I have three networked Win10/11 PCs at our small family business that occasionally need to be accessed and maintained from my Fedora PC at home. I’ve used Google Remote Desktop for a while but it’s unreliable and also F Google.

Was looking at the Gl-Inet Comet products which look promising as they say they work without cloud access, but they’re a tad spendy. If it’s the best option I’m willing to drop the coin.

Are there better options?

Thanks!

Edit: Wow, thank you all for so much useful feedback and excellent recommendations! I have lots to dig in to.

  • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    29 days ago

    Are you absolutely sure you need a KVM over the network? It sounds like you just need remote access to the computers.

    Solution one: use Windows Remote Desktop on the remote machines, and Remmina on the local PC. You’ll need to use port forwarding to expose the Windows machines to the internet.

    Solution two: use RustDesk. It’s a FOSS remote desktop solution similar to TeamViewer. You can run the ID and Relay servers on your own hardware (which I strongly recommend) if you don’t want to use RustDesk’s own. You can connect the remote computers to the server without exposing them to the internet.

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      0·
      29 days ago

      You’ll need port forwarding to expose RDP yo the internet

      No. Do NOT do this. RDP isn’t designed for the internet, it’s a security hole, even more so in a small business where they aren’t going to use advanced security (2FA, certs, etc).

      Remote access should always be over a secure connection, such as a VPN.

      Never port-forward RDP - you’re just begging to get owned.

      • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        29 days ago

        Fuck, I’m an idiot. I really shouldn’t be giving advice when I’m sleep-deprived like this. I completely forgot that when I used RDP, I did it through an SSH tunnel.

        Removed.