Ask Slashdot: Options For FOSS Remote Support Software? 247
Albanach writes "I'm sure I'm not alone in being asked to help friends and family with computer issues. These folk typically run Windows (everything from XP onward) or OS X (typically 10.4 onward). Naturally, desktop sharing is often much easier than trying to talk the other end through various steps. I've found free sites like join.me but they don't work with OS X 10.4, neither does the Chrome plugin. I'd also prefer not to compromise security by using a third party in the middle of the connection. Is there a good, free solution I can run on my linux box that supports old and new clients that run Windows, OS X and possibly linux? I'd love it if the users could simply bring their systems up to date, but that doesn't solve the third party issue and it's not easy when it requires a non-trivial RAM upgrade on a Mac Mini."
You've really never heard of VNC? (Score:5, Informative)
Because that's what you want.
Or, ssh? (Score:2)
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you can install sshd on windows, but you won't be helping relativers with their GUI or windows admin problems with it....
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the answer is both.
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:4, Insightful)
nonsense, no one is going to intercept your VNC stream during the time you are helping your relatives. get real, no one at your ISP is snooping traffice from home looking for a VNC session to tamper with. have your relatives turn off the server when done. you are more likely to get struck by lightening.
or entertain us by your laughingly improbable method by which you will intercept someone's VNC packets.
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. That's why I use rsh on all my servers.
It's faster and easier and no one on the internet is possible sniffing my packets.
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point being, the folks who need the help can't be relied upon to start/stop a VNC server, or carry out any other task
that isn't part of their normal routine. And leaving a VNC server running, with circa-1985 eight-character password, on a standard port,
is a security risk.
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If my IP address changes, I just email her a new shortcut file to replace the one on her desktop.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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you haven't looked at the logs and seen people knocking on vnc ports have you?
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sure. a dictionary password will fall to brute forcing, and a strong one will take longer than the life of Sol to get....
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago, I was sitting in front of two PCs, using just one, but after a minutes, I noticed the start menu opened on the other, and some commands started typing themselves in. I immediately noticed the VNC icon notifying me someone was connected.
My guess: there's thousands of bots looking for open VNC connections. You don't have to be targeted specifically. Lesson: don't leave VNC to an open internet connection, even with a strong password.
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Agreed. We see VNC port probing all the time. This is why we do not leave the server code running (as a service). If someone needs remote assistance, they launch the vnc server and it will wait for about 30 seconds for a connection before it gives up and dies.
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Why not an SSH tunnel, isn't it simpler? You could just make a tiny software the opens the tunnel for your users anyway.
Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that there are automated port scanners running on botnets all over the internet all the time, right?
I get hit with thousands of SSH requests a day on the machines I administer, all with random username/password attempts (none of which will work because I only ever allow public key auth). When one of those port scanners notices 5900 open on your granny's computer, and the password is brute-forced in a few seconds, I think you'll rethink your perspective on the issue.
Interception isn't necessary to hack a connection. There's a reason we firewall people are so difficult.
PS you could just add your own netblock to your relatives' firewall software on port 5900 and limit exposure.
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Just tunnel through SSH and you're good to go.
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Parent is over-rated. Exactly how is VNC "notoriously insecure"? Because it is not encrypted? Do you really think someone is going to intercept the screen drawing compressed bitmap traffic during some ad-hoc session? And what exactly will they get? A temporary visual of someone's screen?
Security really depends on how it is all implemented. I typically set it up so the person on the other end has to launch the VNC server, it has a strong password (which is not the same as any user), and it will only al
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Parent is over-rated. Exactly how is VNC "notoriously insecure"? Because it is not encrypted? Do you really think someone is going to intercept the screen drawing compressed bitmap traffic during some ad-hoc session?
This is exactly the thing I really hate to see up here. People doling out advice when they clearly have absolutely no clue. Some belief that "if it's for 30 seconds it's too fast for them to react". Packet monitoring is done by computers. It is done any time. It is done automatically. The network guys on your network have the right to do it "for network maintenance reasons". The professional ones a) wouldn't want to see and b) earn too much to risk it. Unfortunately they have all been outsourced to
It's called a security landscape (Score:2)
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You probably imagine some cracker in his basement snooping your VNC connection.
