9 ms·

Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

120 points by v4n4d1s 7y ago

mwexler 7y ago
For everyone wondering what this is: Via https://guacamole.apache.org/doc/1.1.0/gug/preface.html https://guacamole.apache.org/doc/1.1.0/gug/preface.html What is Guacamole? Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP). Guacamole is also the project that produces this web application, and provides an API that drives it. This API can be used to power other similar applications or services.
PaulRobinson 7y ago
The antithesis of a good landing page. I'd never heard of it before. What does Apache Guacamole actually do? Is it of interest to me? I click... Nothing on the home page immediately tells me. I note HTML5 and there is something going on with a client and I guess a server? I scroll down the page. Literally, nothing telling me how Guacamole might be of interest to me, but I notice a mention to RDP - hmmm, that might be a clue, but it might not be. I go up to docs. FAQ? OK, that might help. I click. Nope. Nothing. I scroll through the first five or six questions and I'm none the wiser. I go back to the docs and notice the user manual. Surely that must tell me? I click. Right, which section might tell me? Introduction? I click. Several paragraphs in: > Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP). Guacamole is also the project that produces this web application, and provides an API that drives it. This API can be used to power other similar applications or services. I realise F/LOSS might not feel the need to "market" itself like it were a business, but is it too much to ask that the first thing we see on the home page is a brief description of what the project is, and some of the benefits so a curious chap can decide if it's of interest?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lars_francke 7y ago
  Do you have an example of what they could have written? I agree with you that lots (mostly the corporate and startup) of homepages aren't good in describing the product but this seems like a relatively okay summary to me: "Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH.[...] Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser." It's a tool you install on your machine and then you can access said machine via a web browser, no?
- pmontra 7y ago
  The post links to the 1.1.0 release https://guacamole.apache.org/releases/1.1.0/ https://guacamole.apache.org/releases/1.1.0/ IMHO this is not an intended landing page for the project. I touched the title and got to the home page which explains pretty well what the project is about http://guacamole.apache.org/ http://guacamole.apache.org/ Maybe they should add an explicit Home link.
- ergo14 7y ago
  The link on HN is not a landing page. https://guacamole.apache.org/ https://guacamole.apache.org/ - this is and it is very self explanatory to me. `Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH.`
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gexla 7y ago
  It's a release page. If ever in doubt of where you are, look at the URL. Guacamole is quite well known in the Linux world. Release page being linked is appropriate given the title.
- calcifer 7y ago
  > is it too much to ask that the first thing we see on the home page is a brief description of what the project is, and some of the benefits so a curious chap can decide if it's of interest? It's not too much to ask, especially if you actually look at the home page and not the release notes that's clearly linked here.
  - Double_a_92 7y ago
    The home page itself also doesn't really explain what it is... unless you already know. All I got is that it's some remote desktop client that runs in the browser. Then I had to assume that the server probably needs to be in the same network as your target computer... And theres some extra login to the client itself? And then I noticed that that image is actually a video. ._.
    - laumars 7y ago
      What browser are you using? The video has a standard play button on desktop Firefox. In fact it is very clearly an embedded Vimeo video (branded and all). Also your server assumption is very clearly stated right next to the video: > Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser. This is all in the top half of the landing page and even highlighted in green to stand out from the rest of the page. I agree many FOSS projects have lousy landing pages but I've always though this one to be one of the better ones. In fact it is better than many commercial landing pages I've had the misfortune to, ahem, land on.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- agumonkey 7y ago
  was about to complain but then I realized it's just a release note page that said a tiny [remove desktop] tag in the title would have eased the process
- kgraves 7y ago
  Uh, go to the home page? > "Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway [RDP]. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH." > "We call it clientless because no plugins or client software are required." > "Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser." The link you have clicked on is the release page, you could just gone to the home page ("click the title") to see what this was all about. Bonus: There's even a video on the home page, I played the video and I instantly know what the software is. Most open source software homepages don't provide that level of context, just walls of text.
