Yesterday we released Mesh Commander 0.2.3, an update to our premiere web based management console for Intel AMT. This time around we got a bunch of interesting new features and bug fixes. First, we have an improved installer with two more install options. You can now install Mesh Commander as an IIS web site and/or install the Microsoft SCCM add-in for Mesh Commander. In addition, Mesh Commander now supports a set of command line switches that allow applications to quickly call Mesh Commander to support many different usages. Let’s take a look at these one by one:

• Microsoft SCCM add-in for Mesh Commander. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is a widely used management console. The new Mesh Commander installer automatically detects if Microsoft SCCM is installed and offers a new option to install the add-in. Once installed, right clicking on computers within SCCM will show a new context menu  item called “Manage using Mesh Commander”. You can start making use of Intel AMT features with a few clicks directly within the SCCM Console context. The Microsoft SCCM add-in assumes that all machines are setup with TLS enabled and using Kerberos authentication (Using user credentials of the user running the SCCM Console).
   
• Mesh Commander IIS web site. In addition to running Mesh Commander as a standalone executable, you can now opt to install it as an IIS web site. You will need IIS8 with Web Sockets installed to make this work, but once installed you get a new “/commander” web site on your server and you can immediately use it to manage your Intel AMT computers from any web browser. This is useful for many cases where you want to install the management tool on one server and use it from any browser on your network. You no longer need to install Mesh Commander on each machine, a single install does the trick.
   
• Mesh Commander command line switches. There are many cases where you want to invoke Mesh Commander to manage a specific Intel AMT computer with given credentials. Anytime you have management software that has a list of computers and knows about Intel AMT, you can delegate all of the Intel AMT management by just invoking Mesh Commander to take care of everything Intel AMT. We also added switches to go directly to hardware KVM (Full screen or not) and Serial-over-LAN. So, you can start a hardware KVM session with a single call to Mesh Commander. To see the full list of switches, take a look at the readme.txt file in the install folder.

This week, I want to give special thanks for Ariel Silverman for his work on the installer and SCCM add-in. Both are huge improvements to Mesh Commander. In addition to all these changes, we fixed many more issues, including Kerberos authentication with TLS enabled and others. You can get the latest version of Mesh Commander at http://meshcommander.com.

Feedback appreciated,
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
meshcommander.com

The all new Microsoft SCCM add-in for Mesh Commander allows
administrators to manage Intel AMT computers in a few clicks.

With Mesh Commander installer adding it to IIS, you can quickly setup a web site on a
local web server that gives a portal for Intel AMT management from any browsers.

For the last eight years, I have been designing and building MeshCentral. It’s a wonderful web site for remote management of computers, cell phones and devices. A few months back, I started looking as to where I want to go with MeshCentral. Web technologies have comes a long ways in eight years. For example, web sockets did not exist and browsers where a lot less powerful. These days web frameworks and IoT devices have changed the landscape. It’s also possible to code things in a much simpler way. As a result, I started working on MeshCentral2 and today, I am making it available for the first time. This is a very early alpha, only works with Intel® AMT on local networks, but it’s an interesting start and you can already see the benefits.

One of the first big changes is that MeshCentral2 server is now completely built on NodeJS enabling it to run on Windows, Linux and OSX. It’s now a single easy to install package and the web interface is now fully interactive. You never need to hit “refresh” anymore, everything you see is live and real-time. Here are some of the benefits of MeshCentral2:

• Super easy to install. Just extract & run. Easy to upgrade, it’s all one package.
• Real-time user interface. Using an improved message bus, message dispatching is a lot better.
• Runs on Windows, Linux, OSX. This can reduce the cost of running the server, it can also run on tiny IoT devices.
• No need for a database. Uses a small schema-less database, will scale to MongoDB in the future.
• Improved Intel® AMT support. Integration of Mesh Commander and Interceptor.

Of course, this is very early code and it’s going to be a long time until MeshCentral2 is anywhere near feature parity with MeshCentral. If you have Intel® AMT machines on a local network and want to give MeshCentral2 a try, take a look at the installation instructions here: http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcentral2/installation.

