The reason I bought my T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition was to consolidate devices. I work as an administrator of a fairly large network that includes Unix servers, Windows machines, and various types of network hardware. Until I purchased the Pocket PC, I was carrying as many as 4 devices with me—pager, work cell phone, PDA, and personal cell phone. I was pleased but not surprised when I was able to eBay them all in favor of a single Pocket PC Phone Edition device.

What did come as a pleasant surprise, however, was to find that my Pocket PC also does a credible job substituting for the emergency laptop that I carry around in my trunk. I’m not just talking about the Windows Terminal Services client that comes with the Pocket PC distribution, either. There are a number of excellent applications available that provide remote access to all types of devices from anywhere that you can get a wireless connection. Better still, all of the applications discussed here are priced under $30.

These programs are all interesting in that, of necessity, they address the problem of creating a bridge between the Pocket PC touchscreen interface and command-line-centric devices such as Unix machines and network infrastructure. One approach is to simply port the code over and use the soft keyboard for data entry. This is functional, but with extended use leaves something to be desired. Other designers came up with truly creative mechanisms for providing shortcuts to the command line.

SSH Client for Pocket PC

I’m sure it will come as no surprise that the open source community has been hard at work porting applications to the Pocket PC platform. One of the most useful I’ve found is the free SSH Client for Pocket PC by Rainer Keuchel based on the works of Tatu Ylonen and others (http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/ssh.html).

Fig. 1. The indispensable if slightly clunky SSH client relies on the soft keyboard for user input.

In case you’re not familiar with SSH, it’s essentially an encrypted version of rsh that has largely replaced both telnet and rsh on modern Unix systems.

SSH’s biggest selling point is security. All traffic takes place over an encrypted socket connection, unlike telnet, where traffic (including passwords) is transmitted in the clear. The SSH package also includes clients for secure file transfer (scp and sftp). These days, SSH connectivity is a necessity in network administration, but it’s not especially glamorous. You get a command line, you enter commands, and results appear.

This SSH client is fully functional, but could be fairly characterized as no-frills. Installation, in particular, is not for the faint of heart. The process involves installing a couple of .dll files on the Pocket PC, performing a hand-edit of the Pocket PC registry, and perhaps modifying some environment settings on the Unix side.

I hasten to add that none of this should detract from the truly phenomenal technical accomplishments of Rainer Keuchel, who is a sort of Teutonic Thomas Edison. In order to create his SSH client, he had to first create a terminal emulator, then port over a number of standard Unix libraries on which the SSH client relies, and only then begin work on a port that had driven any number of lesser programmers to despair.

His excellent work is available for free download at the URL listed above.

mToken

The mToken application by Choung Networks (http://www.choung.net/mtoken) is a Swiss army knife for network administration. It provides three connection modes: telnet, direct to COM port, and modem connection.

Fig 2. MToken by Choung Networks provides a versatile terminal emulator and shortcut keys for common commands.