SSL-Explorer Installation on Debian Etch

Posted by jhabib on Thu 5 Oct 2006 at 11:21

SSL-Explorer is the world's first open-source, browser-based SSL VPN solution. This unique remote access solution provides users and businesses alike with a means of securely accessing network resources from outside the network perimeter using only a standard web browser.

All thought installing SSL Explore is painful but now with Debian Etch is much easier and much flexible I suggest installing it on Etch and not Sarge for a simple reason that on Sarge there are a lot of dependency issues.

SSL-Explorer Prerequisites

Apache ANT (The package is called ant on Etch systems), and the SUN Java JDK. (not JRE)

Lets Begin:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install ant

Please test well if you already have any installed Java packages, with this command:

java -version

if you find anything other then the Sun java please remove it before you continue to the next step .

Now lets make a suitable Debian package from the Sun-provided .bin filedownload the latest Sun JDK from here :

We will be needing both the fakeroot and java-package to be installed as described in our installing Java for Debian article. Please edit your /etc/apt/sources.list and make sure to add the following :

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

Then you can run:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install fakeroot java-package

Now make sure that you login with a non-previlaged user and copy jdk-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin from wherever you downloaded it to any place that the user has permissions, such as their home directory.

Now run this command :

fakeroot make-jpkg jre-1_5_0_06-linux-i586.bin

(no #sudo or su)

All being well you should now have a file with the name in this format:

vendor-j2[re|sdk]shortversion_fullversion_hardwarearch.deb

Now excute the follwing command, as root, to install the built package:

# dpkg -i vendor-j2[re|sdk]shortversion_fullversion_hardwarearch.deb

To verify that the installation was successful, execute:

java -version

The output should be something like:

java version "1.5.0_09"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_09-b01)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_09-b01, mixed mode, sharing)
Now lets install SSl-explore

Download the source release from its homepage:

Please dont try to download and install the RPM package, via alien, as the RPM differs too much. (I already tried it!)

Now lets exctract the tar file :

# tar -zxvf sslexplorer-0.2.8_01-src.tar.gz

And now the installation:

# cd sslexplorer-0.2.8_01
# ant install

After that while you are in the console you will be asked to open the browser and access the installations web interface wizard. When you finish this the SSL-Explorer will shutdown

Now you can execute the following to run SSL-Explorer:

# ant run

(You can use "# ant console" to run in console mode).

It is preferable to install it as a service :

ant install-service

Then you can run "#/etc/init.d start|stop|restart".

Your SSL-Explorer should be listening on the port 443 and be accessible via:

Please be free now to configure it to suit your needs, if you get any alert on the main page "Failed to load plugin SSL-Explorer Client Certificates" please check this it may help :

For more help, information or documentation please visit the Homepage of SSL-Explorer:

Cheers

This article can be found online at the Debian Administration website at the following bookmarkable URL:

This article is copyright 2006 jhabib - please ask for permission to republish or translate.