This is just the start, much more to come…
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 has the same look and feel as the original MeshCentral, but it’s built differently.
We use NodeJS for the server and a large web application on the browser side.
Makes everything real-time and a lot more efficient.

The new MeshCentral2 architecture is based completely on NodeJS.
The components in green are already built, the ones in gray are still to come.

MeshCentral2 has a very different architecture and design from the original MeshCentral.

Hi,

I had Remote KVM working great through the MDTK. I documented the setup here. I don't use it often and recently discovered that UltraVNC gives me the message "Connection failed - End of Stream" no matter which machine I try to control.

Details:

- Running MDTK 1.35. (The latest version listed at http://www.meshcommander.com/open-manageability is 1.34, but when you install it, it says it is 1.35.) Also tried 1.31 with the same results.

- Remote test machines are running AMT 9.0.2 or 9.1.0.

- Security is set up as described in the first link above. Remote Desktop is "Enabled using redirection port."

- I get the connection to the remote with no problem. I can see all the Hardware Asset info, Event Log, etc. I can even see in the Audit Log that I had a successful KVM session in April 2016.

- When I click on "Launch Viewer," the connection fails with the "End of Stream" message.

- When I click on "Take Control, I get "Unable to connect to serial-over-lan port (IMR_RES_TIMEOUT) before the black window opens. It shows "TLS Secured, Serial-over-LAN - Disconnected."

This happens on multiple machines at different sites, whether connecting over the Internet or through a site-to-site VPN.

What could cause the remote control functions to stop working?

Thanks,

Mark Berry
MCB Systems

We just released MeshCommander 0.2.8, this is part of our ongoing work to build a fully web based and completely portable Intel® AMT console across all platforms. In this release we have improve the tool significantly. In the last week alone, we released versions 0.2.6, 0.2.7 and 0.2.8 continuing on a rapid cadence. Here are the major improvements for the last two weeks:

• Built-in IDER support in MeshCommander.exe for Windows. Starting with this version of MeshCommander for Windows, you can now start an disk redirection session directly from within MeshCommander. No need for a separate IDER server anymore. Makes everything easy and so, you can quickly reboot a computer to a disk image of your choice.
   
• More Serial-over-lan terminal emulation types. Depending on the BIOS vendor, the terminal emulation used varies. Intel uses “Extended ASCII” but other vendors use “UTF8” which allows for internationalization of the BIOS over TV100. Starting with this version of MeshCommander, both terminal emulation types are now supported. Makes MeshCommander usable for Intel AMT from many vendors.
   
• Improved USB Setup.bin editor. MeshCommander has a built-in setup.bin editor so you can quickly setup and activate Intel AMT with a USB key. This new version has an improved editor with major bug fixes and allow editing of more USB activation record types.
   
• Improved MSI installer. The MSI installer that installs MeshCommander on Windows keeps improving.
   
• Support for Intel AMT 5.x. In the past, we only supported Intel AMT starting with 6.0 and beyond. With this new release, we are starting to support older versions that don’t have KVM, etc. Not everything will be supported perfectly on older machines, but most of the basics should work correctly.

The sum of all these changes is a significant improvement to MeshCommander. You can get the latest version at http://meshcommander.com.

Feedback appreciated,
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
meshcommander.com

 

Improved serial terminal now supports Extended ASCII and UTF8 terminal emulation modes.
Correctly shows the Serial-over-LAN BIOS from many vendors.

Built-in IDE-R support within MeshCommander for Windows. Easily select your disk image
and remotely boot on the selected image in addition to live session monitoring.

Just posted a quick demonstration of MeshCommander performing IDE redirect.
On YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG73j7Toz1c

Fresh off the latest release of MeshCommander 0.2.8, I just released MeshCentral2 Alpha 2, the very latest in super easy to setup and use cloud management solution. MeshCentral2 now has a full Intel® AMT MPS server so it can now receive and handle Client Initiated Remote Access (CIRA) connections. Better yet, it does so better than any software I have seen before. You can go from almost nothing to running your own server and managing Intel® AMT computers over the cloud in a few minutes. On top of all that, MeshCentral2 integrates the very latest version of MeshCommander so you can not only get Intel® AMT connections setup quickly, you can use these connections to immediately manage your computers and it’s all web based.

