Guacamole - HTML5 Remote Desktop Sweetness

Guacamole is a gateway application described for HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop, and I absolutely fell in love with it recently. Working in the field, you constantly come across networks where you get limited access to the outside world, where the life’s goal of the firewall outgoing policies is to make your life a living hell when you need to get something from your own network.

I’ve tried RDP Gateways (not really platform portable), SSL VPNs, Secure VNC, and a bunch more, but none seemed to stuck. None was really usable on all platforms I want access from (Mac, Windows, Tablets, foreign computers).

Guacamole run ons Linux and uses a java applet (hosted inside a tomcat instance) which in turn talks to guacd. Guacd is the service that connects to the configured device. This connection can be a RDP, VNC or SSH connection. That means you can use Guacamole as a complete portal into your own network.

Because your connections go over HTTP(s), it’s corporate-network-proof and can be used on every device with a browser. Note: I’ve tested Windows, OS X, Android and iOS so far and all is good in the world!

The user experience is very damn smooth and graphics and sound are damn good (I found myself watching streaming video and audio through a session a few days ago). Check out this demo video:

[youtuber youtube=‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tqZzq34CmE’\]

Next up; how to install Guacamole.