MeshCentral - RDP integration + RDP NLA support

This week, there is a special new feature released with MeshCentral v1.0.17. There is now a web-based RDP client integrated into the MeshCentral main web site. Starting today, MeshCentral now has 3 integrated remote desktop protocols: MeshAgent, RDP and Intel® AMT KVM. This significantly enhances the flexibility of MeshCentral when it comes to how it can control remote devices. The MeshAgent and RDP are very different in how they work. The MeshAgent remote desktop will control an existing session while RDP will create a new session. Also, RDP is built into Windows with some optimizations that are not easily available to the MeshAgent. In detail:

  • RDP built into the desktop tab. The desktop tab will now present every possible remote desktop option for a device that is supports, this now includes RDP. Based on a modified node-rdpjs by Sylvain Peyrefitte the RDP client acts differently from a MeshAgent desktop session. The most important difference is that an RDP connection creates a new desktop session on the remote computer instead of taking control of an existing session. The protocol is also very different leading to different performance.
  • RDP support in local device group. MeshCentral supports managing devices with no MeshAgent on the local network or remotely thru a MeshAgent relay. The new RDP capability has been added to Windows devices in local device groups allowing easy remoting to devices with no MeshAgents. This makes MeshCentral a lot more useful in managing a larger range of devices.
  • RDP performance settings. As part of the RDP integration, the remote desktop settings dialog box has been improved to support changing settings for all 3 integrates remote protocols. The RDP protocol offers the option to set the new session desktop size and enabled or disable performance options like removing the remote computer’s wallpaper and more.
  • RDP NLA support. A big work item that was difficult and took all last week to accomplish was the addition of Network Layer Authentication (NLA) to the node-rdpjs RDP client. Without this, the remote computers needed to enable “RDP legacy authentication” which is not very secure. This was done by porting RDP NLA support from rdp-js (built in Rust) to node-rdpjs (buit in NodeJS). The work was equivalent to porting a Windows crypto provider from Rust to NodeJS. After a week of work, the result seems to work well.

Special thank you this week to Sylvain Peyrefitte that is the author of both RDP NodeJS and Rust client code bases. Many other features have been added and bug fixes included. As usual, feedback is appreciated. If you see any problems or need support on something, please create a new issue on GitHub or help other users. For more information, visit the portal at https://meshcentral.com.

Enjoy!
Ylian
MeshCentral, Blog, Twitter,
Reddit, GitHub, YouTube.



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