What is Gateway and What is It Used for?¶

Gateway is a small console application that provides other devices in the same network with access to the Getscreen.me server.

It is useful when a direct connection to the server is not available due to network restrictions, or when the server needs access to resources inside the customer’s local network that are not exposed to external networks.

The application is available for the Windows and Linux operating systems.

Download Gateway

Features¶

Using Gateway does not add any new features, but it significantly improves how the system can be used by creating better conditions for those features to work. Here is what you can get when using gateways:

• Custom data proxying for connections between a remote device and a technician’s device
• Importing technician accounts from the corporate Active Directory
• Proxying the Magic Packet signal for Wake-on-LAN inside your local network
• Server access for the Agent application from restricted networks

Proxying connections to devices¶

Gateway can be used as a proxy server to transfer data between a remote device and a technician’s device during a connection session. This allows you to:

• Improve the network conditions between the remote device and the technician’s device, which can improve image quality and data transfer speed.
• Restrict physical access to traffic for security reasons.

Gateway supports both data transmission channels: WebRTC and WebSocket. They can be used separately or at the same time.

WebRTC¶

Although WebRTC is a protocol for establishing P2P connections, it still requires access to service STUN servers to detect the participants’ IP addresses and TURN servers to proxy data when P2P connections are not possible due to network conditions. Gateway runs these servers to keep the channel operational.

WebSocket¶

To support the alternative channel, Gateway runs as a public web server and proxies HTTP connections over the WebSocket protocol.

Importing technician accounts from Active Directory¶

Active Directory domain controllers usually do not have open Internet access for security reasons. Because of this, the Getscreen.me server cannot directly send requests to import accounts from Active Directory. To give the server access to Active Directory, run the Gateway application inside the same local network as an intermediary. The running Gateway can synchronize accounts by performing the following operations as instructed by the server:

1. Receive credentials from the server for connecting to Active Directory
2. Connect to Active Directory over LDAP and retrieve user account data
3. Send the retrieved data to the server

Proxying the Magic Packet signal for Wake-on-LAN¶

When a device is woken up using Wake-on-LAN, the server sends a Magic Packet signal to all known IP addresses of the target device. However, the target device often does not have a public IP address, so the packet may not reach it. At the same time, the device may be connected to other devices in the local network and can receive the wake-up signal from them.

This means you can turn one of the devices in your local network into a “watcher” by installing the Gateway application on it. At the server’s request, Gateway sends the Magic Packet signal over the local network, ensuring that the target device is woken up reliably.

Server access for the Agent application from restricted networks¶

When the Agent application on a remote device has no direct access to the server, it can connect to the server through a Gateway that does have server access. This may be required when setting up remote access to devices without Internet access, for example in restricted corporate networks.

getscreen.exe -config "server='192.168.1.1:443'"

Managing Gateways¶

A running Gateway application is identified on the server by a token that Gateway sends to the server when connecting. The server uses this token to identify the Gateway owner account and the roles available for it.

Tokens and roles can be managed in the personal account on the Gateways page in the Settings section.

On the Installation and Launch tab in the token card, you can find brief Gateway installation instructions and download a preconfigured config.json file for configuring the running instance. This file contains the server address and token.

On the Running Applications tab, you can see the list of running instances using this token.

On the other tabs, you can enable or disable the required Gateway roles:

Installing and starting the service¶

The Gateway application is managed using console commands.

To install the Gateway application as a service, use the -install command:

./gateway -install

To start the service, use the -start command:

./gateway -start

List of all available commands:

Configuration¶

A running Gateway instance is configured using the config.json file, which must be located next to the executable file. Restart the application to apply any changes.

Connecting to the server¶

Connection settings for the Getscreen.me server:

{
  "server": {
    "host": "getscreen.me",
    "token": "3wHcXGzc4KVMCJgxjX7sw5j6UO...",
    "secure": true
  }
}

Proxying connections¶

Settings required to run Gateway as a data proxy when connecting to remote devices:

{
  "proxy": {
    "webrtc": {
      "public_ip": "62.110.17.123",
      "listen_ip": "0.0.0.0",
      "port": "3478",
      "udp_ports_max": "60000",
      "udp_ports_min": "40000"
    },
    "websocket": {
      "host": "proxy.example.com",
      "listen_ip": "0.0.0.0",
      "port": "443"
    }
  }
}