@EddieJennings said in Free / Cheap Unattended Remote Access Utility for Windows PCs:

@NetworkNerd

My MeshCentral VM is in Vultr.

Oh nice - it looks like they have 3 different options at $5 / month or less.

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.

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.

After way too much time spent on this, we found the problem is twofold. Hopefully this will help someone else in a similar situation.

• In the Lumens, to get it to recognize a new stream key for Facebook, we had to put in some random text characters in the stream key field, save the changes, paste the new stream key, and save the changes. That would generate the preview and allow streaming to Facebook no problem.

• We found there was a greater issue present. The internet speed at the building where the encoder sits was supposed to be 100 / 7, but they were not getting anything close to that. Once we got Facebook working in addition to YouTube, we found streaming both caused them to be extremely choppy.

• After having an ISP technician out to the building last week, they said the wiring in the box outside the building was awful, we were at the end of the line, and that he was surprised we ever got internet signal to the building. They are working on clearing up the pipe now so the signal is strong and clean, and we're upgrading to 200 / 10 pretty soon. We also changed the video resolution we're sending to YouTube and Facebook so we're using a lot less bandwidth to ensure we don't use the entire upload pipe.

@dbeato We don't have web filtering capabilities at this location. It's just a Linksys gateway router (not sure there are filtering capabilities on it). Access to this device is limited to 1 person, and no configs changed.

I've been trying to help launch a live stream for a church lately. They have a Lumens LC200 appliance and one camera (also a Lumens, cannot remember the model number). They are using this with a Presonus sound board / mixer.

They got the LC200 configured to pull in the camera feed, set all camera presets, etc. with no issues. For streaming specifically, the setup it's that hard. You enter the RTMP / RTMPS server address and stream key from Facebook / YouTube, and you're on your way. At least you would think so, right?

We tested Facebook Live the other day twice successfully (once at noon and once at 5 PM). The first was a private post, and the other was public. The church has a page on Facebook, so as long as you are an admin of the Facebook page you can Go Live on the church page.

The third time we tried to stream to Facebook Live (later on the same day as the two successful tests), the video stream never made it to Facebook to preview (so no way to go live). The lumens showed a stream error inside the Director software that someone uses to activate the stream. We double and triple checked stream keys, tried different ones, rebooted the Lumens, blew away configs and added them back. I thought maybe the church was having an internet issue, but there were no problems getting to the internet from any PC there (could always get to Facebook to attempt to go live but never get a video preview).

Yesterday we went back when no one was there to test again. I thought maybe there was an outside chance it would work. But nope...the same stream error happened. We updated firmware on the LC200 and the camera and tried Facebook again. No dice.

But then we tried streaming to YouTube (basically same config parameters). That worked like a champ every time we tried (video preview comes in as expected in seconds once you start the stream from the Lumens).

I have a ticket open with Lumens on this, but I don't see how this could have worked twice successfully and all the sudden stopped working. This video shows the simplicity of the setup on the Lumens side.

I should also add that anyone can Go Live from a mobile device with no issues like they did before the camera and Lumens device came in to play.

Has anyone seen this? I'd love to hear ideas from folks here on what we might be missing. I would rather have had this never work streaming to Facebook Live than to work twice and then fail after that, especially since YouTube works. I checked permissions on the church page, and the account used to login to Facebook is still an admin of the page. We even tried a different user login who is the admin of the page with no success.

I see an empty conference center where VMworld once sat.

If you’ve never attended VMworld in person, it’s a completely overwhelming experience for the first time attendee. Now that it’s virtual and free to attend, it’s more accessible to us all. But it can still be overwhelming. I wanted to take a few minutes to educate the community on some hidden gems that will allow you to make the most of your experience.

Get the full story here.

There's still time to join in the fun before 9/22.

Date: 9/22/2020
Start Time: 11 AM Central
Format: Zoom

It's that time again! This will be another virtual SpiceCorps meeting using Zoom, and we're going to work it in over lunch (bring your own food, of course). Please use this link to register so the Zoom details will be e-mailed to you. The registration is only to prevent trolls (nothing more).

As the number of devices used to connect to corporate networks continues to grow, planning to ensure devices can perform optimally when running applications is a challenge. As administrators, troubleshooting the network performance of devices can be even more challenging, often requiring us to use many different tools. Join us for a lunch and learn session with Nyansa (now part of VMware) as we share a technical deep dive and demo of their Voyance Platform with plenty of time for interactive questions and answers. You’ll learn how this platform can enhance the user experience of any device on the corporate network, how to leverage performance benchmarking and proactive recommendations for remediation, and how to gain additional insight into the behavior of IoT devices on your network.

Bring your questions, and we look forward to seeing you there! I'll plan to open the bridge a few minutes before 11 AM.

SpiceCorps meeting link is here.

Today is the day! Be sure to register to get the meeting link via e-mail if you'd like to join.