Creating a program to issue network commands

Hey,

I'm a little bit new to this but have been given a project and I'm a bit lost on where to start. I've had a very small ammount of VB training quite some time ago and can't remember a lot, but wondering if someone may be able to help! I know this is a lot to ask for a first post but I'm trying to do this for part of a university project.

I'm trying to create a program with a friendly GUI. The program needs to be capable of being hosted on one computer, and issuing commands to other computers (the computers need to be selectable in the program before issuing the commands). Their will be 8 other computers that it needs to control. The ONLY function that this program needs to carry out is to be able to know whether the remote terminal monitor is on and then either turn it on or off. The computer must remain on, only the monitor would be turned off.

The key point would be that this program is secure. I've looked at SSH tunneling, but as this program needs to be made by me I guess I'd somehow need to incorporate the commands to carry this out into the program. Other added bonus's for the program would be to display the MAC address, IP address, and confirmation that the unit is transmitting/receiving. And another added function would be to be able to add a "box" where command lines can be wrote and issued wirelessly.

All of this has to be done over a wireless system, basically I can "pretend" that this wireless system is anything that I want, so whether all the other 8 computers are connected to a single router or if I can access them directly using a set IP address it doesnt matter.

I'm just wondering if anyone could maybe point me in the right direction of where I should be looking, and if this program on its own would be "large" to make or if it could be done by someone with limited knowledge of programming.

I'm not asking anyone to just "do this" without me making any effort already, I've tried reading through things such as SSH but if I'm being honest I'm a little bit lost on where to start. The smallest pointer toward what to read would be a GREAT help, or if their are any similar open source, small programs that I could analyse to create this program with, anything would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, and sorry for making this such a large first topic!!

Hi,

It would make it easier to add more details if you add OS information. But since you mentioned VB, I will assume that your OS environment is Windows. I have done similar projects before and here is my solution.

Develop 3 things:

Agent software which runs in every monitored computers. Its job is to collect information and execute actions in the monitored computers. Note that this agent must active all the time, for turning it off will make it unavailable for remote controlling. So it's better to implement it as Windows Service.
Monitor software, this is the one which does the monitoring by querying the agent software.
Simple protocol to allow Agent and Monitor software communicate reliably.

For the number 3 (simple protocol) you could take SSH implementation into consideration, however personally I would go for custom encryption/encryption since it's easier. If you able to remote login to the monitored computers (such as through terminal service) you can also take this into consideration, although I doubt that many "ordinary" computers had their terminal service activated :)