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Recently, someone in my family was not able to get into their home PC with their password, and called for assistance. This means having to drive down to the machine to see what they are doing, and log in with the appropriate account that can reset that password. Work commitments preclude driving there right away to see what is happening, and I am trying to locate a remote access solution. If they were logged into the machine, I could use some sort of remote assistance tool, but that is not an option in this case. There is the possibility of setting up SSH or OpenVPN to access the machine via the Internet, but I am not certain leaving those tools running all the time is the smartest idea in this day and age.
What recommendations do the Soylent community have for securely managing a machine over the Internet when someone is not logged into it?
(Score: 1) by darkpixel on Sunday April 30 2017, @05:22PM (5 children)
I got sick of all the tools out there that were either expensive or didn't do exactly what I wanted, so I built my own. I still consider it early beta software, but it works for me. It's a combination of a windows agent that monitors event logs and certain failure conditions (backups, hard drives, etc...) and VNC bound to localhost on the client machine. It then starts an SSH tunnel and a reverse port forward that can be connected to through a noVNC terminal on the website. If anyone wants to play with it and/or provide feedback, it'd be appreciated. It's been free for the last ~18 months and I've had a handful of companies and users sign up and start using it. https://mspdna.net/ [mspdna.net]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:13PM (2 children)
you should have on the front page some links for Documentation, About, a Wiki maybe?
I don't want to give you even a throw away email address (why waste my time) just to find out ANYTHING about your software.
(Is it open source? Will it be payware eventually? etc, bork bork bork?)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1) by darkpixel on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:47PM
Yeah--I totally get that. I'm a single developer who started developing it to 'scratch an itch'. I definitely need a page that explains that I won't spam your e-mail (you should get one and only one e-mail--the signup confirmation link), and how the software works, and how I secure your information. Like I said--early beta and I'm the only guy working on it.
For the last year, I had dreams of 'making it big' (there are a few companies out there who get sorta close to what I have, and they charge $3-$5 per install), but lately I've been thinking about open sourcing it so people can self-host as well as a paid version in case you don't want to self-host.
Additionally, I personally would be nervous about installing closed-source software on my computer. I just need to find the time to clean up some of the code, document it, write a README, and release the components. ;)
(Score: 1) by darkpixel on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:49PM
I should add: Go ahead and fake whatever info you want on signup. The only thing you need is a valid e-mail address to get a confirmation e-mail. If you're worried about security, play around with it on a Windows VM that has been snapshotted, or is in an isolated environment. Eventually I will get around to cleaning up the signup form to ask for less information and have a FAQ on the .com site.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:22PM (1 child)
Do you live in a USA jurisdiction so you can be compromised via funny letters? :p
(Score: 1) by darkpixel on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:43PM
Yes, unfortunately. Great question though, as I have been thinking about ways around that.
Specifically making the SSH component available for anyone to download and install so that you can spin up your own SSH endpoint for remote management.