Apache Guacamole as alternative to NoVNC for VM console access?

[victorhooi]

What do you think about integrated Apache Guacamole for accessing VM console? (As another option to NoVNC).

Unlike VNC, the protocol seems more similar to RDP, so may perform better over WAN links.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Unlike VNC, the protocol seems more similar to RDP, so may perform better over WAN links.

Where did you derived this information, honestly curious about why and techniacal backgrounhd.

Hmm, reading this https://guacamole.apache.org/doc/gug/guacamole-architecture.html it seems their advantage is in having a single user facing endpoint (browser) for multiple protocols.
But NoVNC and xterm.js also are browser based. I wonder if the their translation process from protocol X to their own guac-protocol adds much latency, or maybe even counterweights optimizations done by the original protocol.
One would need to test it out and do some benchmarking.

 

[adamb]

What do you think about integrated Apache Guacamole for accessing VM console? (As another option to NoVNC).

Unlike VNC, the protocol seems more similar to RDP, so may perform better over WAN links.

We use Guacamole quite a bit. From what I have found its nothing more than a centralized front end to access multiple VNC/RDP devices. You are still using either VNC or RDP to access the device.

 

[victorhooi]

Yes - but I assume Guacamole would run on the same machine as Proxmox - hence, whether it talks VNC or RDP isn't as important (latency wise).

What is important is the WAN connection from the Proxmox/Guacamole server back to you - if this can run over a more efficient RDP-like connection (via Guacamole), that seems like a win, right?

 

[t.lamprecht]

- but I assume Guacamole would run on the same machine as Proxmox - hence, whether it talks VNC or RDP isn't as important (latency wise).

Yes, from a network POV it may add just minimal latency (<<1ms) but the retranslation step must happen too, so effectively your VM or QEMU grabs the screen, process it sends it to a local server which reprocess it to send it over WAN.

What is important is the WAN connection from the Proxmox/Guacamole server back to you - if this can run over a more efficient RDP-like connection (via Guacamole), that seems like a win, right?

I doubt that a external daemon, not system involved, which effectively has no meta-information about the stream can do the same as RDP, a system involved daemon with all the information. E.g., they even know if there's a video playing somewhere on the screen and send only that part as original video encoded stream, e.g. AV1, h26X, ... which means no transformation (delay + cpu time) and already highly optimized. A external daemon, which doesn't have this information can never optimize in the same way, some heuristics may help but still, they probably end up taking the whole frame and re-encode it...

Anyway my question about how you determined that it is as good as RDP (or better than noVNC) is still open:

Where did you derived this information, honestly curious about why and technical background.

As integrated such things comes with quite a bit of work and headaches, and we have already technology where you can do a browser-only-no-fat-client VM display access we need hard numbers or facts why this is better, else we'd need to integrate 10 such technologies a year.

Maybe take a look at spice? While no HTML client (yet) it does a lot of magic and is quite nice in general, IMO.

 

[adamb]

Yes - but I assume Guacamole would run on the same machine as Proxmox - hence, whether it talks VNC or RDP isn't as important (latency wise).

What is important is the WAN connection from the Proxmox/Guacamole server back to you - if this can run over a more efficient RDP-like connection (via Guacamole), that seems like a win, right?

Maybe for you, but its just added complication for me and probably most users. The console works aok for the few times I need to use it.

 

[LnxBil]

Maybe take a look at spice? While no HTML client (yet) it does a lot of magic and is quite nice in general, IMO.

There are some partially functioning clients around, e.g. also some written as browser extensions, but I'm also waiting for the Uber client to rule them all :-D

 

[verulian]

I also think having a consolidated option such as this available for the browser would be nice. I'm working on deploying an accounting system for some users that need access to a Windows 10 client via dedicated Epichrome Chrome instances on MacOS. The nice thing about this would be to allow them have a single "Accounting" web browser that has this client and everything all in one place and synchronized between workstations. I think having Guacamole easily available would be a really nice addition for a lot of people.

Now, having said the above, I supposed SPICE could be an option, but guys, your SPICE instructions here are as clear as mud! Is there a howto setup guide that gives more specific instructions on what steps to take to get this working with a Windows 10 guest and MacOS (browser) clients?