Computer Control via DropBox

Hello, dear Habravchane. I want to tell you how wonderful DropBox service helps me in accessing my home computer from a worker. The situation was such that at home I was connected to the local network of one of the local providers. I have a static internal address and connect to the Internet via VPN. I am behind NAT'om and have no white address. It seems to me that it is not easy to organize access to such a computer from the outside ... TeamViewer, etc. software is prohibited at work. Yes, and I do not need full "window" access to the home machine. All I needed was to do requests to search for such a file, copy it to DropBox, view disk usage, processor load, etc. Those. Ideally, you just need a shell. And I organized something like a bunch of DropBox and logmon programs. It works for me on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 7.

I can say that there are some such alternatives. This program Akira (also uses Dropbox), and jabber-bots (Jabber-Shell). But they all did not work as it should. Akira has a limited set of commands available to the user and unbearably loads the system, and Jabber-Shell seems to have been forgotten by the developer for a long time.

I have organized this system so

When the OS starts at home, the batch file is started, which in turn launches the console version of the logmon program with a specific settings file that was previously configured in the logmon program. And he is set up to continuously monitor a specific file in the DropBox directory and, when it is changed, launch it (in stealth mode). A program monitors the Windows script file with a .bat extension. That's the whole idea. I change the batch file at work, I save it as soon as it is updated at home, it is instantly executed, the result of its execution is written to the file and after a few seconds I see the result at work.

Batch file to start monitoring:
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cmdow @ /HID "c:\Program Files\Log Monitor\logmcon.exe" "D:\logmon_auto_copy.mon" 

cmdow is a program for hiding script file windows.
Logmon version used:
Files and directories monitoring tool
=====================================
Version: 1.4.2
Home page: www.bitrix.ru/logmon/eng
Author: Vadim Dumbravanu, vad@bitrix.ru

Monitor tool. The program
periodically checks selected file
external program if file has been changed. For
directories it handles such as change files, addition or
removal.

Works under Windows 95/98 / Me / NT / 2000 / XP.



In the batch file, I keep several required blanks commented out so that you can quickly substitute, for example, the path to the file / directory, uncomment the line and save the file, thereby triggering its execution on the home machine.

Now about the pros and cons of such a decision.

Pros:

1. Low resource consumption.
2. Simplicity.
3. All windows command commands are available.
4. Works on Windows 7.

Minuses:

1. Not a secure solution (a person who has access to your DropBox account can have complete control over your computer)
2. Not high speed performance.
3. Most likely to make a mistake in the script.
4. Lack of interactivity (it is better to check beforehand on the lines in the batch file on the computer that they work exactly)
5. Since the LOGMON program has not been updated for a long time, there may be problems running it on new windows operating systems.
6. Lack of cross-platform.

Conclusion

I can say so. I have been looking for alternatives to this solution for a long time, but none of them covered my and so modest needs in full. Therefore, I sacrificed security in this case in exchange for simplicity and convenience.

I would be happy to offer suggestions on how to eradicate the disadvantages of this system, or reasonable alternatives, and also if the loophole I described is useful to someone. Thank.