RDCMan is a client that is widely used to manage multiple remote desktop connections because it's a convenient option. However, RDCMan has not kept pace with the level of advanced technology that we're pursuing. Instead, we have two great supported client options: MSTSC and Universal Client for Windows 10. Microsoft Remote Desktop (Formally Known as Remote Desktop Connection) in MacOS. Microsoft Remote Desktop, a free application from Microsoft, allows you to use a Mac laptop or desktop to connect to and work from a Windows desktop computer that you have RDP access to in your on-campus office or lab. VPN and Remote Desktop (Mac) 10 University of Hartford 11. Enter a friendly name if you choose, then click Add. Getting Connected to VPN and Remote Desktop Once you get everything installed, you are now ready to connect to first VPN, then Remote Desktop. To connect to the VPN, go to the top bar on Mac OS X and click on the Globe Icon to. Microsoft Remote Desktop 10 是微软官方发布的 macOS 的远程桌面连接工具客户端,有了它可以方便的在 Mac 上管理远程 Windows 桌面。Windows 远程桌面连接工具是网络管理员经常使用的桌面管理工具,它可以轻松地以图形化方式远程管理 Windows 桌面。. Whether connecting to other Mac based systems, or desktops running Windows or Linux, you can count on AnyDesk’s stable operation and cross-compatibility. AnyDesk for Mac provides the features and tools you need to connect with desktops or servers in any location. Our remote desktop app ensures a stable, secure, and super-fast connection.
Sometimes, whether for work purposes or personal purposes, you’ll need to access your Mac without being physically present in front of it. This might be because you’re working from a different location than usual, like home or an alternative office space, because you’re working abroad, or perhaps you’re on the go. For many years, the solution to this growing need has been an ever-changing combination of remote access software solutions designed to pierce network complexities. These solutions let you remotely control or observe a computer.
More modern tools available in recent years can pass along audio inputs and output, allow remote peripheral access, and can transfer files. Remote desktop and screen sharing solutions are becoming increasingly advanced, and there are more options than ever before. This raises the challenge of choosing between them and determining which remote desktop app for Mac is best for your requirements.
This article provides a list of the best remote desktop for Mac applications and help you choose between them by outlining the key advantages and disadvantages of each. This list considers ease of use, range of capabilities, and suitability for business use. It will also consider overall functionality, providing recommendations for remote desktop Mac to Mac tools, remote desktop PC to Mac tools, and remote desktop Mac to Linux tools.
For those who don’t have the time to read the full list, SolarWinds® Dameware® Remote Everywhere (DRE) and SolarWinds Dameware Remote Support (DRS) top the ranks as the most easy-to-use and sophisticated remote computer access tools. DRE and DRS offer a comprehensive range of features capable of meeting the needs of Mac users looking for all-in-one, enterprise-grade remote access software.
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SolarWinds DRE is a highly comprehensive remote access tool offering powerful capabilities for Mac users. With DRE, you can typically establish active sessions in less than eight seconds, saving you a significant amount of time otherwise spent connecting to workstations. DRE uses advanced encryption protocols to keep users safe. It supports two-factor authentication and multilevel permissions, helping ensure only authorized individuals can establish access.
DRE allows you to remotely access sleeping and powered-off computers through its support for Intel vPro with AMT, KVM, and Wake-on-Lan. This ensures unresponsive and out-of-band computers don’t stop you from resolving IT problems.
DRE helps you solve problems without disturbing the end user by giving you access to thorough system information at the start of a support session. This remote desktop app for Mac gives you all the relevant system info, including BIOS, device details, event logs, and updates.
In addition to providing detailed system details, DRE also delivers session information details. For every session conducted, details are saved, so important troubleshooting data can be shared with teammates when necessary. This tool even lets you take screenshots and recordings during the active sessions and add notes to the end user’s request or to session details. Recorded sessions can be saved to the cloud, to help ensure they’re not lost or misplaced.
DRE uses a powerful reporting engine, helping you improve your help desk department’s performance. This tool’s reporting functionalities give you in-depth insight into how your team is performing, providing session details, technician performance data, and end-user survey summaries.
