General

The wodSSHTunnel component has three versions (all included in the package):

1. wodTunnelCom is an in-process COM object (or ActiveX DLL) called wodTunnel.dll, which is designed to be declared and initialized dynamically from your code. It does not have a user interface, it is windowless. Usually, you will initialize it with

Dim WithEvents Tunnel1 as wodTunnelCom

2. wodTunnel is an ActiveX control (called wodTunnel.ocx), which is designed to be put on an application's forms using drag & drop from the control toolbox. Once you put it on the form, no special code is required to initialize it, as your environment (usually VB) will perform the necessary initialization.

3. wodSSHTunnel is an out of process COM object (or ActiveX EXE) called wodTunnel.exe, which is designed to act as standalone (out of process) executable that can work in separate process, thus being unaffected by various blocking functions/components you may use in your applications. A typical example is database driver clients that block the main application when you try to connect it through wodSSHTunnel. The DLL and OCX may hang because of this - the thread gets blocked by the Database component and they cannot process socket events. The External executable isn't affected by this.

COM object licensing is not directly supported by any container. Unlike ActiveX controls which are licensed the moment you put them on the form (if you have a licensed version of wodTunnel, that is), you need to add an additional line to your code in order to license wodTunnel correctly:

 

Tunnel1.LicenseKey = "put.your.key.here"

Distribution note

When you develop and distribute an application that uses this component:

1. Choose between the in-process COM object (wodTunnel.DLL/wodTunnel64.DLL), the ActiveX control (wodTunnel.OCX/wodTunnel64.OCX) and the out-of-process COM Object (wodTunnel.EXE/wodTunnel64.EXE) to include into the installation package. All versions are independent on each other.

2. You should include wodKeys.DLL/wodKeys64.DLL for Key management - if it is needed in your application. wodTunnel does not depend on it, it only uses it for client authentication using private keys.

3. The above binaries can be included in your applications royalty-free.

4. Use RegSvr32.EXE (or any other installer package creator) to register both the OCX and the DLL. Your installer software will usually do this for you. To register the EXE you will need to run it on the target system with a special parameter, as follows:

wodTunnel.exe /RegServer

5. Install the component file(s) into the user's Windows SYSTEM32 folder. The component file(s) have version information built into them, so during installation you should ensure that you are not overwriting a newer version of the same file.


Using the licensed version

To use the retail (licensed) version of the COM objects in your code, put your license key into the LicenseKey property immediately after initializing the component. For the ActiveX control, you cannot do this (and there is no LicenseKey property) because your license key will be loaded internally by wodTunnel.OCX.