I have an old pc on which I run jellyfin and some other stuff. It’s only connected through lan. I used to use window’s remotedesktop to connect to it, but that stopped working.
Now I’m looking for a good remote desktop. Because it s tucked away in a corner, fysical acces to it is cumbersome.
My server runs mint with xfce. My laptop runs windows 11, because of work reasons.
I’m inclined to use something like anydesk, but I’m unsure how to trust that company.
Edit: I got rustdesk up and running and it’s a good solution for my usecase. Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.
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If you’re not comfortable using SSH, each Linux DE comes with its own RDP setup, so refer to the docs of whichever you’re running to set that up if you want things to be super simple.
Past that, there’s tons of stuff, but I would generally avoid VNC these days because it’s pretty much a dead protocol that is insecure and inefficient.
Some people prefer to use RDP compatible tools, some people just use Moonlight. You can use whatever is comfortable for you, really. I would avoid all the suggestions that are telling you to install the giant constructs like Mesh Central though. That’s overkill for just two machines here.
can I use it if my gpu is amd?
Sorry, are you asking about Moonlight specifically? I believe people use Sunshine for AMD acceleration. I wasn’t even generally recommending it for use as a Remote Desktop solution since it’s kind of overkill, just mentioning that some people use whatever tool will get the job done.
I use RustDesk because it’s good enough. It may not work for everything, but it is open source and has suited my needs.
I have it launch on boot in Mint and it works fine
RustDesk really is fantastic. No shade to any of the other solutions suggested in this thread, but 99% of the time when someone needs remote desktop access, RustDesk is exactly what they need.
+1 for RustDesk. Basically open-source de-shittified TeamViewer.
Exactly how I found it. Looking for open-source TeamViewer essentially.
Works very well for the tasks I throw at it. Hosting it yourself is easy as well
Agreed and you can self host the backend if you want.
Yeah I suppose I should have said what I’ve used it for but I think I’ve only really used it for Android, Linux, and I think I may have put it on Windows once, not sure. Overall I run into few circumstances I’ve ever needed to go the machine, usually it’s tied to bios/driver issues on the laptop I use for a server, not Rust issues
But does it allow login on machine and multi monitors like RDP does? These are two features I can’t live without (at least the former).
It actually does both. Not really tested the multimonitor features but its there and it works, not sure if to the same degree as in rdp.
May I ask a bit more?
Can you launch on system start up as opposed to user, yes in my experience.
Can you login when the user has not yet been logged in, yes in my experience so long as the program is launched by the system as a service and not a user login option.
If the machine has multiple monitors, you may need to test, as I standardly use a phone (android) to remote to my desktop/laptop seveer environments where I can individually choose a monitor if they have more than 1 I believe, but having one screen on the phone, I don’t view both at the same time… nor would it be convenient…
It’s a free 2 minute try it out really. The uninstall if you don’t like. If you really like it maybe consider hosting your own. But otherwise you can use it from their severs for free and it will remember your recent connections and passwords if you want on your local device…
I feel like a salesperson for a free product lol
Edit: I realized I asked no questions, did that answer yours?
Got it for login, makes sense, but not sure whether multimon really works. I mean when the server doesn’t have physical monitors attached. I know I could do the install-try, but if anybody has experience it’s even easier. So experience is appreciated.
Depends exactly what you’re doing on that old PC.
If you just need to connect for administration and the like, VNC is decent. It’s my default.
If you want to watch videos or the like, I’d definitely suggest Sunlight and Moonlight. It’s a streaming remote desktop that’s meant for streaming gaming, and so it’s really good at video and audio.
I guess another vote for RustDesk. I use it to administer several personal computers that my friends have. They are old heads like me, but unlike me, their tech savvy is lacking. So if they have an issue, I can pop in and help in any way I can. I was using Remote Desktop Assistant for a while, but kept hearing about RustDesk so I gave it a go.
Oh my god, you’re brilliant! I can have my parents install the rustdesk client on their pc! This is a life changer!
Um…I would not classify myself as brilliant, but yea…it works.
ssh
OP is used to Windows Remote Desktop SSH is a bit far from that, but still a good option
Also
ssh -Xis nice.Will that still be supported with Wayland?
Good question.
Seems like
waypipeis needed for Wayland. https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/getting_started_with_the_gnome_desktop_environment/remotely-accessing-an-individual-application-wayland_getting-started-with-the-gnome-desktop-environment
Nomachine
vnc? TightVNC is open source i think.
Also, you could ssh to it instead of remote desktop. just a thought :)
I was using realvnc but I hit the 3 free PCs quickly. I’ve since moved to nomachine and run it “locally” over tailscale.
Install Tailscale on all devices.
Then ssh into whatever you need.
If you need desktop remote access the Windows RDP should work for Windows to Windows machines.
For Linux host to Windows client I’ve had good experiences with Remmina Desktop.
I hate having to continuously point this out, but DO NOT DO THIS unless you have a deeper understanding of networking.
“Just installing Tailscale” without proper configuration of the default routes is going to cause all kinds of routing inefficiencies and loopbacks in your internal network that is absolutely unnecessary, especially for what OP asking for.