Along with this release, I recorded a YouTube tutorial video showing how to get CIRA setup. In this version, we setup CIRA manually using MeshCommander. In some ways, this is pretty amazing since you need lots of software working perfectly to perform this task manually with such ease. Future versions will automate this making the process even easier.

Feel free to give MeshCentral2 a spin: download it here, follow installation instructions and if you like, get CIRA setup. MeshCentral2 does not yet have an in-band MeshAgent, but we are working on that, right now you can only manage Intel® AMT machines.

Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 now has a full Intel AMT MPS / CIRA server so you can manage your
Intel® AMT computers over the cloud. Best of all, the server is amazingly simple to install.

In this flow, we manually setup Intel® AMT to connect to the server. In the future we will
automate this, but having all of the software to do it manually is really great.

Take a look for yourself, in this demonstration video I manually configure Intel® AMT with CIRA settings
and get Intel® AMT connected to a new server. Everything is done in a few minutes.

We just released MeshCommander 0.3.1 as we continue to improve the first fully web based management console for Intel® AMT. This week, we have three new major features in addition to lots of other improvements and bug fixes.

• Custom Power Actions. Intel® AMT support many power actions, a major feature for remote manageability. Being able to fully control the many aspects of platform boot can be complex, MeshCommander has a set of pre-canned power actions but for complicated boot requirements, we now offer a fully customizable power action dialog box. Control the boot process, lock the local keyboard, blank the screen and much more.
   
• User Consent Support for IDE-R. The NW.js version of MeshCommander now fully support not only User Consent for Power Actions and KVM, but this week we added IDE-R user consent. This is super important for usages that require IDE-R in Client Control Mode (CCM). This completes MeshCommander’s support for user consent usages.
   
• Event Subscriptions. One of the biggest under used features of Intel® AMT is event subscriptions. This allows Intel® AMT to connect back to servers and send events as they occur including discovery events that allow servers to track the location of Intel® AMT machines on the network. Starting with MeshCommander v0.3.1, you can now use the subscriptions tab to setup event subscriptions, event filter and authentication and optional arguments. Moving forward, Intel® AMT will be very useful.

These changes are in addition to many more bug fixes, normally a freeze bug was fixed in v0.3.1. The “Shift-Connect” feature that opens a new window was also fixed. You can get the latest version at http://meshcommander.com.

Feedback appreciated,
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
meshcommander.com

Custom power actions allow administrators to customize the how the computer will
boot, configure a host of parameters from keyboard lock to screen blanking.

IDE-R user consent is now supported. When you start an IDE-R session, the
consent prompt will now show up automatically if needed.

This version of MeshCommander now has support for Event Subscription.
Intel® AMT will send events using HTTP to a web server.

Hello,

I am not a developer.  I'm an operations engineer responsible for SCCM in my organization.  I just updated SCCM to 1511 and the out of band management server role was deprecated.  I've installed MeshCommander.

When I run meshcommander on a local machine and connect to the vPro technology (AMT) it is successful.  When I try to connect to a remote machine, I get a timeout error in the Meshcommander Console.

I checked my test machine and the needed protocols are allowed through the Windows firewall (16992 - 16995).  Are there any other ports that need to be opened in the firewall or any network configuration needed?

Should any ports be opened "outbound" on the console machine?

A few days back I released MeshCommander v0.3.8 with quite a bit of improvements to how MeshCommander deals with Intel® AMT TLS. Anyone that works with Intel® AMT knows that certificates are a big part of the process. Often times, administrators use various different tools to deal with management and security separately but with this new version of MeshCommander, we built a new certificate management tool right in. Its should now be easier to setup TLS traffic encryption and authenticate that you are communicating to the correct machine. At a high level, here are the major new additions:

• Built-in Certificate Manager & TLS checking & certificate pinning.
  • Create new root certificates or issue sub-CA certificates from existing root certificates.
  • Import and export certificates, as easy as drag & dropping a certificate into the tool.
  • Create Intel® AMT certificate easily using a root certificate that is already in MeshCommander.
  • All new TLS authentication system, allows administrators to check they are connected to the correct computers.
  • New certificate pinning system, just “pin” a certificate and you can always connect without a warning message.

