[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Free unattended remote control recommendation

Sun Jan 16 17:55:58 PST 2022

 Drew, every five years or so I treat myself to a new workhorse computer. For this reason, I try to get everything as up to date as I can afford without excessive expense. So I had the folks at Simply NUC build my latest NUC with Ubuntu preinstalled on the internal SSD. 
That didn't work, so I rearranged things myself until I came up with what I have now. The first external enclosure I tried did not support TRIM, but the present one does. (SATA III to USB needs to support UASP protocols, and only two or so brands and four or so models of external enclosures actually do have full UASP support.) 
So no, I did not assemble this NUC myself. But I wired the internal headers to external ports to create USB-2 and USB-3 ports for a couple of hubs. That way my web cam and external HDDs don't slow the USB-2, 2nd Gen Type A or Thunderbolt-3 buses with older, slower devices. 
I did assemble my old Skylake NUC myself, and had a few issues. In the end, the Skylake NUC stopped responding to Shutdown commands from Windows or Linux, so I decided now was the time to upgrade to a new NUC. Seeing Windows 11 coming down the pike, I went with the latest or next-latest Intel chipset, Panther Canyon (11th Gen). Definitely supports all known requirements for Win 11 without workarounds. Graphics Driver recently got a bad certificate, but once that was fixed by Intel, all was well again for Win 11 requirements. 
I think you need to get together with Steve Isenberg about setting things up for any proposed demos about remote desktop possibilities. He favors Anydesk. Anydesk definitely also supports Linux, so that's a reason to go that route. But ultimately it's up to those who may be presenting. 
-- Bob Primak
    On Sunday, January 16, 2022, 06:23:51 PM EST, Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us> wrote:  

Cool,

Very nice system. Build  from parts yourself?

I just need a new Ethernet cable.

I have a mini tower running Linux Mint. There is nothing on it.  Not sure if it has wake on LAN, If so, you or anyone would be welcome to configure it remotely for wake on LAN. After it's configured, you should be able to wake it up from your home. That can be the WAN part of the demo if you wish (Conditional on it having wake on LAN.)?  I'll check and let you know.

The Apple contributor would at least need to have the supported hardware along with an Ethernet cable, even it's just for the class.

For me, I live in the lightning capital of the country and if I were away from home and had a computer here that I wished to access remotely and the power went out long enough to shut down the machine I would appreciate the ability to remotely power that computer on again. It's just not something that I would do very often. I find the topic intriguing and will make an effort to learn the technology in preparation for a potpourri class.

For remote access, I have both Google Remote Desktop and Teamviewer set up.  I definitely recommend the Google remote desktop for personal use. Teamviewer has many more features than Google. Works excellent on windows and is supposed to work on the Mac and also on Linux to a degree. Very easy and very secure. I have two factor authentication configured.  Might also install Anydesk. It's also supposed to be very good software. I tried open source remote access software with little success in comparison to the free versions of software from Google and Teamviewer.

Drew.

 On 1/15/2022 12:55 AM, Robert Primak wrote:

 I hate to sign up for yet another Short Subject, but yes, my hardware is able to do all these Wake routines. Problem is, with COVID restrictions, I am seldom remote from my apartment. My extensive use of Ubuntu and Mint would seem to make me the right choice for an experiment. I don't go on regular out of State vacations, even without a pandemic nearing its climax.  
  However, I am not sure I want anyone other than myself to be able to wake my computer for a remote session. I keep private information in unencrypted files and folders, so I would have to pass on anyone other than myself actually doing a live Wake on WAN demo using my computer and Linux. Setup would be simple, but the privacy concern won't go away easily. 
  I would like for Linux to be included in the Potpourri Session. Maybe someday we will be going live and meeting hybrid or in person again. Then this topic could be done as a live demo, provided I do a test run in advance.  
  Great idea for a future topic! 
  My current hardware is an Intel NUC, 11th Gen Panther Canyon, with quite a few bells and whistles, and 16 GB RAM. Ethernet is available onboard, but the location is nowhere near a router to connect to, and my apartment does not have Ethernet wiring. My Ubuntu is unusual in that it runs from an external USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosure, and therefore requires a Bios entry (F10) to select where boot from. Same with my Mint. That is not ideal for Wake on LAN/WAN. The internal SSD is Windows 10 Pro. I cannot switch these SSD locations, as Ubuntu can't run from the internal m.2 slot for some reason, last I checked. (It gets fatal disk I/O errors in there.) (The internal SSD is an NVMe SSD with a PCIE2 or 4 interface.) And if I swap SSDs, Windows will not be where it can boot from. 
  If I ever buy a device to run Ubuntu on internally, that would be a better test machine.  
  If anyone else wants to use their recently installed Linux Mint or Ubuntu as a test for this demo, I would love to see that in action! With written notes to share, preferably. And/or references. I don't want to impose on Steve Isenberg for any more of his time and effort than he feels comfortable providing. And besides, Steve may be our best Apple Mac person for this idea. Anyone else with Linux want to give this a try?   
  -- Bob Primak 

