Solved AnyDesk on FreeBSD is so buggy

hbsd

hbsd

I have deskutils/anydesk (v6.1.1) on FreeBSD 13.1. uname: -a:
FreeBSD FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p2 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p2 GENERIC amd64

I downloaded the latest version from its official website and as you can see, it's installed correctly:

anydesk.png


I mounted /proc directory: # mount -t procfs proc /proc and added proc /proc procfs rw 0 0 to /etc/fstab.

I can't connect to any device. Only a few times I could see my FreeBSD desktop screen through anydesk on Android. I've had this software on Linux and Windows and it works fine. It seems that the development team does not develop this software well on FreeBSD. The strangest thing is that sometimes it doesn't connect at all even though there is internet access.
Please share your experience if you use this tool. Do you have the same problem? Is there anyone using this tool without problems?
 
anydesk is proprietary software - you should contact them directly and open a ticket. Their support is usually very responsive and they actually have some staff which is very familiar with FreeBSD - at least that's my impression from various interactions with their support.

We are using anydesk here with several dozen windows clients and I'm connecting to them from my FreeBSD hosts on a daily basis, which works fine. The various bugs/oddities with Windows 10 are also almost all fixed now, like stalling file transfer or blocked connections if windows sent the screen to standby. The only thing left that hits me every few days is anydesk on FreeBSD sometimes crashes/freezes when W10 decides to ungracefully cut the connection upon reboot or user logout. This should be finally fixed with V 7.x on the Windows side according to their support.

I've never used it to connect from Windows to FreeBSD though (the hell I let that happen...). I also never tried connecting from (or to) any mobile device (how should that work? navigating a normal desktop screen over a tiny touchscreen?).

But as said: contact their support - there's nothing any FreeBSD developer or port maintainer could do. If you look at the port it only downloads the pre-built binary.


EDIT:
I stand corrected - I actually *do* connect to one FreeBSD host where I occasionally have to give some support. That works as well as the crappy uplink on the remote side allows it (~1-2Mbit on good days...). It sometimes takes 30 seconds or more to finally see the remote screen and it's quite laggy, but for the occasional remote help it's bearable. Anything else (updates) is done via ssh anyways...
 
Thank you sko. Yes, I know it is proprietary, but I wanted to ask the users experience. Now I will post this in the AnyDesk forum.
 
sko It seems direct support is only for premium users. People who have not bought this software can only use the articles and there is not even a forum for it!
 
sko said:
But as said: contact their support - there's nothing any FreeBSD developer or port maintainer could do. If you look at the port it only downloads the pre-built binary.
Click to expand...
yeah, this is kinda frustrating... Good thing about the Ports collection is that there's usually viable alternatives easily available. For example, if you use Xorg on FreeBSD, there's plenty of perfectly workable freeware (both for Windows and Android, and even iPhone) that gives you the full-powered FreeBSD desktop.

So, I can't help but wonder: what feature does deskutils/anydesk offer that cannot be found in say, VNC or remote X connections via SSH ?

I wouldn't be surprised if VNC offered something Wayland-compatible 🤔

Yeah, with 'free' stuff, you have to kind of know what you're doing, accept the risks, and be willing to spend time and effort to do your own research on how to make it work. On the Forums here, that's part of the fun.
 
hbsd said:
sko It seems direct support is only for premium users. People who have not bought this software can only use the articles and there is not even a forum for it!
Click to expand...

Huh, I really wasn't aware of that, sorry. I also haven't visited their website for quite a while and they have completely rebuild that...
Yes, we have a paid subscription and I always just sent an email to support@anydesk.com, but I don't think I always gave our customer-ID in those messages...

It seems they also changed their licensing model and pricing and they now limit the amount of devices you can enable unattended access to. We have an old "Professional Core" License which seems similar to the new "Standard" edition but at the price of the "Solo" edition (per simultaneous connection). I think we will hold on to that license as long as possible, especially because the new licensing model would pose a 100% price increase...
 
Thank you all. I've always hated proprietary software. I never took them seriously and it seems more like a toy than a software! I don't think I'll get any special result because I don't have more access and they don't care about their (free!) users either.
 
