NethServer MeshCentral - A web-based remote management tool

mrmarkuz · September 16, 2020, 8:56pm

Hi friends,

here’s another nice remote tool ready for testing…

Thanks to @dnutan for discovering and a lot of installation notes and to @oneitonitram for pointing out the LDAP configuration.

MeshCentral

Features

Remote access to desktop, console and files
IP Filter, 2FA, Mail validation
Provides Linux and Windows agents
Wake on LAN
Remote commands like shutdown, reboot or uninstall agent
LAN/WAN/Hybrid mode - VPS support
MongoDB 3.6 to support a lot of remote clients
AD/LDAP integration
Customization (titles, pictures)

Installation

A valid certificate like letsencrypt and a dedicated virtualhost are needed.

Check out the wiki for detailed installation instructions.

Screenshots

Devices:

Proxmox terminal:

Ubuntu desktop:

alefattorini · September 17, 2020, 1:51pm

Great job! Really complete howto

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 10:17am

if the old version was install, how do we update to this version @mrmarkuz

mrmarkuz · September 18, 2020, 10:32am

It depends if you used mongodb.

If yes you should be able to just update.

If not then you need to migrate from internal db to mongodb, see MeshCentral doc, search for import / export.

Another method is to delete the old version and just install the new one without updating (you need to reconfigure MeshCentral):

Delete meshcentral/internal database:

rm -rf /opt/meshcentral

Delete mongo database:

scl enable rh-mongodb36 "mongo --eval 'db.dropDatabase();' meshcentral"

Install meshcentral module.

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 10:33am

in this case mongoDb was not used for this installation.

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 10:48am

will running this delete the old meshcentral version to llow for installation using the new version, or are ther more things that need to be done.

i guess wince i do not have alot running on it, i can just rebuild the settings. and components, considering the new version will make it easier to update

mrmarkuz · September 18, 2020, 10:52am

That should be enough to remove the howto version.

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 10:56am

ok, let me get to work. i hope i had not edited alot of changes on the settings files.

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 11:10am

Have installed. am getting a service unavailable error. what could be the issue?

mrmarkuz · September 18, 2020, 11:20am

Did you go through the installation steps?

Are there errors in messages log?

Maybe there’s still a reverse proxy from the howto install, please delete it.

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 1:14pm

have removed the reverse proxy,

running

/var/log/httpd/* for checking reverse proxy
/var/log/messages for checking meshcentral

gives me a no permission error

running status gives me this error.

● meshcentral.service - MeshCentral Server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/meshcentral.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-09-18 16:05:11 EAT; 6s ago
Process: 62120 ExecStart=/opt/rh/rh-nodejs10/root/usr/bin/node /opt/meshcentral/node_modules/meshcentral/me shcentral.js (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 62120 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

mrmarkuz · September 18, 2020, 1:26pm

Please share the configuration:

config show meshcentral

oneitonitram · September 18, 2020, 3:44pm

[root@monit ~]# config show meshcentral
meshcentral=service
    TCPPort=4443
    access=green
    status=enabled

mrmarkuz · September 18, 2020, 5:38pm

There’s no config.
There should be other and more configuration entries, did the installation of meshcentral run without errors?

Please read the wiki article and configure meshcentral accordingly.
You need to set a virtualhost.

oneitonitram · September 19, 2020, 7:09am

[root@monit ~]# config show meshcentral
meshcentral=service
    AgentAllowedIP=
    LoginPicture=
    MailFrom=
    MailHost=
    MailPort=
    MailTLS=disabled
    MailValidation=enabled
    TCPPort=4443
    Title=COMPANY
    Title2=RemoteManager
    TitlePicture=
    UserAllowedIP=
    VirtualHost=mesh.genius-domain.com
    WANOnly=enabled
    access=red
    ldap=disabled
    status=enabled

mrmarkuz · September 19, 2020, 7:25am

Is it working now?

The access prop should be empty or localhost.

oneitonitram · September 19, 2020, 7:32am

not working still

mrmarkuz · September 21, 2020, 5:29pm

It turned out that nodejs was corrupted, so the meshcentral service did not start.

A reinstall of rh-nodejs10 and npm solved the issue:

yum reinstall rh-nodejs10 rh-nodejs10-npm

Rodrigo_Vieira_da_Co · September 24, 2020, 7:58pm

Wow