What would you use to remotely support a computer with "LAN" access?
I have a few family members that I help support. For instance, I installed Linux Mint on my grandmother's PC. She doesn't know any different and my young cousin doesn't understand it so he finally stopped giving it viruses. I used to use TeamViewer to take over her PC when she needed support but I got my account banned because they believed I was using it commercially. Oh well!
I have Tailscale installed on the computers. This gives me SSH access. What would you suggest? RDP? Something else?
You can forward the VNC port with a local port forward e.g ssh -L $yourPort:localhost:$vncPort $grandmasMachine. Then open Remmina (or KRDC, or some other VNC client).
I do hope your grandma has good upload speeds though.
Bless you for spreading the word of the penguin and being the support of your family. Props to you.
I don't need any props. I'm not spreading any word. It's for selfish reasons. My grandparents only use the web browser, so they don't know/care what an OS is. The reason I did it in the first place (they've been running Linux Mint for almost 10 years now) was my cousin kept trying to install Minecraft Mods and giving them viruses. XD
I think that screen lock is really only the case in Windows. Most linux vnc and rdp servers either run their own completely separate X session or share the console session.
Gotcha. As usual with Linux, there are lots of ways to crack the nut. I would be inclined to go with the built-in option, in this case. Less likely to break.
I think VNC protocol over your tailscale tailnet would work well. It shares the screen without locking out the in-person user.
You could also try Steam remote play, it shares the desktop like what you’re asking, but would require a bit if setup (custom “game” added which would expose the entire desktop for e.g.), and wouldn’t be useful without someone relaunching it after a reboot, so wouldn’t be very useful for remote management without grandma available at the machine.
I would stay away from X11 over SSH because X11is deprecated in favor of Wayland and will stop working as you upgrade the OS (if it even works now).
RustDesk looks promising but it sounds like it may lock the screen for the in-person user, but I’ve never used it so can’t say for sure.
The thing about rustdesk is I don't see how I could run it unless I am at the computer. Ideally, I'd like to be able to take control without having to walk through like, "look for an app called "rust desk". Is there a way to open a desktop application through SSH so that it opens on their open desktop?
Server is a VPS running several other services and it doesn't load them much at all. I think the server provides the handshake, and the rest is done on the two clients.
X forwarding should let you use GUI apps from the remote computer. Its not quite a full remote desktop experience though. You can see how to set up and use x forwarding on YouTube.