Installing ScreenConnect on CentOS 7
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So after years of working with LogMeIn, NTG is moving away for various reasons. Cost and poor business ethics and a complete disregard for their customers and their commitment to their customers being key. Our selection, after over a year of debate, was ScreenConnect, but running on Rackspace to make it as close to being a hosted solution as possible as we don't want this tied to our own infrastructure unnecessarily.
Thankfully, ScreenConnect happily runs on Linux and so we selected CentOS 7.
Installation took only a few commands and we were up and running. So easy. And the total memory utilization after full install, with ScreenConnect and SysStat both running is just 259MB!!
[root@dfw-lnx-winjump ~]# free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1835 872 962 8 47 566 -/+ buffers/cache: 259 1576 Swap: 0 0 0 -
+1 for Screenconnect, good choice, the one time fee was amazing, i hope they still have that deal. Fortunately/ Unfortunately I am no longer manage IT support and is done by our parent company using VNC as all machines are in the global network
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Assuming that you are on CentOS 7, here is the full installation process for anyone wanting to give this a try. I install fail2ban and htop by default, you could skip those but... why?
yum -y install fail2ban htop; yum -y update workingDirectory=~/scInstall; downloadUrl="http://www.screenconnect.com/Download?Action=DownloadLatest&Platform=Linux&PreRelease=false"; rm -rf $workingDirectory; mkdir $workingDirectory; (cd $workingDirectory; if which wget; then wget -O sc.tar.gz "$downloadUrl"; else curl -L "$downloadUrl" > sc.tar.gz; fi; tar xf sc.tar.gz; $(find . -name install.*);); rm -rf $workingDirectory; firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8040/tcp --permanent firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=443/tcp --permanent firewall-cmd --reloadThat's it, assuming that port 8040 is where SC installed (adjust this as needed) you are up and running and can connect remotely to your server at http://serveripaddress:8040/ and begin your configuration!
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And the flavor that we are using is: 2 GB General Purpose v1
It seemed to be the best balance for the job.
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Considering the number of CloudatCost questions...
Is this something you would use there or host there?
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Yes, you certainly could. I would look at the Dev3 option, 2GB with Linux. We've run into a bug and getting SC support to take a gander at it. Will let you know the results soon. We suspect that it might be that CentOS 7 is too new, but don't want to rebuild until they tell us that they know what the issue might be.
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Ended up being minor. SC has a known bug that they are addressing. As it stands, you have to do a reboot after installing the license file, then all is well. Pretty minor, but you have to know to do that.
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I've been on ScreenConnect for a year I love it.
Mine is on a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM inside a Windows DataCenter 2012 R2 host.
I really need to get it moved to Linux. Been on my list for a while. Guess I'll spin up a new CentOS 7 install tonight and do this.
Then I get to figure out how to migrate my data!
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@GregoryHall runs it on 2012 R2 as well. We are going to be doing some tests going between Windows and Linux, good time to learn
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I've never looked at ScreenConnect, but did just get the bill for LogMeIn so it's time to look at other options.
Scott,
Let's assuming I buy a Dev3 box from C@C do I need something like Pertino to connect this server to all of my clients? or do the clients happily connect via the internet to the SC server? ala LMI? -
@Dashrender said:
Let's assuming I buy a Dev3 box from C@C do I need something like Pertino to connect this server to all of my clients? or do the clients happily connect via the internet to the SC server? ala LMI?
You have choices.
First is the no agent mode. Just send them to your URL and they make their own session.
Second, you can make the session for them and they get an email with a link.
Third, you can install the access agent.
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@Dashrender The only issue with the access client is you have 100% access to that machine as long as it is on the internet. No client approval required to connect.
Obviously, I do not have everyone's passwords, so that mitigates, but it CAN be a concern depending on the client.
There are so add-ons for ScreenConnect that I have not really looked into. Also Security permissions can be VERY finely tuned.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender The only issue with the access client is you have 100% access to that machine as long as it is on the internet. No client approval required to connect.
Obviously, I do not have everyone's passwords, so that mitigates, but it CAN be a concern depending on the client.
There are so add-ons for ScreenConnect that I have not really looked into. Also Security permissions can be VERY finely tuned.
Awesome - I have access 100% of the time with LMI so this wouldn't be any different from that. But the additional abilities for other users who I don't have the agent deployed to sound great.
Thanks.
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@Dashrender said:
I've never looked at ScreenConnect, but did just get the bill for LogMeIn so it's time to look at other options.
Scott,
Let's assuming I buy a Dev3 box from C@C do I need something like Pertino to connect this server to all of my clients? or do the clients happily connect via the internet to the SC server? ala LMI?ScreenConnect is like LMI, no need for a separate VPN.
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@JaredBusch
When you mentioned putting SC on CentOS - are you thinking Cloud@Cost? -
@g.jacobse not right now, but only because I have my own infrastructure collocated in a datacenter.
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@g.jacobse said:
@JaredBusch
When you mentioned putting SC on CentOS - are you thinking Cloud@Cost?My plan is to do this next week.
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Got to love a one line install!
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@Aaron-Studer always a nice feature.
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I love screenconnect, used it for 3-4 years for simple remote support at my last company that offered "remote support" to the public.
Have now implemented it here now instead of Teamviewer.
