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Show HN: Remote Desktop Protocol in Node.js
- chrisfosterelli 11y agoOh this is great! The remote-host scripting this would allow is super cool.
- brazzledazzle 11y agoUnless you're building malware/pen-test tools or you're targeting old versions of Windows remote management is much easier via winrm. And there's a chance that your preferred language has a library for it already.
- nodesocket 11y agoVery nice work, but Microsoft did a pretty good job with their RDP clients, and making them for OS X and of course Windows. I'm not sure what the draw is for a web-based RDP client.
- m4tthumphrey 11y agoVPS / server management all from one user interface / control panel.
- nly 11y agoWe have this already with VNC. Ramnode has a HTML5 VNC client in their CP.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- smrtinsert 11y agoVNC is supposedly much slower than RDP.
- scott_karana 11y agoVNC is a raster/pixel protocol. RDP uses Windows' drawing primitives. So for anything that's not intrinsically raster (video, 3d rendering), RDP is certainly faster. :)
- cwyers 11y agoRDP on ChromeOS.
- kbutler 11y agohttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desk... chrome addin for rdp on chromeos or chrome desktop browser
- awinder 11y agoOthers have alluded to this elsewhere in the comments, but the draw is that this is a programmable rdp client in Node.JS. You can use this to write host scripting code, you could use this as the basis for something like Screenhero, etc.
- ossreality 11y agoThe shit people will go through just to deal with Windows. Scripting a god damn RDP client in browser with JavaScript. Christ.
- hobarrera 11y agoIt's usable by everyone else NOT using MS (which, in IT, is a lot of people).
- stephengillie 11y agoOh cool! Now you can embed an RDP session into a webpage. Finally, a way to use the primary system administration tool from almost anywhere! With this, you can hand out links to pages with your server RDP already configured - just send the link to the admin and let them administer. How well does this work with dynamic username/password? If we wanted to leave those fields blank, and maybe have the webpage prompt on open? Something missing is RDPClip.exe, which synchronizes the copy/paste clipboard data between your local session and any remote sessions. Though I'm not sure how that would work in some cases.
- daveidol 11y agoAgreed - this is awesome! Also, if you didn't catch it, there appears to be a full web example using this library (as well as websockets) here: https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js
- sciurus 11y agoIs graphical remote desktop really the primary systems administration tool in the windows server world?
- stephengillie 11y agoYeah, it's a widely accepted de facto method for interacting with the GUI. While in Server 2012, it feels like all GUI elements are just wrappers for Powershell cmdlets, most 3rd party tools have only a graphical interface. Server 2003 doesn't support Powershell 4 or newer, nor .NET 4.5.1 or newer, and so IIS6 and other old Windows features have limited CLI interfaces. Most Powershell cmdlets work on Server 2008/R2, but remote (WinRM) isn't enabled. There's a quick command to enable, but that's a security hole like leaving WMI open to the internet, and so is hard to push on secure environments. RDP gives KVM, and that's been enough for decades.
- Already__Taken 11y agoIf people still have '03 they aren't part of the windows server world anymore.
- rpavez 11y agoDo you have any screencast to see it in action?
- citronneur 11y agoAn exemple of node-rdpjs -> https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js https://github.com/citronneur/mstsc.js
- el_duderino 11y agoIf only it supported NLA...
- citronneur 11y agoPlanned in next release
- brazzledazzle 11y agoThat's awesome. Most RDP implementers seem to give up on NLA.
- jacob019 11y agoAre websockets required or can it fall back to polling? I would like to to use it behind an authentication proxy that does not support websockets.
- jacob019 11y agoFinally tested it out. Yes, it does fall back to polling :)
- thrilleratplay 11y agoVery nice. I have been looking for a Node.js based RDP client. I've been wanting to write a web based remote connection manager similar to http://www.mremoteng.org/ http://www.mremoteng.org/ with SSH, RDP and VNC support. ahhh...if I only had free time......