That's not the usual case. If you leave a VNC server running long enough someone will crack it. And it's bots. Plain old bots, that scan the ports.
It's not some cracker interested in YOU or YOUR communications. It's a botnet trying to add another node. Or something very much alike that.
It's insecure, I talk of experience, I've seen how (in)secure it is.
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Re:Or, ssh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since VNC is notoriously insecure, it's good practice to only run it over ssh on an untrusted network.
So, the answer is both.
No, the solution is to have server initiated connections to a listening client that is launched on demand, which has the amazing added benefit that the techie is the one to configure his firewall/NAT appropriate rather than the noob. Consider the following secure handshake done over the telephone:
(Noob) Hi, can you help me with WinFooBarTunesExtreme? ...
(Techie) Sure, let me fire up my listening client and open a port on my local firewall and router
(Noob) I like turtles!
(Techie) Click on the little VNC icon near the clock, click "Connect to Listening Viewer" and type www.techiedomainname.com" then click OK
(Noob) Derp, OK, w-w-w-dot-t-e-c-h-i-e-d-o-m-a-i-n-n-a-m-e-dot-c-o-m, OK
(Techie) Cool, now I can see your screen, please reproduce the error while explaining to me what you are trying to do.
(Techie) Let's make sure that VNC is not set to accept connections, OK good, looks nice.
When the session is done, the noob drops the server connection and all is well. VNC server is not set to accept remote-initiated connections (trivial to configure right) so there's zero risk from that end. The techie closes the listening client and disables his port mappings (I hope).
Even the setup is easy, since the noob only has to click "Next" a bunch of time through the VNC server setup and then the techie can adjust the settings once he's connected. There's zero persistent open connections and so zero persistent attack surface. Since there's no passwords exchange, there's no risk of eavesdroppers stealing any credentials.
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even better, you can configure a shortcut on the "noob"'s computer so they don't even have to type anything to start a connection to a listening client.
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And to set up sshd and vnc onto a distant relative's computer, I'll just use VNC over SSH.
Oh, wait!
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Just use VNC in reverse connection mode. Make the server connect to you, not the other way around. Then you're the one who opens a port briefly for the connection, not your relative.
Re:You've really never heard of VNC? (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense intended, but I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would be asking the submitter for computer advice.
Seriously.
cheers,
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Step down off that high horse of yours. Anyone who so much as knows how to copy & paste an error message into Google will get asked for computer advice. That is, unless they're so full of themselves that they look down on someone who happens not to know some random bit of knowledge. Those people will drive away anyone who might otherwise ask them for help.
Re:You've really never heard of VNC? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the submitter. I presume your friends and relatives are stunningly more technically adept than mine.
I have personally been using VNC for over a decade. Judging by your /. uid, that's probably a good bit longer than you.
How about you take a moment to read the question. I'm looking for remote support software similar to join.me or the chrome plugin. That means the other end uses their browser, goes to the URL I give them and with as little other input as possible, I can share their desktop.
That does not describe VNC. I already have a vnc/ssh based solution. It's convoluted and yes, they find it difficult. Perhaps you've never assisted folk in their 70s with IT, but yes, for many, something that simple is difficult. It's difficult because it's unfamiliar. They use their web browser and they use email. That's what they know about their computer.
Now VNC may be part of the solution - indeed I would fully expect that. But not plain old vnc or a combination with SSH. The end user shouldn' t need to locate software, open firewall ports, execute shell scripts or type convoluted SSH commands.
Finally folk do, frequently ask me for advice. They do so for the simple reason that I try and give them a solution that meets their needs. That solution is not VNC or I wouldn't have posted the question. I think if you'd read the question rather than trying to get the first moral superiority post you might have realized that.
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Then you need to have put that information into the original request instead of expecting us to read your mind.
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Then you need to have put that information into the original request instead of expecting us to read your mind.
It was obvious to me that he was looking for something that wasn't VNC. I think Slashdot readers are generally so used to being highly technical that they forget that not everyone can (or wants to) roll their own solution from scratch. The users he's trying to support will certainly not have any expertise in activating a support session, or they wouldn't be calling for support to begin with. The solution, therefore, has to be as simple as possible. What he's looking for is something similar to Bomgar (w
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Teamviewer
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Doesn't pass the F/OSS test. Nor does it pass the "must not include anyone sitting in the middle" test.
