Remote Access to Personal Computers - Fuck LogMeIn

@sammydog01 I think he’s looking for remote management, not password management.
Also, $12 a year is expensive? Lastpass is absolutely worth a dollar a month!

@ACraigL Didn’t they up it by a bunch? And I don’t know anything about computers. That’s why I have a book.

@sammydog01 Just checked – yes, 100% increase, now $2 a month (but I think I got grandfathered in, at least for the prorated year). They still offer a free version, but it doesn’t support apps, and has a few other limitations.

@ACraigL I use LastPass for free. Other than not being able to use it to auto-fill in non-browser applications it’s great. That said this bullshit has me seriously considering finding an alternative, I don’t feel like LMI can be trusted.

I started using bitwarden to manage passwords on my phones and laptops after evaluating a couple of options on another Meh forum thread, and it’s been working pretty great for 4-5 months. Open source, free syncing.

@sammydog01 I just use keepass and roll my own TNO solution. I sync the encrypted database with google drive and have all my stuff tie into it. You can also host and sync from a nas device or personal server.

@Pavlov I love Lo Mein! I’d eat it every day if I could! (Of course I’d probably get sick of it…)

@plc Not only is there a Mac server, it also works cross-platform. This is a cheap (free!) and extremely easy solution.

@dashcloud I can’t help wondering how much that merger/purchase fueled this absurd price hike.

@trisk technical not an issue. IT professional here.

@jbartus I’d personally probably still use it where convenient, or RDP or VNC over an ssh tunnel like I used to.

@tinsami1 you would want to tunnel it through SSH or something, if you were doing that.

I thought about suggesting it, but performance would be likely to suck, and I’m not sure that jbartus would appreciate jumping through the hoops that I assume would be required to get multiple monitors working.

@InnocuousFarmer very much not re: hoops. VNC is capable but the work and time required to get it running the way I’d like is worth the $10/mo. I’m looking to spend.

@jbartus if you have Windows Pro, a capable RDP server is built in. First party support from Microsoft, and tons of third-party support. A little dynamic DNS, optionally an SSH tunnel, and you’re unencumbered with “services” that don’t offer additional value for one-off personal use.

@InnocuousFarmer personal use might be stretching it a little in a technical sense. If I need to retrieve a work file or something the file transfer functionality for example is super useful. But yes, Windows Pro, always, no exceptions.

@jbartus Did you know you can copy and paste files between your local drive and a remote RDP session? I just did that between two Windows 10 machines the other day.

@InnocuousFarmer I do, though I have found its behavior to be inconsistent over the years. One nice thing with TeamViewer / LogMeIn’s file transfer interface is that I can see the progress of a transfer and get some idea of how long I’ll be waiting, also I can run file transfers exclusive of a full remote control interaction enabling me to send files out without having to take over.

@SSteve sadly not a Mac user here but perhaps someone else will benefit from that suggestion, thanks for contributing!

@ruouttaurmind TeamViewer commercial use license for a client setup on my computer for remote support. I’d have to expose my computer to anyone who uses that Teamviewer account if I wanted to make use of it for my personal computer.

@jbartus So you have the TeamViewer Host licensed to your company installed on your home PC?

I guess I misunderstood your configuration. I thought you were using the TV remote access app on your home PC to reach out to your work PC, or whichever workstation at the office needed support.

@ruouttaurmind it’s the same app unless you know something I don’t.

@jbartus I use the TeamViewer “host only” client on my work PCs and servers. At home or on the road I use the TeamViewer app (Win 10 and iOS in my case) or the web interface (no software required other than a web browser) to connect to the office systems.

At home, in addition to the app, I have the free “host only” client installed, and I use the web browser interface to connect to my home PC from the office.

The app used to connect to, and control a remote host is wholly isolated from the hosting client function which allows a remote computer to connect and control the host.

So the login credentials to access my home PC are completely different than those I use to connect to the office machines.

@jbartus

Available on the TV “downloads” page: https://www.teamviewer.us/downloads/

BTW, I use the TV free account to connect to home

@ruouttaurmind blink

I had no idea that there was a host-only app. Their site redesign has definitely added some new clarity to things. I’ll need to be installing that from now on and retroactively on most of their computers. Probably get rid of the annoying ‘commercial use’ and ‘what you can do with Teamviewer’ notices they’ve been getting.

