A couple local networking questions: remote desktop, file sharing, bittorent

Happysin said:

Ok, remembered my basics and just created a local user I can log in as for file access. Definitely interested on opinions on the others.

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There are plenty of free remote access apps like TeamViewer or AnyViewer, but they've gotten to the point that they mostly all want you to use an account to run them, and they don't work if your network is down. VNC is a free option that works fine for occasional management locally; it's not as smooth and pretty as those other apps but it is old and "venerable". You could also get a network KVM switch, which is kind of overkill but also provides you with physical console access if you run into problems without needing to drag those devices over to plug into the machine. They're ridiculously expensive for a single-port device, but cheap on eBay. Or if the system is actually sitting somewhat near your main computer, a regular KVM would work; just has to be close enough for USB cable or wireless dongle limits and have the display connectors you need.

Many regular torrent clients have a WebUI option now. I use qBittorrent as my client and it has one. I'm not sure about the automatic loading of a torrent when you drop the file into a folder, and a lot of torrent search sites use magnet links these days so you may not even be able to get the files. You have to do a bit more work to push a magnet link to the client via the WebUI. Either manually adding the link after copying it from the site, or there is apparently a Remote Torrent Adder extension and a few configuration changes needed in the client.

And if you want to be all l33t, you could install something besides Windows and make the system really powerful, turn it into a NAS or Linux server and whatnot.

Happysin said:

I was considering a KVM, but thought that might be overkill.

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I mean, it's really only overkill if something doesn't give you any added benefit sufficient to justify the cost. Amazon has a no-name 2-port with HDMI video ports for only $23 right now. You PROBABLY won't need to have physical console access very often, and if you've got spare k/v/m devices then they'll work if you're trying to troubleshoot things on those occasions, but if you don't have them then it's hard to do since you can't have your main PC working at the same time for reference, downloading files, making USB sticks, etc. (assuming you don't also have a laptop).

I'm tempted to buy that KVM now even though I don't actually have more than one system running and probably won't anytime soon and wouldn't run it at the same desk anyway, just to have it, even though I do also have a laptop. I'm just that type of person.
View: https://www.amazon.com/ABLEWE-Computers-Keyboard-Printer-Monitor/dp/B08NVKHRRT

There are other VNC applications, but I'd say just upgrade to Pro and be done with it. I've run across tons of other remote access apps and services but they're mostly relay type things (like TeamViewer) and most of those now push really hard to make you at least have to register a free account even to use it, and pay for useful features like file transfer, audio, good resolution, not having watermarks, etc. You probably do not need audio, and file transfer can be done with a shared folder, but who knows what other things those service will limit next. You can get one of the super-cheap gray-market Pro licenses (there's another thread going with links if you can't find one) instead of having to go through the MS Store where it's ridiculously expensive.

Remote Desktop may be such a low-usage part of the OS that they don't want to make the effort of integrating all the authentication functionality to connect to passwordless authentication. Getting all that to pass through the RDP connection securely may not be trivial, perhaps not even possible in the case of something like a FIDO2 key when a non-Windows client or different version could connect. Or maybe it's the other way around, that passwordless authentication is low usage. (Probably a combination of the two - the number of people wanting both is lowest.) Seems like they could add an option for local-only authentication easily, similar to the PIN code that exists only on that machine, with requirements like the TPM being enabled, and other requirements to make it more secure than a PIN. Default to 12-characters minimum, for example. Perhaps block use of at least some of the most insecure common passwords. Anything to try to retain some of the security while not just switching to the MS account password.

Somewhere along the line they've just decided they simply do not care to make it more functional, and possibly they have some reason we can't fathom that makes them think it would be worse for the company if they did make it better. Microsoft could very easily have come up with their own version of VNC long ago if they wanted. Back in olden times, Remote Desktop actually had a "console" option where you were connecting to the local console rather than a remote session, but they took that out like 20+ years ago. I don't know if that would have made it easier for them to integrate the additional authentication functions or not, but it seems like it would at least allow the local PIN option.

What makes it seem more strange, now that I think about it, is that they're trying really hard to make Windows "a service" and pushing "cloud PCs" again with Windows 365, so one would think they'd be trying to add these authentication options to make that as secure and easy as possible. Even if it came down to some of the functions only working if you used the official Microsoft Remote Desktop Client and it only worked from a supported version of Windows in order to ensure a secure pass-through of something like a FIDO2 key authentication, I think that would be satisfactory for most people. That would also fall down to being used for Remote Desktop Servers in corporations.

That sounds weird, but then thinking really hard it kind of makes sense, but not consistently. And I've run into that before at my last job (or at least another tech did and told us about it). He was repurposing some NUC-like devices and wiped them and installed Windows as well as our remote management agent, which included LogMeIn, but found the same issue with LogMeIn not working shortly after startup. (And I found mention of it with some other remote control apps like that.) The dummy plugs resolved that problem. However, we never had this problem with headless servers or even desktops that were headless and just for remote access, all using integrated graphics. I think it may not be a universal thing for the graphics to shut down like that, and may be a BIOS function. You didn't mention the type of PC you're using. Is it a mini or a desktop, with internal or external graphics? What CPU and GPU?

Regarding Remote Desktop, I have a build machine which uses a usb key for signing.
I log into it via RD to kick off a standard build normally.
When I run a signed build via RD, the key has to be plugged into the machine I'm stiing at, not the machine that's doing the build.
RD is somehow proxying the key request from the remote to the local PC.

So you may be able to RD into your headless box with the key plugged into the machine you are RDing from.
I'd love to know if that works.