Guacamole

	WARNING
	This is recommended only for advanced users, proceed with caution.

What is Guacamole?

Guacamole is an HTML5 remote desktop gateway that can be installed on Amahi 9 (Fedora 23). This guidance may work with other Amahi versions with some modification.

Guacamole provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols like VNC and RDP. A centralized server acts as a tunnel and proxy, allowing access to multiple desktops through a web browser.

No browser plugins are needed, and no client software needs to be installed. The client requires nothing more than a web browser supporting HTML5 and AJAX.

REF: Setting Up Web-Based Guacamole Tool to Access Remote Linux/Windows Machines

Install Guacamole

WARNING: All commands in this tutorial are executed as root (or precede with sudo).

We have created a bash script to make installation simple or you can manually install using the guidance below. You MUST complete the Create Amahi Web App step prior to executing the following:

wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/4hadafih8ahuj2n/install-guacamole.sh
chmod 755 install-guacamole.sh
./install-guacamole.sh

Create Amahi Web App

Login to your Amahi Dashboard and install the Amahi Web Apps plug-in. Ensure you enable Advanced Settings.

Now select the "Apps" tab. Click on "Webapps" and on the page that comes up choose the "New Web App" button at the bottom. Fill in the name (guacamole) and leave everything else as it is.

Edit ####-guacamole.conf in /etc/httpd/conf.d (replacing #### with the appropriate number):

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/####-guacamole.conf

Right below the ServerAlias line, add the following:

ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/guacamole/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/guacamole/

Again, if you use vi for creating this file, press the Esc key to get back in command mode and :wq to write the changes and quit vi.

Restart Apache

systemctl restart httpd

Install Dependencies

Due to the Fedora freerdp packages being unstable, we must use the CentOS stable version. To install, execute the following:

wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/p2uc1rcpckky75v/libxkbfile-1.0.8-5.el7.x86_64.rpm
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tjm7q93z9pw0hj/freerdp-libs-1.0.2-6.el7_2.1.x86_64.rpm
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/aysml7coehz0hqi/freerdp-devel-1.0.2-6.el7_2.1.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh libxkbfile-1.0.8-5.el7.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh freerdp-libs-1.0.2-6.el7_2.1.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh freerdp-devel-1.0.2-6.el7_2.1.x86_64.rpm

Now install the Fedora dependencies: For Fedora 23 or newer (Fedora 21, substitute yum for dnf):

dnf install tomcat gcc cairo-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel uuid-devel pango-devel \
libssh2-devel libtelnet-devel libvncserver-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel openssl-devel \
libvorbis-devel libwebp-devel dejavu-sans-mono-fonts terminus-fonts terminus-fonts-console

Configure MySQL Authentication

Install MySQL Authentication Module

Create a working directory and move there

mkdir -p /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole/sqlauth && cd /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole/sqlauth

Download Guacamole's authorization module

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/extensions/guacamole-auth-jdbc-0.9.9.tar.gz

Unpack it

tar -zxf guacamole-auth-jdbc-0.9.9.tar.gz

Download MySQL and Java Connector

wget http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/Connector/j/mysql-connector-java-5.1.38.tar.gz

Unpack it

tar -zxf mysql-connector-java-5.1.38.tar.gz

Create directories for the extensions in Tomcat's folders

mkdir -p /usr/share/tomcat/.guacamole/{extensions,lib}

Move the modules to their respective directories.

mv guacamole-auth-jdbc-0.9.9/mysql/guacamole-auth-jdbc-mysql-0.9.9.jar /usr/share/tomcat/.guacamole/extensions/
mv mysql-connector-java-5.1.38/mysql-connector-java-5.1.38-bin.jar /usr/share/tomcat/.guacamole/lib/

Restart MariaDB

systemctl restart mariadb

Create the Database

hda-create-db-and-user guacdb

Configure Database Settings

Create a directory for the configuration file.

mkdir -p /etc/guacamole/

Create a file called "guacamole.properties" in that directory

vi /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties

Press the i key to begin inserting text into the guacamole.properties file and include the following contents:

# MySQL properties
mysql-hostname: localhost
mysql-port: 3306
mysql-database: guacdb
mysql-username: guacdb
mysql-password: guacdb

# Additional settings
mysql-default-max-connections-per-user: 0
mysql-default-max-group-connections-per-user: 0

If you use vi for creating this file, press the Esc key to get back in command mode and :wq to write the changes and quit vi.

Now create a symbolic link of this file for Tomcat

ln -s /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties /usr/share/tomcat/.guacamole/

Load Guacamole Data

The schema for MySQL was downloaded in the previous process. Just change directories to the files location

cd /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole/sqlauth/guacamole-auth-jdbc-0.9.9/mysql/schema/ 

and run the following command:

cat ./*.sql | mysql -uroot -phda guacdb

Install Guacamole Server

Guacamole uses "guacd", a Guacamole server and a Guacamole Client for users to connect to the "guacd" server. We first install Guacamole Server.