- nannal 7y ago
  Does this not cover it? From the front page https://i.imgur.com/ZOyoNQ6.png https://i.imgur.com/ZOyoNQ6.png
- ciroduran 7y ago
  I had the same thoughts when clicking this document. It seems more like a release page than a landing page. But I think the lesson is that documentation is tricky to write because there are many ways to use it, for both novice and advanced users. I've checked Django, Drupal and Python release notes and they're aren't any more specific, although the website navigation makes it clear how to reach the home page.
sdan 7y ago
Interestingly this seems like what mighty app(https://mightyapp.com https://mightyapp.com) is doing
gexla 7y ago
It would be great if these sorts of posts would include a description of what's big about these releases. If you were already excited about this Guacamole release, then you probably didn't need the reminder. Looking through the notes, this looks interesting... > Similar to Guacamole’s support for SSH and telnet, Guacamole can now provide terminal access to Kubernetes pods using the same mechanism as kubectl attach. This allows Guacamole to be used to interact with Kubernetes pods without requiring that those pods host an SSH or telnet service. I have never used Guacamole or K8s (still stuck on Docker) but I assume this makes connecting to a containerized desktop much easier. Great work to everyone involved.
- laumars 7y ago
  > It would be great if these sorts of posts would include a description of what's big about these releases. If you were already excited about this Guacamole release, then you probably didn't need the reminder. I agree but unfortunately HN only allows you to submit a URL or test, not both. Also you're not technically supposed to editorialise the page title either. Thankfully the release notes on this particular site are well written.
catmanjan 7y ago
I've looked at using this before to provide a "thin client" legacy desktop app - is anyone doing the same with Guacamole? Care to share your experience?
- ldoughty 7y ago
  I use it to provide access to cloud systems as essentially a bastion. The target computers often have serious vulnerabilities exposed (like metasploitable windows targets, and machines with very easy passwords).. so supporting legacy OS & software is reasonably secure (at least if guacamole is the only access point)
- patentatt 7y ago
  If I’m understanding you correctly, I used guacamole for just this purpose once. Terrible legacy desktop app needed to be ‘ported’ to ‘the cloud’ ASAP because reasons. While we were working on a proper rewrite, I stood up a VM running the old desktop software and a web page that used guacamole to VNC to the app. Worked fabtabulously, and with a little printer redirection and UI tweaks, wound up being preferred by the users over the rewritten proper web app. In all honesty, not a terrible solution. Users who had been using the app for a decade didn’t have to learn anything new. I did have to learn something new, though, as then we had to port our new features from the real web app back to the VB6 legacy ‘desktop’ app, lol.
fulafel 7y ago
Maybe the submitter could highlight they view as noteworthy in this release?
- v4n4d1s 7y ago
  Switch to freerdp 2.0 and swiss german keyboard layout are my highlights.
w0utert 7y ago
I really like the idea implemented by Apache Guacamole, but when I tried to install it on my home server get remote desktops to my other machines when abroad, it was a huge letdown. First of all the installation process is terrible, you need to install and configure a whole working tomcat8 server first and manually deploy the application WAR, configuration is non-obvious and obtuse, and the first ~10 tries after deploying Guacamole failed to establish VNC connections without a clear indication what went wrong. Over the years I've installed loads of services, not just trivial ones (e.g. nginx with SSL and multiple vhosts on different domains, reverse proxies, SSH tunnels, VPN servers, etc) and while I wouldn't say installing Guacamole was hard, the process just felt unnecessarily complicated. Not a nice experience. Second, when I finally managed to get Guacamole to establish a VNC connection to an OS X client, the performance was straight up horrible. That's over a Gbit ethernet LAN, which I also use to stream games to a steam link at 60fps. Granted, this was connecting to desktop with 5K resolution and 32-bit color, but connecting to it directly using a VNC client works just fine. Through Guacamole it was literally unusable. Is this to be expected?
- fuzzy2 7y ago
  My recommendation: Use Docker. No need to deal with all the gritty details. If needed, reverse-proxy it. Guacamole is (in my experience) unfortunately rather inefficient concerning bandwidth. You can’t compare it to Steam Link either, because that’s using H264 video compression. Guacamole does not use video compression. A single 5K 24 bit bitmap is ~42 MiB. That’s a lot, even compressed and especially at reasonable frame rates.
