Remotely

A remote control and remote scripting solution, built with .NET Core and SignalR Core.

Website: https://remotely.lucency.co
Public Server: https://tryremotely.lucency.co

Build Instructions (Windows 10)

The following steps will configure your Windows 10 machine for building the Remotely server and clients.

• Install Visual Studio 2019.
  • Link: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
• Install the latest .NET Core SDK.
  • Link: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download
• Clone the git repository and open the solution in Visual Studio.
• Build (in Release configuration) the Remotely_Desktop and Remotely_ScreenCast projects.
  • By default, the screen-sharing desktop app prompts for a host URL and can be changed thereafter. To hard-code a URL, set the ForceHost value in /Remotely_Desktop/ViewModels/MainWindowViewModel.cs to the server's URL.
• Run Publish.ps1 in the Utilities folder.
  • Example: powershell -f [path]\Publish.ps1 -outdir C:\inetpub\remotely -rid win10-x86
  • The output folder will now contain the server, with the clients in the Downloads folder.

Hosting a Server (Windows)

• Download and install the .NET Core Runtime.
  • Link: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download
  • This includes the Hosting Bundle for Windows, which allows you to run ASP.NET Core in IIS.
• Download and unzip the Remotely Windows server package into your IIS site folder.
• An SSL certificate for HTTPS is required. You can install one for free using Let's Encrypt.
  • Resources: https://letsencrypt.org/, https://certifytheweb.com/
• Documentation for hosting in IIS can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/iis/index?view=aspnetcore-2.2

Hosting a Server (Linux)

• Download and install the .NET Core Runtime.
  • Link: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download
• Download and unzip the Remotely Linux server package.
• These files would typically go in /var/www/remotely/.
• Run Remotely_Server_Setup.sh (with sudo), which is in the Utilities folder in source control.
  • Certbot is used in this script and will install an SSL certificate for your site. Your server needs to have a public domain name that is accessible from the internet.
    • More information: https://letsencrypt.org/, https://certbot.eff.org/
  • App root will be the above output folder.
• Change values in appsettings.json for your environment.
• Documentation for hosting behind Nginx can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/linux-nginx?view=aspnetcore-2.2

Session Recording

• You can turn on session recording in appsettings.json.
• The following requirements must be met for it to work:
  • On Linux, libgdiplus must be installed (sudo apt-get install libdgiplus).
  • The process running the app must have access to create and/or modify a folder name "Recordings" in the site's root content folder.
  • FFmpeg must be downloaded and in the same folder as your web app's EXE/DLL.
    • Link: https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html
• Remotely control sessions will first be recorded as a series of images, which will then be converted to MP4 using FFmpeg.

Notes

* .NET Core has two methods of deployment: framework-dependent and self-contained.
    * Framework-dependent deployments require the .NET Core runtime to be installed on the target computers.  It must be the same version or higher that was used to build the app.
    * Self-contained deployments have the runtime built in, so you don't need to install it on the target computers.  As a result, the total file size is much larger.
* .NET Core uses runtime identifiers that are targeted when building.
    * Link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/rid-catalog