In addition, we made many more bug fixes and improved support for Intel® AMT 6.x. For existing users of MeshCommander, automatic update notification should show up.

Latest MeshCommander at: http://meshcommander.com
Latest blogs at: https://intel.com/software/ylian
Enjoy! – Ylian

This is the first version of the Certificate Manager that is built into MeshCommander.
Allows easy management of certificates (All certificates are SHA256)

The new TLS certificate checking system checks against trusted root certificates and allows for certificate “pinning”. Makes it easy to setup intel® AMT TLS on both large and small networks.

i have setup a test box server 2012 r2 with IIS installed, then installled the meshcommander.msi with the IIS options.

Im able to connect from a remote or local browser to the mesh commander website and then connect to a AMT provisioned machine to check status, event log etc. But when I choose Remote Desktop > Connect, the message just says "Setup..." and window stays black and goes no further.

Initially I thought it was a network issue but if i use the standalone meshcommander exe from the same IIS server, then the kvm remote viewer is able to connect ok, Can anyone assist with steps to troubleshoot this ??

thanks

As it’s been cold and snowing in Oregon for the past few days, a great time to catch up on code releases and fixes. As part of catching up, I released MeshCommander 0.4.3 with plenty of bug fixes and the addition of Intel® AMT Alarm Clock support. MeshCommander can now help administrators manage wake events within Intel® AMT that cause the computer to wake up regardless of the network connectivity state. In many cases, instead of sending a wake command to Intel® AMT, it’s more practical to setup the wake even ahead of time and just have Intel® AMT perform the wake operation on its own. I would like to thank Joko Sastriawan for this work on this feature in MeshCommander, he is the one that got the feature started and fully working for the first time.

In addition to this, I have made many more fixes in MeshCommander to improve its robustness. Fixes range from improved HTTP pipelining to IDER timers and certificate checking improvements. Speaking of certificates, we also posted a new tutorial video explaining how to setup Intel® AMT with TLS. The new certificate management system built-into MeshCommander makes this super easy to do and it improves the security of your remote management operations a huge amount. If you have not setup Intel® AMT in TLS mode before, I recommend looking at the YouTube video on this topic. Other videos are also available on the MeshCommander tutorials page.

Feel free to get the latest version at http://meshcommander.com. As usual, feedback is appreciated.

Ylian Saint-Hilaire
meshcommander.com

Starting with this version MeshCommander, there is a new “Wake Alarms” tab on the left side.
You can use this tab to add, edit and manage all your Intel® AMT wake events.

If you have not looked at the MeshCommander tutorial page before, check it out.
Lots of good videos including a new one on Intel® AMT TLS.

It’s been a while since the last update to Meshcentral2, but work is starting up again after a big focus on MeshCommander. While MeshCommander is the web based Intel® AMT console, Meshcentral2 is the entire solution for web based remote management for both computer with and without Intel® AMT. I just put online Alpha3 of MeshCentral2. It’s not ready for common use yet, and being made available for people that want to check out early code. The focus on this release is on basic infrastructure of the server, something that will be important as the work moves along.

In this version, the main new feature is multi-tenancy support. Meshcentral2 can run one instance of the server with one database, but support many customers at once. Each customer gets to administer the site independently and has its own set of users and permissions. This architecture allows a lot more flexibility in server setup while pooling database, server, backups and other resources. It also makes it easy to run many customers under a single IP address and HTTPS certificate. Lowers the cost of hosting all around.

In this release I added a new optional configuration file, new command line options, new database update code and did a lot of bug fixes. We also included the very latest MeshCommander with subscriptions support, alarm clock and more. I tested this release on both Windows and Ubuntu Linux.

