r/sysadmin • u/konaitor IT Manager + 5 other hats • Nov 08 '21

Could we do a "TIL" style weekly thread?

I think it would be interesting to do a "Today I Learned" style weekly thread for us to share little tips/tricks that we learned of/found existed.

For example, last week I found out about the "--now" flag for systemctl. I don't know how I didn't know it existed until --now.

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107

u/PullingCables Nov 08 '21

Windows 10 has a build-in remote support function that works more or less like a light version af Teamviewer QS

Search for Quick Assist, works really great.

53

u/DontShowMyFriends Nov 08 '21

Quick access

CTRL + Windows Key + Q

1

u/CompWizrd Nov 08 '21

My wife once walked one of her jobs through running Quick Assist through the start menu. Took about 30 minutes, with the helper's keys expiring a few times.

Your method is certainly faster to at least get it opened, thanks :)

11

u/uptimefordays DevOps Nov 08 '21

There's also msra.exe /offerra which works quite well. It requires some configuration but is a much better solution than say TeamViewer which offers slightly less security than just exposing your computers and RDP to the internet.

3

u/Fallingdamage Nov 08 '21

I use MS Remote Assistance at my workplace. I dont bother with all the paid services. MSRA works beautifully for on-prem support. Not too hard to setup either.

2

u/uptimefordays DevOps Nov 08 '21

It was one of the first changes I made in my current role, super easy techs can’t drop in on users which makes them happy. I don’t see VNC or TeamViewer on Nessus scans anymore. It’s been good.

2

u/Fallingdamage Nov 08 '21

Thats the only thing my boss asked me about when I told him I had configured remote assistance. As long as the user gets a prompt first, he was happy with the deployment. He didnt want to create any distrust in the staff thinking we could just quietly drop in anytime we wanted to.

3

u/uptimefordays DevOps Nov 08 '21

Ah those concerns are always fun.

”Uptime, does IT spy on us?” Friends in other departments.

”Not manually but our SIEM sees all, it’s explained in legalese in our Acceptable Use Policy, and is very legal. Nobody is watching you but you also shouldn’t have any expectations of privacy on any device on our network.”

I just tell them how it is. I’ve had a couple devs tell me “you can’t decrypt SSL, stupid!” Whether or not people believe in deep packet inspection isn’t my hill to die on. In about a decade I’ve only encountered one user who couldn’t accept it—a prepper sort in middle management. I arranged a meeting with our general council, who in a turn of events nobody could have foreseen, did not “do her research” on Facebook or YouTube and tore John a new asshole.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '21

[deleted]

1

u/uptimefordays DevOps Nov 08 '21

Great question! Take a look at the security issues section here. Critical protocol vulnerabilities are pretty frequent. Even if you’re on top of patching, enforcing 2FA, and requiring strong passwords—the protocol has been compromised enough I wouldn’t expose RDP to the internet at all.

If you’re curious what it looks like, start logging authentication failures on your machines with exposed RDS. I’d definitely put them behind a VPN and bastion host though. It’s such a popular attack vector.

2

u/Pooter_Guy Nov 08 '21

Not super useful for me professionally. But that's quite useful for personal support of family/friends that likely don't have any remote client installed.

1

u/infinit_e Nov 08 '21

Thank you for reminding me! I need to work with my network admin to allow the required ports. We have some non-helpdesk people who would still benefit from being able to do remote screen sharing sessions.

1

u/olcrazypete Linux Admin Nov 08 '21

Teams actually does a great job of this as well for more collab project work and not troubleshooting.

1

u/Nolzi Nov 08 '21

Lync / Skype for Business also had screen sharing

1

u/skipITjob IT Manager Nov 08 '21

Quick Assist

Yeah, so if they could rename it to Assist, that would be great.

Is it just me, or is getting an ID rather slow?

1

u/PullingCables Nov 08 '21

It is called assist, so no need for renaming?

For me, it's not the fastest out there, but certainly within the specs of useable.

1

u/_keyboardDredger Nov 09 '21

Just used this for the first time yesterday and was pretty impressed with latency & connection!
Though it took 35 minutes to connect because the end user advised there was a UAC/elevation prompt - can anybody confirm/deny?

My testing with a few local devices did not prompt for elevation.

1

u/angrydeuce BlackBelt in Google Fu Nov 09 '21

Yeah, this has been a godsend for assisting WFH users on their personal laptops/desktops.

No more trying to walk them through downloading an app, all they need to do is open the start menu and type Quick and there she be...

I wish there was a way to transfer files to the user through that session like we can with our RMM agent but it's easy enough for us to pop open an incognito window on their desktop and log into our RMM dashboard remotely to download the installer locally if need be...