
Show HN: Remote Desktop from any browser - asadlionpk
https://www.allmydesktops.com/
======
gshulegaard
So relevant:

[https://guacamole.apache.org/](https://guacamole.apache.org/)

Back ~4 years ago I did a similar web application as a way to bring a legacy
Windows desktop to the web...I used the Guacamole project before it was
brought into the ASF. It was remarkably easy to use and even modify for our
business use case.

~~~
asadlionpk
This project is based on guac too. I LOVED guacamole. One thing I didn’t like
was the client dependency on Java and Tomcat. So I wrote a client myself and
made some improvements in websocket protocol. It’s still a wip.

~~~
askz
Do you have it somewhere on, like, github ?

~~~
asadlionpk
Not yet but I plan to. It's written in nodejs.

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lozzo
yet another site which asks for your email before showing you anything. Just
one page telling how incredible this is. But not even a page about the
authors/makers and how the magic (not plugin required) works.

~~~
asadlionpk
I tried showing a quick demo in the attached video. I wonder how can I improve
this.

~~~
JasonFruit
The demo didn't show up for me (Brave v.0.20.29) until I started to scroll
down, and it was not obvious to me that I could do so until I read this
comment and wondered.

EDIT: to be clear, there was enough screen real estate to show it; it was
simply empty white.

~~~
asadlionpk
Might be a bug. Let me try it on Brave.

~~~
sprt
Same bug happened to me on Chrome stable, though only on the first load

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TooMuchWoW
How would this compare to something such as
[https://guacamole.apache.org/](https://guacamole.apache.org/)

~~~
bedros
if you install Guacamole on a server, what kind of software to be installed on
machines that need remote access? there's no mention of how to access windows
machines, even thought it's in the demo?

~~~
celere
There's a HTML5 browser interface. With some basic scripting/"programming"
skills and some front-end magic anyone could build such a service. More
important is a good network and security engineer to keep it safe and stable
for everyone (around the globe).

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thrownaway954
What measures have take to secure your infrastructure??? If someone is able to
penetrate your network can they now have access to all your clients
machines???

~~~
thrownaway954
just the lack of _any_ answer from the founder shows me that they haven't even
thought this far into the security of their product and that, _right there_,
tells me I shouldn't be using their product.

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sena
Does this use Apache Guacamole or is it a custom-made software?

~~~
asadlionpk
This indeed is mostly a wrapper around guac. But we did design a custom client
protocol for speed.

~~~
skrowl
Doesn't Guacamole Client's Apache License 2.0 require you to provide copyright
notice / attribution for using it in this way? I don't see it anywhere here.

~~~
sena
I think the Apache License 2.0 does not require any attribution or copyright
notice, unless you redistribute the source code.

[https://www.apache.org/foundation/license-
faq.html#WhatDoesI...](https://www.apache.org/foundation/license-
faq.html#WhatDoesItMEAN)

~~~
mynameisvlad
From the license itself, it seems like you do need to include the license
contents within the derivative work somewhere. Since "Derivative works"
includes "Object" (compiled) projects, and 4a states:

> You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of
> this License

They're pretty clear on attribution being in the source only in 4c:

> You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You
> distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from
> the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to
> any part of the Derivative Works

~~~
asadlionpk
OP here. So it’s okay to keep the license in source only right? Do I need to
attribute on the site too?

~~~
rkangel
According to the letter of the law probably. But I would suggest that it might
be nice to credit the main Open Source project(s) on which your business is
built, maybe in a 'Thanks to...' page.

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giancarlostoro
How does it fair against a firewall or behind a router? Is it just a simple
client for convenience or does it provide a server too? Cause being able to
pass through a firewall would be worth paying for, otherwise I still have the
same problems as using a normal client.

~~~
asadlionpk
This works through websockets. So if you (the client) can access this website,
you can RDP to your machines.

