Black Box KV0424A-R2, KV1424A-R2 manual Placing ServSwitch CX with IP alongside the firewall, Ports

Placing ServSwitch CX with IP alongside the firewall

ServSwitch CX with IP is built from the ground-up to be secure. It employs a sophisticated 128bit public/private key system that has been rigorously analysed and found to be highly secure (a security white paper is available upon request). Therefore, you can position the ServSwitch CX with IP alongside the firewall and control hosts that are also IP connected within the local network.

IMPORTANT: If you make the ServSwitch CX with IP accessible from the public Internet or from a modem, care should be taken to ensure that the maximum security available is activated. You are strongly advised to enable encryption and use a strong password. Security may be further improved by restricting client IP addresses, using a non-standard port number for access or limiting remote access to dial up connections only.

Ensuring sufficient security

The security capabilities offered by the ServSwitch CX with IP are only truly effective when they are correctly used. An open or weak password or unencrypted link can cause security loopholes and opportunities for potential intruders. For network links in general and direct Internet connections in particular, you should carefully consider and implement the following:

•Ensure that encryption is enabled.

By standard configuration menu or by configuration page via viewer.

•Ensure that you have selected secure passwords with at least 8 characters and a mixture of upper and lower case and numeric characters.

By configuration page via viewer.

•Reserve the admin password for administration use only and use a non- admin user profile for day-to-day access.

•Use the latest Secure VNC viewer (this has more in-built security than is available with the Java viewer). To download the viewer.

•Use non-standard port numbers.

•Restrict the range of IP addresses that are allowed to access the ServSwitch CX with IP to only those that you will need to use. To restrict IP access.

•Do NOT Force VNC protocol 3.3. Configuration page via viewer.

•Add a further level of inherent security by restricting access only via modem or ISDN dialup.

•Ensure that the server accessing the ServSwitch CX with IP is clean of viruses and spyware and has up-to-date firewall and anti-virus software loaded that is appropriately configured.

•Avoid accessing the ServSwitch CX with IP from public servers.

Security can be further improved by using the following suggestions:

•Place the ServSwitch CX with IP behind a firewall and use the port numbers to route the VNC network traffic to an internal IP address.

•Review the activity log from time to time to check for unauthorised use.

•Lock your server consoles after they have been used.

A security white paper that gives further details is available upon request.

Ports

In this configuration there should be no constraints on the port numbers because the ServSwitch CX with IP will probably be the only device at that IP address. Therefore, maintain the HTTP port as 80 and the VNC port as 5900.

Addressing

When the ServSwitch CX with IP is situated alongside the firewall, it will require a public static IP address (i.e. one provided by your Internet service provider).

More addressing information:

Discover DHCP-allocated addresses

DNS addressing

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