Remotely login multiple machines

[yasdnil]

Hi there, this is my first post, hope it's a good one

I work at a school in which we have primary students using computers. They all use the same login depending on what year they're in. The problem is, senior school students have figured out the passwords (they're very simple! any harder and the primary kids have trouble).

We're trying to think of possible solutions and one is to have the teacher login all the computers for the primary students before they come to class, that way we can make the password however hard we like.

SO... my question is, does anyone know of a program/script/command that will login a group of computers with defined login credentials?

Thanks in advance,

Lindsay

[HyperHacker]

How did they get the passwords? Just guessed?

[yasdnil]

One of the teachers actually got some senior school students help them login an entire lab before the primary kids came in.

Word travels fast at this school

Of course it means that senior school students who have been restricted or banned can get onto the network, and we can't track them.

[yasdnil]

Well we had an idea, but scrapped it because it has some flaws. But I'm going to post what we had planned to do because someone else might be able to use it.

In theory the idea will work. The teacher runs a batch file that executes a registry file on a Lab of computers, restarts them and they login under the pre-set username/password. Then a login script (or another batch later initiated by a teacher) wipes the registry entries so that the next time those computers are restarted they won't login automatically.

It's big and silly but with a little bit of work it could have been decent.

The reason it's not so good for us:

a ) it would do this to every computer in a lab - sometimes students from other classes will use spare computers to do homework; therefore it's a bit of a security risk: the teacher would have to make sure they restart the computer before using it, so they don't use the primary login.

or

b ) the teacher would have to edit the text files containing the computer list based on which computers will be used in that particular class.

All of a sudden it gets really fiddly. But that's only a problem because we have other students from other classes using those computers. If that weren't the case this idea should work.

So here's some more specifics about how we'd have done it.

1. Batch or VB files with a psexec command to run a batch on all machines in a lab. This batch file contains:

a ) the registry entry (with the primary class username/password and autologin settings - we'd make one for each primary login)

b ) a vbs script which would set a environment variable: autologin=yes (this comes into play later)

c ) a restart command

Then the computers would restart and login as that particular class.

2. We would also have made a login script for all primary classes that removed those registry settings, so that on the next reboot they wouldn't login automatically.

This script would be in AD and it would simply say:

a ) if the environment variable "autologin" = yes, run another .reg file that reverses those settings

A problem: the primary logins don't have the permissions to do that. So we looked at runas replacements that would encrypt passwords, etc... then we started to think "hmm maybe this isn't such a great idea anyway"

But it SHOULD work! I know it's ridiculously long and stupid but if you work at a private school in Australia like us you'll understand how desperate we are to find a solution that doesn't involve spending money

Hopefully that made some sense and is of some use to someone down the track.

Edited November 30, 2006 by yasdnil

[Terillius]

Hey man, I am in the exact same situation. I have been told that this is near impossible to do because it would cause security issues if there were any mechanism that would allow a remote hacker access to the logon screen.

I think that there must be a way, but no one is very helpful. Usually people just ask stupid questions like, "How did they get the passwords?"

Anyway, I am wondering if you found a way since you posted...

I have experimented with a program called RebootEx, it has the ability to schedule a one-time logon, but it has to reboot to do it. It works okay, combined with a remote scheduling program, but I am looking for a better way.

[cluberti]

I agree that a simple vbs script should be able to populate the autologon settings and such, and it could probably run as a machine startup script and have the permissions necessary. However, since this would run during every system boot, getting it to selectively logon specific users on specific boots would require some careful vbscripting.

[SecretNinja]

this might be totally stupid but could you do it using vnc and autoit? what you would do is install the vnc server on all the pc's then form a master pc run would run a script that would activate vnc client, connect to remote computer, log it in and then move on to next pc?

also is it possible to log a computer in form the cmd line? if so you could use once of the various different tools that let you remotely use the cmd line to log computers on and encapsulate all the dirty text side behind a few batch files or vb.

just a couple of ideas any way.

[yasdnil]

Hey man, I am in the exact same situation. I have been told that this is near impossible to do because it would cause security issues if there were any mechanism that would allow a remote hacker access to the logon screen.

I think that there must be a way, but no one is very helpful. Usually people just ask stupid questions like, "How did they get the passwords?"

Anyway, I am wondering if you found a way since you posted...

I have experimented with a program called RebootEx, it has the ability to schedule a one-time logon, but it has to reboot to do it. It works okay, combined with a remote scheduling program, but I am looking for a better way.

Hi, I've actually been on holidays and just got back today. We haven't found a better way of doing this yet, but some of these posts have been helpful.

We're still not sure what the best approach is but hopefully after having a 3 week break we'll figure something out!

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions and feedback

[Bezalel]

Hi there, this is my first post, hope it's a good one

I work at a school in which we have primary students using computers. They all use the same login depending on what year they're in. The problem is, senior school students have figured out the passwords (they're very simple! any harder and the primary kids have trouble).

We're trying to think of possible solutions and one is to have the teacher login all the computers for the primary students before they come to class, that way we can make the password however hard we like.

SO... my question is, does anyone know of a program/script/command that will login a group of computers with defined login credentials?

Thanks in advance,

Lindsay

You can make a script that the teacher can run that does the following.

Changes the password to a pseudorandom string

For each machine

Verifies that noone is logged on at the target pc

Sets the autologin registry settings for a single login

Reboots the PC

Pauses for 300 seconds

Changes the password to a pseudorandom string