gBridge – poke holes through those firewalls
Rating: Functionality-7/10 Ease of use: 8/10 Usability: 9/10
This week I’ve been testing Gbridge. Gbridge is a (currently free) extension to Google’s Gtalk network service for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7. Installed as an agent, it will automatically create a VPN tunnel between other computers running Gbridge and logged in under the same gTalk account. You can also extend the VPN to Gtalk friends by invitation. Gbridge also has some nifty features such as folder synchronization, remote desktop share (VNC), automatic backup, live browsing, chat, and tunneling of RDP and other TCP/UDP protocols. Gbridge also integrates with Google Apps accounts, making it easy to create VPN within organizations that utilize Google Apps.
APPLICATION SUPPORT: I tested several applications over Gbridge such as RDP, NetBIOS shares, FTP and even a little NMAPpery — everything worked like a champ. Gbridge has built in firewall functionality, allowing you to allow/block traffic to and from other Gbridge clients logged in under your gTalk account as well as specific firewall rules for connections to other gTalk friends’ computers.
THROUGHPUT: Gbridge will, like many p2p platforms, try to establish direct connections between Gbridge clients, even if behind a NAT device using some UDP NAT traversal tricks. If for some reason it cannot traverse the NAT device(s), it will use Gbridge servers as a proxy, or you can manually setup port forwarding. In my testing between my house (7Mb DSL) and the office (10MB fiber) I got a respectable 2.5Mb throughput using CIFS copy and about the same using the built in SecureShare HTTP copy. Not bad for NAT traversal.
SECURE SHARES: Want to share a folder or group of folders out to your gTalk friends? Not a problem. The Gbridge pointy-clicky interface allows you to share a folder with other PCs logged in under your gTalk account; individuals friends accounts; and apply file filtering rules and additional password protection. Very nifty for a quick file transfer or leeching.
AUTOSYNC and BACKUPS: Quickly becoming one of my favorite functions. Setup a SecureShare on one or more of your GBridged computers, and you can “AutoSync” it at will. Great for syncing work/home files or pwning a headless server. Not as elegant as ncat, but workable and everyone allows access to google servers these days. Backups work much the same way — a one-way sync of a SecureShare. Fast and easy DR/COOP.
CAVEATS: if you have a host firewall or Host-based intrusion prevention service like eEye Blink, be sure you pre-configure rules to allow gBridge to do its thing. When I was testing the utility, I forgot to disable the firewall service before I left for work and as a result when I tried to connect from the office, the connection failed because Blink was popping up dialogs on my home PC asking if it should allow the inbound connection.