Progress is being made but, there is still no support for MeshAgent2. So you can only manage Intel® AMT machines without agents in this version. Most people will probably need to wait until that work is done being trying MeshCentral2.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

Meshcentral2 Alpha 3 brings a bunch changes to the core of the server to
support hosting many servers at once. This is useful if you have one server
and want to support many customers at the same time.

The latest MeshCommander, the web based Intel® AMT console is built-into MeshCentral2.

Now that Intel® AMT 11.6 is released, it’s finally time to circle back and highlight a big new feature of 11.6 that has been in the works for a long time: Web Storage and the ability for the default Intel® AMT web UI to be replaced. Ever since the start, Intel® AMT has always had a basic web page you could access with any browser. Because it’s all out-of-band, you could access the web page from a browser even if the target computer was soft-off, sleeping or had a non-functioning operating system. Over the last 10 years, the web has come a long way. The built-in Intel® AMT web page offers basic capabilities, but we can do a lot better now with HTML5 and WebSockets.

MeshCommander is not only a tool for managing Intel® AMT, it also comes with alternative version of MeshCommander that can be loaded into Intel® AMT 11.6 and above firmware, replacing the default web page and offering most of what any computer administrator would need to remotely manage a computer. In this short YouTube video, I show an introduction to Intel AMT 11.6 web storage and how to take advantage of it to replace the default WebUI. Personally, I find this feature amazing. Opening up Intel® AMT usages to any authenticated browser on the network, it’s never been easier to use active management.

And one more thing… Just released MeshCommander v0.4.4 with hardware KVM multi-display support. MeshCommander will automatically show additional screen buttons on the bottom left of the desktop viewer and you can easily click to switch between displays. Works with up to 3 displays as long as they are connected to Intel graphics.

The latest version of MeshCommander is at http://meshcommander.com. As usual, feedback is appreciated.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
meshcommander.com

With Intel® AMT 11.6, you can upload an alternative index.htm and logon.htm
To be loaded into firmware. This opens up many new possibilities for easy browser based management.
(Chess game below is an example from http://1kchess.an3.es/ not included with MeshCommander)

This new Youtube video shows a quick introduction to Intel® AMT Web Storage and
how to replace the default WebUI with a MeshCommander web page.

MeshCommander now supports Intel® AMT hardware KVM multi-displays.
Use the buttons on the bottom right to switch displays. Buttons will automatically show up when supported.

Coming back from spring break in Oregon, I have been at work on the release of MeshCentral 2 Alpha 4. This is a big release, not only because there are many new features, some never before seen in MeshCentral, but especially because of how MeshCentral2 will get distributed from now on. Being able to quickly setup a new server and keeping it up to date has always been a problem, especially if you want to be able to do this across many platforms like both Windows and Linux. Starting this week, MeshCentral 2 is now distributed on NPM, the NodeJS package manager. People who know what NPM is will immediately understand why this is big news. On many platforms, you now just have to type “npm install meshcentral” and you got the latest MeshCentral2 on your system ready to launch. This change alone will make MeshCentral2 more accessible to more people a lot faster. You can now keep your server up to date easily, just type “npm update meshcentral”. Works on Windows and Linux if NodeJS is installed.

In addition, MeshCentral 2 Alpha 4 has server-side file support. You can upload and download files to and from the server and each user is assigned a server space quota and can share files publicly. This makes MeshCentral2 much like a miniature cloud file storage service. You can drag & drop files into the server in the cloud and get them back when you need them. Super easy. Moving forward, this feature will because even more useful as we also have a file bucket on the server for each mesh allowing future mesh agents to upload/download files from the server on their own. Having a server side file repository will be super useful moving forward.

Thanks to Joko Sastriawan, MeshCentral2 now support TLS connections within CIRA for Intel® AMT. Sometimes Intel® AMT is setup to require TLS connections and when communicating to Intel® AMT over CIRA, a double-encrypted tunnel is required. MeshCentral2 will now automatically detect this situation and handle it properly. This said, if TLS is optional, double encryption is avoided whenever possible to boost speed.