  - ldoughty 7y ago
    I second using containers for guacamole. Also agree, this isn't intended to be a replacement for direct access, nor for streaming purposes. This gives you and RDP session with no software install needed. The use case of guacamole is accessing a system from anywhere without needing your ssh keys, RDP, or VNC software. If you're happy doing any of those directly, adding a middle man doesn't add any value. That said, if you're managing others accessing the system, you can bastion of the target machines and only expose this access. This lets you put the target machines behind NAT, and only manage one entry point.
unwind 7y ago
Nobody has mentioned it but the header says: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0 has not yet been released! The artifacts and release notes below are drafts for a proposed release of Apache Guacamole which has not yet occurred. So it would seem it has not been released yet.
- ldoughty 7y ago
  Me heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I saw this link here.... And actually.. it is released, they updated their docker instead making 1.1.0 their latest tag while dropping RC designation I really hope free RDP 2.0 brings some general improvements, the existing implementation on 1.0.0 had terrible thread handling that causes infinite loops in certain situations.
mikece 7y ago
"Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP)." Shouldn't this be front and center on the home page instead of having to find the manual and navigate to the second paragraph of the introduction? That said, it looks like a cool idea and I wonder if it's within the scope of a project like this to implement an abstraction on the keyboard such that using common macOS keyboard shortcuts are translated to their Linux or Windows equivalents (or vice versa). It's a small peeve but I hate accidentally locking Windows when I meant to put focus on the address bar and start typing a URL... UPDATE: I stand corrected: I missed that this wasn't the home page... that's what I get for commenting on a new story before I have my morning coffee.
- omegabravo 7y ago
  The home page (https://guacamole.apache.org/ https://guacamole.apache.org/), has the description front and centre. The link provided is for their release page, which discusses this particular release. This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190442 on this thread has further discussion.
smitty1e 7y ago
There is an AWS marketplace instance available if you search for "guacamole". You log in at a public DNS as ubuntu with the instance-id for the password. Instance functionality for that quick requirement at a modest fee. Great product.
bjonnh 7y ago
Using it in production here since a few versions. It works perfectly for RDP (VMs that several non computer saavy people have to use including when abroad) and LDAP (slapd) for auth. Performance is really good even for tens of connections at the same time and the users are using old apps that tend to refresh half the screen each time a single pixel changes . Works on Linux, Mac and windows for the clients without having to give specific instructions for each. I used the docker containers for deployment to reduce the hassle As it is running on a VM anyway, I will switch that to ansible playbooks at some point, but the docker install was really smooth, I'm almost wondering if it is worth it.
F00Fbug 7y ago
I hope this project has matured since I last tried it (18 months ago). As wOutert mentioned, the installation process is difficult and not for the faint of heart. Sure, most folks reading this here could manage it, but we're not normal! I really wanted this to work since I'm teaching at a school where all the Windows machines are locked down. I teach a Linux class. I teach a bunch of cyber-security classes and often need to install tools for this. Our IT administrators either refuse to let me install the software I need to teach or put up a huge stink. I stood up a few VMs in my homelab for teaching and was hopeful that I could remote in painlessly. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth I finally got it working. And it worked well. About once a month I do a "yum update" on my CentOS machines and when it ran on this particular machine, it broke something in the Guac stack. I refused to spend the time to fix it! Simultaneously, I'd been having trouble with TeamViewer. The unfortunate reality of any IT professional's life is that you end up doing IT support for the family. TeamViewer was fine for years, but they started flagging my use as commercial. After looking and testing I found AnyDesk; it works every bit as well as TeamViewer and it has a Windows portable client; you don't need to install anything on the client machine (no admin rights needed). So now I either boot my machines from a USB stick with Linux or AnyDesk to where I need to go and my life is much better. When Guacamole is mature and painless like AnyDesk, I'd give it another look.
johnmark 7y ago
If you like Apache Guacamole, you'll love Glyptodon Enterprise. https://glyptodon.com/ https://glyptodon.com/ https://demo.glyptodon.com/ https://demo.glyptodon.com/ Led by the founders/maintainers of Guacamole.