If you have to include windows boxes into the mix, sadly there's often no other (viable) alternative. anydesk was the most bearable solution for me, as they have a FreeBSD binary that is relatively well supported, plus they are a german company, which massively helps to keep things easy regarding the GDPR and getting it waved through without any questions asked by our data protection officer.

If you only have BSD, UNIX or linux systems I wouldn't waste a second for any 'remote desktop' shenanigans. ssh is all you need to get work done via remote connections. worst case you do some tunneling (again: via ssh) and maybe even use some jumphosts inbetween...
 
hbsd said:
I need a software that it's server is free and works well on Windows.
Click to expand...
MobaXterm comes to mind. Even the free version gives you access to the full power of an Xorg-based desktop. And it works well, I have personal experience with that. There are commercial packages that do the same thing... Just keep in mind, in Xorg, the 'client' and 'server' are terms that get used a bit counter-intuitively. It takes quite a bit of in-depth knowledge of how Xorg is even designed before that starts making technical sense.
 
Thank you astyle, But my audiences have very low knowledge of Computer. I even showed them how to download and install AnyDesk! That's why I wanted to use AnyDesk because it's so easy to work with. They don't know how to work with such tools.
 
if they have the pro version of windows you can rdp to their box
give them a pssh / ssh line to paste or a premade putty tunnel that connects to some vps and forwards their 3389
then you can use another tunnel and connect to their box
same method should work with vnc
rdp works way better but they can't see the screen while you operate and you need winXXpro
the cheapest vps will do
 
covacat Unfortunately, some of them have Windows 7 and to be honest, I have some financial problems right now and I can't pay for VPS.
 
hbsd said:
Thank you astyle, But my audiences have very low knowledge of Computer. I even showed them how to download and install AnyDesk! That's why I wanted to use AnyDesk because it's so easy to work with. They don't know how to work with such tools.
Click to expand...
hbsd said:
covacat Unfortunately, some of them have Windows 7 and to be honest, I have some financial problems right now and I can't pay for VPS.
Click to expand...
Yeah, looks like AnyDesk was not the best choice... especially if it requires deskutils/anydesk to be installed on UNIX side of things. Xorg alone should be enough.

The free version of MobaXterm also means that you're on your own for any kind technical support on the Windows side.

The difference between the two is that MobaXterm doesn't have to have anything in particular installed on the UNIX side of things. Just having a working Xorg (with remote access permissions properly configured) is enough. It's easy enough to get some help with Xorg right here on these Forums.

I haven't looked very recently, but I think MobaXterm should have something for Win7 available. If not, I think an older version of MobaXterm should be reasonably easy to find.
 
cheapest VPS is ~$1 month even less if you pay for a year upfront
from what it looks like (i may be wrong) mobaxterm still requires a connection bouncer / vpn (or you may have them ssh to your home server and use a dynamic dns provider or have a fixed ip address and use port forwarding on your home router)
 
covacat said:
cheapest VPS is ~$1 month even less if you pay for a year upfront
from what it looks like (i may be wrong) mobaxterm still requires a connection bouncer / vpn (or you may have them ssh to your home server and use a dynamic dns provider or have a fixed ip address and use port forwarding on your home router)
Click to expand...
I just checked the prices and most sites are expensive. The cheapest service I could find was this:
CPU: 2 Core, Ram: 2 GB, Storage: 40GB
Is this ok?

Update: It should be noted that due to payment problems and boycott, I use hosting services in my country.
 
Has anyone used remotedesktop.google.com? Does it work on chromium? Because unfortunately this service has banned us and the strangest thing is that it does not open even with a VPN.

2023-05-05-200200_1024x400_scrot.png


If it can be used on chromium, I will somehow bypass this ban and I have a free alternative tool too.
 
Win10 with all the recent updates actually includes SSH, just open up PowerShell and type ssh 192.168.1.1 (or your server's IP address)...

for Win7, there's PuTTY, it's also capable of SSH, and integrates with MobaXterm just fine (even the free versions). I never had to use any kind of proxy with MobaXterm...

If VPN is required on UNIX side of things, I imagine it's easy enough to set up on FreeBSD... Most VPN services are just proxies that specialize on moving VPN traffic anyway.

But man, TIL about remotedesktop.google.com... And, Error 403 generally means that you probably have the URL incomplete or somehow incorrect. Just something to check. IP bans are pretty rare...
 
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