Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect

Ylian

Just added a new blog on the latest MeshCentral news. Lots more improvements this week. The blog highlights MeshCtrl the MeshCentral administrator command line tool.

scottalanmiller

@Ylian awesome, and remote typing is HUGE.

FATeknollogee

I've got a few Win machines where the agent has stopped "reporting" back (greyed out in the console).

Anyone else have this happen & how are you fixing?

smartkid808

Is there a way to change the port of MC after install to something other than 443?

If I remember right I could change it in the config file, but wanted to double-check before I play with it.

I don't have many clients so can always reinstall or change the port in the config file, so no issue there.

scottalanmiller

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is there a way to change the port of MC after install to something other than 443?

Both natively, or in a reverse proxy.

Ylian

@smartkid808 Yes, you can change the port, however you need to do this before installing agents as existing agents will not be able to find the server anymore. The "port" setting in config.json will change the port used by MeshCentral, "aliasport" will change the port MeshCentral tells the agents to connect to. So, if you have a port map in front of MeshCentral, use "aliasport" to indicate the "real" port that will be used. Hope it makes sense.

{
  "settings": {
    "Cert": "devbox.mesh.meshcentral.com",
    "Port": 4430,
    "AliasPort": 444
  }
}

smartkid808

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

. The "port" setting in config.json will change the port used by MeshCentral, "aliasport" will change the port MeshCentral tells the agents to connect to. So, if you have a port map in front of MeshCentral, use "aliasport" to indicate the "real" port that will be used. Hope it makes sense.

Hi Yilan,

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks, yea I know I will have to reinstall agents.. Not a big deal. Do I need the aliasport? or can I just set the port to say 4430?

and one more question. If I get a real (not private) cert will I have to redeploy agents? I was thinking about getting a cert later thats why. thanks

Ylian

You don't generally have to use "aliasport" unless the external port that agents will see if different from the port MeshCentral uses. This is not common.

As for the real certificate, you will not have to reinstall the agents. Agent use a special system to authenticate the server using a second certificate within the TLS connection, it's explained in Section 8 of this guide if you want to look at the details. So you can swap the HTTPS certificate when you want as long as the DNS name and port stays the same.

Also, MeshCentral has built-in support for Let's Encrypt and will auto-renew the certificate. You can find help on this in section 11 of the User's guide.

Hope it helps,
Ylian

smartkid808

@Ylian Awesome, THanks Yilan, I knew I saw somewhere about that.. Thanks again. Have a nice week

Ylian

FYI. MeshCentral just hit 500k downloads on npm-stat.com in about 2 years of being available.

dafyre

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

FYI. MeshCentral just hit 500k downloads on npm-stat.com in about 2 years of being available.

Sweet! Congratulations!

You guys are doing an awesome job with it! Keep it up!

scottalanmiller

Just updated to 0.4.0-b

scottalanmiller

And now 0.4.0-f

srsmith

I currently use Splashtop Personal / Teamviewer Free for the occassional remote assistance that family members need. I'm a big fan of free and open-source projects, and since this looks like it has an awesome set of features, I figure it is about time I finally check it out.

One thing I can't seem to find (or I missed it above / in the user guide) - is it possible to connect from an Android phone to one of the managed computers? Occasionally, someone needs assistance when I can't get to my desktop but I have my phone.

scottalanmiller

@srsmith said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

One thing I can't seem to find (or I missed it above / in the user guide) - is it possible to connect from an Android phone to one of the managed computers? Occasionally, someone needs assistance when I can't get to my desktop but I have my phone.

Probably can from the web page, but I bet it is awful to do.

srsmith

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Probably can from the web page, but I bet it is awful to do.

Hmmm... looking at the GitHub repo, I see that @Ylian has been working on a mobile site. I'll have to experiment this weekend. I have a spare Raspberry Pi 3 I can use as a local test server.

scottalanmiller

@srsmith said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Probably can from the web page, but I bet it is awful to do.

Hmmm... looking at the GitHub repo, I see that @Ylian has been working on a mobile site. I'll have to experiment this weekend. I have a spare Raspberry Pi 3 I can use as a local test server.

Cool.

Ylian

@srsmith MeshCentral developer here. There is no Android application for MeshCentral, it just going to be the mobile web site. It's not a feature full as the desktop site, but should get the basics (and supports NFC/Bluetooth two-factor authentication on Android Chrome). Let me know if you try it and what you think of it.

travisdh1

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@srsmith MeshCentral developer here. There is no Android application for MeshCentral, it just going to be the mobile web site. It's not a feature full as the desktop site, but should get the basics (and supports NFC/Bluetooth two-factor authentication on Android Chrome). Let me know if you try it and what you think of it.

That should be all that's needed. Bothering with dedicated mobile apps seems like a waste of your time.

srsmith

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@srsmith MeshCentral developer here. There is no Android application for MeshCentral, it just going to be the mobile web site. It's not a feature full as the desktop site, but should get the basics (and supports NFC/Bluetooth two-factor authentication on Android Chrome). Let me know if you try it and what you think of it.

Nice - I was only looking for the basics on mobile for those "OMG I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW" instances when I am away from my desktop. Will hopefully be experimenting with it sometime later today, so I'll let you know how it works out.