Thanks a bunch for the info. Can the dedicated app (allowing remote control) and the host coexist on the same computer? Not sure remote access to home is worth losing the app, it’s too convenient.

@jbartus Yes. The functionality is separate. I mentioned I use the app on my home pc to connect to the office, and from the office I use the web interface (or the app) to connect to that same home PC. I use two different accounts. One free for connecting to home, one paid for connecting to the office.

@jbartus PS: for clarity, the Host Only thing isn’t an app, per se, it’s strictly a hosting client which activates on startup and runs in the background.

@ruouttaurmind I’m definitely going to have to install the Host on the client PCs. Will using the Host prevent my having to do the stupid ‘add to trusted PCs’ thing during setup?

@jbartus Mmmm… it’s been a minute since I set mine up. So I guess my best response is “I don’t remember”.

I have a vague recollection of the setup being pretty basic though. Download the host software, install, set options, done. Then I would login to my TeamViewer account, enter the partner ID for the remote computer and save it into my account. Then, to initiate a remote connection, I simply have to select it from the list of available hosts.

For my personal account I have essentially the same deal. I log into my TV personal account and have a list of the computers I can connect to. Home PC, Personal Laptop, Mom’s PC, Brother’s PC, etc. I can initiate a connection by clicking on the name and entering the appropriate user credentials for the remote host.

@djslack This is what I came here to say. Heard it was started by some old TeamViewer guys. I’ve used it and would recommend it.

@Fuzzalini I have to say I find TeamViewer’s pricing compared to the likes of LogMeIn to be very reasonable, especially as I’m entitled to support hundreds of client machines versus a handful. The fact that you’re still able to use TeamViewer 5 when we’re on to 12 now says a lot. I can’t speak to 5 but having used 11/12 for a couple of years now I find the whole app to be well designed and polished. YMMV but as a long term investment I find the value to be there.

@jbartus TV’s pricing is on the verge of unmanageable for a small company like mine. Honestly, I don’t feel we get value equal to the service. Like in the meh.com writeup today: Diminishing Returns.

Committing to the paid TV plans was to be a stop-gap measure until I could get a VPN appliance up and running. Unfortunately my first experience with that was a total bust. The performance was unusable.

@ruouttaurmind are you trying to have multiple users or something? Bear in mind @Fuzzalini are both talking in the context of being IT works providing support to a bunch of clients, or at least I am. For multiple users it’s a whole separate ballgame.

Re: VPN for a lot of applications (for example let’s use Quickbooks) running them via VPN and accessing the file on the server (for example) is just plain impossible, they’re not designed for that kind of use. What you need to do in that kind of use-case is invest in RDS licenses for your server (yes I know, expensive) and have them run it via remote desktop.

What does your company do anyhow?

@jbartus Worse than QuickBooks… my remotes are mostly using the Adobe suite.

Is RDS something different than RDC? Windows 10 Pro has RDC license integrated, and I use that in-house for remote connections. But when accessing in-office PC’s from outside network I basically have to sell my soul with open router ports. Opening my network was not a gamble that made sense to me.

Though my understanding of the tech is limited, so it’s probable I am misunderstanding the process. Any wisdom you can offer would be graciously appreciated.

What does your company do anyhow?

James Bond kinda stuff…

We do a variety of publishing related stuff.

@jbartus I’m self employed, and I paid $650 when I bought my TV 5 license. And yes, it’s great that I can keep that license forever, if I couldn’t I’d have already found another option. If I wanted to upgrade to a newer version it’s basically the same price, there’s no upgrade price break. Oh, wait, yes, every time they inform me of a new version, they offer me a full $20 off the retail ( 2%). And every time they do that I respond with what an insult that is.

I actually had to upgrade from TV 4 to 5 because 4 didn’t support Windows 7, so you can see how long it’s been that I’ve had this license. It does work for me, it’s really easy to just look at all my client’s servers on my partners list.

Maybe if they offered a small business version of it that was cheaper, one that limited me to 3 connections at a time at a much lower rate. The product it replaced cost me $250 a year, and that was something I could afford.

@Fuzzalini I’m also self employed. Wwith my hourly rate, TeamViewer would pretty much pay for itself after a week or two’s use for remote support, if not less. I know it’s hard to look at a three figure price tag on a piece of software and digest it as a small business owner, especially if you’re a single operator like me, but it’s important to keep it in perspective with what that software will do for you and the money you’ll make with it.