      On Friday, January 14, 2022, 10:03:03 PM EST, Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us> wrote:  

Bob,

The potpourri meetings are a group of people presenting for one meeting? I'd be up for that. It would be great if there were one Mac user with Ethernet at home to talk to waking up a Mac remotely. Linux can wake up too if the hardware supports it. Are there any potential Linux users with wake on LAN compatible hardware? A meeting that covers all three angles might work.

If a Windows computer that you want to remote into goes to sleep because it's set that way by default then there is a good reason to know how to wake up a computer remotely so you can initiate whatever remote access software you choose to use. I would imagine that none of the free remote control software programs allow you to remotely wake the computer.

I imagine it's comforting when traveling to know you can use your cell to wake up your computer when you're away.

What I would do (Will do as a test just to know I can.) is first choose a remote desktop program that can auto-start when the computer boots and not require the user be logged in first. Then, see if I can make it work with my current hardware.

Google Remote Desktop meets these requirements. It requires the Google browser on the host, which I use anyway.

Next, gain access to my home network router via Open VPN on my cell phone. I'm pretty certain if port forwarding is turned on in advance you don't need to be VPN into the local network. 

Then, run a wake up app on my cell.  There are several to choose from.

I just discovered a few minutes ago that Teamviewer supports wake on LAN inside it's remote access product!! I looked for it on my computer but couldn't find it.

ALSO: Teammviewer is a great remote control app that is free for personal use.

"You can turn on a sleeping or powered-off computer using TeamViewer’s Wake-on-LAN feature. This means you can control an offline computer remotely by waking it up first before you establish a connection to it. 

You can initiate the wake-up request from another Windows or Mac computer, or even from an Android or iOS device running the TeamViewer Remote Control app. 

📌Note: It’s not possible to wake up a Mac computer that is fully powered down, as Apple doesn’t allow this. Macs can only be woken up from sleep mode. Windows and Linux PCs, however, can be woken up from sleep and hibernation mode as well as being fully powered down, so long as the hardware supports this. "

Drew.

  On 1/14/2022 11:01 AM, Robert Primak wrote:

      So how do you set up the remote PC (at home in FL) to wake up for a session, then go back to sleep or turn almost all the way off, to conserve components and power? 
  Is there enough interest in our group for a presentation on this subject? (Potpourri or longer?) 
  -- Bob Primak 
      On Thursday, January 13, 2022, 09:53:30 PM EST, Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us> wrote:  

I feel confident about this free one I just used.

https://remotedesktop.google.com

There is a small program that gets installed on your host computer and the remote is handled via browser. You must be logged into your google account to use the software. Both computers are authenticated via google.

Completely free.

Drew.

 On 1/13/2022 9:45 PM, bhff02 at aol.com wrote:

   Has anyone vetted these "free" remote programs? Check out this article https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-remote-desktop Free or not, how do you know whether they are secure? 
  Barry Hass

  -----Original Message-----
 From: Steve Isenberg <smisenberg at gmail.com>
 To: Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us>
 Cc: Lex Computer Group <lctg at lists.toku.us>
 Sent: Thu, Jan 13, 2022 8:54 pm
 Subject: Re: [Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Free unattended remote control recommendation

     I've used AnyDesk.  https://anydesk.com/en Free for personal use. 
  -steve

  On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 8:42 PM Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us> wrote:

All,

 Its  been years since the last time I have used any kind of unattended 
 remote control. The last one I used doesn't offer a free product anymore.

 I have a friend traveling from New York to Florida in a few weeks and he 
 needs to only for one week be able to remote into his computer at home 
 without having somebody there to accept the inbound host connection.

 What would be the most reliable choice that's free that would let him 
 remote into home from my computer here in Florida?

 I found this list of more than 10 products only it's better to learn 
 from somebody who uses a program their happy with.

 https://www.lifewire.com/free-remote-access-software-tools-2625161

 Thanks.

 Drew.

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