On the plus side, it does pass the "free as in beer for personal use" test.
OP: I think you're going to struggle unless you're prepared to compromise on some of your requirements. There are loads of proprietary solutions that provide this sort of functionality, but most of them are aimed at corporates that don't care too much about the architecture of the solution as long as it works - nor do they care abou
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Before we start a dick measuring contest based on Slashdot UIDs:
First off, if you've got your users grabbing random (to them) software and slogging through a shell, you're doing it wrong. Whatever it is that you've got them doing is something that you've already failed to automate on their behalf.
Secondly, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. It seems to me that if there were software in existence that worked just like VNC but in reverse, it would fit your important* requirements just fine.
Now, su
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Pro-tip: Google often returns more than one result.
Scroll down. Try to solve the problem you have, and stop blaming others for failing to sufficiently spoon-feed it to you.
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...Judging by your /. uid, that's probably a good bit longer than you...
...which lends credence to my original query, How can my uid have ANYTHING to do with how long I have been involved in remote support (22 years, beginning with software which I believe was included in AccPacc, by Winsim - it may have been called PC-Commute, and ran on Win 3.1) ?
cheers,
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The downside of VNC is that you need to create a hole in your firewall for it and you also must know the host name, that puts it a step down from things like logmein.com which I've used to repair windows laptops in cases where I don't control the firewall (in one case Iraq).
I also would be interested in something like that that I could control using my own server and happens to be cross platform.
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You don't need to have control over the firewall if you only need an outgoing connection - that's what listen mode is.
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If I'm connected via wireless modem, I'm stuck behind the horrid telco firewall that blocks listening services. In this case logmein works but listening mode will not.
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*Your* firewall. The one that you control on /your/ end. Not the remote user's firewall.
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VNC? (Score:5, Informative)
VNC is probably the most prolific remote access client / server software in existence. It is open source, although some companies have created enhanced functionality on top of VNC which is available as commercial products. OSX supports VNC type remote access natively.
Google+ (Score:5, Interesting)
The Google+ hangouts works for my students when they have software issues. I second-seat them and things run smoothly. If you are doing the maintenance on their computers, you can ensure that the plugin installs correctly and go from there. -TN
teamviewer (Score:4, Informative)
its free for non-commercial use. my mom lives almost 2000 miles away and that's what i use to help her.
Re:teamviewer (Score:5, Insightful)
the guy asking help told this is a downside.
The guy asking for help hasn't spent 4 hrs walking grandma through downloading and configuring VNC over the phone so that he can get through the firewall to actually help her.
TeamViewer is a good solution
Re:teamviewer (Score:5, Informative)
I have to agree. It may not be OSS, but it is free for non-commercial use and it works on Windows, Linux, and OSX. You can even use it from an Android device to control someones machine. I've used it on Windows and Linux to control other Windows and Linux machines, on Linux to control a machine running OSX, and on Android to control my Linux machine when I wasnt at home.
If you can walk someone through downloading, installing and running something, TeamViewer is perfect. Once its running, all you need to have them do is tell you their ID number and passcode, which is prominently displayed when TV is running.
I use it a lot to help my friend whos a complete computer newb to fix and/or learn things.
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Took me half an hour to talk my dad through downloading and running the single exe for Teamviewer remote support.
Would not want to try talking him through downloading, installng AND running VNC!
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UltraVNC Single Click. (Score:4, Informative)
You all are trying to go at this the wrong way.
You should run a 'listening server' on your end, and send them a VNC single click binary.
http://www.uvnc.com/products/uvnc-sc.html
Single click binary does need to be setup by the admin (Ultra VNC has a webpage that generates the executable, the admin can do anything from having a single entry that just connects to your IP (on the listening server) upto having pretty graphics and customized greeter screens.). Having a dns entry that always points to your domain (johnsupport.dyndns.com in the worst case for example) also makes those single click instances working for quite some time.
I'm quite surprised so little people know about SC, even though VNC is quite well known here.
And again, TeamViewer is nice (albeit closed source) one always has to wonder, why would a company give you such a service, for free. Yes, they also have commercial offerings where there bread and butter comes from I'm sure. So does google/facebook, yet we all know what they really sell.
