In June I tested SSL-Explorer as an inexpensive "clientless" SSL VPN solution, and in August 3dsp announced the availability of a pre-built Virtual Appliance.
With the new VMware Infrastucture 3 implementation we are deploying at work, I figured it would be a great chance to get the Virtual Appliance tested in a live environment. The last time I looked at SSL-Explorer, I tested it inside a VM on my workstation at home, but this time around I wanted to run it on ESX Server 3.0.
The downloadable appliance from 3dsp.com is, naturally, a VMware player image so I had to convert and import it into my ESX cluster. Enter VMimporter from VMware which is currently a Release Candidate. VMimporter allows you to convert third party virtual machines and images from Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery and Microsoft Virtual Server into VMware compatible VMs. It can also be used to convert VMs across different VMware product formats, which is what I needed to put the appliance on my ESX servers.
The process is very straight forward, all you need to do is to point the software to the image/VM you want converted, and where you want it converted to. It then proceeds to copy the converted VM to your VMware storage area and registers it in the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client.
The conversion of the SSL-Explorer Appliance proceeded without any problems at all, and after it booted all I needed to get it up and running was to configure the network settings appropriate for my network. 
This includes giving the converted VM the correct NIC setup in VMware to place it in our DMZ zone. All in all, it took about 10 minutes to get it up and running on VMware Infrastructure 3, including setting up an initial RDP based access application inside SSL-Explorer.
Be sure to read the README file included in the appliance download, as that contains usernames/passwords as well as the initial network setup that it ships with.
All in all, the SSL-Explorer Appliance does a wonderful job, and it's easy to set up. The appliance gives end users a great way of testing the application and do a very quick implementation of the software.
The only problem I had with it, was the fact that I want to test it's Active Directory integration. As far as I can tell, you can't reconfigure the appliance to have AD support since thats a install time option. 3sp should have included some tool that lets you reinitialize the software and let you go through the installation wizard if you want to do so.
Update:
After sending an email to 3sp, I got the following reply:
First stop the SSL-Explorer service; this can be done through the web interface Shutdown option. Now navigate to the SSL-Explorer directory and run the following command: ./install-sslexplorer This launches the Installation Wizard, now point your web browser to http://192.168.1.245:28080, during the wizard you will be prompted to select the type of database to be used, select Active Directory on the next page you have to enter your AD details, due to a bug in the current version please ensure that these are correct the first time. Once you complete the Wizard setup mode will stop, to restart the service enter the following command. service sslexplorer start
So, they do have a reinit option. Great!
9 Comments so far
VirtuaMag.net, on January 1, 1970 at 1:00am, said:
VMware products achieves Windows IT Pro awards 12 septembre 2006 VMware products achieves Windows IT Pro awards Tuesday, September 12, 2006 | 0 Comments Quoting from the VMware official announcement : VMware, Inc.... Running the SSL-Explorer Appliance on VMware Infrastructure 3 11 septembre 2006 In June I tested SSL-Explorer as an inexpensive “clientless” SSL VPN solution, and in August 3dsp announced the availability of a pre-built Virtual... Servidores Virtuais, rode um sistema operacional dentro de outro
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Richard Pernavas, on September 13, 2006 at 12:37pm, said:
Nice article! Just a quick note to say that the SSL-Explorer VMWare appliance is firewalled and if you are starting in setup mode you'll need to disable the firewall (or leave port 28080 open) temporarily.
I think I'll update the README file with the VMImporter tool that I had not discovered yet, thanks for that :)
There is a configuration guide on our forum pages here:
http://3sp.com/forums/posts/list/1395.page
PS: Your blog comment system doesn't like Opera :(
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h0bbel, on September 13, 2006 at 3:43pm, said:
That explains why I never got this working. I didn't really have much time to look at it today, but I'll be sure to disable the firewall before I try to reconfigure it again.
The VMimporter is excellent, and worked really well on your appliance.
Regarding the comment system, are you referring to the actual comment form or the CoComment additons I have made?
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Richard Pernavas, on September 13, 2006 at 5:00pm, said:
I will check it out when I have time. Right now I'm trying to put together a troubleshooting guide for people who are having problems with the VMWare image - mainly networking issues.
WRT the comment system, it seems to hang when I click 'submit comment# in Opera 8.52. I imagine there is some fancy AJAX stuff going on in the background. I then just copy my comment into IE6 and that of course works fine.
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h0bbel, on September 13, 2006 at 5:02pm, said:
OK, thats probably the CoComment stuff I have added. I'll report it to them. Thanks!
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faisal, on October 12, 2006 at 8:02pm, said:
Hi h0bbel,
I like confirm that the reason you are using vmimporter is to convert vm appliance to run it on esx server. Is that correct?
Thanks,
faisal
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h0bbel, on October 15, 2006 at 12:30am, said:
Yes, thats correct. Worked without a signe hiccup. You may run into problems with appliances built using virtual IDE drives though, as ESX doesn't support it.
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coComment - Site comments by h0bbel, on March 16, 2007 at 10:32am, said:
View this article on its blog
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VirtuaMag.net, on August 2, 2007 at 2:46pm, said:
VMware products achieves Windows IT Pro awards 12 septembre 2006 VMware products achieves Windows IT Pro awards Tuesday, September 12, 2006 | 0 Comments Quoting from the VMware official announcement : VMware, Inc....Running the SSL-Explorer Appliance on VMware Infrastructure 311 septembre 2006 In June I tested SSL-Explorer as an inexpensive “clientless” SSL VPN solution, and in August 3dsp announced the availability of a pre-built Virtual... Servidores Virtuais, rode um sistema operacional dentro de outro
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