120 points by v4n4d1s 7y ago

For everyone wondering what this is: Via https://guacamole.apache.org/doc/1.1.0/gug/preface.html https://guacamole.apache.org/doc/1.1.0/gug/preface.html What is Guacamole? Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP). Guacamole is also the project that produces this web application, and provides an API that drives it. This API can be used to power other similar applications or services.

PaulRobinson 7y ago

The antithesis of a good landing page. I'd never heard of it before. What does Apache Guacamole actually do? Is it of interest to me? I click... Nothing on the home page immediately tells me. I note HTML5 and there is something going on with a client and I guess a server? I scroll down the page. Literally, nothing telling me how Guacamole might be of interest to me, but I notice a mention to RDP - hmmm, that might be a clue, but it might not be. I go up to docs. FAQ? OK, that might help. I click. Nope. Nothing. I scroll through the first five or six questions and I'm none the wiser. I go back to the docs and notice the user manual. Surely that must tell me? I click. Right, which section might tell me? Introduction? I click. Several paragraphs in: > Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP). Guacamole is also the project that produces this web application, and provides an API that drives it. This API can be used to power other similar applications or services. I realise F/LOSS might not feel the need to "market" itself like it were a business, but is it too much to ask that the first thing we see on the home page is a brief description of what the project is, and some of the benefits so a curious chap can decide if it's of interest?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lars_francke 7y ago
Do you have an example of what they could have written? I agree with you that lots (mostly the corporate and startup) of homepages aren't good in describing the product but this seems like a relatively okay summary to me: "Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH.[...] Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser." It's a tool you install on your machine and then you can access said machine via a web browser, no?
pmontra 7y ago
The post links to the 1.1.0 release https://guacamole.apache.org/releases/1.1.0/ https://guacamole.apache.org/releases/1.1.0/ IMHO this is not an intended landing page for the project. I touched the title and got to the home page which explains pretty well what the project is about http://guacamole.apache.org/ http://guacamole.apache.org/ Maybe they should add an explicit Home link.
ergo14 7y ago
The link on HN is not a landing page. https://guacamole.apache.org/ https://guacamole.apache.org/ - this is and it is very self explanatory to me. `Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH.`
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gexla 7y ago
It's a release page. If ever in doubt of where you are, look at the URL. Guacamole is quite well known in the Linux world. Release page being linked is appropriate given the title.
calcifer 7y ago
> is it too much to ask that the first thing we see on the home page is a brief description of what the project is, and some of the benefits so a curious chap can decide if it's of interest? It's not too much to ask, especially if you actually look at the home page and not the release notes that's clearly linked here.
- Double_a_92 7y ago
  The home page itself also doesn't really explain what it is... unless you already know. All I got is that it's some remote desktop client that runs in the browser. Then I had to assume that the server probably needs to be in the same network as your target computer... And theres some extra login to the client itself? And then I noticed that that image is actually a video. ._.
  - laumars 7y ago
    What browser are you using? The video has a standard play button on desktop Firefox. In fact it is very clearly an embedded Vimeo video (branded and all). Also your server assumption is very clearly stated right next to the video: > Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser. This is all in the top half of the landing page and even highlighted in green to stand out from the rest of the page. I agree many FOSS projects have lousy landing pages but I've always though this one to be one of the better ones. In fact it is better than many commercial landing pages I've had the misfortune to, ahem, land on.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 7y ago
was about to complain but then I realized it's just a release note page that said a tiny [remove desktop] tag in the title would have eased the process
kgraves 7y ago
Uh, go to the home page? > "Apache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway [RDP]. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH." > "We call it clientless because no plugins or client software are required." > "Thanks to HTML5, once Guacamole is installed on a server, all you need to access your desktops is a web browser." The link you have clicked on is the release page, you could just gone to the home page ("click the title") to see what this was all about. Bonus: There's even a video on the home page, I played the video and I instantly know what the software is. Most open source software homepages don't provide that level of context, just walls of text.
nannal 7y ago
Does this not cover it? From the front page https://i.imgur.com/ZOyoNQ6.png https://i.imgur.com/ZOyoNQ6.png
ciroduran 7y ago
I had the same thoughts when clicking this document. It seems more like a release page than a landing page. But I think the lesson is that documentation is tricky to write because there are many ways to use it, for both novice and advanced users. I've checked Django, Drupal and Python release notes and they're aren't any more specific, although the website navigation makes it clear how to reach the home page.

