Ask Slashdot: Easy, Open Source Desktop-Sharing Software?

N8F8 writes "Like many IT professionals, I provide a lot of free help desk-type support to friends and family. I've decided to expand my support work and create a site where veterans can receive free computer help. I'm using OSTicket for the ticket reporting. What I really need is an easy to use desktop-sharing system. In the past I've used TeamViewer because it is easy to use, but it is not really free for non-personal use. Recently I switched to Meraki Systems Manager because it is free — and it uses VNC — but unfortunately it isn't intended for the one-time-use type support I'll be offering. So I'm looking for a reliable, open source, easy to use desktop-sharing solution that I can set up on my site for people to join one-time-use help desk sessions."

ChunkVNC + Instant Support

[iCEBaLM]

ChunkVNC + Instant Support is great and can be found here: http://www.chunkvnc.com/ [chunkvnc.com] Do yourself a favor and click the "Help" at the top of the page to get to the forums and look for rat's 4.0 fork.

Basically what you do is run a repeater on an internet accessable box, use the scripts to customize and create a small (2mb usually) "instantsupport.exe" that you can link on a website somewhere, and then when the user runs it, they either pick a support technician, or get an ID number that you use to connect to them, through the repeater, using the chunk viewer.

UltraVNC Single Click

[number11]

UltraVNC Single Click [uvnc.com] is a small (Win) executable customized to connect the user to your address. You run VNC Viewer in "listen" mode. It's very simple to use, doesn't require installing, can be downloaded by the user or sent via email (if they can receive .exe files), works through user NAT. I've been using it for years, directed to my dynamic IP via dyndns. You can customize what the user client looks like. Don't know if it works with Win8 though, and it doesn't work for users running OSX or Linux.

port forward and reverse vnc

[gandhi_2]

I just open a port on my FW, and use a reverse VNC setup with a listening viewer.

The other guy connects to a listening viewer to my IP.

You could prolly find a portable-executable vnc server and roll it up with a launcher to call it with appropriate args like your IP.

Chrome Remote Desktop (not OSS but very easy)

[Tetravus]

Google published a remote desktop plugin for the Chrome browser. It's not Open Source, but it is free (as in beer), and professionally written installation / setup instructions are available in multiple languages.

Actual remote access for you will be controlled by the user, they create a one-time passkey in Chrome and share that with you to connect to their system.

Here's the plugin page: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp [google.com]

Here's the support page: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/1649523?hl=en [google.com]

For non-technical users adding a browser plugin is going to be much easier to understand than messing around with port forwarding and system permissions.

Re:UltraVNC Single Click

[Richy_T]

His method uses the client in listen mode though. This is the solution I was going to suggest. It's simple to write a small self-extracting executable that contains the VNC server and launches it with parameters telling it to connect to the client. I even had it integrated with our helpdesk software so that the helpdesk people could choose to pick up the connections (the software I wrote to launch the server would actually wait until one of the helpdesk people "accepted" the user before launching the server).

Re:UltraVNC Single Click

[rosseloh]

This is what we use at our shop, but it's gone way downhill recently. There is now a problem/bug somewhere, either in a recent update of the client or in MS's implementation of UAC, that prevents you from controlling anything that requires admin permissions remotely. This happens even when UAC is fully disabled as far as I've seen. It used to just bring up the standard UAC prompt ("do you want to do this thing") that we couldn't see or click on, but once you got through it everything worked well.

Nothing quite like opening up MMC, suddenly finding you can't click anything, and having to walk the customer through how to look at event logs. I wish I knew who to blame.

Re:Contact TeamViewer

[N8F8]

I'll consider this but I'm an Open Source advocate and I would like to have the option of customizing the solution.

jitsi

[higuita]

I use locally a set of scripts that remotly install a vnc, start it, connect to it and uninstall it on the end.

For more remote access, i use both teamviewer or jitsi.

Jitsi is a XMPP cliente in java, with great support for VOIP and Video, and allows remotly control the computer... so it's easy to start a session for people that i'm connected.

with a little script, you can ask to run a url that runs the jitsi, configure it (asking a name+email probably) and starting a chat. You can then ask for remote control the machine.

yes, teamviewer is simpler, but with jitsi you can control all the process

Google Chrome and remote desktop app

[caseih]

By far the easiest and cheapest would be to have them be running Google Chrome and install the remote desktop app. They need to just fire it up, have it generate a code, and give you that code that you plunk in your end. It's fairly fast, secure (one-time codes), and works on mac, linux, and windows.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp?hl=en [google.com]