I know the final release for TV5 was back in 2009, which I think factors into how much of a discount you get for upgrading to TV12. That said, you’ve now been using the software for 8 years, that translates to a yearly expense of just $81.25. How many weeks do you suppose that took you to make back? How much have you earned with it since?

I look at software like TeamViewer as being our equivalent to the tools any tradesman has to invest in. Sure, it’s a bit of a faulty parallel as a crescent wrench bought today, well cared for, will still be just as useful in 25 years as it is today, but trades like electricians and plumbers and such also have to invest in new tools as technologies evolve just as we have to invest in new software. Yeah, it sucks to pay for it, but it’s one of fairly few expenses we have in our industry. Take the plumber or electrician for example, at least we don’t have to invest in a panel van, shelving, an inventory of parts and fittings, etc.

@InnocuousFarmer My issues revolve around opening the net to outside traffic in a secure manner.

I’m assuming SSH can accommodate this, but can you very briefly describe the topology to me? I have absolutely zero SSH experience, so I’m making tons of assumptions.

I’m guessing there’s something on the inside acting as a SSH server. Either a PC of some flavour or a dedicated appliance. This SSH server is placed… what, in the DMZ? Behind router with specific port traffic opened?

I would be extremely grateful if you could pen out a very brief reply. Thanks!

@ruouttaurmind Ok, from the top, then. SSH is a command line program that you use to log into a shell remotely (GUI clients are pretty common on the likes of Windows or iOS, as far as I’ve seen. I bet that’s true of Android, too). It uses encryption, and it’s got some networking swiss army knife-type features. It runs on port 22 by default, and there’s a lot of configurability. It’s common to do things like disabling root logins, or requiring SSH passphrases (saved locally in files in your home directory, or in some SSH-client-specific configuration data) instead of passwords.

A common approach would be to have an SSH server running on a Linux, macOS, or BSD machine (or maybe on Windows via Cygwin, or, maybe even the built-in Ubuntu userland, now that Windows has that…), and then forward port 22 through your router to the outside, either mapped to port 22, or mapped to some high port. Let’s say “44422”, to cut down on some of the automatic password guessing attempts that are going on 100% of the time. Why inflate your logs, is what I say.

In your client-side Unixish environment, you might type something like

ssh -p 44422 -L 5903:127.0.0.1:5900 ruouttaurmind@dyndnsguy.example.com

I’m assuming ruouttaurmind is your shell user on the server, and dyndnsguy.example.com is an address pointed at the server, that you’re keeping up to date via some dynamic DNS service or other.

The -p pretty obviously specifies a non-default remote port for the SSH connection itself, and the -L specifies, in order, a local port, a host relative to the SSH server’s location, and a port for that remote host. Any traffic sent to the local port on your SSH client machine is tunneled through the SSH connection, and then forwarded to the remote host on the remote port by the SSH server.

I’m assuming you’ve got a VNC server on the same machine as the SSH server in that example – say you had a Windows machine running RDP and the SSH server on a Linux machine. then it might be

ssh -p 44422 -L 54321:192.168.1.3:3389 ruouttaurmind@dyndnsguy.example.com

So, say you’re on a Windows machine connecting back home, in that latter scenario. You’d start up putty (or launch Bash, or whatever), type in the command, or check some boxes about “forwarding” or somesuch, and then launch your RDP client and connect to localhost:54321, instead of connecting to dyndnsguy.example.com.

There’s also -D 12345, which specifies a local port on the client that is mapped to a tunnel. It supports SOCKS4 and SOCKS5, in whichever version of SSH’s man page I’m reading. I’ve used that a lot in the past to tunnel all of my Firefox browser traffic

I’d guess for that to work you’d probably need your VNC or RDP client to support SOCKS proxies, or maybe use some kind of client-side SOCKS proxy VPN-type client thingy… I assume those exist. Never looked into it.

@InnocuousFarmer Wow, that is a pretty detailed “brief reply”. Your effort and expertise is valued.

I’m gonna fuss with this over the weekend and see what kind of mayhem I can create. Thank you so much.

@ruouttaurmind I was aiming for “brief” but the details all seemed relevant, and I was eating lunch, so… there you go.

Have fun.