Meshcentral: Disable Novnc

[coolwormgit]

hello, is there any way to disable novnc from the menu?? because i dont need it...

thanks

[Ylianst]

Ok, in next version of MeshCentral v0.5.56, you can add this line in the domain section of the config.json:

"novnc": false

That will remove the "noVNC" link.

[amenolo]

Out of curiosity which menu are you referring to? Thanks

[vitko-bg]

Out of curiosity which menu are you referring to? Thanks

Will keep an eye on the reply, as I do no know also :)

[Ylianst]

Published MeshCentral v0.5.56, you can turn turn off "noVNC" using "novnc":false in the domain section of config.json.

For people wondering, you can find "noVNC" and the new "Web-RDP" clients here. Right now, "noVNC" is enabled by default, the web RDP is not, you need to add "mstsc":true in the domain section of config.json to enable the web RDP.

[Ylianst]

Additional notes on the new Web RDP, it's not enabled by default. If someones gives it a try, please open a new issue and let me know what you think.

[uldiseihenbergs]

Hi @Ylianst , i just tried a new WebRDP, and performance is very poor in my case - i see squares when i move some windows - screen is just repainting and so on. when i use the same RDP with Remmina on Linux, it performs very well.
and i just tested the same RDP in browser with Apache Guacamole - with this one RDP works very well..

[Ylianst]

Thanks for trying it out and the feedback. I never tried Apache Guacamole and this is a very early version (this is why I have it disabled by default). Can I know what browser you used for testing? Also, would it be a feature you would generally use if it worked well? - Thanks.

[uldiseihenbergs]

i'm using Firefox browser. and yes, if this feature will work near builtin RDP, then i will use it. as i wrote, i'm using Remmina on my Ubuntu to connect Windows RDP and it just works :)

[amenolo]

Oh boy...what a juicy features!

I'm going to try them and I'll give you feedback as well, since I would use them for sure!

[Ylianst]

Oh dear, remember, it's just a first version, but feedback appreciated. I wish I could add the Apache Guacamole code in MeshCentral, but they use C back-end code and I would like to keep MeshCentral all NodeJS in the back-end.

[amenolo]

Well...I guess we all know that Guacamole RDP works exceptionally fine...in any case that kind of features seems to me like a mini killer-application....so thumbs up! :+1:

[amenolo]

BTW AFAYK there are less "invasive" alternatives to RDP Wrapper Library in order to enable RDP loopback connections in Windows OS?

EDIT

RDP Wrapper Library doesn't seem to do the trick...even if RDPcheck runs well...uhm...

[Ylianst]

Maybe RDP does work on loopback by default, I need to get myself fresh machine and see if it works or not. For testing, I setup a computer with allows RDP sessions without a password (I changed a registry key for this) but I can't remember if I had to do anything for loopback, maybe not.

[uldiseihenbergs]

i goggled about RDP loopback and there was nothing obvious in results - then i just tried on one of my widows and it just works. so i think it's enabled by default.

[Ylianst]

Nice, my mistake. I will edit my little graphics. I just made a fix to lower the number of "mouse move" messages sent when using RDP, makes moving things with the mouse better, this will be in the next version.

[amenolo]

i goggled about RDP loopback and there was nothing obvious in results - then i just tried on one of my widows and it just works. so i think it's enabled by default.

AFAIK RDP loopback is not enabled by default in Windows OS, RDP Wrapper Library comes in handy for that (and other stuffs too), in theory ( see for example https://arnav.jain.se/2017/windows-10-rdp-to-local-user/ )...anyway I'm not able to web-RDP in to any of my Windows guests...uhm...

[uldiseihenbergs]

huh, i just tried another win machines in my mesh - another two Win10 wont work, one win2008 R2 works..
how to check for RDP loopback in Win?

[amenolo]

Coincidentally my RDP Windows tests are limited to non-server versions...uhm...

[Ylianst]

FYI. Just published MeshCentral v0.5.58 with improved RDP flow control, fix for mouse wheel.

[uldiseihenbergs]

Hi @Ylianst , i just updated to .58, and still bad experience - i'm still seeing screen repainting line bi line.

[amenolo]

Upgraded to MC v0.5.58, now web-RDP causes a server disconnection.

Besides I was still unable to get web-RDP working (with Windows 10 workstation guests at least) with previous MC version.

[Ylianst]

Can you send over the last error in "meshcentral-data/mesherrors.txt"? i will fix that rights away! Thanks.

[amenolo]

-------- 12/6/2020, 19:25:54 ---- 0.5.58 --------

events.js:292
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: Unexpected server response: 403
    at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (/opt/meshcentral/node_modules/ws/lib/websocket.js:595:7)
    at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at HTTPParser.parserOnIncomingClient [as onIncoming] (_http_client.js:610:27)
    at HTTPParser.parserOnHeadersComplete (_http_common.js:116:17)
    at Socket.socketOnData (_http_client.js:479:22)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:297:12)
    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:273:9)
    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:214:10)
    at TCP.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:186:23)
Emitted 'error' event on WebSocket instance at:
    at abortHandshake (/opt/meshcentral/node_modules/ws/lib/websocket.js:718:15)
    at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (/opt/meshcentral/node_modules/ws/lib/websocket.js:595:7)
    [... lines matching original stack trace ...]
    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:214:10)

Thanks!

[Ylianst]

I submitted a fix for this. This type of errors will not crash the server anymore, I added support for servers that are not on port 443, you can only trace what is going on using the "relay" trace.

This will all be in v0.5.59.

[amenolo]

And here we are again: v.0.5.59 solved issue! 👍

I meanwhile managed to get RDP loopback working in latest Windows 10 versions thanks to updated RDP Wrapper ( https://github.com/asmtron/rdpwrap/blob/master/binary-download.md ) and I can confirm its poor behavior, at least compared to almost flawless noVNC...any chance to get it better? Moreover I was wondering if one can change RDP visual settings (desktop background, window content while dragging, and so on...) maybe via meshcentral config file...

BTW just noticed that Web-RDP right click menu opens noVNC option:

[Ylianst]

I just pushed the fix for the context menu, thanks for reporting that. It will be in v0.5.61.

As for getting better, I need to chat with the Apache Guacamole team... they are clearly the best in this area. I am using node-rdpjs which has not been updated in years. I need to find another path forward that does not include personally coding the RDP protocol.

[amenolo]

I need to chat with the Apache Guacamole team...

Very appreciated commitment! 👍

Speaking of node-rdpjs, I get following warning every time I run Web-RDP connection

-------- 13/6/2020, 14:58:38 ---- 0.5.60 --------

{"name":"node-rdpjs","hostname":"server","pid":22257,"level":40,"msg":"undefined","time":"2020-06-13T12:58:38.744Z","v":0}

Something I have to bother about? Thanks.

[uldiseihenbergs]

@Ylianst another RDP implemantation option would be Freerdp? (http://www.freerdp.com/). Remmina in Linux is using it and works very well. but i don't know if this can work in browser - looks like they have subproject for web too - http://freerdp.net/

[Ylianst]

@amenolo You can ignore the warning messages, I will need to fork the "node-rdpjs" project and change their code to get rid of these messages. It's annoying that they don't have a way to remove them.

@uldiseihenbergs The problem with FreeRDP is that the server component is written in C/C++ and so, it has to be compiled on the server. This said, I did not know about http://freerdp.net/, i wonder if there is anything I can do to use that.

[Ylianst]

Taking a quick look, http://freerdp.net/ was not updated in 5 years.

[Ylianst]

I will close this one since an options to disable noVNC is now available. Please open a new issue for discussion/feedback/problems with the web RDP client.