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Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

guacamole.apache.org

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Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#31

Post by mikece »

"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.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#32

Post by ldoughty »

ubercow13 wrote: post #29
w0utert wrote: post #21

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 depl…

Agreed, the configuration is not pleasant. I also tried many alternatives this while abroad recently and actually found plain VNC the most performant and pleasant to use, and it's trivial to set up.

Guacamole is not intended to replace normal remote connections... It provides additional features that target people whom can't reasonably use RDP or VNC themselves ...

it provides access management so you don't need to expose the server, or the user/passwords, to gain access... You can also record the sessions ... And some other neat features... None of which really soon to replace a direct connection made by a technically savy individual between to machines on a network he controls.

But imagine the benefit for schools -- high schoolers can be given access to a virtual machine, without installing RDP or similar protocols on the students machine, and without giving them virtualization tools that might allow when to bypass student safety protections

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#33

Post by omegabravo »

mikece wrote: post #31

"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 ke…

The home page (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 on this thread has further discussion.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#34

Post by smitty1e »

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.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#35

Post by w0utert »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #22
w0utert wrote: post #21

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 depl…

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 f…

>> You can’t compare it to Steam Link either, because that’s using H264 video compression. Guacamole does not use video compression.

This part I don't really understand. Why does a client guacamole VNC connection be less inefficient in terms of bandwidth compared to a direct client VNC connection?

And if the general idea of sending screen data to a client be much more efficient if you use something like H264, why doesn't Guacamole implement some kind of similar compression technique?

I used NX for a while, and that does something very similar. On a slow connection you can actually see the compression artefacts when scrolling. It's not pretty, but at least it makes the machine accessible.

Anyway, when I tried guacamole, it was over Gbit LAN, if that's not even enough expose a VNC client using Guacamole, what's the point?

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#36

Post by w0utert »

ldoughty wrote: post #30
fuzzy2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

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…

>> 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.

The point is that I'm not happy to do this directly, for various reasons. I don't want to open up any ports that get forwarded to my LAN for remote desktop, and I want to be able to access LAN clients from machines behind a proxy that just blocks anything but http/https traffic. That's why I looked into Guacamole.

Maybe RDP connections work better with guacamole, compared to VNC, but I don't have any windows machines I want to remote into, so that's of no value to me.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#37

Post by ubercow13 »

ldoughty wrote: post #32
ubercow13 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the configuration is not pleasant. I also tried many alternatives this while abroad recently and actually found plain VNC the most performant and pleasant to use, and it's trivial to set up.

Guacamole is not intended to replace normal remote connections... It provides additional features that target people whom can't reasonably use RDP or VNC themselves ... it provides access management so you don't need to expose the server, or the user/passwords, to gain access... You can also record the sessions ... And some other neat features... None of which really soon to replace a direct connection made by a tech…

Yep, I totally understand the value of it. I just don't recommend it for individual 'homelab' type use cases unless you really need to log in without any client.

I wanted to try all the options because there are many claims out there that they are somehow faster than VNC or other solutions due to clever protocols or compression, however I found that this wasn't really true.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#38

Post by ubercow13 »

w0utert wrote: post #35
fuzzy2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

>> You can’t compare it to Steam Link either, because that’s using H264 video compression. Guacamole does not use video compression. This part I don't really understand. Why does a client guacamole VNC connection be less inefficient in terms of bandwidth compared to a direct client VNC connection? And if the general idea of sending screen data to a client be much more efficient if you use something like H264, why doe…

Compressing the H264 requires quite a bit more processor power on the server. It's fine for steam link because the use case usually involves a powerful gaming PC on the server end, often with a dedicated GPU video encoder.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#39

Post by mwexler »

For everyone wondering what this is:

Via 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.

Re: Apache Guacamole 1.1.0

#40

Post by wbl »

ubercow13 wrote: post #38
w0utert wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You can’t compare it to Steam Link either, because that’s using H264 video compression. Guacamole does not use video compression. This part I don't really understand. Why does a client guacamole VNC connection be less inefficient in terms of bandwidth compared to a direct client VNC connection? And if the general idea of sending screen data to a client be much more efficient if you use something like H264, why doe…

Compressing the H264 requires quite a bit more processor power on the server. It's fine for steam link because the use case usually involves a powerful gaming PC on the server end, often with a dedicated GPU video encoder.

If only there was a way to intercept the screen drawing commands and send those over the network instead.
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