Creating User Account without GateKeeper

[neoby]

Hi!
I would like to know if there's another way to creating user accounts in WinGate without using the GateKeeper. My objective is to register new email accounts on the imap4 server without restarting it. I want to do this in ASP.NET.
Thanks in advance.

[adrien]

Hi

You can create user accounts in an active directory or on the local windows computer using ASP I'm pretty sure.

WinGate can use these accounts for IMAP. It doesn't require synchronisation for this, since when the user auths, the account will be synchronised.

Otherwise there's a command-line interface to the telnet proxy (if you enable command shell option) so some people use script this way. It's only usable for the WinGate user database.

Adrien

[neoby]

Hi adrien!

Thank you for your response.

I tried what you said but unsurprisingly, accounts are synchronized only when they are used to login via GateKeeper. I tried outlook express and telnet to login to mail server but it's not synchronizing. I'm using WinGate 6.2.0

Anyway, what's the use of the telnet proxy service? It does nothing, it will just allow you to stop and start services, display a list of user accounts, but it does not provide commands for creating user accounts.

I think WinGate will die without the GateKeeper. Even GateKeeper cannot be used in a command shell, it does not accept switches and parameters that could be useful in programming.

I hope I'm just unaware of the full capabilities of wingate.

[adrien]

Hi

there's a setting in the user database options to synchronise a user when they log in. If that's not set, that would explain why when the client auths the account doesn't show up in GateKeeper.

The telnet proxy was originally intended for telnet clients to connect through WinGate to a remote telnet server. Back in the day when people still used telnet, and before WinGate had NAT.

The command shell (if you enable it) was an extension to the telnet proxy to allow some commands to be sent to WinGate over an interface that people could script.

As for creation of user accounts, WinGate can only do this if you are using the WinGate user database. Otherwise use the OS user/account management tools, which we don't have a good reason to replicate.

Regards

Adrien

[neoby]

wingate.JPG (30.3 KiB) Viewed 9808 times

Yes, I enabled the option you were referring to, as shown above, but it did not function as expected.. Here's what I did...

At the dos prompt, I used the command net user test test /add
Then I used Outlook express to log in to wingate, with username test and password test, but the log in was not successful.
Then I used the GateKeeper using the same username and password. The log in was successful. Does it mean that synchronization occurs only when using the GateKeeper? I thought the user database will be synchronized by logging in using any client software such as Outlook.

[adrien]

Hi

I just checked the code.

Looks like we only synch on auth in 4 of the proxies that support Auth:

* Remote Control Service
* WWW proxy
* SMTP Server
* Winsock Redirector Service (WinGate Client)

and only in the case of NTLM auth. I can't imagine why. It should do it for all services that support auth, and all methods (e.g. HTTP Basic, POP3 USER/PASS etc etc). So it doesn't do IMAP.

I think you'd be better off actually with WinGate 7. In the user database providers on WinGate 7 the provider itself handles synchronisation, so it would work for any sort of auth from any service.

In fact with the AD connector and the Windows NT users and groups connector, the main mode of operation is this way (so we can cope with enormous ADs - we tested up to 2.5M accounts). The only time we query the UDB is when you want to display it in GK.

Let me know if you 'd like to have a look at it - just send an email to support@wingate.com

Check out also our youtube channel if you'd like to see how it's looking (it's actually already come a long way further since those videos).

http://www.youtube.com/user/QbikNZLtd

WinGate 7 allows you more options to control it from the outside, including database content, and file content.

Regards

Adrien

[neoby]

Ok thank you for your time...
Can't buy WinGate 7 this time, so I'll try to find a workaround on this matter for the meantime.

[adrien]

Hi

no problem.

You can actually use a WinGate 6 license in WinGate 7 in the meantime if you like. There's no beta-expiring version or anything like that, it just uses licensing.

Regards

Adrien

[neoby]

Ok I'll try it, thanks.

[neoby]

Hi! I have a follow up question...

If we create a user account via registry, how do we tell wingate to re-read the users database, w/o stopping and restarting the wingate engine? Is this possible?

[adrien]

HI

WinGate needs to be restarted if you're going to do it that way - that's why we don't recommend it, and why we added the command shell to the telnet proxy, so you can run a script against the telnet proxy to create an account (if using the WinGate User Database)

Regards

Adrien

[neoby]

What kind of script are you talking about? In what language?

[adrien]

it's a command shell.

Typically for people to remote control it, they write a telnet script, where telnet connects to WinGate, auths and sends commands.

Did you try connecting to WinGate with telnet? Set the telnet proxy to be a command shell and you will see what I mean.

Once you authed, you can type help for help, and do various commands, like start/stop services, disable/enable accounts (not certain about creation, since my test server is using Windows UDB, which doesn't support it). Etc.

Regards

Adrien

[neoby]

Yes, i've already done that. But the supported commands are insufficient for my needs. It's been three weeks since I started researching on this but still can't do the right thing. I can't believe i'm a fan of wingate, haaayyy...
Why do you think Qbik did not provide an API for user creation, as microsoft does in every product it releases. Do you think an administrator will be much willing to create five hundred users that will access the wingate server all by himself? There's an Import Users feature but I think the passwords are not included, so the administrator will still have to assign each account, why is that? Now, think of a web mail server running wingate. After user registration, the page must inform the user that his/her mailbox will be available as soon as the site administrator manually create it. Hey that's not automation!

[adrien]

Because WinGate used to run on Windows 95, 98 and ME which don't have user databases built-in, we had to write our own one.

Most people we thought want to just use the OS one, so they don't need to remember multiple passwords etc. So there was no need to create user accounts.

The problem you are having with WinGate 6 not synching new user accounts when someone connects with IMAP or POP3 is a bug in WinGate 6.

You could try WinGate 7 which doesn't suffer from this problem.

Furthermore WinGate 7 has a user web admin interface where users can edit their mailbox type and auto-respond message. It's fully customizable (by admin) by editing the templates.

Then you can just use ASP to create a domain account and WinGate will have it immediately. You could even dummy up a HTTP POST request to set the mailbox type.

[neoby]

Ok I guess I have no choice but to shift to v7. I'll try it tom. Thanks