Securit-Edesk must be run in the context of either Daff-E (if you desire communication in-the-clear to allow people to eavesdrop and hack into your system) or the E language environment (if you prefer hacker-proof strongly encrypted communication); both E and Daff-E run on top of Java Virtual Machines (jvms), versions 1.1.6 or 1.1.7 or 1.1.8, using the Sun SDK jvm (notably, the Microsoft jvm does not work at this time). For complete descriptions of installing E and Daff-E, go to the E web pages. Edesk has been tested and used on Win95, Win98, Linux (Intel) and Sun computer systems. If you try using Edesk on a Macintosh, please email Marc Stiegler to tell him how it goes.
Once you have E or Daff-E running, invoke the E interpreter with the Edesk source as the file to execute, with 3 to 6 additional parameters on the command line, depending on whether you're starting an Edesk or an Edesk file server to be accessed remotely by an Edesk. The basic 3 parameters you need under all circumstances are:
Storage Name: This is a name you assign to the particular disk storage system for which this copy of Edesk will be serving files; this storage name appears in the title bar of the window on this storage system. For your Win98 laptop you might use "My Laptop"; for a Linux box with the name DarkStar it might be "My Home Directory On DarkStar"
These three are the only parameters you need to start an Edesk. If you are starting an Edesk server (to allow you to work with files on a remote system, which is really the whole purpose of Edesk), you need at least one more parameter:
If you are starting a server for which you want to set permissions, there are 2 more parameters to set:
Manipulating files on a Linux box from a Win95 laptop over the Internet: Suppose you have a Win98 laptop, and you're traveling on the road, and you wish to work with the files on your Linux box at home, which is up and running on the Internet. Before you leave on your trip, start up an Edesk server on the linux machine with a command such as:
e e.ListenAddress=:3469 Edesk.e "DarkStar Marc" server /home/marc /home/marc/EdeskServer.eds
The special argument to e, "e.ListenAddress=:3469" tells the e interpreter which port to use for communication; 3469 is the standard port for E specified by the port-standards committee, but you can use any port, and you only need to specify this at all if your computer is running a firewall and you need to open a port for communication. Because an intruder would need the complete URI reference specification to connect to your computer through this port while E is using it, this is (dare I say it? Yes!) a hacker-proof, truly safe connection.
Copy the file EdeskServer.eds to you Windows computer (this file is created by the command described above).
Now, when you are on the road, connect to the Internet, and start up an Edesk on your Windows machine:
e Edesk.e "Marcs Laptop" gui c:\windows\desktop
When Edesk starts on your laptop, it will automatically bring up an Edesk file manager window browsing the laptop itself. Click the Open Remote Edesk button (or the Open Edesk file menu button) and pick the EdeskServer.eds file you took from your Linux box. A second Edesk window will open, this one browsing the files on DarkStar across the Internet. Copy and Paste files from the laptop to the linux box, edit files on both computers, rearrange whole directory structures at your leisure.
Allowing the files on your on your Win95 laptop to be fixed by a remote user on a Linux box: Let's turn the example around. Your are still on the road with a Win95 laptop, but now new information has come into the home office that needs to be incorporated into your presentation for this afternoon. And you're not very good at working with the HTML and gif files that go into the presentation; you have someone back at the office who is brilliant at putting these presentations together, and has all the info to update your presentation. To add to the difficulty, your laptop contains not only the presentation (in c:\bigPresentation), you also have all the company's financial records, which your presentation guru should not see. No problem: using Edesk, the guru can move new gifs into the presentation and directly edit the html pages (with a simple but effective text editor) while your financials reside in a secure space outside his operations.
Log into the Internet. Set up an Edesk file server on the laptop:
e Edesk.e "Marc Laptop" server c:\bigPresentation c:\windows\desktop\presentationServer.eds c:\bigPresentation write
Starting this Edesk file server will write out the reference file presentationServer.eds on the desktop. Email that file to the home office (preferably with pgp or some other encryption system).
Now the guru starts an Edesk:
e Edesk.e "Guru On Linux" gui /home/guru
Upon receiving your email with the reference to your Edesk server in it, the guru opens an Edesk window on it from his active Edesk, and proceeds to fix your presentation. Your file server is running in background on your machine, you can work on other things while this is going on, and you can read the mail from the guru telling you he's done. Shut down the Edesk server and go knock 'em dead with your presentation.
A complete list of the functions available in an Edesk window: