You may remember our recent look at how to inherit credentials in Remote Desktop Manager. In today’s tip, we’re looking at something else you can inherit to save time and effort: domain variables. It’s really simple and easy to do. Here’s the process:

Start by creating a Domain Group/Folder, and then enter your domain name.

Next, create groups and sessions under the new domain folder. For each session, enter the variable $DOMAIN_DOMAIN$ in the domain field.

Variables can be used in any session configuration, or with any template. When you use a variable, it will be replaced by the corresponding value prior to establishing a connection – and in this case, it will retrieve the domain information. The domain variable will simply go up the ladder until it finds the Domain Group/Folder.

If at any time you need to change the domain, that’s easy as well: simply change it in the Domain Group/Folder, and the rest of your entries will automatically inherit the new domain. The treeview looks like this:

So there you go! Inheriting domain variables is an easy way to save time and simplify your life. In fact, with so much extra time on your hands, you could learn a new language or spend more of your days (and maybe nights) finding Pokémon!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

As an IT pro, you’re not always at your desk. Many times, you’re with customers, helping a colleague, at a conference, in training, stuck in yet another status meeting (sorry…), and so on. Well, to make your life easier and more efficient, here’s our list of 7 must-have mobile apps for IT pros:

Fing – Network tools

Fing should definitely be on your device! It lets you scan networks and access plenty of useful information, such as who’s connected to what, or if there’s an intruder on the network. You can also perform a full electronics inventory, assess network security levels, troubleshoot network issues, check the device history of all discovered networks, add your own device details, search and sort your device list, find open ports, conduct automatic DNS lookup, and more. We highly recommend it. You can get it for iOS and Android.

Reddit

The Reddit mobile app is an excellent way to connect with your fellow IT pros from around the world. While there are plenty of communities to join, the two subreddits that we recommend for accessing all kinds of IT knowledge, recommendations and opinions are:

• /r/InformationTechnology
• /r/sysadmin

At the same time, when you need a bit of a break from your stressful day, some of the IT pros on Reddit can be hilarious. Honestly, whenever someone around here just starts erupting in laughter for what seems like no reason, we assume they’re reading something hysterical on Reddit. You can download it for iOS and Android.

Office Suite + PDF Editor

With this handy mobile app, you can edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files from, well, everywhere. You can also convert files to PDF on your device, as well as share files via Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive. And there’s a cool photo scanner too. You can download the app for iOS and Android.

Remote Desktop Manager

What can we say? We’re proud of the RDM app and we hope you have it on your device’s home screen. The RDM app lets you access all of your remote connections and passwords from anywhere. You can use as a stand-alone app or you can use it in combination with the Enterprise edition to connect to your centralized database. You can get it for Android and iOS.

Spiceworks – Help Desk

First of all: if you don’t know what Spiceworks is, then join the community because you’re going to LOVE it! Spiceworks is a community of IT pros interacting with each other about different topics. Joining the community can help you find quick solutions to problems, get advice and recommendations, debate and share ideas, and so on. You can also connect with various companies and vendors, including of course the Devolutions Team. Plus, you can manage contacts and tickets through the app, which is really convenient. You can download it for iOS or Android from here.

ScanIT

With ScanIT you can scan serial numbers and other asset data (via bar codes and QR codes), and manage them directly in your Spiceworks application! The app can help you save lots of time and effort, and improve data accuracy as well. What’s not to love? You can grab it here.

ES File Explorer File Manager

ES File Explorer is an Android app that lets you manage local and networked files via FTP. It’s kind of like Office Suite in that you can access your files whenever you want and wherever you are. It’s a great way to organize all your files so you can be a lot more productive – and you don’t have to run into work every time you need a file! You can find it here.

What about you?

There’s a good chance that you already have some these apps on your smartphone. But hopefully we’ve given you some new ideas we all, so that you can tame the IT chaos in your world.

YOUR TURN: what apps do you think IT pros should have on their device? Please share your recommendations and wisdom!

How to make sure your passwords meet security requirement in Remote Desktop Manager

Here at Devolutions, we like to have fun – seriously, you should see our game room! We also have a few team members who can be described as “professional pranksters”. So yeah, there’s never a dull moment around here.

BUT…there’s one thing we never joke about, and that’s security! It’s our top priority, which is why we’ve designed Remote Desktop Manager with a built-in password complexity feature.

Here’s the scoop: we all know that some users don’t know the first thing about password security. Their version of a strong password is “123456” or “password”, which is hardly secure! (still the top 2 used passwords out there according to Password Random) That’s where RDM’s password complexity policy feature comes to the rescue!

This feature lets you ensure that all passwords meet pre-determined complexity requirements, so that your valuable systems and devices can’t be hacked by a gifted 5-year old. Here’s how to set things up:

In Administration – Data Source Settings – Password Complexity, click the New Template button to create your Password Complexity template. Just a little side note, you could also select Forbidden Password and create a blacklist of forbidden password,  banning 123456 forever!

Next, enter a name for your new template and select your specific requirements, including the minimum password length and the minimum number of lowercase characters, uppercase characters, numeric characters and symbols.

From there, edit one of your sessions; on the Security side menu, choose Complexity and select your template from the dropdown menu.

When the setting is enabled (True) and a user tries to change or create a password, one of the following will happen based on your settings:

• Required: the user must meet the pre-set requirements or the password will not be accepted.
• Warn: the user will get a warning that their proposed password fails to meet complexity requirements and that they should change it. Users who choose to ignore this warning may do so, only to incur your wrath later on.
• Inherit: the password complexity rules will be inherited from the validation rules set on the parent folder (i.e. either “Required” or “Warn” as described above).

And that’s it! It’s like having your very own Sheldon Cooper to make sure everyone follows the Roommate agreement… and we all know how he is with rules. Bazinga!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

If you’re an iOS user,  please click here for the Getting Started with RDM for iOS.

Are you guys glued to your smartphone looking at the newest tweet, or the latest post on Reddit? Well, I’m happy to say that you can now keep your eyes on your smartphone and mix work with pleasure all at the same time!

Let’s take a moment to review the free Android mobile app for Remote Desktop Manager. The first thing I want to note is that to get the full RDM experience on your device – including connecting to your centralized database – you’ll need a desktop RDM Enterprise license. The application will certainly enhance your RDM experience and make it easy to monitor your servers and proceed with urgent fixes on the road.

With this in mind, here’s how to get started with RDM for Android:

1. Start by downloading the free app for Remote Desktop Manager from Google Play.

2. When launching the app for the first time, you’ll be prompted to enter a master password. You can either enter a password to safeguard your account (which we strongly suggest), or you can leave the field blank. If you choose to leave it blank the app will open without prompting for a password.

3. When using the app for the first time, you’ll be running from a local data source (XML file). You can add a new data source by tapping on Connections – Data Sources and then the floating button (+). Select the data source you want and add information as required.

4. If you use our Devolutions Online Database or Devolutions Drive services, simply create a data source that refers to them and you’ll have access to your entries in no time.

5. Once configured, you can easily launch a connection to all of your remote servers, virtual machines, and other workstations with a single touch. Obviously the mobile platform does not support ALL the technologies that the desktop edition do, but the most popular ones are there (RDP, SSH, VNC and a few others).

Now there’s no more reason to miss that latest trend on Reddit!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

If you’re an Android user, please click here for the Getting Started with RDM for Android.

Are you guys glued to your smartphone looking at the newest tweet, or the latest post on Reddit? Well, I’m happy to say that you can now keep your eyes on your smartphone and mix work with pleasure all at the same time!

Let’s take a moment to review the free mobile iOS app for Remote Desktop Manager. The first thing I want to note is that to get the full RDM experience on your device – including connecting to your centralized database – you’ll need a desktop RDM Enterprise license. The application will certainly enhance your RDM experience and make it easy to monitor your servers and proceed with urgent fixes on the road.

With this in mind, here’s how to get started with RDM for iOS:

1. Start by downloading the free app for Remote Desktop Manager from the App Store. Please note that you’ll need v8.4 or higher.

2. When launching the app for the first time, you’ll be prompted to enter a master password. You can either enter a password to safeguard your account (which we strongly suggest), or you can leave the field blank. If you choose to leave it blank the app will open without prompting for a password.

3. When using the app for the first time, you’ll be running from a local data source (XML file). You can add a new data source by tapping on Data Sources and then the plus sign (+). Select the data source you want and add information as required.

4. If you use our Devolutions Online Database or Devolutions Drive services, simply create a data source that refers to them and you’ll have access to your entries in no time.

5. Once configured, you can easily launch a connection to all of your remote servers, virtual machines, and other workstations with a single touch. Obviously the mobile platform does not support ALL the technologies that the desktop edition do, but the most popular ones are there (RDP, SSH, VNC and a few others).

Now there’s no more reason to miss that latest trend on Reddit!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

As you know, we strive to create solutions that help you “control the IT chaos” in your world. And that’s why today I’m thrilled to introduce you to the latest member of the Devolutions family of innovative products: please give a warm welcome to Wayk Now!

What’s Wayk Now?

Using Wayk Now, you can take control of a remote computer, or allow an authorized user to take control of your computer. Wayk Now will soon become available as a first Beta version of the software which will be released in the next weeks. Wayk Now is a new remote desktop tool that will also be integrated with Remote Desktop Manager soon after the release.  Sign up now to get on the beta list.

Wayk Now key features include:

• Send and receive files of any size
• An enhanced clipboard that lets you copy/paste just about anything between local and remote applications
• Compatibility with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux – all with the same rich feature set
• Strong TLS 1.2 encryption with certificate validation
• Easy-to-use, with none of the common usability problems found in remote support and remote desktop scenarios
• A lightweight package with a small footprint that launches without installation or elevated permissions

Wayk Now is FREE

Right now, Wayk Now is free for everyone to use! In the future, we’ll launch an enterprise version with various licensing options. However, the product will ALWAYS be free for personal use, forever.

Register to get Wayk Now Beta as soon as we release it

Want to give Wayk Now a try? Please click here to register, and as soon as the Beta version is ready later this month, we’ll let you know by sending you an email with further information. Since our Beta programs are usually very popular, we urge you to sign-up now.

We hope that you enjoy all of the features and benefits of Wayk Now. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact me directly at jdupont@devolutions.net .

For IT pros, we know that it can be irritating to work with SSH keys on multiple machines. But don’t worry, that’s where RDM’s Key Agent Forwarding comes in! Do not confuse this with our own RDM Agent, it’s a completely different beast. This Key agent forwarding allows you to use your local SSH keys instead of leaving keys sitting on your server.

Obviously, this feature is available for specific session types: SSH Shell, SSH Tunnel and SSH Port Forward.

Here’s how to use the Key Agent Forwarding:

In the Advanced tab of your session, enable the Use Agent option to allow initial authentication. Also enable Allow Agent Forwarding to use key authentication within the session.

For example, once you’ve SSHed into a machine, it will continue to SSH from it to the next machine, using the same key. I’m sure you can see how useful this can be when comes time to deploy to a server! It will allow you to use your local SSH keys instead of having to leave them hanging on your server without any passphrase protecting them.

And that’s it! You can now pour yourself a nice glass of wine, and have one less hassle in life to deal with!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

For millions of people around the world, September 8, 1966 is sacred: it’s the day the intrepid crew of the USS Enterprise first hit the airwaves. And while the original Star Trek only had 79 episodes, its impact is legendary. From movies to books to popular spinoff series like TNG, DS9, Voyager, and even an animated show, it’s hard to imagine another television show having such an influence. Who knew that a Frisbee on a string would change the world?

And it’s not like the Star Trek universe has fizzled out, either. There’s a new series launching next year, and as any Trekkie worth their tricorder and secret stash of Romulan ale knows, this month marks the 50th anniversary of the first Star Trek episode!

Are You a TRUE Trekkie?

Sure, you’ve seen some episodes here and there, and you might have seen some movies, too. Maybe you even know a few words in Klingon, and have your own version of the “Prime Directive”. But there’s only one way to tell if you’re a TRUE Trekkie, and that’s to take our quiz! Give it a try, and tell us how you did.

Lately, we’ve focused a lot on security and password protection because it’s a top priority for us and we’re kind of obsessed. It’s kind of like when Trekkies start talking about why the original Star Trek is better or worse than Star Trek: The Next Generation (this is just an example – please don’t get anyone in this office started on that debate or we won’t get any work done!).

OK, let’s get back to password protection, because there’s a great feature in RDM that you should be using called Password Analyzer.

We’ll start by looking at a common scenario: let’s say that on a regular basis, your team changes or adds passwords in your data source. Hopefully, you’re already using RDM’s Password Policy Complexity to make sure everyone is choosing suitable passwords (i.e. nobody is using “password” or “12345”!).

But how do you know that some of your colleagues aren’t using the same password? What if the password strength isn’t sufficient? Well, that’s where Password Analyzer enters the picture. It scans your data source and displays a strength indicator for each password. In seconds, you’ll detect vulnerabilities and can follow-up with colleagues accordingly.

Here’s how to use this feature: in Tools click on Password Analyzer. This will launch a fast and complete diagnostic of the password quality in your data source. The results are color-coded to make things even simpler. The redder things are, the more trouble you’re in!

The report is detailed and captures user names, when the password was created, description (if one has been defined in the entry), and how many times the same password has been used in your data source. This final column is the one that most of you will focus on, since it tells you if a potential problem exists.

