Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect

scottalanmiller

This page...

https://www.meshcommander.com/meshcentral2/installation

Leads to this one for install instructions...

https://www.npmjs.com/package/meshcentral

scottalanmiller

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Do you recommend reinstalling and while I am at it maybe do it on Fedora? May I import existing clients or does that require reinstalling them?

I use Ubuntu, works great. I use 19.04, which is noticeably faster than 18.10.

scottalanmiller

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Yes, I have MongoDB in use. I intend to have many more clients than I am currently working with.

I've not found a point where MongoDB would be useful. The built in DB is screaming fast.

Ylian

@smartkid808 If you see this error:

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/wscheele/views/layouts/main.handlebars'

This was due to a new version of express-handlebars 3.1.0 that broke MeshCentral. I released a new version of MeshCentral last night v0.3.4-k with a fix for this.

smartkid808

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@smartkid808 If you see this error:
Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/wscheele/views/layouts/main.handlebars'
This was due to a new version of express-handlebars 3.1.0 that broke MeshCentral. I released a new version of MeshCentral last night v0.3.4-k with a fix for this.

Thanks Ylin, anyway to fix without complete wipe and reload? or would you recommend a wipe reload? I do have a backup from 2 weeks ago, and would only loose 1 client that was attached (if they are lost when restore is done).

smartkid808

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@smartkid808 If you see this error:
Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/wscheele/views/layouts/main.handlebars'
This was due to a new version of express-handlebars 3.1.0 that broke MeshCentral. I released a new version of MeshCentral last night v0.3.4-k with a fix for this.
Thanks Ylin, anyway to fix without complete wipe and reload? or would you recommend a wipe reload? I do have a backup from 2 weeks ago, and would only loose 1 client that was attached (if they are lost when restore is done).

ok, I got it back up some how.. I updated linux by finding this (might not be right command)... Usually I just run apt-get update then upgrade every so often.

I think this is what I did

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

cd /home/wscheele/node_modules/

sudo npm install meshcentral

Still got odd errors, but tried to start it manually, and it started (it wasn't starting after server updates for some reason)

cd /home/wscheele/node_modules/

node meshcentral

Now to redo the auto start thing.. Hope I can figure this out again.. I prob did part of this if not all of this wrong. But I have no clue what I was doing and it's not production, so wasn't too worried.

I do also want to disable the create account thing.. I will look into that to I guess

Ylian

@smartkid808 As long as you have a backup of "meshcentral-data" and "meshcentral-files" you should be fine. You can wipe the "node_modules" folder and just do "npm install meshcentral" again to get it back and you in business again. Or wipe everything, install from fresh and put the "data" and "files" folders back. There is nothing magical in "node-modules" so you can keep a copy of it just in case or wipe it and re-install anytime.

Note that your should run "npm install meshcentral" in the "/home/wscheele" folder in your case. Don't go in the "node_modules" folder that run "npm install", always run that command outside the "node_modules" folder.

Ylian

@scottalanmiller Your right, the built-in DB (called NeDB) is really fast and will probably handle a 1000 devices without any issues and with much less RAM than MongoDB. I run MeshCentral on Raspberry Pi and AWS t3.nano instances and you really don't need MongoDB.

On another note, seems like I will need to take a look at MeshCentral installation on the latest Ubuntu versions

scottalanmiller

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

On another note, seems like I will need to take a look at MeshCentral installation on the latest Ubuntu versions

19.04 running well.

scottalanmiller

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Your right, the built-in DB (called NeDB) is really fast and will probably handle a 1000 devices without any issues and with much less RAM than MongoDB. I run MeshCentral on Raspberry Pi and AWS t3.nano instances and you really don't need MongoDB.

We should make a conversion guide, too

Ylian

@scottalanmiller Agreed, I use...

node node_modules/meshcentral --dbexport bob.json

then setup MongoDB in the "meshcentral-data/config.json" and do

node node_modules/meshcentral --dbimport bob.json

However, I need to write this up more formally. This technique will also not migrate general events and power events, so I got some improvements to make.

Ylian

@Ylian Actually... section 8.4 of the MeshCentral User's Guide does explain how to do the conversion.

scottalanmiller

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller Agreed, I use...
node node_modules/meshcentral --dbexport bob.json
then setup MongoDB in the "meshcentral-data/config.json" and do
node node_modules/meshcentral --dbimport bob.json
However, I need to write this up more formally. This technique will also not migrate general events and power events, so I got some improvements to make.

Cool, havent looked before as NeDB works so well.

Ylian

@scottalanmiller Now that I have more experience with NeDB, it's possible MongoDB is mostly overkill. The only need for MongoDB is for server peering in the future. I will have each MeshCentral server listen to the change events from the database and use that to synchronize state. I started work on this, but it's still a ways out.

scotth

I scanned the docs and didn't see where I might see if I can run meshcentral 2 and meshcommander on the same device or vm. Am I missing something obvious?

scottalanmiller

@scotth said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

I scanned the docs and didn't see where I might see if I can run meshcentral 2 and meshcommander on the same device or vm. Am I missing something obvious?

I had the impression that Central 2 was on the path to replace Commander as it is integrating those features, I believe.

scotth

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scotth said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

I scanned the docs and didn't see where I might see if I can run meshcentral 2 and meshcommander on the same device or vm. Am I missing something obvious?

I had the impression that Central 2 was on the path to replace Commander as it is integrating those features, I believe.

That'd be cool. I did watch a couple of videos and during the session, he pointed MeshCentral2 to the MeshCommander install.

Since we have so many sites with so little at some of them, it would benefit us to be able to move more to single devices that do more than one thing.

scottalanmiller

@scotth said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

That'd be cool. I did watch a couple of videos and during the session, he pointed MeshCentral2 to the MeshCommander install.

Oh, maybe one just leverages the other.

scottalanmiller

@scotth said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Since we have so many sites with so little at some of them, it would benefit us to be able to move more to single devices that do more than one thing.

How does that play in to these tools?

scotth

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scotth said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Since we have so many sites with so little at some of them, it would benefit us to be able to move more to single devices that do more than one thing.

How does that play in to these tools?

If we get the onboard management, ie. VPro or whatever flavor, we then have the ability to power cycle equipment at isolated sites since we are, by law forbidden to have all of the equipment on UPS's (designated explosive environment). If we can get eyes on site, even without access to the control room at the site, we can get the go ahead to power cycle, in this case, via onboard management if needed. The interface makes it really convenient -- single pane of glass and all that.