This highly efficient solution allows you to communicate rapidly and conveniently with users even during active sessions. Your technicians can connect with users through pre-session or in-session chat, by using VoIP, or by initiating video calls. This can be done without interrupting active sessions. All messages are automatically saved in session logs, helping you keep track of previous communications.
A key advantage of this remote desktop app for Mac is its lightweight ticketing system, which allows you to keep a close eye on end-user requests without needing to implement a complicated help desk system. End users can request assistance through the DRE agent and, once requested, you can add notes to a ticket and assign it as needed. This provides a streamlined, efficient, and organized ticketing solution ideal for Mac and Windows users alike.
DRE is a versatile solution with multi-monitor support. This gives you visibility into workstations with multiple monitors, which is increasingly common in recent years, and lets you switch between the end users’ monitors with just one click.
DRE supports all major operating systems and computers, which means it can function as a remote desktop Mac-to-Mac solution, a remote desktop PC-to-Mac solution, and a remote desktop Mac-to-Linux solution. This makes DRE ideal for supporting a large client base who’s likely to use a range of operating systems and device types.
DRE isn’t especially suited for companies only looking for a remote connection tool. This remote desktop app for Mac offers an all-in-one solution plus help desk and ticketing features.
DRE is a user-friendly remote desktop tool designed to grow with you, making it suitable for even small businesses. A 14-day free trial is available.
Here’s a brief overview of DRE’s pros and cons:
Pros
- Multi-monitor support
- Lightweight ticketing system
- Live chat feature
- Powerful reporting engine
- Remotely access powered-off and sleeping computers
- Support for two-factor authentication and multi-level permissions
- Mobile application
Cons
- Less suitable for companies that already have a help desk and aren’t only looking for a remote desktop solution
DRS is another powerful SolarWinds remote desktop app. This tool is designed to deliver rapid and secure remote control functionalities, helping you get to the root of an IT issue as quickly as possible. DRS is designed to provide multi-platform remote access to Windows, Linux, and macOS computers, laptops, and servers. Access is via a single, easy-to-use admin console.
This flexible solution allows you to provide remote assistance at any time and from anywhere. You can initiate safe over-the-internet remote connections with Mac computers both inside the LAN and across the internet. As such, DRS is the ideal choice for businesses with employees who are likely to be working while on the go.
DRS lets you use remote access to reboot systems, start/stop services and processes, copy and delete files, view and clear event logs, and more. This simplifies administration activities for your IT administrators, reducing the need to make house calls for IT troubleshooting purposes.
IT issues can completely halt productivity, but with the right tools, this can be avoided. DRS offers system tools and TCP utilities designed to help you remotely troubleshoot computers without needing to launch a full remote control session. These built-in remote admin capabilities help you resolve issues quickly and with minimal disruption to productivity.
If you’re looking for a tool that supports IT admins while they’re on the go, DRS is a good option. DRS offers a mobile application, allowing IT admins to remotely access network computers from their mobile devices, no matter where they are.
DRS provides advanced authentication methods, including the option of enforcing two-factor authentication in security-sensitive environments using Smart Card logon.
Like DRE, DRS is an all-in-one remote control and systems management suite of tools. If you’re looking for a solution with a narrower range of capabilities, to complement rather than replace the software you already use, then DRS may not be the right choice for you.
Pros:
- Multi-factor authentication
- Built-in remote admin capabilities
- Remote access mobile application
- Multi-platform support
Cons:
- Less suitable for businesses looking for a narrower suite of tools
A 14-day free trial of SolarWinds DRS is available for download.
Although LogMeIn discontinued its free version in 2014, the paid alternative called LogMeIn Pro is one of the best remote desktop tools for Mac on the market. This remote computer access application gives businesses a way to access their desktop files from any device, even mobile devices. LogMeIn Pro features file storage with an initial 1TB of storage available.
LogMeIn Pro can be installed on one or two computers, but an unlimited number of users can access those computers. This tool provides a solution to the challenge of providing multiple employees who aren’t located on-site with access to important files and data.
LogMeIn also offers a password management tool you can use to streamline the management of your essential accounts and licenses. This remote access software is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses, particularly those working with people located in multiple branches or in other countries.
