MeshCentral - Agent updates, Scaling, ChromeOS, View-only sharing, Mobile improvements

Once again in the last week there have been huge improvements to MeshCentral. While many of the changes are visible to MeshCentral users, the focus this week will be on internal changes that are not seen by anyone but are important to making things work smoothly. The two big internal changes are the addition of a second independent way of updating the Mesh Agent remotely and big scaling improvements in how MeshCentral accesses the MongoDB database for massive speed and scalability gains. Another notable feature is Mesh Agent support for ChromeOS when in debug mode. This week, many of the improvements are thanks for Bryan Roe who released a much-improved Mesh Agent and installation and update infrastructure. In details: 

  • Dual agent update path. One of the most complicated parts of MeshCentral is the agent which must support many different platforms and be capable of self-updating correctly on all of them. Starting with MeshCentral v0.7.48, there are now two independent ways of performing an agent self-update. The normal way has the server push the update to the native C code of the agent, the new alternative way involved the JavaScript running within the agent performing a HTTPS pull of the new agent and performing the update. This improvement along with a new agent self-update stress testing system should offer more reliability when testing and deploying agent updates.
  • MongoDB speed and scaling. With the latest versions of MeshCentral there should be a significant speed boost to the server when under load and when used with the MongoDB database. New versions of MeshCentral will now queue up many types of basic database record read, writes and removals and perform MongoDB bulk operations. Under load, the database will now receive significantly fewer but larger queries. In our testing, this leads to a huge 10x to 100x speed boost to the server, with higher speed gains when the server is under load. This should allow MeshCentral to scale a lot more or offer better performance on smaller compute instances.
  • ChromeOS support. The MeshCentral agent now supports installation on ChromeOS devices in debug more. The agent will install itself correctly so that it can auto-start on platform boot and offer remote terminal and file services. In this configuration, no remote desktop is possible. Note that installing the Mesh Agent on a Chrome OS device in debug mode is not typical but will be useful for developers that need this capability. 
  • View-only remote desktop sharing. Since last year, MeshCentral has the ability for users to create time limited remote desktop sharing links that you can give to someone to remotely access your desktop. This week, we added the ability to offer a view-only link so that you can send a link to someone and have them view your desktop. This feature when paired with the desktop multiplexor feature can allow someone to share a remote desktop with many people at once easily. 
  • Mobile applications improvements. The remote desktop view on mobile got many improvements since the start of the year. You now see user consent messages; you can now select which RDP session to view if many are present on the remote device and you can now customize keyboard shortcuts. The combination of all these new feature means that the mobile app now has many of the same features as the full desktop web application. 

In addition to this, MeshCentral has many more bug fixes and improvements. As usual, feedback is appreciated. If you see any problems and need support on something, please create a new issue on GitHub or help other users. If you have not done so already, visit the new portal at https://meshcentral.com, it looks great.

Enjoy!
Ylian
MeshCentral: https://meshcentral.com
Blog: https://meshcentral2.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/meshcentral
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MeshCentral/
GitHub: https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral/issues





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