Getting Started

In a nutshell:

1. Build a BlueSky Server (see below, or use Docker)
2. Install clients on computers you want to remote control
3. Set up Admin Apps on your computer (ones from which you perform control of clients)

Our BlueSky servers were run on Ubuntu 20.04 server on DigitalOcean. You may have success with the same distribution on other infrastructures. You may be able to use other distributions or even macOS, but you will need to significantly edit the server-config.sh script.

To install BlueSky server on a running Ubuntu instance, do this:

• install git and ssh (if you haven't already sudo apt-get -y install git ssh
• change to the /usr/local/bin directory cd /usr/local/bin
• clone the repo sudo git clone https://github.com/BlueSkyTools/BlueSkyConnect.git
• run BlueSky server-config sudo /usr/local/bin/BlueSkyConnect/Server/server-config.sh

That will take care of most of the rest.

You still need to generate a CSR and/or install a verifiable SSL certificate in Apache by editing SSL paths in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf. BlueSky will not connect to servers with self-signed or invalid certificates. People have reported success with Let's Encrypt and Certbot. Instructions here: https://certbot.eff.org/#ubuntuxenial-apache

DigitalOcean also has a great write up on getting started with Apache and Let’s Encrypt.

Also, you may want to configure /usr/local/bin/BlueSkyConnect/Server/emailHelper.sh with your preferred SMTP setup so that the server can email you notifications, alerts, and Fail2ban alerts.

Lastly, you should setup your ability to shell into the server with PKI and/or otherwise make sure you can drive the server. Then edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and change #PasswordAuthentication yes to PasswordAuthentication no (Note the lack of # on the revised line. You want to uncomment it.)

Updates

To ensure the server is up to date with the latest code, run sudo /usr/local/bin/BlueSkyConnect/Server/update-from-git.sh with some frequency. Consider making it a cron job.