Hi,
i am also no java or web developer, but i will take a look at the rest API ...
By the way, if Mike will implement an "easy change", so that tomcat/jetty logs
the connection id found in the guacd.log, then we have all informations to
write a cmdline-cli in any language, see the thread "report of activities on the
server"
on http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/guacamole-user/201712.mbox.
If the "easy change" is implemented, i will try to write a cmdline-cli in tcl
...
But if anything work's with the rest-API, that would be cleaner.
best regards,
Michael
Am 31.12.2017 um 16:28 schrieb Nick Couchman:
On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 9:39 AM, Jonathan Hunter <jmhunt...@gmail.com
<mailto:jmhunt...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Both,
For what it's worth, I would also find this kind of functionality extremely
helpful.
Good to know. Sounds like there are a few folks :-).
I am not a skilled Java or web developer, but am using Guacamole in
conjunction with HTTP
authentication and an LDAP authentication back-end to allow users to
connect to VMs. In my use
case, one of the VM connections has its logon credentials stored in
guacamole, such that any
user with sufficient permission to access this connection will be logged
into the VM with a
specific username/password, as the application being accessed needs to be
run in a specific way.
The good news is that REST APIs are pretty usable by people even not skilled Java/web developers -
if you can do a little scripting, you can write something in Python or JavaScript that will
interact with the REST endpoints and accomplish what you need. That said, I'm thinking there may
be a larger calling here for a more official CLI tool, but we'll see if the other developers have
any input on that.
But, if user A connects and starts to use the application, and then later
on user B uses the
same connection, this new 'user B' connection will disconnect the 'user A'
session. So, I
would like to make a status page available so that people can see if there
is an active
connection at the moment. Given my web coding skills, something like this
proposed CLI would
be much more within my reach, than having to create something in HTML/JS.
Yes, this
information is available in the Guacamole settings screen, but that is only
available for
administrators and isn't obvious for a user who is unfamiliar with
Guacamole concepts.
I would say that, in your scenario, "it depends" on whether this would actually happen or not.
For example, if your "application" is an SSH session, then presumably you can have multiple users
connect to the same connection without one disconnecting the other, or being blocking by the
other. If your "application" is a Windows Terminal Server, again, multiple users can connect. If
it is a VNC session or a Windows Workstation (VDI) session, then, yes, either the second user
disconnects the first or gets blocked.
I would also dearly love to be able to use something like nagios or cacti
to monitor active
connections, etc.
Using the REST API should make this possible, as well. I use Cacti to monitor via SNMP, but Cacti
is very extensible and should be able to ingest data from REST endpoints, and I believe that
NAGIOS, Zabbix, etc., also make provisions for pulling data from REST interfaces. I definitely
see the desire, here, but I think it's all doable using the REST interface already provided in the
Guacamole Client.
On the monitoring note, though, this does highlight the difference between the Guacamole Client
and guacd, so this does depend on what you're looking to monitor. I would venture a guess that
most Guacamole users are using the Guacamole Client on the same system as guacd, and just using it
in a 1-to-1 relationship - that is, a single guacd instance for the Guacamole Client interface.
Guacamole is designed to be scalable, though, such that you could use multiple guacd back-ends for
a single Guacamole Client, or point multiple Guacamole Clients as a single guacd backend. So, in
more complex setups, while the REST API provides easy ways to monitor the Guacamole Client side,
there is not much on the gaucd side that would allow for monitoring of the backend.
(Not on this exact same topic.. but if there was a way of having a shared
connection by
default, so that user A and user B could both view the same RDP/VNC/etc.
display at the same
time.. then that would be even better for me. But, that is another topic of
conversation, I think)
I believe this is possible, although you might want to start a separate discussion thread on this
and build out a little more what you're trying to accomplish. Guacamole does allow for shared
connections, such that a user can connect to one and then someone else can connect in either a R/W
or R/O fashion and view/control the same session. I just don't know what you mean when you say
"by default" and how that would work out. But, definitely something to open on a separate thread.
-Nick
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