Solution to stop people disconnecting network cables (Testers wanted please)

[FN-GM]

Just firing up a VM now

[FN-GM]

Auto Unlock seems good.

 

Much quicker in pickup up the disconnected cable.

 

How do you get into the admin console?

[Steve21]

How do you get into the admin console?

 

You got an Icon in TaskBar thigny (Bottom right one, forget its name)

Right click, and a box appears type admin into it

 

Steve

[FN-GM]

didnt notice, must of been hidden.

 

Good work so far though!

[FN-GM]

Problem found.

 

As i said before. If i disconnect during logon it will lock the machine. But once i reconnect it auto unlocks. Then the user has full access to a machine without any group policies.

 

Also when i log off i get the attached

 

Also when i right click the icon in the system tray there are no options the menu is empty

Edited April 17, 2011 by FN-GM

[Steve21]

Problem found.

 

As i said before. If i disconnect during logon it will lock the machine. But once i reconnect it auto unlocks. Then the user has full access to a machine without any group policies.

 

Also when i log off i get the attached

 

Also when i right click the icon in the system tray there are no options the menu is empty

 

 

 

The GPOs I couldn't think of a way to do it yet, Don't have any GPOs on this machine to test for the errors Don't suppose you have any logs from the GPO not applying due to disconnection?

 

The icon system tray part, the "empty" is the white login box Click on it.

 

And logoff part, Will take a look.

 

Many thanks,

Steve

[oxide54]

you could force a group policy refresh when the cable is plugged back in,

 

BOOL RefreshPolicyEx(

__in BOOL bMachine,

__in DWORD dwOptions

);

 

might have to roll your interop

Edited April 17, 2011 by oxide54

[FN-GM]

The GPOs I couldn't think of a way to do it yet, Don't have any GPOs on this machine to test for the errors Don't suppose you have any logs from the GPO not applying due to disconnection?

 

I will have a look.

 

The icon system tray part, the "empty" is the white login box Click on it.

 

[Steve21]

you could force a group policy refresh when the cable is plugged back in,

 

But wouldn't a gpupdate /force, cause a restart to apply the computer GPOS "even" if it had them applied?

 

Steve

[oxide54]

no don't call the gpupdate.exe (it only reboots if you say yes btw)

 

call the API call RefreshPolicyEx

 

Userenv.dll

[FN-GM]

run without the force switch it shouldnt need a reboot.

 

If you go into the admin area. Then unselect Show NotifyIcon, how do you get back in?

 

I get these errors when i unplug the cable

Edited April 17, 2011 by FN-GM

[Steve21]

If you go into the admin area. Then unselect Show NotifyIcon, how do you get back in?

 

The short answer is you don't The idea was once an admin has config'd the program (on their computer), they can just send out the exe and it'll run as a student version (aka no access).

If there were any major changes aka passwords, it'd be changed on every computer so would be easier to resend exe out than manually do it. But guess if you wanted, could set a way to reaccess it?

 

This version: EduLockv4.zip

should fix the logoff problem. I had a function that doesn't allow the program to be closed (aka by a student), but forgot to allow windows to close it

 

Will take a look at the GPO side now,

 

Thanks all!

Steve

[FN-GM]

Something that would be really nice, to control the program with group policy

[Steve21]

Something that would be really nice, to control the program with group policy

 

That's a cool idea. I guess the only issue (assuming you were referring to the showing of Icon etc), Is if it's defaulted to show, when GPO don't apply they'll see it. If it's default Off, without GPOs you couldn't even config the program for testing etc

 

Will have to take a look once I fix the GPO not applying part (Although I guess I could cheat, and if EduLockGPO isn't applied, that can be the clause to force update policies? hmmmmmm!)

 

Steve

[FN-GM]

If its a computer GPO is should be cached.

[Steve21]

If its a computer GPO is should be cached.

 

Ah.

 

Would you mind trying this version when you got a few minutes: EduLockv5.zip

 

Should force update GPO at unlock. Not sure how fast it'll update them though, (Would help if I had some GPOs here to test lol)

 

It's set to do computer and user, shouldn't cause any issues, but we'll see

 

Thanks again

 

Steve

[6Foot2]

I would like to trial this, and I really would like to adopt it when all of the wrinkles have been ironed out, but I don't think my network is a good candidate for testing.

 

However can I suggest a feature that does not seem to have been covered yet:

 

I would like to see the station automatically send an E-Mail to a nominated address [admin@school.county.sch.uk?] when connectivity is re-established stating the username logged on when connectivity was lost, when connectivity was lost and when it was re-established.