sdan 7y ago

Interestingly this seems like what mighty app(https://mightyapp.com https://mightyapp.com) is doing

gexla 7y ago

It would be great if these sorts of posts would include a description of what's big about these releases. If you were already excited about this Guacamole release, then you probably didn't need the reminder. Looking through the notes, this looks interesting... > Similar to Guacamole’s support for SSH and telnet, Guacamole can now provide terminal access to Kubernetes pods using the same mechanism as kubectl attach. This allows Guacamole to be used to interact with Kubernetes pods without requiring that those pods host an SSH or telnet service. I have never used Guacamole or K8s (still stuck on Docker) but I assume this makes connecting to a containerized desktop much easier. Great work to everyone involved.

laumars 7y ago
> It would be great if these sorts of posts would include a description of what's big about these releases. If you were already excited about this Guacamole release, then you probably didn't need the reminder. I agree but unfortunately HN only allows you to submit a URL or test, not both. Also you're not technically supposed to editorialise the page title either. Thankfully the release notes on this particular site are well written.

catmanjan 7y ago

I've looked at using this before to provide a "thin client" legacy desktop app - is anyone doing the same with Guacamole? Care to share your experience?

ldoughty 7y ago
I use it to provide access to cloud systems as essentially a bastion. The target computers often have serious vulnerabilities exposed (like metasploitable windows targets, and machines with very easy passwords).. so supporting legacy OS & software is reasonably secure (at least if guacamole is the only access point)
patentatt 7y ago
If I’m understanding you correctly, I used guacamole for just this purpose once. Terrible legacy desktop app needed to be ‘ported’ to ‘the cloud’ ASAP because reasons. While we were working on a proper rewrite, I stood up a VM running the old desktop software and a web page that used guacamole to VNC to the app. Worked fabtabulously, and with a little printer redirection and UI tweaks, wound up being preferred by the users over the rewritten proper web app. In all honesty, not a terrible solution. Users who had been using the app for a decade didn’t have to learn anything new. I did have to learn something new, though, as then we had to port our new features from the real web app back to the VB6 legacy ‘desktop’ app, lol.

fulafel 7y ago

Maybe the submitter could highlight they view as noteworthy in this release?

v4n4d1s 7y ago
Switch to freerdp 2.0 and swiss german keyboard layout are my highlights.

w0utert 7y ago

I really like the idea implemented by Apache Guacamole, but when I tried to install it on my home server get remote desktops to my other machines when abroad, it was a huge letdown. First of all the installation process is terrible, you need to install and configure a whole working tomcat8 server first and manually deploy the application WAR, configuration is non-obvious and obtuse, and the first ~10 tries after deploying Guacamole failed to establish VNC connections without a clear indication what went wrong. Over the years I've installed loads of services, not just trivial ones (e.g. nginx with SSL and multiple vhosts on different domains, reverse proxies, SSH tunnels, VPN servers, etc) and while I wouldn't say installing Guacamole was hard, the process just felt unnecessarily complicated. Not a nice experience. Second, when I finally managed to get Guacamole to establish a VNC connection to an OS X client, the performance was straight up horrible. That's over a Gbit ethernet LAN, which I also use to stream games to a steam link at 60fps. Granted, this was connecting to desktop with 5K resolution and 32-bit color, but connecting to it directly using a VNC client works just fine. Through Guacamole it was literally unusable. Is this to be expected?