The LogMeIn Pro application supports remote printing, letting you print photos or documents from your mobile device—even if your desktop, laptop, and printer are at home or in the office. If, for example, you’re late for a big meeting and don’t have time to print the necessary files, you could use the LogMeIn Pro application to print the documents, so they’re ready the moment you arrive.
The application can also give you access to the websites you regularly visit. Even if you accessed the website from your desktop, you can reload it to your mobile device or tablet when you need it.
One of the key disadvantages of LogMeIn Pro is both the desktop server software and client software interfaces seem outdated. Despite this, the core functionality of LogMeIn Pro is effective, providing remote file access and screen sharing capabilities.
Here’s a brief overview of the pros and cons of LogMeIn:
Pros
- 1TB of storage
- Website access from mobile devices
- Remote printing
Cons
- Outdated interfaces
You can access a free 14-day trial of LogMeIn Pro here, without needing to provide any credit card details.
Zoho Assist is one of the most popular remote desktop software for Mac users, delivering both remote support and unattended remote access for Macs and PCs. Zoho Assist is a comprehensive remote access tool providing customer support capabilities and the ability to access or control another device. This includes mobile devices.
This software is particularly well-suited to customer support and IT professionals, IT help desks, outsourced IT, and managed service provider support. It includes a range of sophisticated features, including custom branding of your company and remote printing. This tool is also highly secure, leveraging two-factor authentication, SSL, and 256-bit encryption. Zoho Assist also features an action log viewer, giving you real-time visibility of who is accessing your network.
One of the main disadvantages of Zoho Assist is, as a web-based software, it depends on users having access to a sufficient internet connection. If the internet is unavailable, you won’t be able to establish a session.
Pros:
- SSL and 256-bit encryption
- Multi-factor authentication
- Unattended and attended remote access
- Remote printing
- Custom branding
Cons:
- Dependent on a decent internet connection
With no prior installation required at either end, you can get started with this remote desktop tool quickly and easily. You can access a free trial of Zoho assist here.
Jump Desktop features a dedicated Mac client and is one of the more user-friendly remote desktop applications for Mac users. Jump Desktop is unique because it allows you to use your Gmail account to automatically set up and configure a remote connection. This means establishing a connection is practically effortless. Font for mac free download. No networking knowledge is required, making it a good option for remote access beginners. Jump Desktop also provides the option of setting up remote desktop connections manually, which is better suited to users who are more experienced in remote access activities.
This tool provides multi-platform support for connections with iPads, iPhones, iPods, and even Android devices. You can also connect from Mac to Mac. Another advantage of Jump Desktop is it can map Mac keyboard shortcuts to work on Windows. This streamlines remote support. You can copy and paste between macOS and Windows, which is especially useful if you often work on both Mac and Windows devices.
Unfortunately, Jump Desktop does not offer support for remote printing and audio streaming when using personal computers running on Windows operating systems and Mac OS X.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Automatic connections via Gmail account
- Ability to map Mac keyboard shortcuts to Windows devices
- Ability to copy and paste between Mac and Windows
Cons:
- Does not offer support for remote printing and audio streaming services
- Limited range of functionality
Jump Desktop is a good choice for beginners, but the tool doesn’t offer the same range of features as some of its competitors. You can download Jump Desktop from the Apple store.
Getting Started with the Best Remote Desktop for Mac
With more people working from home than ever before, remote access has become increasingly important. It’s key for companies to use reliable remote desktop tools designed to increase productivity and minimize workload. While there are many remote desktop tools currently on the market, not all are created equal—particularly for Mac users. This guide has considered and reviewed the best remote desktop for Mac users, to help your business make an informed decision before committing to a remote access solution.
Overall, SolarWinds DRE and DRS rank highest on our list of the best remote desktop tools for Mac users. DRE and DRS are comprehensive, safe, and offer an impressive range of sophisticated features. These tools offer great value for money and provide you with the features necessary to establish a robust and efficient remote access management system. Both DRE and DRS make creating remote connections simple, easy, and fast. These solutions are enterprise-grade and were built to grow with your business, making them a suitable choice for small and large businesses alike. You can access a free trial of DRE here and a free trial of DRS here. If you’re still not sure which of these remote desktop tools is right for you, we recommend making the most of the free trials available.