MeshCentral2 is still early code. The Mesh Agent does not work so, I don’t generally recommend installing MeshCentral2 just yet for most people. This said, we are racing forward to a first usable non-Alpha version. Bryan Roe is hard at work on MeshAgent2 which looks like it’s going to be very impressive.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 is now distributed using NPM, the NodeJS package manager.
This makes deploying a new MeshCentral server super easy on many platforms.
NPM Link: https://www.npmjs.com/package/meshcentral

This all new server side file buckets on MeshCentral2 enables users to upload files
to the server and share them publicly. Moving forward, this enables many new usages.

MeshCentral2 has excellent support for Intel® AMT CIRA and this version is
even better with automatic handling of TLS within CIRA when required.

This is a big day as MeshCentral2 is going into BETA. Yesterday I released on MeshCentral2 v0.0.4 on NPM, this is the version I now consider BETA 1. It’s the first version of MeshCentral2 that includes a minimal usable set of feature and the all new MeshAgent2 for Windows. For people not familiar with MeshCentral2, it’s a web site you can install on a server in about a minute that allows you to remotely manage and control other computers on a local network or over the internet using a web portal. It’s super easy to get started. To prove it, I have a new installation YouTube video showing the entire process. Once installed, you can also check out the  next video which goes over some of the typical usages.

The new MeshAgent2 is built and maintained by Bryan Roe, who have been working on this agent for many months and 1000’s of hours, including many late nights. Many more bug fixes are still to be done and this server should NOT be used for production usages, but it is mostly feature complete and lined up for our first release later this year. Some of the features supported in MeshCentral2 now include:

• Polymorphic MeshAgent2 for Windows.
  • Automatic native agent executable update.
  • JavaScript core module support with automatic update.
  • Remote desktop, terminal and files.
• Server support for multi-tenancy.
• File storage on the server.
• All real-time web interface.
• Install the server in 1 minute, easy to keep updated.
• Server runs on Windows and Linux.

The new Polymorphic MeshAgent is worth a bit of explanation: In the old MeshCentral, the mesh agent was entirely built in C and needed to be re-compiled on all platforms each time you need more features or a different usage flow. The new MeshAgent2 uses a tiny JavaScript runtime to run the brains of the agent, that is pushed to the agent separately. The result is a single native executable that can connect back to the MeshServer, with all of the smarts coming from the server in the form of a JavaScript file that is platform independent and can be modified and swapped instantly. You end up with, I think, the most flexible remote management architecture ever.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 architecture is a big step forward from what we had before.

MeshCentral2 is full of remote management features, and installs in minutes.

Our new tutorial videos make it easy to get started and start using MeshCentral2 like a pro.

Hi,

When I use the KVM functionality of MeshCommander, the backslash key comes out as the hash key on the client end. 

Both the viewer and client are set to English - United Kingdom.

Any ideas why the mapping isn't working correctly or how I can fix it?

Thanks for any assistance,

Blair

MeshCentral2 development is moving forward at a swift pace and this week, there was plenty more going on. In my view, MeshCentral2 is probably the easiest way to setup your own open source remote device management web site. it is still in beta, and easily available on the NPM site. I am updating MeshCentral2 many times a week and this time around, wanted to highlight a few notable new features:

• Added support for Linux x86, for both 32bit and 64bit. A few days back I released the first version of MeshCentral2 with Linux support. Improving upon the previous version of MeshCentral, the Linux installation will be a bit different this time around. A script will be downloaded on the Linux computer, that script will attempt to automatically identify the computer and download and install the correct MeshAgent. Makes installing the Linux mesh agent easier since you don’t need to select what port of the agent you need anymore. However, there are only two ports of the Linux agent right now and more will be added later.
• Built-in MicroLMS support. The MeshAgent for both Windows and Linux now has MicroLMS support built-in. MicroLMS is a lite replacement to LMS when it’s not installed on a system that allow the MeshAgent to interact with Intel® AMT. What is interesting about this release is that not only is MicroLMS included, support for Intel® AMT user notifications as been added. So, the MeshAgent can get events like a HWKVM or Serial-over-LAN session connection. In the latest MeshCentral2, we display these events on the web page.
• New YouTube video on JavaScript in the MeshAgent. One of the amazing features of this new version of the MeshAgent is its ability to run JavaScript code. In this new YouTube video, we demonstrate how easy it is to edit the meshcore.js file and make the agent behave differently. This is crucial for MeshCentral2 and MeshAgent2 to being able to be adaptive to a wide array for customers and usages.