Teamviewer (Score:2, Interesting)
I use this commercially, and its a super product. In fact I am duplicating 1 TB across a vpn tunnel on it right now.
Now you may not have noticed, but on the team viewer web site, on the main page is a link for "Join Remote Control Session"
this requires no admin access at all, and is not a installable product. I use this for exactly the case you state. You walk them there
to the website, tell them to click and run that. Then ask for their numbers. Really that is as about as simple as it gets.
This is also the
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"join remote control session" is for controlling or viewing the remote desktop - i.e. you. The other end (the person whose desktop you need to control to help him in this scenario) still needs to download an executable and run it.
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TeamViewer is a good solution
A good solution to install VNC. Then you can remove TeamViewer.
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The submitter has. Once more today, hence the ask slashdot post. VNC + SSH + Firewalls + dynamic dns all make for a pain. It works, but it's certainly not neat and tidy.
I'll take a look at teamviewer, so thanks for that. As was mentioned above, I'd really like something that can run locally, but in the end I may have to make do.
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You might be interested in this then:
http://www.teamviewer.com/images/pdf/TeamViewer_SecurityStatement.pdf [teamviewer.com]
Should answer some of your questions on security.
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Okay except I can't forward port 5500 from my HTC EVO 4G Wimax phone router.
I thought of VNC and a bunch of things for Mom but I found TeamViewer in the past and will probably use that this week.
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And my mom has no idea how to configure the firewall on her router or enable port forwarding. And neither do I since I have never seen her router
Vnc is useless if mom can't get it to work
Re:teamviewer (Score:5, Informative)
And my mom has no idea how to configure the firewall on her router or enable port forwarding. And neither do I since I have never seen her router
Vnc is useless if mom can't get it to work
UltraVNC [uvnc.com] has a "single click server" [uvnc.com]. You configure (via UVNC's website) a custom server that is a single 166K executable file that requires no installation and is hardwired to connect to your computer, and (when the time comes) you run your VNC viewer in "listen" mode and have them doubleclick the icon. Since they're the ones initiating the connection, firewall shouldn't be a problem. Works great, you can email the file to them, so long as you can explain how to save an email attachment to their desktop. There are some restrictions (Win only, you need either a fixed IP or something like dyndns to specify your address, and they need to be able to receive an executable attachment), but it works really well. Dunno what to do about the OSX, though.
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He's asking for remote access help which notably involves a GUI and from that we can surmise he doesn't know what he's doing and also what he's accessing doesn't require that much security anyways because quite frankly, if it did, he's vastly under qualified to begin with nor does he have a sense of the importance of his information. Google would have helped him far more than this "article".
Windows includes RDP, and Apple includes both VNC and ARD. Linux distros have repos
Doesn't exist (Score:4, Insightful)
What you're looking for doesn't exist. VNC is great, but without the middleman you're never going to have ease-of-use for the people you're trying to help... they're going to give up trying to get port-forwards set up on their router long before you actually get in to help them.
Logmein / Teamviewer / etc is what is needed, and just plain works. If you have to choose one, it should be Teamviewer... can run client and support on all three specified platforms, and the QuickSupport option on Windows is a godsend - nothing like telling a client / grandma / whoever to simply download and run a small executable to let you in and help them.
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So the solution is obviously to make your own teamviewer-like solution since Teamviewer isn't free for commercial use. After much hairpulling I realized VNC is the answer but I wanted a use-anywhere-help-anyone solution. I then realized I needed a VNC repeater, this is basically what teamviewer et-al do. Otherwise YOU have to be behind a configured firewall.
Chunk VNC (you can google it yourself ;-p) is a project that is imminently doable. I deployed a repeater on my own always-on computer, configured the fi
Reverse VNC (Score:5, Informative)
Other posts have already mentioned VNC, naturally. But more specifically, what you want is reverse VNC. You set up a VNC listener, and firewall port forwarding etc. on you end. Then ask the user to download a simple server executable (e.g. tvnserver.exe in the case of Windows/TightVNC) and connect to your IP address.
