I have three networked Win10/11 PCs at our small family business that occasionally need to be accessed and maintained from my Fedora PC at home. I’ve used Google Remote Desktop for a while but it’s unreliable and also F Google.
Was looking at the Gl-Inet Comet products which look promising as they say they work without cloud access, but they’re a tad spendy. If it’s the best option I’m willing to drop the coin.
Are there better options?
Thanks!
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It sounds like what you really need is a mesh VPN not really KVM.
Install Tailscale on all the machines and you’re set.
Alternatively Hamachi.
Edit: You could also install Tailscale on a single dedicated device on your destination network (such as a Raspberry Pi or mini PC) and configure it as a Tailscale router. This would enable you to access any IP-based device on the network without that device having Tailscale installed on it.
With any of this you could access machines just like on the local network, using VNC or RDP.
Or Netbird, both work very well and Netbird can be completely self hosted; Tailscale requires Headscale AFAIK.
Ooh, I’d forgotten about Netbird!
Thanks for the reminder to test it as an alternative to Tailscale.
It sounds like what you really need is a mesh VPN not really KVM.
Ding!
I was gonna suggest WireGuard but these are probably less work which is what a business wants.
Another bonus is you have more than just Remote Desktop to manage things.
Not really sure what level of access you need, just normal network level or next to physical, but I use JetKVM for both: It’s connected to USB and HDMI of the machine I wanna control ”physically”, but also runs Tailscale so I can reach its UI from anywhere, and also use it as an exit node to access any devices in the network.
Also check out meshcentral. Important thing aboout meshcentral is that it lets you hijack the users screen, show you can show them step by step through things. RDP doesn’t do that, it kicks the other user out.
RustDesk is great, you can run the server on your own hardware, and set up the clients for unattended access. No need for a VPN, as long as all clients on both ends can find your server.
RustDesk is a great option too for just Remote Access. Though I find it’s performance a bit slow, and with VPN I can use any tool I need same as on the LAN (my workflow is unchanged).
I do use RustDesk for the adhoc situations (friend needs help/new machine, etc). It’s faster to setup for ad-hoc support vs adding a Tailscale client.
Lots of good alternatives advice already here but I have a couple comets and they work pretty well! They don’t require cloud access except for updates if you want them, I think it has Tailscale built in as well. Their newest one has an HDMI pass through as well which is handy in some situations. I have the PoE version of the other one and it works the same way, the power control kits work too! I also have a jet KVM and it’s fine, I like the comet better I think! They have also open sourced their cloud thing so you can centrally manage them all, it’s pretty neat!
Sounds more like what you need is a combination of a VPN and RDP. Have your machines connect to somewhere via whichever VPN protocol you prefer, and then you can access them via whichever protocol you prefer.
I’m old and crusty, so I mostly use openvpn, but wireguard will probably do as well.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters IP Internet Protocol PoE Power over Ethernet SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access VNC Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access VPN Virtual Private Network
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.
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You’ll need port forwarding to expose RDP yo the internet
No. Do NOT do this. RDP isn’t designed for the internet, it’s a security hole, even more so in a small business where they aren’t going to use advanced security (2FA, certs, etc).
Remote access should always be over a secure connection, such as a VPN.
Never port-forward RDP - you’re just begging to get owned.
Fuck, I’m an idiot. I really shouldn’t be giving advice when I’m sleep-deprived like this. I completely forgot that when I used RDP, I did it through an SSH tunnel.
Removed.
Nope, bad idea.
I’m happy with my NanoKVMs
