How Do I Access Services with the Banyan Desktop App

Once you have registered your device via the Banyan Desktop App (Windows, macOS, Linux), you can access services directly from your device, including:

• Hosted Website
• SSH Service
• TCP Service
• RDP Service
• Kubernetes Service

Prerequisites

Before accessing services, please ensure the following device prerequisites are met:

• For SSH and RDP services, banyanproxy must be on PATH. 

  • On macOS devices, the Banyan Desktop App automatically places banyanproxy in /usr/local/bin/banyanproxy.

  • On Windows devices, the Banyan Desktop App automatically places banyanproxy in %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\banyanproxy. 
    
    
    

• For SSH services only:

  • Check if the SSH directory exists in the home directory. If the SSH directory does not already exist in the home directory, then create it.
    
    

  • The SSH configuration file must be located at either ~/.ssh/config or %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config.
    
    

  • The SSH configuration file must have writable permissions.
    
    
    

Access a Hosted Website

To access a hosted website:

1. Open the Banyan Desktop App and then navigate to the Services tab.
   
   

2. Locate the hosted website you are attempting to access, and then click OPEN. The Banyan Desktop App will launch the web app in your browser.
   
   
   
   

   NOTE: If this is your first time accessing the hosted website from this registered device, you must select your certificate to send to the browser.

You can now access the hosted website directly from your device.

Access an SSH Service

To access an SSH service:

1. Open the Banyan Desktop App and then navigate to the Services tab.
   
   

2. To display all SSH (and TCP/RDP) services, click Login to access other services.
   
   
   

3. Locate the SSH service you are attempting to access, and then click CONNECT and then click into the SSH service.
   
   
   

4. Make note of the SSH command (`(user)@(servicename)`), which you'll need in the next step.
   
   
   
   

   NOTE: If you are using default SSH, then the Banyan Desktop App automatically configures SSH. If you are not using default SSH, then follow the Configuration Details provided in the Banyan Desktop App.

   1. For macOS devices, run the command in Terminal or your preferred CLI.

   2. For Windows devices, run the command in Command Prompt or your preferred CLI.

   3. For Linux devices, run the command in Linux command line or your preferred CLI.

You can now SSH into your server with your normal SSH client, by entering:

ssh `(user)@(servicename)`

The SSH client will use `banyanproxy` to automatically tunnel the SSH session over the Mutual-Auth TLS channel set up by Banyan.

Access a TCP Service

To access a TCP service:

1. Open the Banyan Desktop App and then navigate to the Services tab.
   
   

2. To display all TCP services, click Login to access other services.
   
   
   
   

3. Locate the TCP service you are attempting to access, and then click Connect.
   
   
   
   

4. Depending on your permissions, you can configure the Connect Mode and Listen Port. 
   
   NOTE: Your Banyan Administrator may not allow configuration of the Advanced Settings. Please contact your Banyan Administrator with any questions or assistance.
   
   

You can return to your preferred TCP client and begin using the service.

Access an RDP Service

To access a RDP service:

1. Open the Banyan Desktop App and then navigate to the Services tab.
   
   

2. To display all RDP services, click Login to access other services.
   
   
   
   

3. Locate the RDP service you are attempting to access, and then click Connect.
   
   

4. Open your preferred RDP client (such as Microsoft Remote Desktop) and create a new PC. 
   
   4a. If you are connecting to an individual RDP server, then copy the IP and port from the Banyan Desktop App and then save the new PC.
   
   4b. If you are connecting to a collection of RDP servers, then add a new gateway. Enter the gateway name, which is the banyanproxy from the Banyan Desktop App and then enter a Friendly Name (such as banyanproxy). 
   
   

The RDP client will use banyanproxy to automatically tunnel the RDP session over a Mutual-Auth TLS channel using HTTP Connect Tunneling.

Access a Kubernetes Service

Banyan recommends setting your kubeconfig context for a simplified experience. You can set your default env variable via one of the commands below:

• macOS

  • export KUBECONFIG=$KUBECONFIG:$HOME/.kube/banyan

• Windows

  • $Env:KUBECONFIG="$Env:KUBECONFIG;$HOME\.kube\banyan"

Then do kubectl config use-context "CLUSTERNAME"

Alternatively, you can do kubectl config --kubeconfig="/Users/< username >/.kube/banyan" use-context CLUSTERNAME.

To access a Kubernetes service:

1. Open the Banyan Desktop App and then navigate to the Services tab.
   
   

2. To display all Kubernetes services, click Login to access other services.
   
   

3. Locate the Kubernetes service you are attempting to access, and then click Connect.
   
   

4. Set the https_proxy environment variable before you call kubectl to automatically tunnel the session over the Mutual-Auth TLS channel set up by Banyan.

   NOTE: If you are using kubectl 1.18 or lower, add a proxy-url field directly to your ~/.kube/config file instead of specifying the https_proxy env var. Additionally, set the https_proxy environment variable before you call kubectl to automatically tunnel the session over the Mutual-Auth TLS channel set up by Banyan.

   
   
   

   https_proxy=http://localhost:8081 kubectl get pods

   
   

5. Verify that your output lists your running pods correctly.
   
   

   NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE podreader-default-pod   1/1     Running   0          35h