fuzzy2 7y ago
My recommendation: Use Docker. No need to deal with all the gritty details. If needed, reverse-proxy it. Guacamole is (in my experience) unfortunately rather inefficient concerning bandwidth. You can’t compare it to Steam Link either, because that’s using H264 video compression. Guacamole does not use video compression. A single 5K 24 bit bitmap is ~42 MiB. That’s a lot, even compressed and especially at reasonable frame rates.
- ldoughty 7y ago
  I second using containers for guacamole. Also agree, this isn't intended to be a replacement for direct access, nor for streaming purposes. This gives you and RDP session with no software install needed. The use case of guacamole is accessing a system from anywhere without needing your ssh keys, RDP, or VNC software. If you're happy doing any of those directly, adding a middle man doesn't add any value. That said, if you're managing others accessing the system, you can bastion of the target machines and only expose this access. This lets you put the target machines behind NAT, and only manage one entry point.

unwind 7y ago

Nobody has mentioned it but the header says: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0 has not yet been released! The artifacts and release notes below are drafts for a proposed release of Apache Guacamole which has not yet occurred. So it would seem it has not been released yet.

ldoughty 7y ago
Me heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I saw this link here.... And actually.. it is released, they updated their docker instead making 1.1.0 their latest tag while dropping RC designation I really hope free RDP 2.0 brings some general improvements, the existing implementation on 1.0.0 had terrible thread handling that causes infinite loops in certain situations.

mikece 7y ago

"Guacamole is an HTML5 web application that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols (such as VNC or RDP)." Shouldn't this be front and center on the home page instead of having to find the manual and navigate to the second paragraph of the introduction? That said, it looks like a cool idea and I wonder if it's within the scope of a project like this to implement an abstraction on the keyboard such that using common macOS keyboard shortcuts are translated to their Linux or Windows equivalents (or vice versa). It's a small peeve but I hate accidentally locking Windows when I meant to put focus on the address bar and start typing a URL... UPDATE: I stand corrected: I missed that this wasn't the home page... that's what I get for commenting on a new story before I have my morning coffee.

omegabravo 7y ago
The home page (https://guacamole.apache.org/ https://guacamole.apache.org/), has the description front and centre. The link provided is for their release page, which discusses this particular release. This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190442 on this thread has further discussion.

smitty1e 7y ago

There is an AWS marketplace instance available if you search for "guacamole". You log in at a public DNS as ubuntu with the instance-id for the password. Instance functionality for that quick requirement at a modest fee. Great product.

bjonnh 7y ago

Using it in production here since a few versions. It works perfectly for RDP (VMs that several non computer saavy people have to use including when abroad) and LDAP (slapd) for auth. Performance is really good even for tens of connections at the same time and the users are using old apps that tend to refresh half the screen each time a single pixel changes . Works on Linux, Mac and windows for the clients without having to give specific instructions for each. I used the docker containers for deployment to reduce the hassle As it is running on a VM anyway, I will switch that to ansible playbooks at some point, but the docker install was really smooth, I'm almost wondering if it is worth it.

F00Fbug 7y ago

I hope this project has matured since I last tried it (18 months ago). As wOutert mentioned, the installation process is difficult and not for the faint of heart. Sure, most folks reading this here could manage it, but we're not normal! I really wanted this to work since I'm teaching at a school where all the Windows machines are locked down. I teach a Linux class. I teach a bunch of cyber-security classes and often need to install tools for this. Our IT administrators either refuse to let me install the software I need to teach or put up a huge stink. I stood up a few VMs in my homelab for teaching and was hopeful that I could remote in painlessly. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth I finally got it working. And it worked well. About once a month I do a "yum update" on my CentOS machines and when it ran on this particular machine, it broke something in the Guac stack. I refused to spend the time to fix it! Simultaneously, I'd been having trouble with TeamViewer. The unfortunate reality of any IT professional's life is that you end up doing IT support for the family. TeamViewer was fine for years, but they started flagging my use as commercial. After looking and testing I found AnyDesk; it works every bit as well as TeamViewer and it has a Windows portable client; you don't need to install anything on the client machine (no admin rights needed). So now I either boot my machines from a USB stick with Linux or AnyDesk to where I need to go and my life is much better. When Guacamole is mature and painless like AnyDesk, I'd give it another look.

johnmark 7y ago

If you like Apache Guacamole, you'll love Glyptodon Enterprise. https://glyptodon.com/ https://glyptodon.com/ https://demo.glyptodon.com/ https://demo.glyptodon.com/ Led by the founders/maintainers of Guacamole.