MeshCentral2 is a team effort. Bryan Roe did massive amounts of work on the MeshAgent2 with lots of fixes, new features, Linux ports and new makefiles. MeshCentral2 is still very much beta code, lots of things still moving but if you give it a try, let us know.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 now supports MeshAgent’s for Windows and Linux 32bit and 64bit.
Full support for software KVM is included in both Windows and Linux versions.

MeshAgent2 now has built-in MicroLMS. It can now communicate with Intel® AMT
even if LMS is not present which is especially important on Linux. All new in this release
of MicroLMS is support for Intel® AMT user notifications.

We got an all new MeshCentral2 YouTube video with an introduction to running
JavaScript code on the MeshAgent. This allows the MeshAgent to be re-programmed
for a wide array of customers and usages.

A quick post to say that I just uploaded a new YouTube video on how to compile MeshCommander for use as a firmware web application for Intel AMT 11 and above.

Starting with Intel AMT 11, you can now upload a web application into the firmware that will replace the built-in index.htm page. This is super useful because you can upload a fairly complete Intel AMT management console into the firmware and access it using a browser. MeshCommander was built to do this, you can also read my previous blog on this topic.

In this new video, I show how to download the MeshCommander source code and use the Web Site Compiler to build a compress .gz file that can be uploaded into the Intel AMT 11 storage area. Because MeshCommander is open source, your welcome to change and re-brand it anyway you like, in fact, I encourage it.

Hope it's helpful,
Ylian
meshcommander.com

Quick blog post to say that both MeshCentral2 and MeshCommander now fully support the RMCP discovery protocol for Intel® AMT. For a long time now, Intel® AMT has had the ability to respond to UDP discovery packets, but this is the first time I made full use of this feature in the two big open source tools. You can now quickly scan the network for Intel® AMT computers, select them and add them to the list of managed computers. In addition, you now get an almost live view of what computers are present on the network. This is really nice, you don’t need to guess anymore what computers are present.

• MeshCentral2: When it comes to the internet/intranet management web site, RMCP is used to detect the presence of Intel® AMT computers day and night, accumulating data on when the computers are present on the timeline when they show up and go away. It’s also a wonderful way to get a birds eye view on what computers are present on the network at any time. Because MeshCentral2 uses a real-time web application, the latest RMCP scan status is always displayed in real-time on the web page (no need to hit refresh in the browser). Disconnect a computer from the network and see the web page update live a minute later.
   
• MeshCommander: For our local console tool, RMCP means you don’t have to start connecting to computers and waiting for a timeout anymore. The color status is updated when you first load the tool and continues to be updated every minute. If you don’t need this feature, you can turn it off in the menus. Makes things so much easier for administrators.

To see it all in action, we have a new YouTube video with a demonstration for both MeshCentral2 and MeshCommander. Managing Intel® AMT on a local network has never been easier. Lastly, we made many more fixes and improvements to both MeshCommander and MeshCentral2, certainly worth updating your tools.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com

MeshCentral2 now supports RMCP on the server for both scanning an IP address range
and to detect what Intel® AMT computers are present in almost real time.

MeshCommander also has RMCP support with new color coding quickly
showing that computers are present on the network.

We have a quick YouTube video showing RMCP support in both MeshCentral2 and MeshCommander.
Well integrated, it just makes things a lot easier to manage.

MeshCentral2 development keeps moving forward and this week, we got two really interesting new features added. As you will see, MeshCentral2 is positioning to be a server that can be used in a wide array of usages. From small networks with a few computers on a local network to larger deployments on a commercial cloud services. MeshCentral2 is being designed to handle both and everything in between.