By: Sadequl Hussain | Updated: 2017-11-21 | Comments (1) | Related: More >Database Administration
Problem
I am a system administrator / DBA using a Windows laptop. I can remotely connectto our Windows servers from my laptop. Some of my colleagues are using non-Windowssystems like Mac or Linux. Sometimes they also need to access these boxes. How canthey connect?
On macOS Dock, select Finder. When the Finder window opens, on the menu bar, select ‘Go’ and then ‘Utilities.’ After that, you will be able to see /Applications/Utilities folder in Finder. From the Utilities folder window, select ‘Disk Utility’ application. When the Disk Utility opens, choose the Western Digital hard drive icon from the sidebar. Now, the Erase dialogue window appears, here select the ‘Volume Format’ drop-down list and choose ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ or ex-FAT File System.’ Note: ex-FAT is a better choice for formatting WD My Passport on Mac. Wd hard drive for mac. Click ‘Erase’ on the Disk Utility file menu.
Solution
System administrators or DBAs often need to access Windows servers remotely.This can be for various reasons like:
- Troubleshooting low disk space
- Running Performance Monitor or Profiler
- Monitoring Windows Event Viewer
- Applying service packs
- Creating and troubleshooting scheduled Windows jobs
- Installing software like SQL Server
- Connecting to another instance from a “jump host”
- Administering Active Directory
- Etc.
Windows ships with a tool called the “Remote Desktop Client” to helpconnect to another Windows machine. However, there are users who do not use a Windowsworkstation. Particularly with the spread of open source databases, cloud technologiesand the need for accessing Linux servers, a lot of engineers now use an Apple MacBookor Linux distributions like Fedora or Ubuntu.
Some of these engineers and administrators may need to access Windows hosts.It would make their job much simpler if they had tools similar to the RDP client.
In this tip we will talk about a few remote desktop clients available for Macand Linux. We will talk about their ease of use, features, etc. In a future post,we will talk about Mac and Linux-based database client tools.
Disclaimer
Please be careful when accessing production servers remotely. In most cases,organizations have strict security principles about who can access their servers,so readers need to follow those guidelines. Also, you should not run any commands,queries, or configurations from this tutorial on a production server. In the casewhen you are required to access remote servers and run commands, make sure you areconnected to the right server.
Although we list a number of remote clients from various vendors, this is byno means an exhaustive list. Nor do we endorse any of the products or have any affiliationwith their vendors. The observations made here are purely those of the author.
Also, this tip is not about how to install and configure remote desktop clients.Each software installer package will have its own requirements and dependenciesfor different operating systems; it’s not possible to address every issuewhere the package may be failing to install or the client failing to connect toa remote server. This is more of an overview of the tools available.
Remote Desktop Clients
Before going into details, let’s talk about the features we want in a remotedesktop client. We wanted tools which:
- Are free / open source or at least have a community edition available
- Have active development or product support
- Can map local resources like disk drives or folders to the remote machine
- Allow saving remote desktop sessions for easy future connection
- Allow different screen resolutions
- Enables clipboard sharing between local and remote machines
With these features in mind, let’s first see what’s available forMac users.
Mac Clients
Microsoft Remote Desktop
For Mac users, Microsoft has released the Microsoft Remote Desktop app, downloadablefrom theMac App store. The application features connection saving, easy searching ofsaved connections, connectivity to Azure RemoteApp and remote resources:
Creating a new connection is fairly simple and intuitive:
Standard features like mapping local directories to remote machine, sound andprinter forwarding are also present:
CoRD
Out next option for the Mac platform is CoRD,downloadable from its sourceforge site. CoRD is also easy to use and offers most features found in otherremote desktop tools.
The image below shows a local folder in a Mac system mapped to a remote Windowsmachine.
Royal TSX
Royal TSX is yet another tool available for Mac fromRoyalApplications. The latest version requires at least the Mac OS Yosemite operatingsystem.
