Short CSpace Tutorial

By Martin Prechelmacher

 

About CSpace

 

CSpace is a secure and decentralized IM and file-sharing program. It is written in Python and uses OpenSSL for crypto.

Every user is identified by a 2048-bit RSA key which also ensures strong encryption. After creating the key, the public key is uploaded to a server in India, which maintains a so called Distributed Hash Table (DHT) that resolves the RSA-keys in IP-addresses (so that you can easily use CSpace with varying IP-addresses – e.g. on a travel notebook).

Furthermore each user creates a contact list by downloading the public key from the server (the key is identified by a Key-ID, which has to be sent per e-mail or any other communication-device).

Now the user is able, to open an encrypted connection to any other user, whose public key he has downloaded.

CSpace’s great feature is, that it combines up-to-date P2P-technologies with strong encryption and secure user authentication.

How to IM:

Simply double-click on the name of the contact, you want to chat with or open the context-menu by right-clicking and then click “Text Chat”. Once a new window appears, start chatting.

Note: your contact wont see anything happening until you send your first message

How to transfer files:

Right-click on the contact and choose “Send Files…”. A window will appear, that states “Drag and drop files to be sent”. Once you’ve done that, click “Send Files…”

Now your contact will find a window popping up at his screen where he can either Accept or Cancel the files. After accepting, the right directory has to be chosen and voila – the files are being sent!

How to open a RemoteDesktop connection:

Right-click on the contact and chose “Remote Desktop…”. Once your contact accepts the VNC-connection, you’ll see his screen.

Need it a bit more remote?

Go to Options->Modify Permissions:

In the lower half you type in your rules in the formula (action) (username) service (service) as given in the upper half.

List of options:

For (action):	For (username)	For (service)
Deny	<any-user>	TextChat
Allow	<contact-user>	FileTransfer
Prompt	e.g. Administrator	RemoteDesktop

All rules are matched in sequential order, which means, that if two rules would apply on a particular connection, only the first (upper) one is applied.

Example:

A one-man-company has to do support for “sensitive” clients including maintenance jobs at client’s PCs. Option a): everytime something has to be done, waste hours, driving to the clients. Option b): establish a cost-effective and easily maintained network via CSpace:

The steps the company would take:

1.) Install CSpace on maintainer-PC and create an account

2.) Use the following Permissions:

a. Prompt <contact-user> service TextChat

b. Prompt <contact-user> service FileTransfer

c. Deny <any-user> service RemoteDesktop

3.) Install CSpace on client’s PC’s and add the maintainer-account to the contact list

4.) Use the following Permissions on client-side:

a. Allow “maintainer-account” service RemoteDesktop

b. Allow “maintainer-account” service FileTransfer

c. Prompt “maintainer-account” service TextChat

d. Deny <any-user> service <any-service>

5.) Ensure, that CSpace is running when maintenance job has to be done

a. e.g. via scheduling

6.) Tell clients, to run CSpace-TextChat and contact the “maintainer-account” for support.

CSpace portable

So you find CSpace to be a nice tool? Why not take it with you?! Even though it is not designed to be portable, there’s a little trick, to force it to:

Download CSpace and install it. Connect your thumbdrive and copy all the files from C:\program files\CSpace (or wherever you’ve installed it to) to a directory on your usb. All the files except one: “uninst.exe” – you won’t need it (and I don’t think that you need the version number file either but I didn’t try). Then, after copying has finished, pull the thumbdrive and uninstall CSpace on your PC – or don’t…

unfortunately I haven’t yet found a way, to keep the account when forcing CSpace into portability

 

Update:

The problem with the account is, that the files aren’t stored in the install-directory so they aren’t copied. Right now if you want to carry CSpace with you, you have to copy the following two directories to your usb:

c:\documents and settings\”username”\_CSpace and c:\documents and settings\”username”\_CSpaceProfiles

for using it on another computer, you have to copy thos files back to c:\documents and settings\”currentusername”\

a more convenient solution is currently under developement…

 Update:

Hint: During a RemoteDekstop Session, press F8 for configuration menu (where you can enable fullscreenmode - especially usefull if you’re connecting from a laptop to a 19″ res computer)

Download:

Version used in this tutorial

http://cspace.in/downloads/CSpaceSetup126.exe

Current version:

http://cspace.in/downloads

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