Work from Home

13th March 2020

Options:

Zoho Assist; 15day free trial. Client install asks NO questions. Browser based = works on any OS. Update Free for 90days!

SplashTop; $5/user/month. Browser based = works on any OS Update Free for 60days!

TeamViewer; 15day free trial. Fat Client = not ChromeOs

VPN; not a complete solution but free and gets users to files but not applications. If your firewall doesn’t support True IPsec VPN you could try one of P2P varieties like WireGuard, ZeroTier, or NeoRouter

VNC; remote control of a desktop. free forever. must be combined with VPN.

RDP; remote control of a desktop. Already installed on anything windows. Must be enabled AND a member of Remote Desktop Users group. Must be combined with VPN.

MeshCentral; uses WebRTC to remote control Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBsd. Since it’s web based the client is any internet browser. It supports 2fa. The Mesh part allows creating users and assigning them rights to workstations and servers. Its free

Wireguard for Windows installs via an .MSI file, which allows it to be published or push-installed via Microsoft Active Directory Group Policy. Android allows adding client config via a QRCode but the windows client does not (Boo) only from .conf or .zip

Apache Guacamole Creates a web based connector to RDP, SSH, Telnet, VNC or Kubernetes. Browser client works from any OS. Uses RDP which is installed on every Windows PC by default. Easy to install here. When installing say yes to TOPT to enable TimeBased 1 time Passwords! this works with Google Authenticator and is easy to import via a QRCode. When configuring access to Windows 10 RDP make sure you choose Security Mode=NLA or it won’t work. Don’t enforce a display width & height or the connection will be choppy and unreliable. Test RDP connections with a Windows client first to make sure the client is setup properly. “Gear”/Settings, System, Remote Desktop, Enable=Yes, UserAccount=Domain Users ?? Add a LetEncrypt certificate thusly. HTTPS configuration LDAP authentication is supported. Winner Winner…chicken dinner.

If you are having trouble getting Guacamole to work with Win10/Server2016 you can change these registry entries