What sets RoyalTSX apart is its ability to use plugins for different types ofconnectivity. These plugins are available from Royal Software as well. The remotedesktop client plugin is installed by default. Similarly, other connection typeslike VNC, SSH, HTTP or FTP can be installed with plugins, making it almost a universalconnectivity tool.
Royal TSX allows repetitive command tasks or key sequences to be run automaticallybefore, after or when a connection is made. The images below show this:
Some plugins allow Windows processes, services or events to be accessed remotely.However, this requires the RoyalTSX server component:
As the image below shows, connecting to a Windows server is fairly simple andstandard. The credentials for the connections need to be created first:
The free version of Royal TSX allows up to 10 remote connections. If you arenot managing dozens of Windows servers, the free version can be a good choice.
Linux Clients
Like Mac, there are remote desktop tools available for different flavors of Linux.To use these tools, needless to say, the Linux computer needs to be running in graphicalmode. Here are few of the tools to consider.
KRDC
KRDC or KDE Remote Desktop Client is available for Linux distros running K Desktop,like Fedora. The package is available from KDE repo, so it can be easily installedwith the following command:
Mstsc For Macbook
KRDC has a simple interface. However, in our opinion, it lacks a basic featureexpected from any RDP client.
For example, once a connection is created, KRDC can “remember” theremote server’s username and password, provided it’s saved in the KDEWallet Manager application.
This obviously means installing another KDE application in your workstation.The default wallet it looks for is called “kdewallet” and in a vanillainstallation of KDE Wallet, users don’t know the password for that wallet,nor can they change it (at least we could not).
This means when connecting from the KRDC tool, users will be prompted for thewallet’s password if the “Remember password (KWallet)” optionwas chosen. Since users would not know the password, they have to bypass this bypressing the “Cancel” button:
Bypassing the wallet password prompt will result in the tool asking for the remoteuser’s password. Not a show-stopper perhaps, but to most regular users thiscan be a time-consuming affair.
Remmina
In our opinion, this is one of the best tools available for debian-based Linuxdistros, and can be downloaded from theRemmina GitHubrepo of FreeRDP. Unfortunately the installation page does not list any RedHat-baseddistros except Fedora. If you are using something like Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora orArchLinux, this tool should be yours.
The two images below show a remote Windows desktop displayed in Remmina runningin Ubuntu 16.10:
Other than RDP, this tool also supports NX, VNC and SSH protocols:
Some of the advanced features of Remmina connection properties are shown below:
Like RoyalTSX for Mac, this tool also allows for startup programs to run whena connection is made.
FreeRDP
Another tool from the same repo owner is FreeRDP, a command line tool to startremote desktop sessions. This is available from theGitHubpage of the product. FreeRDP is available for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSuSEin Linux distributions and for Mac and even Windows. As said, this is a commandline tool, but has a large number of options available as switches.
We installed the tool in a Fedora 26 machine and were able to connect to a WindowsServer. The actual command is xfreerdp and it’s located in the /usr/bin directory.The following code snippet shows a basic form of the command and its output. Inthis case, we can safely ignore the warning:
Other Remote Desktop Sharing Protocols
So far, the tools we have talked about all use the remote desktop protocol. Thisis a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft and ships with any Windows machine.It runs on port 3389 by default. However, this is not the only protocol availablefor remote connections. We will talk about two other protocols:
- VNC
- NX
VNC
VNC or Virtual Network Computing is a desktop sharing system using the RemoteFrame Buffer (RFB) protocol. Computers running a VNC server can be remotely connectedfrom other computers running a VNC client. This is a platform independent protocol,which means there are servers and clients available for Mac, Linux and Windows.This also means the same VNC client can connect to a remote Windows server or aLinux server, each of which could be running VNC as a service. In fact someof the RDP tools we have discussed so far like Remmina, KRDC or RoyalTSX - all featurea VNC client. The default port for VNC communication is 5900. For Java-based VNCclient, this is 5800.
