Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect

Ylian

Published v0.2.7-o with support for Yubikey's, USB authentication keys. Probably more fixes to do, but it seems to work.

FATeknollogee

@Ylian How is auto-update supposed to work? I have to update manually.

Dashrender

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Published v0.2.7-o with support for Yubikey's, USB authentication keys. Probably more fixes to do, but it seems to work.

Speaking of Yubi-key - have you heard of SQRL? https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm
They have an API now that's supposed to make it a lot easier to implement into webservers.

It's not 100% officially released to the world yet, but it's damned close, and a few sites are already using it.

I hope you'll give it a shot. (and same goes for ML).

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

I hope you'll give it a shot. (and same goes for ML).

Have they made a module for NodeBB yet? If not, they need to so that we can consider it.

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Speaking of Yubi-key - have you heard of SQRL? https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm
They have an API now that's supposed to make it a lot easier to implement into webservers.

I still struggle to trust any website that looks like SW's Curtis made it.

CloudKnight

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@Dashrender said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Speaking of Yubi-key - have you heard of SQRL? https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm
They have an API now that's supposed to make it a lot easier to implement into webservers.

I still struggle to trust any website that looks like SW's Curtis made it.

:face_with_tears_of_joy:

Ylian

@FATeknollogee (Auto-update broken) There was a few versions a month back where auto-update was broken. Otherwise, MeshCentral has to be running in a way that allows it to write it's own files. This said, it auto-update should generally work - If it does not consistently and it should, file a issue on GitHub.

Ylian

Just published MeshCentral v0.2.7-p with improved support for hardware keys. Now supports U2F (need browser support) and OTP (USB key acts as a keyboard). Much better than yesterday's version. New blog here.

smartkid808

I upgraded my install, now I cant login. I can create new accounts OK, but not sure, was I supposed to disabled 2 factor auth (google) before upgrading to new version?

Ylian

@smartkid808 Oh dear... On a safe network, you can run "node meshcentral --user [username]", quickly clean things up and start the server again.

To clarify, when you say "You can't login" - You try to login and are stuck at the "Login token" screen? You only have Google Authenticator setup before? Any more details appreciated.

Ylian

Someone just posted the login problem on GitHub and I posted a fix for it. MeshCentral v0.2.7-r is now live. This fix should solve exactly the problem you got.

scottalanmiller

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Someone just posted the login problem on GitHub and I posted a fix for it. MeshCentral v0.2.7-r is now live. This fix should solve exactly the problem you got.

We are on 0.2.7-s

smartkid808

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@smartkid808 Oh dear... On a safe network, you can run "node meshcentral --user [username]", quickly clean things up and start the server again.
To clarify, when you say "You can't login" - You try to login and are stuck at the "Login token" screen? You only have Google Authenticator setup before? Any more details appreciated.

Hi Yilan, I am non-production.. I am just playing with it, so I have no issues starting from scratch.

I can do the first login, then i can get to the 2nd factor login screen.

I will try to install the new version you posted, and report back.

Thanks for the quick response

smartkid808

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Someone just posted the login problem on GitHub and I posted a fix for it. MeshCentral v0.2.7-r is now live. This fix should solve exactly the problem you got.

Worked like a charm thanks

scottalanmiller

It has been a busy day, just updated to 0.2.8-b

That is SIX releases since yesterday!

black3dynamite

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

It has been a busy day, just updated to 0.2.8-b

That is SIX releases since yesterday!

Some of those were quick fix releases.

vpr00

Anyone tried embedding MC yet?
Ive got it working but im not sure about how to automatically generate login tokens.
As per the manual (http://info.meshcentral.com/downloads/MeshCentral2/MeshCentral2UserGuide-0.2.1.pdf) i generated a "LoginTokenKey" but i cant understand how i can generate login tokens out of that key. Anybody has experience with this?

As far as i understand the business server can be used to generate those, but how? My business server is running on phyton if that matters.

@Ylian: Is the user guide missing some information on how to generate a login token from a login token key or am i missing something here?

scottalanmiller

@vpr00 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Anyone tried embedding MC yet?

No, but we are super interested in that.

vpr00

@scottalanmiller Ive got everthing working besides the issue i described. works pretty good otherwise.

Ylian

I am running way behind on documentation. On embedding, let me know what server type will be the master (NodeJS, ASP.NET...). Once you get MeshCentral running, get the --loginTokenKey and cut and paste it into your server. Then, if the master server is NodeJS, use this code to generate a time limited cookie on your server and use it as documented. The user name is "user/(domain)/(account name in lower case)", the sample below is for "admin" on the default domain. hope it helps until I get time to work on documentation.

obj.crypto = require('crypto');
obj.encodeCookie({ u: 'user//admin', a: 3 }, obj.loginCookieEncryptionKey)

// Encode an object as a cookie using a key using AES-GCM. (key must be 32 bytes or more)
obj.encodeCookie = function (o, key) {
    try {
        if (key == null) { key = obj.serverKey; }
        o.time = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000); // Add the cookie creation time
        const iv = Buffer.from(obj.crypto.randomBytes(12), 'binary'), cipher = obj.crypto.createCipheriv('aes-256-gcm', key.slice(0, 32), iv);
        const crypted = Buffer.concat([cipher.update(JSON.stringify(o), 'utf8'), cipher.final()]);
        return Buffer.concat([iv, cipher.getAuthTag(), crypted]).toString('base64').replace(/\+/g, '@').replace(/\//g, '$');
    } catch (e) { return null; }
};