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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
Are you absolutely sure you need a KVM over the network? It sounds like you just need remote access to the computers.
Solution one: Nevermind, forget I said anything about RDP. I should stop giving advice after being awake for 20 hours.
Solution two: use RustDesk. It’s a FOSS remote desktop solution similar to TeamViewer. You can run the ID and Relay servers on your own hardware (which I strongly recommend) if you don’t want to use RustDesk’s own. You can connect the remote computers to the server without exposing them to the internet.
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.
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 SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access VNC Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access VPN Virtual Private Network
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.
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I’m happy with my NanoKVMs