• Added support for LAN and WAN modes. This is one of the big innovations that will get MeshCentral2 noticed. Historically, you always needed a fixed IP/Host to setup MeshCentral, making things difficult for small deployments. Now MeshCentral2 has a new “LAN mode” where mesh agents discover the server location using multicast. For small deployments, it’s easier than ever to get a management solution setup. Let’s take a look at the differences between the two modes noting that it’s possible to run MeshCentral2 in both modes simultaneously, offering both feature sets at the same time:

LAN mode

1. Mesh agents are setup without the IP/DNS name of the server. Agents/server discovery using multicast.
2. You can add Intel® AMT computers manually with IP/Host. CIRA is not supported in this mode.
3. You can scan your local network for Intel® AMT computers using RMCP.

WAN mode

1. Server must have a fixed IP address or DNS name.
2. Mesh agents use fixed name to connect to the server.
3. Intel® AMT must connect to the server using Client Initiated Remote Access (CIRA).

• Added support for password authenticated CIRA connections. MeshCentral2 can now accept Client Initiated Remote Access (CIRA) connections that are both certificate authenticated of username/password authenticated. By using a username as credential, we avoid having to issue a CIRA certificate to Intel® AMT computers simplifying the process greatly.
• New MeshCommander CIRA configuration scripts. One of the big innovations within MeshCommander is its scripting editor and way to quickly build scripts that would perform actions on Intel® AMT. Now MeshCentral2 takes advantage of this feature by offering a link where you can download a CIRA configuration and cleanup scripts. Getting CIRA connection is now as easy as drag & drop.
• YouTube video demonstrating easy CIRA configuration. In this new YouTube tutorial video, we show the 3 different ways to setup CIRA on a computer and demonstrate how MeshCommander scripts can be used to quickly setup CIRA. Takes a few minutes and you can manage your computer from the website using Intel® AMT.

This week, I wanted to thank Ariel Silverman who a few months back worked on making the MeshCommander script blocks for configuration of certificates and CIRA. His work has been used in this release.

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 now supports WAN and LAN modes or can run both modes at the same time.
Makes is easy to deploy both as a cloud server and for managing computers on a local LAN.

MeshCentral2 new support for CIRA username/password authentication along with
MeshCommander CIRA setup script. Makes is easy to get CIRA setup.

All new YouTube video shows now to configure CIRA faster and more easily
than ever before. Just drag & drop the setup script.

MeshCentral² development keeps moving forward. So much is going on, we have to just make a list of new features and changes. MeshCentral2 is still very much in beta, lots work still to be done before it is ready for day-to-day use. This said, much progress is being made. Here is a main recap of the last few weeks:

• Location and mapping support. The MeshAgent² can now attempt to get its location using its public IP address. MeshCentral² then records this information and can display location information on a live map along with colored pins showing the connectivity status of the device. Default mapping information uses OpenStreetMap.
• Network interface information. The latest MeshAgent² and MeshCentral² now cooperate to gather device network interface information. This is useful for all sorts of usages including remote device wake-up.
• Server Wake-on-LAN support. When MeshCentral² is not in WAN-only mode, it will not send out wake-on-LAN packets upon request. For small deployments where an administrator manages computers on a local network. You can now wake computers from the web site.
• Remote Desktop support on Raspberry Pi. Linux support as always been important and this week, we added improved support for the Raspberry Pi including new install script and remote desktop support. Really cool to remotely control such a small device.
• MeshCentral² now on GitHub. For the first time, the source code to MeshCentral² is now on GitHub at: https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCentral. Just getting started at this, but should make it easier to collaborate with others on the project.

To install and try MeshCentral2, take a look at the tutorial videos on the web site at: http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

Enjoy!
Ylian Saint-Hilaire
http://meshcommander.com/meshcentral2

MeshCentral2 now supports displaying device location using OpenStreetMap.
Currently, only public IP address location is used, but sets the stage for more location systems.

MeshCentral2 will now collect device network interface information.
This is very useful for many features including Wake-on-LAN.

MeshCentral2 now have Wake-on-LAN server support.
When in LAN mode, the server can now send Wake-on-LAN packets on the local network.

MeshCentral2 now supports remote desktop on the Raspberry Pi.
Demonstrating remote control of really small devices.