Apart from that I am looking for a solution to a personal issue (see my other comment), I posted this because I was thinking this could be a great way to support other new Linux users and friends.
There was a bit of controversy about them a couple of years back that put me off.
- They used to disable Wayland and force X11 - that was a pain.
- They didn’t fully open source all components I think.
- There was some concerns about where it was being developed, I think it’s entirely Chinese devs.
- There was some concerns about where it was being developed, I think it’s entirely Chinese devs.
Ha, I am thinking since a while that for preventing one’s internet access being hacked by a foreign power, it’s probably best to chain an American-made router with a Chinese one so that they can firewall each other 😉
On a more serious note… yes, nation-state attacks on infrastructure like xz-utils do exist, and as Stuxnet has shown, they are also being used against high-profile targets like Iranian nuclear faculities..
Such attacks against infrastructure are to be taken serious. But the xz-utils case and Stuxnet also have shown a few things:
- Such attacks are incredibly time-consuming and expensive to mount.
- Once sn attacker hits such a target, they have blown their powder - they can’t continue to use it.
- The xz-utils case shows that open source’s many-eyed principle works astoundingly well.
- xz-utils also confirms that in open source software, you can close a detected backdoor within hours - even if the maintainer of the software does not want that, since you can fork it in seconds. (And using Rust only makes this easier).
So, this topic of foreign state-actor backdoors is less a thing for individuals to worry about. (I agree that lawmakers of democratic states should absolutely worry about this, here a good article be Bert Hubert on the topic.)
However what is actually dangerous is the erosion of privacy and the rising amount of mandated surveillance. But if one is worried about that, one should not use closed-source software in the first place.
I was talking with my brother who was supporting our mother on her Windows laptop. He was using TeamViewer for years but that company now requires to subscribe to an expensive license on top of this is a really security- and privacy-sensitive kind of access.
His main requirements are that the new solution are:
- safe
- very easy to use for the supported person
- better works without VPN, public ports etc though this isn’t mandatory.
So, it needs to be easy. I was first thinking in VNC but while I have been using TigerVNC for years in Home Office, this looks not exactly as easy as TeamViewer.
Last week was talking with our stand-in admin at work who turns out to know Linux well. He said he has very good experiences with RustDesk, uses it for home office and also for remotely accessing Windows machines.
What are your experiences?
Does it have multimonitor support?
Yes
I assume only as long as remote is using adequate number of physical monitors? Or can one run a virtual guest with a single virtual monitor and then use as many monitors as host has?
I have used many different RDP’s, but RustDesk seems the best option. Yesterday I had to configure my Steam Deck and I am glad that RustDesk can be found in the Discover software manager.
Does that client work with a fully selfhosted server with no 3rd party relays?
Not yet. Had to use relay option.
Does that require trust?
For long distance access, i always used parsec, though i’m not sure how secure it is.
