Monday, October 19, 2015

Using the API to Provide Remote Access to Your Clients









Using the API to Provide Remote Access to Your Clients   By Andrew Crihfield

Often times you have a client that needs access to their computer from home. The only obvious way is to give them access to the MAXfocus RMM dashboard. There are some downsides to that: by default they have the ability to remote into any computer in the dashboard.

The other less known way is to install the Take Control Viewer to their home PC and then create a Take Control link through the RMM API. This article will take you step by step through the process.

Step One: Generate your API Key

Open the dashboard and go to Settings>General Settings>API Key. If there is already and API Key there, just copy it and paste it into notepad. We are going to use Notepad to build our API link.

If there is no API Key, click on Generate and then copy it into Notepad


The first thing we need to do is to find the Dashboard API device ID. In order to do this you must first get the Client ID and Site ID.

How do I get the Client ID and Site ID?

Browse to the following URL after you have entered your API Token key
https://www.systemmonitor.us/api/?apikey= API KKEY HERE &service=list_clients

It will list all of your clients so look for the cliendid and make a note of it.

Now browse here after you have made the required changes!
https://www.systemmonitor.us/api/?apikey=API KKEY HERE&service=list_sites&clientid=CLIENTID HERE
Then use the Site ID to get the list of workstation IDs
https://www.systemmonitor.us/api/?apikey=API KKEY HERE&service=list_workstations&siteid= SITEID HERE





Now you are ready to create your Take Control Link.

https://www.systemmonitor.us/api/?apikey=API KKEY HERE&service=get_take_control_connection_url&deviceid= WORKSTATIONID HERE

Example Link: https://www.systemmonitor.us/api/?apikey=ab58a3bXXXXXXXX5b9e4bb750f7130ce&service=get_take_control_connection_url&deviceid=1880570

IMPORTANT!!!!!

One thing to note is the potential security risk of displaying your API Key. I strongly suggest that you use a URL Shortener such as https://goo.gl/ to hide the API key.