Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#41

Post by tekacs » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 12:28 PM UTC

jitl wrote: post #7

I run Guacamole on my home network as an RDP client to my Windows and Linux boxes. It's a fantastic piece of software. It beats VMC widely in terms of speed, and RDP narrowly when used across the internet. I run guacd on my home server and use that to access my interior network from any computer. It's stable, consumes low memory, and works nicely over HTTPS with apache reverse-proxying the Java webapp. A+ amaze your…

> and RDP narrowly

I don't suppose[1] it supports RDP 8's new ability to play video on a remote desktop by streaming the media across and decoding it locally (works in the Win/Mac official clients).

I was amazed and dumbfounded the first time a YouTube video played in a remote session with perfectly in-sync audio and video and instant response to mouse clicks and now find it hard to go back...

[1]: Can't test this myself until I get back to a desktop computer (this is from a phone).

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#42

Post by chromaton » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 12:30 PM UTC

Yardlink wrote: post #25

This could enable some very low development cost cloudwashing of legacy desktop software!

This was my thinking as well. Or to allow formerly plugin-requiring apps to run on the server. Any ideas for how to lock this down on the server side so that it can only run ONE application?

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#43

Post by tekacs » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 12:31 PM UTC

Eiriksmal wrote: post #37

gioele wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's "clientless" as in you don't have to install any software on the machine you want to connect from. Except a browser compatible with HTML5-august-2014-revision. Believe it or not, there are many places stuck in pre-HTML5 times (hotel computers, for example). If it could stream GIFs and accept clicks with server-side image maps, then it would be compatible with every desktop graphical browser in existence (Opera…

> If it could stream GIFs and accept clicks with server-side image maps, then it would be compatible with every desktop graphical browser in existence I can't decide if that's the most brilliant idea I've ever heard or the most terrifying. Probably both.

LogMeIn did this (albeit with refreshing static images for control, IIRC) as a supported in-browser fallback client for almost a decade. It was horrifically painful, but usable in a pinch.

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#44

Post by mdmarra » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 12:46 PM UTC

tekacs wrote: post #41

jitl wrote: post #7

I run Guacamole on my home network as an RDP client to my Windows and Linux boxes. It's a fantastic piece of software. It beats VMC widely in terms of speed, and RDP narrowly when used across the internet. I run guacd on my home server and use that to access my interior network from any computer. It's stable, consumes low memory, and works nicely over HTTPS with apache reverse-proxying the Java webapp. A+ amaze your…

> and RDP narrowly I don't suppose[1] it supports RDP 8's new ability to play video on a remote desktop by streaming the media across and decoding it locally (works in the Win/Mac official clients). I was amazed and dumbfounded the first time a YouTube video played in a remote session with perfectly in-sync audio and video and instant response to mouse clicks and now find it hard to go back... [1]: Can't test this my…

RDP8 also supports RDP over UDP which further enhances performance in high-latency scenarios. I'm assuming that is also not factored into that claim either

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#45

Post by bwblabs » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 1:17 PM UTC

annnnd wrote: post #40

Just wondering: what features of HTML does Guacamole use to make this HTML5-only? Is it video tag? Canvas?

https://github.com/glyptodon/guacamole-client/search?q=video... By looking in the code I think they use Canvas, streaming video would be interesting. Looking at guacamole-common-js/src/main/webapp/modules/Tunnel.js I think they use WebSockets with a XMLHttpRequest fallback?

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#46

Post by wjoe » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #30

Fastidious wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, It seems HTML5 video to me. What kind of setup do you have?

Firefox on Ubuntu. It's probably using a non-free codec (H.264).

It is, but I'm using Firefox on Arch Linux and it works fine for me. H.264 has been supported in Firefox on Linux for a few versions now, although you need gstreamer installed with the relevant plugins.

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#47

Post by ibisum » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 1:52 PM UTC

I wonder if this can be used to set up a multi-headed workstation environment, where each user has their own desktop (Linux) on the same large, megalithic server? I have a machine with 128gigs of RAM and 1TB of SSD .. this seems like the perfect situation where I can give a desktop to 3 or 4 users on the same machine. Anyone know how well that works with Guacamole yet?

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#48

Post by jumpwah » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 1:58 PM UTC

wjoe wrote: post #46

fulafel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox on Ubuntu. It's probably using a non-free codec (H.264).

It is, but I'm using Firefox on Arch Linux and it works fine for me. H.264 has been supported in Firefox on Linux for a few versions now, although you need gstreamer installed with the relevant plugins.

Hey I'm on firefox (latest -31) on arch as well. Thing is vimeo doesn't load for me either. I do have the packages `gstreamer0.10` and `gstreamer0.10-base` installed, however in `about:plugins` in firefox, there are no plugins installed. So does this mean I have to have some such 'plugin' here for h264 to work?

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#49

Post by Thaxll » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 2:04 PM UTC

jitl wrote: post #7

I run Guacamole on my home network as an RDP client to my Windows and Linux boxes. It's a fantastic piece of software. It beats VMC widely in terms of speed, and RDP narrowly when used across the internet. I run guacd on my home server and use that to access my interior network from any computer. It's stable, consumes low memory, and works nicely over HTTPS with apache reverse-proxying the Java webapp. A+ amaze your…

I highly doubt it's better than an optimized protocol like RDP...

Re: Guacamole – HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop

#50

Post by luma » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 2:06 PM UTC

mdmarra wrote: post #44

tekacs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and RDP narrowly I don't suppose[1] it supports RDP 8's new ability to play video on a remote desktop by streaming the media across and decoding it locally (works in the Win/Mac official clients). I was amazed and dumbfounded the first time a YouTube video played in a remote session with perfectly in-sync audio and video and instant response to mouse clicks and now find it hard to go back... [1]: Can't test this my…

RDP8 also supports RDP over UDP which further enhances performance in high-latency scenarios. I'm assuming that is also not factored into that claim either

I kept waiting for the demo video to show any streaming video which they kept avoiding. VNC is ancient by industry standards. While this is convenient and the open license is helpful, there are far more mature remote desktop protocol stacks available commercially. PCoIP, RDP8, ICA/HDX, heck even HP's RGS cam handle streaming video and USB remoting.