle
• Send e-mail or call upon failure by combination "Settings" tab and "User Data" tab.
• Periodically backup or status check

NOTICE: If a user puts a child tree in schedule, all parent tree will be run. If a user want to run it as an independent task, a child tree should be moved under "This computer" top tree. Also, please be careful of the difference of timestamp between remote host and local host.

RECOMMENDATION: If a user utilizes scheduling feature, turn on auto-logging mode.

5. Security-conscious macro script

This section is to discuss the topic about TeraTerm macro.

Although the user name is directly described in the macro script in an example of Section 4, this is not appropriate for security policy. Therefore, a new procedure for encrypting the user name and the password is described below.

1. sample macro for auto-login with encrypting the user's password.

The user name is scott, the host name is remote.host, and the destination of the password file is located in C:\mydata\filename.dat.

; setting
hostname = 'remote.host'
username = 'scott'
getpassword 'C:\mydata\filename.dat' 'usrpass' inputstr

; connection & login
msg = hostname
strconcat msg ':22 /ssh /2 /auth=password /user='
strconcat msg usernam
strconcat msg ' /passwd='
strconcat msg inputstr
connect msg

getpassword 'filepath\filename' 'IDENTIFICATION' $stored variable

A user can save the encrypted password with multiple identifications in a sample file.

This macro script confirms the user password for the first time. After this, the encryped password in "C:\mydata\filename.dat" is used for auto-login.

2. Sample macro script of auto-login saving the encrypted user name and the password file are located in C:\mydata\filename.dat.

The host name is remote.host, and the destination of the user name and the password file are specified on C:\mydata\filename.dat.

; setting
hostname = 'remote.host'
getpassword 'C:\mydata\filename.dat' 'usrid' username
getpassword 'C:\mydata\filename.dat' 'usrpass' inputstr

; connection & login
msg = hostname
strconcat msg ':22 /ssh /2 /auth=password /user='
strconcat msg username
strconcat msg ' /passwd='
strconcat msg inputstr
connect msg

getpassword 'filepath\filename' 'IDENTIFICATION' $stored variable

The user names are also stored as "usrid" identification in this macro script. A user must input both the user name and password for the first time, however a user no longer needs to input these information for the second time or later. A user can encrypt the host name in a same manner, however a user must be careful of adding the host name to TeraTerm history buffer for security policy.

3. Using telnet protocol

Be advised that the macro script by using telnet -port23- protocol is different from the above. The reason is that telnet protocol authenticates the user after connection established.

; setting
hostname = 'remote.host'
getpassword 'C:\mydata\filename.dat' 'usrid' username
getpassword 'C:\mydata\filename.dat' 'usrpass' inputstr
;; login session [*]
UsernamePrompt = 'Please login:'
PasswordPrompt = 'Please Enter password:'

; connection
msg = hostname
strconcat msg ':23'
strconcat msg ' /nossh'
connect msg

; login
wait   UsernamePrompt
sendln username
wait   PasswordPrompt
sendln inputstr

[*] A user may change these prompt strings for the corresponding remote host.

Caution of the file saving encryption data

A user can maintain the password file stored in secure location and it is available for root user to be prompted for this password. For instance, an administrator configures a long password string for the first time, then he/she can delete the file after savine the password file.

As above stated, when the password is saved in the local file, it is a good idea to add a batch which deletes the password file on LogMeTT startup so that a user only needs to be authenticated for the first time.

There is no complete security solution in the world, may these topics help you to tighten the security.

6. Latest download

Basically, we will include LogMeTT latest version at the time of TeraTerm release. However, it is not necessarily the case that TeraTerm installation package includes LogMeTT latest version because LogMeTT project is different from TeraTerm project. Sure, the latest version is here.

Also, the user can get LogMeTT latest version by selecting "Check for updates" on "Help" menu.

7. Contact address

e-mail: boris at logmett.com
LogMeTT web page