 

In that way we could try to see a trend for users who try this technique to get around network security.

 

This would be very helpful where I work.

 

Thanks.

[Steve21]

I would like to trial this, and I really would like to adopt it when all of the wrinkles have been ironed out, but I don't think my network is a good candidate for testing.

 

However can I suggest a feature that does not seem to have been covered yet:

 

I would like to see the station automatically send an E-Mail to a nominated address [admin@school.county.sch.uk?] when connectivity is re-established stating the username logged on when connectivity was lost, when connectivity was lost and when it was re-established.

 

In that way we could try to see a trend for users who try this technique to get around network security.

 

This would be very helpful where I work.

 

Thanks.

 

Hey,

 

Great to hear, and can certainly look at writing that into it. Or at least so it logs, and uploads it once it reconnects (Depending how fussy it is on sending mail, without inputting all my details etc )

 

In terms of testing it, it's pretty much testable on a standalone computer. (At least how I'm doing it currently ) Aslong as its got a .NET framework. So any 5minutes playing with it, to iron out bugs would be great (For some silly reason can't update first page, but a lot more info on rest of these posts)

 

Will get to work on email side too Main problem being I can't really use smtp servers, else every copy needs a login. And without access kinda makes it iffy lol

 

Thanks Steve

Edited April 17, 2011 by Steve21

[Jamman960]

Just tested it on windows 7 & wireless - it appears to work as it should, I switched the wireless of via the hardware switch and the message cut in within seconds and dissapeared as soon as the wireles was switched back on

 

Will experiment further once I return from annual leave, looking very good so far

 

James

[Steve21]

Just tested it on windows 7 & wireless - it appears to work as it should, I switched the wireless of via the hardware switch and the message cut in within seconds and dissapeared as soon as the wireles was switched back on

 

Will experiment further once I return from annual leave, looking very good so far

 

James

 

Awesome thanks, Out of curiosity did you use the copy on front page, or one few posts up? For some reason it won't let me edit first post, so can't update it.

 

Steve

[ihaveaproblem]

Tested here. Windows 7 x64 and works well. Only problem I had for the start was I had Virtualbox and VMWare Virtual Network Adapters enabled. After disabling these in device manager all worked fine.

Nice work:)

[FN-GM]

Ah.

 

Would you mind trying this version when you got a few minutes: [ATTACH]9954[/ATTACH]

 

Should force update GPO at unlock. Not sure how fast it'll update them though, (Would help if I had some GPOs here to test lol)

 

It's set to do computer and user, shouldn't cause any issues, but we'll see

 

Thanks again

 

Steve

 

Been working on other things today. Will give it a test tomorrow and will report back.

[EduTech]

Awesome thanks, Out of curiosity did you use the copy on front page, or one few posts up? For some reason it won't let me edit first post, so can't update it.

 

Steve

 

It might be worth linking to an external source for the code so that you can update it there oppose to having it attached to the posts. there is a time limit you have when editing posts, so after a few days you won't be able to edit the post/thread in which you created.

 

James.

[Steve21]

Tested here. Windows 7 x64 and works well. Only problem I had for the start was I had Virtualbox and VMWare Virtual Network Adapters enabled. After disabling these in device manager all worked fine.

Nice work:)

 

Awesome thanks. Yeah Virtual adaptors (same as hamachi etc), count as always connected even if the wire isn't plugged in, as "in bad terminology" the switch is on your computer, thus never disconnected. And as such the API for checking if network available returns true But yeah, I'm hoping (aka. assuming ) that majority of networks won't be using virtual adaptors on student machines. (Else might have to look into making it ignore virtual ones)

 

Been working on other things today. Will give it a test tomorrow and will report back.

 

Thanks!

 

It might be worth linking to an external source for the code so that you can update it there oppose to having it attached to the posts. there is a time limit you have when editing posts, so after a few days you won't be able to edit the post/thread in which you created.

 

James.

 

Yeah certainly will have to try to get original page editted to say such Never realised it locks after a certain time, was going to update it constantly. Silly me hey!

 

Thanks all,

Steve

[EduTech]

Yeah certainly will have to try to get original page editted to say such Never realised it locks after a certain time, was going to update it constantly. Silly me hey!

 

Have a chat with Shaun / ZeroHour I am sure he will be able to sort it out for you.

 

James