Re:Reverse VNC (Score:5, Informative)
I completely agree... I've been doing this for many years. The main advantages are:
- Nobody has an internet-exposed vnc server
- The people you're supporting don't need to make holes in their firewall
- As the OP requested: no 3rd party for the connection to go through (a boon to both latency and security)
- FOSS
For ease of use, make a .bat file on their desktop that gives them icon to click that:
- starts the vnc server service (i.e. net start vncserver)
- tells the vnc server to add a new client (the name you've registered with dyndns).
When they want to share their screen with you, you'll need to be running the vnc listening viewer first, and have an open port on your firewall.
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The issues with reverse VNC are that it requires the remote user to initiate a connection to you, which is more work for them. Less perhaps then setting up their router, but still more than something like teamviewer.
It also breaks if you can't conveniently port forward your own machine whenever you need to support them. Maybe you aren't always at home in your basement. I use teamviewer from my phone. From my laptop at on my break at work. Etc.
I even went to the next step, and ran a VNC repeater for a while,
TeamViewer (Score:4, Informative)
Its not FOSS, and there is a middle man to negotiate things to get you connected.
It is however free for non-commercial use.
You can remote control -from- Windows, OSX, Linux, iphone, and android.
You can remote control -to- windows, OSX, Linux, and recently samsung androids.
It just works. The person you are trying to support can get connected to you by clicking the "Join Remote Support Session" URL, and running the quick support app. They don't have to install the software, or configure their firewall, or fiddle with various modes etc.
You can connect to pretty much anyone anywhere from pretty much anything anywhere.
How does it compare to the various VNCs? Its much easier to get a connection going, and you don't waste more time trying to get a remote session going than it takes to actually perform the remote support.
Now, VNC is great, and if you set up your own public VNC repeater, and bundle your own VNC client to use that repeater you can get most of the way towards what you get with teamviewer without any effort at all.
Re:TeamViewer (Score:4, Informative)
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There's a big difference between FLOSS and freeware.
The main one being you can assertain that FLOSS software is secure, and if the middleman is trustworthy; you can't do that with freeware.
Also, Mikogo es almost the same as teamviewer, but FLOSS.
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There's a big difference between FLOSS and freeware...The main one being you can assertain that FLOSS software is secure, and if the middleman is trustworthy...
And the people he's supporting are on Windows and OSX. If we're worried about issues with proprietary 3rd party software defeating the remote-support toolchain, then we've lost before we've even started.
Groups like teamviewer have some major enterprise customers. Their reputation for security is worth more than spying on your remote support session w
In Person. (Score:2)
I am the family geek and have found the best way of dealing with this is to organize a time to visit. Hop in car and stare at the problem in person. Set up access levels. (You don't get to be admin all the time there Mum) Set up schedules.(Leave your computer on overnight on Sunday night so the little maintenance men can do their work) Setup backups. (Where is that USB hard drive you got with this?)
If people get into problems, and they need service right away, tell them to drop the computer off at the l
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Time to visit might work fine, if you live nearby. For me, a visit is a seven hours drive. Twice. It will take me the whole weekend. There is no direct flight connection, the flight connections which exist, will take (inclusive changing planes) five hours single trip and are prohibitively expensive (I just checked, $785 is the cheapest offer for next weekend).
For some people "just schedule a visit" is not an easy solution.
PuTTY with VNC (Score:5, Informative)
I've been helping my now 83-year-old dad since the Win2K days using this solution:
- On dad's machine, install VNC server and PuTTY SSH client
- Set the VNC server NOT to run in service mode.
- Set the VNC server to accept connections from localhost (That used to be a registry setting, but it might be the default now)
- Set up a user called "sonarman" on my Linux machine. sonarman's shell is a script that loops forever, printing the date and hostname, then sleep 60.
- Set up a public/private keypair so sonarman can log into my linux machine without a password
- Set up a PuTTY session for sonarman that uses the private key to connect, and that forwards some port on my linux machine to the VNC server port on my dad's computer (5901)
- If necessary, tell Windows to allow PuTTY.exe to go OUT through the Windows firewall.
- Created a folder on dad's desktop called "Get help from Mike" - inside are two windows shortcuts, one to start sonarman's ssh connection to form the encrypted tunnel, and one to start the VNC server.
So when dad has a problem, he calls me, he opens the "Get help from Mike" folder, and double-clicks the PuTTY shortcut. When he says "OK, it's showing me today's date", I tell him to double click the other shortcut, and he tells me when the VNC icon shows up in the notifications area.