If you notice that many of your users have the same password, you have the option of clicking Forbidden Password. This will automatically add the password to your blacklist. Clicking on the pencil will open your selected entry and allow you to edit it right away. The Export Settings will be useful when exporting reports.

If you don’t want to see all of the passwords, you can switch tabs to view passwords used for your sessions, credentials or information entry.

And that’s it! Your data source is now as safe as the Starship Enterprise in the hands of James T. Kirk!

As always, please let us know your thoughts by using the comment feature of the blog. You can also visit our forums to get help and submit feature requests, you can find them here.

As you hopefully know, we recently launched the new and improved version 2.0 of Remote Desktop Manager for Android. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you’ll find it on Google Play.

Exploring the New Multi-Tab Feature

While there are many improvements in RDM for Android 2.0, one of the biggest is the new multi-tab option. Let’s start by taking a quick look at what inspired this new feature.

One of the most important aspects of RDM is that it’s easy to use, with intuitive menus, navigation and layout. Here’s a screenshot of the desktop version of RDM so you can see what we mean:

Tablet and Smartphone-Friendly

As you might expect, it was essential for us to reflect this focus on UX and usability in RDM for Android. There are, however, many different screen sizes and various resolutions to consider. And that’s where the new multi-tab feature comes in.

This feature is essentially a sliding tab that sits above an open session – so it’s out of the way, and doesn’t interfere with your work area. To switch between sessions, all you have to do is swipe and click on the one you wish to open. It takes literally a second to switch between sessions.

To get a clearer sense of how this feature looks and works, here are two screenshots, one from a tablet running RDM for Android and one from a smartphone:

As you can see, the tablet version lets you easily access your home menu (on the left) while your sessions are open. To switch between sessions, you simply swipe and click on the session you want to launch on the tab above your work area. If you wish, you can also enable the full-screen mode (so it’s similar to the smartphone version).

On the other hand, on a smartphone. Once you access the home menu and configure your session, you can toggle between full screen-mode and the standard screen mode, using the multi-tab function to switch from one to the other. The main difference between the tablet and smartphone interface is that on a tablet, the navigation menu is on the left, while on a smartphone, the menu is hidden while your session(s) is open.

Send Us Your Feedback!

We hope that the new multi-tab feature in RDM for Android 2.0 helps you save time and simplify your work. We’d love to get your feedback on this or any other aspect of the app. You can comment below, or send me an email at jdupont@devolutions.net and I’ll make sure that your feedback gets straight to our Android Development Team.

As you hopefully know, we recently launched the new and improved version 2.0 of Remote Desktop Manager for iOS. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you’ll find it in the App Store.

Exploring the New Multi-Tab Feature

While there are many improvements in RDM for iOS 2.0, one of the biggest is the new multi-tab option. Let’s start by taking a quick look at what inspired this new feature.

One of the most important aspects of RDM is that it’s easy to use, with intuitive menus, navigation and layout. Here’s a screenshot of the desktop version of RDM so you can see what we mean:

Tablet and Smartphone-Friendly

As you might expect, it was essential for us to reflect this focus on UX and usability in RDM for iOS. There are, however, many different screen sizes and various resolutions to consider. And that’s where the new multi-tab feature comes in.

This feature is essentially a sliding tab that sits above an open session – so it’s out of the way, and doesn’t interfere with your work area. To switch between sessions, all you have to do is swipe and click on the one you wish to open. It takes literally a second to switch between sessions.

To get a clearer sense of how this feature looks and works, here are two screenshots, one from an iPad running RDM for iOS and one from an iPhone.

As you can see, the iPad version lets you easily access your home menu (on the left) while your sessions are open. To switch between sessions, you simply swipe and click on the session you want to launch on the tab above your work area. If you want to organize your sessions, you can drag and drop sessions on the tab. You can also enable the full-screen mode (so it’s similar to the smartphone version).

On the other hand, on a iPhone. Once you access the home menu and configure your session, you can toggle between full-screen mode and the standard screen mode, using the multi-tab function to switch from one to the other. As with an iPad, you can drag and drop your sessions on the tab. The main difference between the tablet and smartphone interface is that on a tablet, the navigation menu is on the left, while on a smartphone, the menu is hidden while your session(s) is open.

Send Us Your Feedback!

We hope that the new multi-tab feature in RDM for iOS 2.0 helps you save time and simplify your work. We’d love to get your feedback on this or any other aspect of the app. You can comment below, or send me an email at jdupont@devolutions.net and I’ll make sure that your feedback gets straight to our iOS Development Team.