Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect

Ylian

On the power timeline... yes yes... I need to fix this. One thing that would help is to download the power timeline raw data (The "Download Power Events" button on the top right of the power lines display) and make sure the raw data is correct. If it is, it's just me drawing it wrong. If it's not, I need to go fix something deeper in the server. Feedback on this would be appreciated.

smartkid808

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

On the power timeline... yes yes... I need to fix this. One thing that would help is to download the power timeline raw data (The "Download Power Events" button on the top right of the power lines display) and make sure the raw data is correct. If it is, it's just me drawing it wrong. If it's not, I need to go fix something deeper in the server. Feedback on this would be appreciated.

Hi Ylian

Not a big issue for me, but please let me know what I can do to help you out!. Here is a screenshot. Its been off since the 17th, but showing on 24/7. I can email you or whatever you need. Any additional files/exports/logs.

Time	 State	 Previous State
Fri May 17 2019 17:53:28 GMT+0000 (UTC)	1	
Sun May 19 2019 04:53:31 GMT+0000 (UTC)	0

Ylian

@smartkid808 Wow, yes, you got it just right. The saw data and the graph don't match at all. I will work on this...

Scott

Is anyone else running into an issue whereby running the installer on Windows causes two entries to be made in list of machines? One shows agent is connected, other does not.

Identically named machines show up in nodes listing: Owner-HP, or User-Laptop, etc.

This does not happen with all installs, but has on last several.

JaredBusch

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is anyone else running into an issue whereby running the installer on Windows causes two entries to be made in list of machines? One shows agent is connected, other does not.

Identically named machines show up in nodes listing: Owner-HP, or User-Laptop, etc.

This does not happen with all installs, but has on last several.

Never seen that. But I have seen a second connection show up later a few times.

smartkid808

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is anyone else running into an issue whereby running the installer on Windows causes two entries to be made in list of machines? One shows agent is connected, other does not.
Identically named machines show up in nodes listing: Owner-HP, or User-Laptop, etc.
This does not happen with all installs, but has on last several.

I have never seen it, but I did see that when I installed it (unattended) and also ran it (ad-hoc connection). I was just curious what would happen if I did that. Hopefully Ylian has some insight.

Scott

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is anyone else running into an issue whereby running the installer on Windows causes two entries to be made in list of machines? One shows agent is connected, other does not.
Identically named machines show up in nodes listing: Owner-HP, or User-Laptop, etc.
This does not happen with all installs, but has on last several.

I have never seen it, but I did see that when I installed it (unattended) and also ran it (ad-hoc connection). I was just curious what would happen if I did that. Hopefully Ylian has some insight.

Did one show up as connected and the other not?

smartkid808

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@Scott said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is anyone else running into an issue whereby running the installer on Windows causes two entries to be made in list of machines? One shows agent is connected, other does not.
Identically named machines show up in nodes listing: Owner-HP, or User-Laptop, etc.
This does not happen with all installs, but has on last several.

I have never seen it, but I did see that when I installed it (unattended) and also ran it (ad-hoc connection). I was just curious what would happen if I did that. Hopefully Ylian has some insight.

Did one show up as connected and the other not?

Both showed as online

dafyre

I had my first chance to really use the remote control bits. I was helping someone out, and my system kept dropping the desktop connection, and the client would disappear from the group.

A few seconds later, it would show back up and I could connect again. The disconnection seemed random. One time I'd work 5 minutes, and the next, I'd lose the connection after 30 seconds.

Has anybody else seen anything like that?

scottalanmiller

@dafyre said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

I was helping someone out, and my system kept dropping the desktop connection, and the client would disappear from the group.

No, not seen that.

Ylian

If you see random drops, you may have a router/proxy/firewall with short idle connection timeouts. Add this to the "settings" section of config.json and restart your MeshCentral server.

"AgentPing": 60

This will cause the server to "ping" (within the TCP/TLS control channel) the agent every 60 seconds and have the agent replay. That may fix it. If it does, try "AgentPong": 60 instead, that will cause the server to send a pong every 60 seconds and the agent will not reply, so cuts idle traffic by half. Then, you can also try longer time between ping/pong commands.

It's also possible your agent is on a wireless network and the network keeps dropping.

Let me know if that works.
Ylian

dafyre

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

If you see random drops, you may have a router/proxy/firewall with short idle connection timeouts. Add this to the "settings" section of config.json and restart your MeshCentral server.
"AgentPing": 60
This will cause the server to "ping" (within the TCP/TLS control channel) the agent every 60 seconds and have the agent replay. That may fix it. If it does, try "AgentPong": 60 instead, that will cause the server to send a pong every 60 seconds and the agent will not reply, so cuts idle traffic by half. Then, you can also try longer time between ping/pong commands.

It's also possible your agent is on a wireless network and the network keeps dropping.

Let me know if that works.
Ylian

I have this setting in place. I'll let you know if it works the next time I use it.

Ylian

Perfect thanks. By the way, I have been doing a bunch of updates to MeshCentral, much of it is community driven from GitHub, latest updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/meshcentral. Just added optional User Session Idle Timeout an hour ago.

smartkid808

One thing that would be nice would be to have the remote machine automatically lock when you press disconnect. Prob best to set it per-machine.

JaredBusch

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

One thing that would be nice would be to have the remote machine automatically lock when you press disconnect. Prob best to set it per-machine.

Per machine is a horrible idea for anything with a tool like this.
Per group is where this type of setting should be.

As for your thought. Make an issue. I don't see one for this feature request.
https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues

smartkid808

@JaredBusch said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@smartkid808 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

One thing that would be nice would be to have the remote machine automatically lock when you press disconnect. Prob best to set it per-machine.

Per machine is a horrible idea for anything with a tool like this.
Per group is where this type of setting should be.

As for your thought. Make an issue. I don't see one for this feature request.
https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues

Yea, group sounds better.. Will do.. tnx

scottalanmiller

If things like that are going to be by group, I think we need way more powerful group management. Right now, we heavily limit the use of groups because it is a pain to have any number of users and groups because you have to add and remove people from every group.

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

If things like that are going to be by group, I think we need way more powerful group management. Right now, we heavily limit the use of groups because it is a pain to have any number of users and groups because you have to add and remove people from every group.

That means MC is useless. No tool like this should be lacking group controls. I group by Client because not all techs need access to all clients. Some clients have different settings than others. One client requires consent on connect, one wants only the pop up, one doesn't care, etc.

Adding users to groups is actually a problem I made an issue for a while back.
https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues/185

Since then, two more related issues for controlling things with groups and users.
https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues/210
https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues/256

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

That means MC is useless. No tool like this should be lacking group controls.

It HAS group controls, it's just that the time to manage them is too long so we don't do it in a granular fashion. We only do it for security groups.

Ylian

FYI. Just published @MeshCentral v0.3.5-x with new agent installation invitation link system. You can create a time limited link and send it to users who get agent installation instructions. In agent installation page supports many OS's and tries to detect the browser's OS to be on the right starting tab (Picture below). This had been requested earlier in this thread, feedback on this appreciated.

And yes, I do need to work on improved group management. I am certainly keeping busy.