Change Directories

cd /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole

Download Guacamole Server

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/source/guacamole-server-0.9.9.tar.gz

Unpackage it

tar -xzf guacamole-server-0.9.9.tar.gz

Move to the Guacamole source code directory

cd guacamole-server-0.9.9/

Configure, make and install it.

./configure --with-init-dir=/etc/init.d
make
make install
ldconfig

Install Guacamole Client

Create a new directory and move to it.

mkdir -p /var/lib/guacamole && cd /var/lib/guacamole/

Download Guacamole Client.

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/binary/guacamole-0.9.9.war -O guacamole.war

Create a symbolic link of the file for Tomcat.

ln -s /var/lib/guacamole/guacamole.war /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/

Update Amahi Web App Files

Create Symbolic links between guacamole in Tomcat and Amahi's web app directory

ln -s /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/guacamole/* /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole/html

Make sure the owner of all the file is apache and the group is users.

chown -R apache:users /var/hda/web-apps/guacamole

Start Guacamole Server

Restart Tomcat.

​systemctl restart tomcat

Start Guacamole Server.

/etc/init.d/guacd start

Configure Guacamole Server to start at boot.

systemctl enable tomcat
chkconfig guacd on

Log In to Guacamole

You can access the web login screen for Guacamole from computers in the network via http://****:8080/guacamole (Where the **** is the IP address of your Amahi server).

The default user name/password is guacadmin/guacadmin. You can change your password by editing your own user in the administration screen.

Access Outside the Network

If you want Guacamole's web interface to be accessible outside of your LAN you will have to forward a random, unused port (1111, for example) to port 8080 in your router.

Then when you access Guacamole from outside your LAN you will need to add /guacamole to the end of your url. (http://servername.yourhda.com:1111/guacamole).

If you do not add /guacamole to your url, you will see a blank page since you did not specify which application in Tomcat you wanted to access.

The safest and most secure method to access Guacamole is using OpenVPN and an OpenVPN client from a smart phone, tablet, or computer.

Making Preset Connections in Guacamole

In Guacamole, an administrative User can create Connections that will be available to Guacamole users.

Enabling RDP in Windows Home and Basic Editions

"Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft, which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection." 1

If you do not have Windows pro or ultimate versions you have to run a patch that activates RDP.

RDP Wrapper Library is an option for enabling RDP features. (Use this at your own risk. Please read RDP Wrapper Library literature and follow directions to install. Any problems are to be addressed with RDP Wrapper Library support.)

https://github.com/stascorp/rdpwrap/releases

If you have Windows Professional or Ultimate, you will need to "Allow Remote Access to Your Computer." (A simple Internet search of this phrase with your Windows version offers many tutorials on this.)

Guacamole RDP Connections to Windows Computers

After you have login to Guacamole click on your login name in the upper right . In the drop-down menu choose "Settings." Click on the Connections tab on the settings page. Click the "New Connection" button.

Below are some VERY basic settings for an RDP connection in Guacamole:

Name: whatever you want to call it
Location: ROOT
Protocol: RDP

Maximum number of connections: 2
Maximum number of connections per user:2

Host Name: The fixed IP address of the computer to which you wished to connect. (For example 192.168.1.10)

All the other settings are left either blank or as they were.

Note: Using RDP, only one device at a time can be logged in under a specific user. If you are logging into a Windows computer by the user "Fred" by RDP using Guacamole, any other device signed in as "Fred" will be logged out. One can set up a VNC and an RDP connection for each Windows computer. RDP can be quicker and more fluid so use RDP when working alone and VNC when one needs to see what is currently happening on a Users computer under their account.

Guacamole VNC Connections to Computers

"In computing, Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop sharing system that uses the Remote Frame Buffer protocol (RFB) to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction, over a network."2

In order to connect to a client device by VNC, one needs to install VNC client software on the device and configure it to the user's desired specifications. In this publication, we will use a Windows based client and UltraVNC software, though this is by no means prescriptive for everyone.

Guacamole VNC Connections to Windows Computers

UltraVNC Settings for Windows

Be sure to install UltraVNC to run as a service on the client system. Once UltraVNC is installed on the Windows computer, right-click on the system tray icon and choose "Admin Properties" from the menu that comes up. Set the following values:

Display Number or Ports to use: Select Ports and set Main and Http so something specific (e.g. 5904, 5804)
Authentication: Set both the VNC Password and the View-Only Password.  (Write them down. You will need it later.)

Click "OK" and then give permission for the program to make changes to your system.

References

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol

2 Richardson, T.; Stafford-Fraser, Q.; Wood, K. R.; Hopper, A. (1998). "Virtual network computing" (PDF). IEEE Internet Computing. 2: 33. doi:10.1109/4236.656066.