MeshCentral Blog

This week is spring break in Oregon and we are going to celebrate with a smaller and more fun MeshCentral2 update. We just released support for viewing multiple computers desktop at the same time . This is very useful for digital signage usages where you want to monitor the screens of many computers in real time. In MeshCentral2 v0.1.5-p , you can now select “Desktops” in the view drop-down on the top right of the devices view. You will see all your currently connected computers and you can click on the screens to toggle connection to that device. On the multi-desktop screen, you click “Connect all” or “Disconnect all” to connect/disconnect all screens at once. Check “AutoConnect” to connect to all desktops and automatically connect to any new computer that comes online. Like all of the other screens on MeshCentral2, the multi-desktop screen is fully real time, with computer names, icons and status being updated on the web page without user interaction. If you are looking at managi...

Just posted on the MeshCommander.com web site a new do-it-all command line tool for Intel® AMT that runs on both Windows and Linux . The new tool is called “MeshCmd” also called “MeshCommand”. It makes it easy to do all sorts of things with Intel AMT including: get Intel AMT state, perform basic activation, LMS services, configuration and remote management of other Intel AMT computers on the network and much more. If you are in the Intel AMT space, take a look at the new MeshCmd tutorial video on YouTube , it’s really worth a watch. MeshCmd is a single executable file available for download on MeshCommander.com along with a full user’s guide (pdf). Here is a quick list of what MeshCmd can do in the context of Intel AMT: Get the local state of Intel AMT, including version, activation state and more. Show the Intel AMT audit log of your local computer (even without any credentials) or of a remote computer. Startup LMS services along with local hosting of MeshCommander for L...

MeshCentral is an open source web based remote computer management web site. We release new versions many times a week and this week we added a bunch of more interesting features & improvements: New MeshCentral installer for Windows . MeshCentral2 is pretty amazing in that you can install and run a new server easily and within minutes on both Windows and Linux. However, for Windows users we just made the process of getting your own MeshCentral2 server up and running even simpler with the all new MeshCentral2 installer for Windows . This installer will automatically detect, download and install NodeJS if needed along with installing the very latest version of MeshCentral. It can also be used for limited configuration of the server to get you started and to perform server updates. The new installer is fast, interactive and super simple. Anyone can launch a remote management service in minutes. Wide screen toggle . You can now toggle the web page to use the full widt...

MeshCentral offers web based remote desktop, terminal and file transfer allowing administrators to access and remotely manage computers on the local network or over the Internet. So far, we had to relay the traffic from the user’s browser thru the server to the mesh agent on the remote computer creating a lot of traffic on the server which slows down the connections and adds to server workload and hosting costs. To go a long way to solving the traffic relay thru the server problem, last week the latest version of MeshCentral2 was published with WebRTC support turned on by default . This feature is in large part due to many longs days and late night coding sessions by Bryan Roe who worked on fixing and updating BCP’s WebRTC data stack for this usage. With this new version, the Browser and Mesh Agent will attempt to communicate directly to each other using WebRTC bypassing the server entirely. If successful, the remote desktop and terminal session are faster, lower-latency a...

Because MeshCentral is web based and deals with lots of administrative information, it’s important that all traffic be authenticated and encrypted using HTTPS. However, for people setting up their own MeshCentral2 server, obtaining a trusted TLS/HTTPS certificate can be a problem and cost money. Well, this week, the problem is solved by building-in Let’s Encrypt support right into MeshCentral2 . With this latest version ( Currently v0.1.2-s ), you can configure MeshCentral to automatically obtain, use and renew its HTTPS certificate. To use this new feature, you need to have your own MeshCentral2 server setup with a domain name pointing to it. You also need the MeshCentral HTTP server to be accessible over the Internet on port 80 - mapping it to a different port will not work. You can find out how to configure automatic TLS certificates in the latest version of the MeshCentral User’s Guide , we added a new section on Let’s Encrypt. Once setup correctly, MeshCentral will ...

MeshCommander is a web-based Intel® AMT management console that you can download, install and use to connect to and manage your Intel® AMT computers. MeshCommander is over two years old, turning out to be a popular tool. A few days back I published MeshCommander on NPM for easy installation on Linux, OSX and Windows . Most people familiar with NodeJS will know exactly what this means. Enter a new folder and type:     npm install meshcommander     node ./node_module/meshcommander This will start a small MeshCommander web server on any operating system with NodeJS and NPM installed. Then point your browser to http://localhost:3000 which is the default location and you are good to go. Never has it been easier and run MeshCommander on Linux or OSX. I think this is perfect for people using Intel® AMT for IoT and wanting to have a high quality Intel® AMT console. If you want to update to the latest version of MeshCommander, just run the first li...

It’s a new year and MeshCentral2 is moving forward with plenty of new features with the goal of having the first non-Beta version in the first half of this year. MeshCentral is an open source web based remote computer management web site. In the last month, many significant new features where added and an all new User’s Guide packed with installation and configuration help. New updates are released on NPM at a regular cadence (more than once a week). For this last month, here are the big improvements: Email support, verification and account reset capability . This is one of these features that you wish you had implemented years ago. MeshCentral2 can now be configured with a SMTP mail server allowing it to send email messages. Then, we implemented email verification so that when you create an account, the server will send you an email to verify the account is attached to a correct email address. We also added account password reset support. Forgot your password? No longer...