Once that's done, I connect a vncviewer to localhost:<whatever port I set up>, and I have a view of and control of Dad's desktop.
He can't do any harm to my system, because sonarman's shell doesn't accept any input.
Because his computer is initiating the connection, he doesn't need a fixed IP, nor any holes through the firewall besides the *outgoing* ssh connection.
My linux machine has an entry in DynDNS, and dad's PuTTY connects to my machine by hostname, so as long as my dyndnsd keeps the name up-to-date with Comcast's periodic re-assignments of my IP address, dad's computer can always find mine.
My firewall must be configured to allow incoming ssh connections (but I want that anyway).
Re:PuTTY with VNC (Score:4)
Now this is a great example of the DIY nature of true geeks who can build a solution using FOSS components tailored to their particular requirements but without skimping on security, and although initially a bit complicated to set up for the expert, still ultimately has ease of use on the side of the end user (the Dad in this case).
Reading about solutions built like this is one of the reasons I still come back to Slashdot despite the site itself slowly falling into the abyss.
Teamviewer (Score:3)
I see most people here are recommending VNC. VNC and its brethren work, but can be very slow. A propriety alternative is Team Viewer [teamviewer.com]. It is free as in beer and like VNC runs on all platforms under the sun (including Android and iOS). It is unlike VNC in that it is rock solid (I've never seen it hang), always quick enough to useable and requires no special setup to pierce NAT and firewalls.
I hope that one day open source figures our what the magic sauce is in Team View is and replicates it in VNC. Until that day arrives when I need to get shit down, I just use TeamView.
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I hope that one day open source figures our what the magic sauce is in Team View is and replicates it in VNC. Until that day arrives when I need to get shit down, I just use TeamView.
One sauce component is having connections made through the firewall and such. Do that through a "connection" layer on top of HTTP to a central server. Switch the connection to TLS encrypted. Then exchange account, identity, and authentication info. At this point the two ends can communicate via the server. In parallel, probe to find other ways to get through the firewall, such as direct TCP connections to the server. With communication to the server, any NAT being used is known (end IP != peer IP seen
for Macs - Reverse ssh with VNC (Score:2)
Next I PHONE the person and
Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Logitech and best buy routinely sell cheap decent webcams. I've picked up regular ones, and 720p and 1080p HD versions for under ten bucks each shipped.
Bought one for each family member.
When they have a problem, I start a video chat with them, they take the webcam off the monitor and point it at the screen. On some cams you have to click the 'mirror' button to reverse the image. Then we work on the problem. If that computer is dead, put the webcam on a laptop and use that, or do a video chat with their phone or pad if they have one.
Securing software, poking hole in firewalls and all that seems like a waste of time when you can actually SEE whats going on for yourself.
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That has to be one of the stupidest remote support solutions I've ever heard, when you could do a better job just using Skype's free desktop sharing function in a video conference if for some reason TeamViewer scares you off.
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Someone please mod this funny!
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Webcams can be cheap, but some people just don't want them for whatever reasons, including completely illogical ones. I've had people send an MMS of a screen shot, when I can't connect using logmein or VNC or RDP or whatever. The screencap idea isn't a bad one, just not easy for ad hoc support. You can't guarantee that one's nearby, but a lot of people with computers have smartphones and can get the screenshot of the error message pretty well. Beats having to spell a long error message screen string, one ch
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even simpler solution- ebay and a lot of hipsters websites routinely sell decent Polaroid Cameras. I've picked up regular ones and a few packages of film for pretty cheap.
Bought one for each family member.
When they have a problem, I have them snap a picture of their screen and put it in an addressed, stamped envelope and send it over to me. Then we work on the problem. If that computer is dead I have them take a picture of the power cord and the outlet the computer is supposed to be plugged into to mak
UltraVNC SC (Score:2)
1 Your support client calls you
2 You open VNC in listen mode
3 Your support client runs a custom version of UltraVNC SC that is set to connect only to you.
Easy. Fast. Cheap. And it works.
Re: (Score:2)
It even works with UAC if you install it as a service after firing it up the first time. Just remember to uninstall/disable it afterwards for security reasons.
