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SmartCloud tip: Secure access for Android devices

Set up an Android mobile device to securely access an IBM Cloud instance

Stefan Diederichs, Technical Consultant, IBM

Stefan Diederichs is an IBM Certified Specialist; he works in the Design Center for Cloud Computing at the IBM Research and Development Lab in Boeblingen, Germany. He is a consultant in cloud computing.

Summary: Learn how to connect an Android mobile device to an IBM SmartCloud Enterprise instance via an OpenSSH connection. The author shows you the steps you need to take to install and configure an Android smartphone to connect to the IBM Cloud in a secure way. The starting point is an IBM Cloud instance that is accessed by a secure PuTTY connection from a Windows system.

View more SmartCloud Enterprise tips

Date: 10 Oct 2011
Level: Introductory
PDF: A4 and Letter (358 KB | 8 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®
Also available in: Chinese Japanese

Activity: 8549 views
Comments:

IBM® SmartCloud Enterprise provides on-demand development and test infrastructure services for enterprises. With the increasing use of mobile devices to access cloud applications, it is important to know how to connect a mobile device (in this case, an Android mobile smartphone) to a cloud instance (in this case, an IBM SmartCloud Enterprise instance) in a secure manner (via an OpenSSH connection).

This article shows you how to install and configure an Android smartphone so that it connects to the IBM Cloud in a secure way. The starting point is an IBM Cloud instance that is accessed by a secure PuTTY connection from a Windows® system.

The steps include:

Accessing an instance with PuTTY from Windows.
Converting to an OpenSSH key.
Installing the SSH client on an Android device.

The Android mobile operating system is managed by the Android Open Source Project led by Google.

Access an instance with PuTTY from Windows

PuTTY is a free, open source teminal emulation application that acts as a client for SSH. SSH, or Secure SHell, is a network protocol for remote administration of UNIX computers.

In a Windows systems, use PuTTY to access the IBM Cloud instance (in this case, a Linux® instance). The private key in this example is my_rsa.ppk (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Accessing PuTTY and choosing key for authentication

The default user in the new created Linux instance is idcuser (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The default user is idcuser

Convert to OpenSSH key for Android device

OpenSSH (OpenBSD Secure Shell) is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol. It was created as an open source alternative to the proprietary Secure Shell.

Convert your key to an OpenSSH key for the Android smartphone.

Run puttygen (the PuTTY key generator) and load the key file my_rsa.ppk.
Export the OpenSSH key and save it as my_openssh.

Figure 3. The PuTTY key generator
Specify the my_openssh file to transfer to /mnt/sdcard on the Android phone via USB cable, BlueTooth, or any method you prefer.

Install the SSH client on Android

For this article I used ConnectBot, an open-source Secure Shell (SSH) client, to connect to the Secure Shell server of the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise instance.

Figure 4. ConnectBot

After installatation, import the private key by selecting Menu > Manage Pubkeys > Copy Private Key.
On the connection settings, select Used pubkey Authentication > my_openssh.

Here's a shot of the connection. That's all there is to it.

Figure 5. Connected!

Resources

Learn

To facilitate the boom in mobile-to-cloud access demands, try these concepts: Grid and P2P add to automated testing on the cloud.
Discover common mobile cloud vulnerabilities and solutions to secure them in Build a more secure, mobile cloud environment.
Dive into the devices, trends, issues, and the enabling technologies of mobile cloud computing in Mobile cloud computing.
For more on how to perform tasks in the IBM Cloud, visit these resources:
In the developerWorks cloud developer resources, discover and share knowledge and experience of application and services developers building their projects for cloud deployment.
Find out how to access IBM SmartCloud Enterprise.

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See the product images available for IBM SmartCloud Enterprise.

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