
Show HN: Remote Desktop Protocol in Node.js - citronneur
http://lc.cx/Zf2P
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stephengillie
Oh cool! Now you can embed an RDP session into a webpage. Finally, a way to
use the primary system administration tool from almost anywhere!

With this, you can hand out links to pages with your server RDP already
configured - just send the link to the admin and let them administer.

How well does this work with dynamic username/password? If we wanted to leave
those fields blank, and maybe have the webpage prompt on open?

Something missing is RDPClip.exe, which synchronizes the copy/paste clipboard
data between your local session and any remote sessions. Though I'm not sure
how that would work in some cases.

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sciurus
Is graphical remote desktop really the primary systems administration tool in
the windows server world?

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stephengillie
Yeah, it's a widely accepted de facto method for interacting with the GUI.
While in Server 2012, it feels like all GUI elements are just wrappers for
Powershell cmdlets, most 3rd party tools have only a graphical interface.

Server 2003 doesn't support Powershell 4 or newer, nor .NET 4.5.1 or newer,
and so IIS6 and other old Windows features have limited CLI interfaces.

Most Powershell cmdlets work on Server 2008/R2, but remote (WinRM) isn't
enabled. There's a quick command to enable, but that's a security hole like
leaving WMI open to the internet, and so is hard to push on secure
environments.

RDP gives KVM, and that's been enough for decades.

~~~
Already__Taken
If people still have '03 they aren't part of the windows server world anymore.

~~~
stephengillie
Yes they are, for a few more days.

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citronneur
An exemple of node-rdpjs ->
[https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js](https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js)

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nodesocket
Very nice work, but Microsoft did a pretty good job with their RDP clients,
and making them for OS X and of course Windows. I'm not sure what the draw is
for a web-based RDP client.

~~~
awinder
Others have alluded to this elsewhere in the comments, but the draw is that
this is a programmable rdp client in Node.JS. You can use this to write host
scripting code, you could use this as the basis for something like Screenhero,
etc.

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jacob019
Are websockets required or can it fall back to polling? I would like to to use
it behind an authentication proxy that does not support websockets.

~~~
jacob019
Finally tested it out. Yes, it does fall back to polling :)

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chrisfosterelli
Oh this is great! The remote-host scripting this would allow is super cool.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Unless you're building malware/pen-test tools or you're targeting old versions
of Windows remote management is much easier via winrm. And there's a chance
that your preferred language has a library for it already.

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el_duderino
If only it supported NLA...

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citronneur
Planned in next release

~~~
brazzledazzle
That's awesome. Most RDP implementers seem to give up on NLA.

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rpavez
Do you have any screencast to see it in action?