TeamViewer (Score:2)
I'd suggest TeamViewer (http://www.teamviewer.com/)
No, it's not FOSS. But it is free as in beer and it also runs on Windows, OS X and Linux (the Linux build though is technically the Windows build packaged via a Wine bottle, all self contained and preconfigured well though). Sounds like the $-free and cross-platform aspects are probably more important overall to your needs than being open source. Plus you don't have to worry about firewalls or anything - I can even access my home system at my workplace thro
ssh+vnc works for me (Score:2)
When I sent my dad a Linux computer because his old Windows machine was taken over by malware (no amount of remote help with running various cleanup tools helped), I set it up to automatically SSH to my home server every 5 minutes and open a tunnel back to his computer desktop's VNC port as well as an SSH port as a fallback.
it came in handy when I had mistyped his home wireless router's WPA key before sending the computer, I just had him plug the computer directly to one of his router's LAN ports, and then
VNC, and primitive OSen (Score:2)
VNC, as others have noted, works on lots of platforms (including older ones). You'll have to configure it in their firewall, and I use a non-standard port as well.
Some VNC versions allow a form of access control, but that doesn't help if your IP or IP range changes.
And while I realize that there is an actual cost involved to fix it, letting them stay on primitive hardware and OS is not really helping them. Sadly, "because it still works" is less and less a good reason to keep an old PC running. Not too long
VNC with Chunk (Score:2)
As mentioned elsewhere there are two main commercial solutions - non-foss. Teamviewer and Logmein. Logmein free is legal for commerical purposes and I put it on clients machines when I have them on my bench but it is limited. Teamviewer is just plain awesome but is not free for commercial use and they seem to watch. As is their right.
So the solution is obviously to make your own teamviewer-like solution. After much hairpulling I realized VNC is the answer but I wanted a use-anywhere-help-anyone solution. I
Checkride (Score:2)
You might want to check out a program called Checkride. It is an open source program developed in Lazarus. It is basically a preconfigured portable VNC and stunnel package. To use you configure it to connect to your computer and give it to the person you are trying to help. The executable you send them starts VNC server and then connects to your computer via stunnel. Your PC then starts VNC viewer on your side and connects to their desktop via the secure stunnel connection.
Checkride [bitbucket.org]
Mikogo (Score:2)
Mikogo (www.mikogo.com/) is pretty good. I think it's pretty much what you're looking for, FLOSS and cross-platform.
VPN + VNC (Score:3)
1. Set up a secure VPN server at your site. This serves two purposes: getting access to external machines, and security.
OpenVPN [openvpn.net] is a good one to use, but if you can set up OpenVPN AS [openvpn.net] either on a Linux box or in a Linux VM you'll make life much simpler for everyone.
2. Set up the people you want to support with VPN access.
3. Set up VNC on their machines. TightVNC [tightvnc.com] running as a service is ideal, but take the following precautions:
a. Set the service to Manual so they have to turn it on each time.
b. Have authentication.
4. Create easily-accessible shortcuts for them to use, and train them to use them.
5. At the start of a support session, get them to connect to the VPN, start the VNC service. You can either get them to tell you the IP address, or look at the currently-active VPN connections.
6. At the end of a support session, get them to shut down the VNC service and disconnect from the VPN.
I've found that even computer neophytes can be trained to do their part, and if they've got a minimal level of skill it's possible to talk them through the initial setup of the VPN and VNC client software. You just need to get them to the point that you can remote control, and then you can lock it down (changing service to Manual, etc).
As simple as that... (Score:2)
you need GITSO (Score:2)
http://code.google.com/p/gitso/ [google.com]
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"Gitso is a frontend to reverse VNC connections. It is meant to be a simple two-step process that connects one person to another's screen. First, the support person offers to give support. Second, the person who needs help connects and has their screen remotely visible. Because Gitso is cross-platform (Linux, OS X and Windows) and uses a reverse VNC connection, it greatly simplifies the process of getting support. "
Gitso (Score:2)
Teamviwer (Score:2)
Not too sure if you have hear of teamviewer ?
http://www.teamviewer.com/ [teamviewer.com]
There are clients for Windows / Linux and Mac ...
Re:Teamviewer (Score:2)
Sorry about the typo in the subject ... Teamviewer. I can go and sleep now
gitso (Score:2)
Another free as in beer alternative: CrossLoop (Score:3)