Posts

MeshCentral - Router Improvements, Agent Tags, Rock64, Crash Dumps

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This week plenty more improvements and new features. The focus has been on MeshCentral Router, a Windows native tool that allows TCP/UDP port mappings, remote desktop and now, remote file management. I also purchased a Rock64 computer and tested MeshCentral on it resulting in a Tweet that got a lot of likes from the community. On top of it all, we have a new agent crash web page for developers, new agent tag parsing and a new automated build system on Linux. In detail:
MeshCentral Router Improvements. MeshCentral Router got a lot of improvements in the last week. Because it’s a native Windows tool, it does not have the limitations of the browser sandbox and so, can integrate better with the local OS. Here are some of the improvements:Remote File Manager. There is now a built-in file manager. You can right click on a device and open a local/remote file window that allows quick navigation of the file system on the remote computer and quick upload/download of many files at once. The file …
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MeshCentral - Agent on Router, Linux Installer, WebDAV Backups, Desktop Sharing

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This week Bryan extended the reach of MeshCentral by releasing a new MeshAgent for OpenWRT MIPS routers. This allows MeshCentral to manage a completely new class of routers and allow web-based access to these devices from anywhere in the world. Having a MeshAgent running within a router allows for an always-on jumping off point for remote access to other devices on the home or office network. We also improved the auto-backup feature and more. In detail:
MeshAgent on MIPS OpenWRT. OpenWRT is an open source router firmware and this last week, Bryan used the fact that the MeshAgent is super portable to compile it for OpenWRT. Specifically, we tested the agent on the Gl.iNet AG-750 which is a compact travel router that comes with OpenWRT built-in along with the ability to place a MicroSD card for extra storage. The result is that it’s now possible to install the MeshAgent on a home or office router and use that device as primary access to the rest of the network with MeshCentral’s TCP/UDP …
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MeshCentral - New Style, Remote Zip, Multi-Language Events

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Strangely this week, all major MeshCentral improvements have not been requested by the community, instead they are all things that I had on my “todo” list for a long time. One pleasant surprise was that one of these changes generated the most positive feedbacks on Twitter ever. This week the big new thing is the new optional styling for the MeshCentral login page and some of the sub-pages. In detail:
New Login Page Style. I have seen some complains that the MeshCentral login page was a bit “dated” and so as of this week, there is a new login page style that looks more modern. You can switch the style in the config.json and the new pages fully support all the existing languages and features including 2FA using time tokens, SMS, email and more. Some of the other sub-pages like the public file sharing page and 404 page also get the new style. In the coming weeks, the new styling will be switched to be the default style, however anyone can select the style they want.New Page Style Customiz…
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MeshCentral - Google Backup, Auditor, Notifications, Streaming

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This week the feature steamroller kept moving forward as more versions of MeshCentral are rapidly released with the community’s help. As usual, more bug fixes where made. This week, the focus was on making it easier for MeshCentral installations to comply with proper administrative procedures, notably, automated off-side backups and server auditing. The big addition was automated backup’s to Google Drive making MeshCentral installations more robust than ever. In detail:
Google Drive Automated Backups. As many administrators know, when running a cloud server like MeshCentral, it’s important to not only make regular server backup’s, but also keep the backups off-site. The latest version of MeshCentral makes this easy by offering built-in support for uploading server backup’s to Google Drive. MeshCentral already creates daily encrypted backups, but now, you can setup a trusted link to a Google account using OAuth and MeshCentral will upload and automatically manage backup’s in the Google …
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MeshCentral - Router Compression, Passwords, MeshCtrl, Finnish.

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This week we got a pile more improvements for MeshCentral. The online community has been great, Bryan and I are having a hard time keeping up with all the feedback and contributions but doing our best. Just this week, we received improved translations in Spanish and French and a completely new translation of MeshCentral is Finnish. Thank you to Mika Laavola for the hard work with Finnish, very much appreciated. We got a pile of improvements, so in detail:
MeshCentral Router Compression. Following up on the previous announcement that MeshCentral supports web socket compression, this week the latest MeshCentral Router now also supports compression. If your MeshCentral server has this feature enabled, MeshCentral Router will automatically detect this and compress traffic to and from the server and this, for TCP/UDP traffic routes and remote desktop. Also new to this latest version is live network traffic dialog boxes so you can see how much data is being sent and received and the compress…
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MeshCentral - Desktop Sharing, FIDO Pin, Guest Accounts, Agent Invite

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As we work with the GitHub community on many topics, there was an interesting request last week.  The request was to be able to hand out a browser link that would allow a device to be remotely controlled for a limited amount of time to anyone with the link. This link could be used without server account and would be perfect to grant device access for a guest. Well, this week we implemented this feature in MeshCentral and the feedback has been wonderful. This is on top of many other features and bug fixes that was completed this week. In detail:
Remote Desktop Sharing. This is the big new feature of the week. If you even need to have a friend take over a specific device for a limited time, you no longer need to give them a MeshCentral account. Instead, you go in a device, hit the share button and create a limited time remote desktop link. The maximum time is 1 hour, and you must enter a guest name for auditing purposes. Once done, send the link to your friend and they can immediately se…
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MeshCentral - Binary Installer, Favorite Devices, Batch Tagging, Router

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This week we got another batch of updates and improvements to MeshCentral and the MeshCentral Agent. I do want to thank the GitHub community for their help finding issues, feature suggestions and help with translations. This week the main announcement is the addition of self-installing binaries for many non-Windows platforms (Linux, macOS and BSD). Just like with Windows, MeshCentral can now generate on-the-fly a self-installing binary for many platforms that include server and account connection information and more. This is all thanks to Bryan Roe for agent improvement to make this possible. You can now download, execute and install the agent using only the binary. In detail:
Linux, macOS, BSD Self-installing Agent Binaries. MeshCentral supports many platforms, but in the past only the Windows had a self-installing agent binary. Now, this has been added to many other platforms that run graphical user interfaces. You can opt to download an agent for 64bit x86 Linux, MeshCentral will t…
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