Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs
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It's been a while since I have needed something like this, but what's the current recommendation for some free tools for unattended access to non-domain Windows PCs? I can spend a little if needed but would prefer free if there are some options to support friends, family, etc. I was thinking TeamViewer but seem to remember the unattended access option was a paid feature.
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MeshCentral
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@JaredBusch said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
MeshCentral
+1 to MeshCentral
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Thanks for the recommendations. It looks like the best practice here is to run your own server for either Guacamole or MeshCentral. I imagine no one here would risk running on the public MeshCentral server (don't think I would).
Maybe this is my chance to tinker with ESXi on Arm with some Raspberry Pi 4s. Either that, or I can provision something in AWS / GCP / Azure for pretty cheap.
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My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
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@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Oh nice - it looks like they have 3 different options at $5 / month or less.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Oh nice - it looks like they have 3 different options at $5 / month or less.
I'm using the $5 / month VM, and it works fine. I only have a handful of computers I'm managing though, and I'm the only user.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
I imagine no one here would risk running on the public MeshCentral server (don't think I would).
I would for home use if I did not already have my own infrastructure because work.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
I imagine no one here would risk running on the public MeshCentral server (don't think I would).
Would you use Teamviewer, ScreenConnect, SplashTop, LogMeIn, GoTo, WebEx, or any other industry player? They ALL run on public servers as their primary and/or only option. MeshCentral is unique, more or less, in that you can run your own.
I run my own, but there's no concern about using the "public" ones unless the entire remote access industry is out of the question based on the same concern.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
Either that, or I can provision something in AWS / GCP / Azure for pretty cheap.
Those are the three big clouds I'd never consider for this kind of workload. Those are "scale out only" designed clouds, this is not a scale out workload.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
Maybe this is my chance to tinker with ESXi on Arm with some Raspberry Pi 4s.
LXD for performance. But where would you host it?
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@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Same here. Way better than AWS, Azure, or GCP for standard workloads like this.
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@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Oh nice - it looks like they have 3 different options at $5 / month or less.
More if you go up to $6. For traditional workloads (e.g. 99% of the market), Vultr, Digital Ocean, and Linode are the main players. Azure, AWS, and GCP should never even come up, their totally not designed to be easy, cost effective, or beneficial to traditional workloads. This is the "don't just shift things to the cloud" problem that Jared often mentions. To use those services, you need to be making bespoke software that scales out and is automated to do so with those services. They don't apply to the SMB market at all, and only a small portion of the enterprise market (however, in the enterprise, the workloads that do apply to them are generally enormous - so their marketshare by company or workload should be tiny, but their market share by CPU cycle should be large.)
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@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
@NetworkNerd said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Oh nice - it looks like they have 3 different options at $5 / month or less.
I'm using the $5 / month VM, and it works fine. I only have a handful of computers I'm managing though, and I'm the only user.
We've gone up to the $10, but we have thousands of end points and hundreds of users. We are in use nearly 24x7.
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@DustinB3403 said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
This is great if you are doing infrastructure style management (meaning... all PCs behind a single gateway on a LAN.)
If they are not on a business LAN and/or a single site, it's not very efficient and if they move around (laptops) it doesn't work. Best for accessing servers.
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If you are going to run MC, use NeDB, not MongoDB. Until you get exceptionally large (and throw more resources at it), it's faster and easier to maintain. It's the document database NoSQL equivalent of SQLite in the relational database world. It's excellent and screaming fast and uses like no resources. Don't even think of MongoDB till you are looking at probably over ten thousand end points at least - and definitely not till you are looking at over 2GB of RAM and 2 vCPU.
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@scottalanmiller said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:
My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.
Same here. Way better than AWS, Azure, or GCP for standard workloads like this.
Just for home use, it could likely sit in a free AWS Lightsail instance if it is small enough.