This is just bad advice.
as someone considering going down this path, can you give some things to look up or watch out for?
Well, firstly, it’s not what Tailscale is meant for. I’m getting downvoted by the people using the wrong tool for the wrong job.
You don’t install a VPN on all your local machines just to talk to each other. That’s insane. You especially don’t install one that, while misconfigured, is sending all of its traffic OUTSIDE of your local network, then back in. This is what Tailscale on a number of local machines will do by default.
The way Tailscale works is by installing a Wireguard client on a machine. It then checks in with their DERP servers to figure out it’s network situation (behind NAT, peers in the network, routing tables…etc). So when you have more than one client on the Tailscale network, it automagically assumes some things, the first being that these two machines dont have a more direct route to talk to each other.
So then it will attempt to bridge a path between the DERP server each client is checked into, and pass traffic that way. Which means you then have two machines on the same local network sending traffic OUTSIDE of that network, then back in to complete a VPN network.
This is stupid.
You setup multiple different networks and use exit nodes to bridge two networks together with Tailscale. That’s the entire point. This means setting up routes to let the orchestration layer know that a set of certain machines exist in the same network, and shouldn’t use Tailscale to communicate with each other. Then it will only be using routes for REMOTE networks, where other clients exist, to pass traffic over the Tailscale network.
May I ask what you were planning on doing with Tailscale? I can point you in the right direction.
Tailscale is american. There are European alternatives like netbird.io or self hosted headscale.
Last I checked Tailscale is Canadian actually….but maybe they got bought out somewhere??
Didn’t know that, I always read it was American.
Sorry Canadians - my apologies.
That’s misinformation. Tailscale is Canadian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailscale
My bad, sorry Canadians!
I just read a thread on hackernews where a bunch of Europeans where switching to netbird because of migration away from US tech, so I guess that was a mistake on their part.
The Hackernews company gets shit on a lot by Lemmy and Reddit. From my understanding, they have a lot of bad people who run the company.
I would just use Lemmy and Reddit instead.
At work we use Meshcentral. It requires you to host your own server, but it’s very powerful, and very reliable. We’re managing something like 400 remote systems with it currently. We also use Netbird as a secondary access layer (I prefer it to Tailscale for the simplicity of setting up ACLs, and the really easy deployment).
For most home server usage though, I wouldn’t bother with Meshcentral. It’s a lot of overhead if you’re only managing a couple of systems. If you really need remote desktop (why do your servers even have desktops?) use RustDesk instead.
vnc with tailscale, i prefer this over others like moonlight since it can show non-blurry/original image, especially noticeable for text
vnc
if you can afford the hardware, getting something dedicated like a JetKVM is nice because you don’t have to wait for VNC software to boot. since it acts like a monitor and keyboard, you can even enter BIOS with it. JetKVM sells an extension board that you could hook up to your server motherboard’s power buttons to turn it on/off too.
for fully software solutions, i like using apollo on the server and moonlight on the clients. it’s built for game streaming, but it works for remote desktop too. i have apollo and moonlight installed on a bunch of my devices anyways so this saves me from installing an additional client most of the time.
There is also input-leap, if a monitor is present.
On the server/remote side, x2go is also worth a mention.
Sunshine and Moonlight.
It is made for gaming, but can be used for remote desktop. I use it when my laptop cannot handle a Blender scene and I want to use my desktop. It also works good with Headscale (or Tailscale if you use that). You can enable end to end encryption too.
If you want a direct replacement for Anydesk, check out Rustdesk. It is FOSS, but does not have good reputation.
Where does rustdesk not have a good reputation? I see it being recommended regularly and also use it myself heavily. Never had issues or heard about issues (that I would attribute to reputation).
Something something something China bad. It’s a bit overblown, but there was some drama about the dev earlier in its lifespan. I think something to do with not all of its code being open source? Like the official servers were running a closed version or something. I’m definitely butchering the information. It’s good software and works as intended.
I personally use Sunshine and Moonlight, but not because I have any particular problem with RustDesk, just couldn’t get it working well, and Sunshine also works for in house game streaming if I want.
Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. In the end I also use Sunshine for game streaming, but for pure remote desktop access RustDesk is far nicer, since I can also quickly move files back and forth. RDP is even nicer in that regard, where I can remote-mount local devices.
Fwiw I use a fork called Apollo because it enables a headless setup
Sadly Windows-only last time I checked
I’ve had good experiences with Rustdesk. The client is open-source and the no-cost server components (ID and Relay servers) are self-hostable. The remote server works on X11 and Windows. I use this script to run XFCE+Rustdesk in a headless session:
export SERVERNUM=69 export SCREEN_SIZE='-screen 0 2560x1440x24' export DISPLAY=":${SERVERNUM}" export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 xvfb-run --server-num="${SERVERNUM}" --server-args "${SCREEN_SIZE}" startxfce4 & disown sleep 1 flatpak run com.rustdesk.RustDesk & disownSunshine + Moonlight is also a good choice. I have Sunshine installed on a box at home and use Tailscale to connect to it from the Moonlight client. At 1440p 60 FPS it has no visible compression artifacts and responsive enough for gaming.