~~~
giancarlostoro
But how does it work if I can't normally RDP to my computer due to NAT router?

~~~
celere
ngrok.com (freemium) or [https://github.com/mmatczuk/go-http-
tunnel](https://github.com/mmatczuk/go-http-tunnel) (open source, needs some
afford, very fast and easy configurable)

btw. @op go-http-tunnel would provides you with great base for a "branded"
ngrok like client for your users.

~~~
asadlionpk
Thanks for the link. I have been planning on doing this since most people
don’t keep their machines with public IP.

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tdburn
Chrome remote desktop is very fast, speedwise how does this compare?

~~~
skrowl
I feel like it got a little slower when they moved it from a Chrome App to
[https://remotedesktop.google.com](https://remotedesktop.google.com) as part
of deprecating Chrome Apps. Other than that, it's pretty great (and simple to
use). I always recommend it to people with Windows home editions, since they
can't use RDP.

~~~
tmikaeld
Is it private? I know it says it's encrypted, but that's not the same as end-
to-end encrypted.

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Gys
I think this only works on the local network (or vpn) ? In which case I wonder
what the added value is ? There are several free solutions that work exactly
like this in a local network (like vnc). The only (?!) difference is you
asking money ?

The bigger challenge (and therefore added value) is to access desktops from
remote locations. Similar to TeamViewer or Google RemoteDesktop.

~~~
asadlionpk
This should work from anywhere if the server you are connecting to has a
public IP.

~~~
Gys
None of 'all my desktops' have a public ip. Therefore I use Teamviewer or
Google RemoteDesktop which give access to any desktop anywhere. Occasionally I
use vnc or rdp for the networks where I can use vpn for access.

Its still very unclear to me what your added valude is ?

~~~
ksk
I believe most of the rented VMs on AWS/Azure have public IPs. I suppose you
could use this product with those.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
But in that case we can just run vnc on the server

~~~
ksk
I've found RDP to be a better protocol, personally.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Once it's set up I agree, but it's a bit of a pain to set up on Linux servers
(in my limited experience, even including SSH encapsulation to make vnc not
completely vulnerable).

~~~
ksk
Oh, could be. I am not a proper sysadmin though, so my experience is limited
to managing a few machines at our small startup.

~~~
asadlionpk
I have seen RDP to be way faster in comparison too.

If I may ask, how do you manage those machines right now? What does the
workflow look like.

~~~
ksk
I don't have a workflow as such, but being a programmer, I've tried to
automate as much as I can through AD group policy and scripts. Most weeks I
don't have to spend any time managing them. We're a biotech company so people
here are mostly non-technical (IT) and rarely install random software, etc..

Security: I lock down most machines so that they can only run executables from
certain directories, streamline windows updates through GPO, strict firewall
rules, etc. At the router level, I use cisco's meraki service, which manages
VPNs, content filtering and router firmware updates, etc for me.

Machine Management: I use RDP if needed. I have a 'request support' script
that sends me a message if anyone needs anything.

Machine Imaging: I have a clean W10 sysprep-ed image with our LOB software,
office 365, etc. I have a deployment script that sets up the partitions and
images the machines, etc. I'm looking into getting Intel's ME for our office
so I can do that over the network without physically going to the machine. We
have two locations and its a pain if I have to physically go to the other one.

Storage: We have networked drives for every user and those get backed up every
day through veeam, along with all of our VMs, etc.

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timwis
Do you have to install anything on the host machine? Or can both just go to
the website? (Will this help me fix my mom's computer remotely?)

~~~
asadlionpk
Unfortunately not a replacement for teamviewer right now. This only helps you
access machines that already have Remote Desktop enabled and accessible on
public internet. Like servers.

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chaz6
Do you support smart card authentication?

~~~
asadlionpk
Not right now! I wonder if that's doable here.

~~~
celere
Chrome provides the WebUSB API for example:
[https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/03/access-
usb...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/03/access-usb-devices-
on-the-web)

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modzu
remoteApp support?