Linux onlyThe QEMU website isn’t very sophisticated, but don’t let that put you off.Where this product slightly differs from other VM solutions is that it is both a VM host and also a machine emulator. Virtual dj pro 7 for mac os x. Along with x86 PC, QEMU can emulate PowerPC, MIPS64, ARM, SPARC (32 and 64), MicroBlaze, ETRAX CRIS, SH4 and RISC-V, among others.It manages to do this without administrator privileges, and the performance of VMs running on it is close to that of native installations.What QEMU lacks is any sophisticated interface tools, instead relying on CLI inputs to install and configure VM clients.At this time it is also only able to host on Linux, even if it can run a wide range of operating systems under that.(Image credit: Citrix). Then VirtualBox is a good choice because it supports an amazingly wide selection of host and client combinations.Windows from XP onwards, any Linux level 2.4 or better, Windows NT, Server 2003, Solaris, OpenSolaris and even OpenBSD Unix. There are even people that nostalgically run Windows 3.x or even IBM OS/2 on their modern systems,It also runs on Apple Mac, and for Apple users, it can host a client Mac VM session.Oracle has been kind enough to support VirtualBox, and provide a wide selection of pre-built developer VMs to download and use at no cost.And, all this is free; even the Enterprise release.(Image credit: Parallels).
Although VNC can be an alternative to remote desktop protocol, it means installationof additional software on the Windows server and configuring any firewall to allowtraffic on the VNC port.
There are various VNC client and server packages available for free, some ofthese are:
- TightVNC
- TigerVNC
- RealVNC Home Edition
- UltraVNC
The image below shows the UltraVNC service running in a Windows Server 2016 machine.We downloaded it from UltraVNC’sofficial site.
And here are some of the UltraVNC service configurations:
The image below shows how we are using a TigerVNC Viewer client from a CentOS7.16 machine to connect to the Windows server running UltraVNC.
NX
NX is another remote desktop sharing protocol developed by a company called NoMachine(there are also open source variants like OpenNX and FreeNX). The tool, also calledNoMachine, allows some cool features like recording the remote desktop sessionsor streaming remote multimedia. Unlike VNC or RDP, NoMachine does not have separatesoftware installers for client and server: a NoMachine install creates both thecomponents. Once NoMachine is installed in a Windows server, make sure the serviceis running and the firewall is allowing traffic through the default port of 4000.
In the image below, we can see the nxservice (NoMachine server) running as aWindows service:
The following series of images show a NoMachine client running in Fedora settingup a remote Windows server connection:
Once the connection is set up, subsequent connections are easy: just select theconnection icon and click on the “Connect” button:
Once the credentials are provided (here we are using password authentication),there are a number of options to choose from for logon, display, resolution, sound,multimedia, etc.:
As you can see, NoMachine provides lot of options to configure how you interactwith the remote computer. Once you click through the options, the remote desktopis shown as a locked screen:
You can now press Ctl+Alt+0 to bring out the NoMachine menu, click on the littleicon in the lower right corner and choose Ctl+Alt+Delete from the pop-up menu, thenclick on the “Done” button:
This will bring up the Windows logon screen where you can put the remote server’saccess credentials.
Conclusion
One thing to remember when troubleshooting remote desktop session issues is thenetworking layer. For any remote desktop connection to succeed:
- The service component needs to be running in the remote machine, whetherit is remote desktop service, VNC or NX.
- The remote server needs to have a network path from the client: for example,we cannot remote desktop into a server if it’s only accessible from abastion host.
- The server’s firewall or other network protection layer has to allowremote desktop traffic coming from the client’s network. This is particularlytrue if the machine is running VNC or NX.
- When running the Windows remote desktop protocol and client, the user needsto be a member of the remote desktop users local Windows group other groupswith higher privileges.
- The network bandwidth needs to be good, particularly if there is a largegeographical distance between client and server.
We hope this tip has given you some ideas about choosing the right RDP tool.We leave it up to the reader to make their own choice. Feel free to comment aboutother non-Windows RDP clients you might be using in the comments section below.
Next Steps
If you are using a non-Windows workstation, consider the following:
- Download and install the RDP clients we talked about
- Test the limitations of the “free” editions; for example:
- How many remote sessions you can keep open or
- How many sessions you can save
Last Updated: 2017-11-21
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