Accessing remote system in Amazon WorkSpaces with a screen reader
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote machine: WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help! -- Regards Lukasz Golonka
Hi. I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation? Thanks. Andrew. Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all,
My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By >default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to >access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code >that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web >applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. >According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. >Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote machine: WSP and >PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on >transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client >JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in >Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve >the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system >running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of >these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
-- Regards Lukasz Golonka
Hi. I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation? Thanks. Andrew. Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote machine: WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
Another option might be ssh port forwarding, so that connecting a Web browser to a local port on your machine forwards the request over ssh to connect to the remote Web server. It's fairly easy to do. On 10/5/24 05:43, Andrew Hodgson via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
Hi.
I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation?
Thanks. Andrew.
Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote machine : WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
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I have considered using SSH port forwarding, but that that apparently
breaks several security policies )don't ask me why SSh as such is
allowed, yet port forwarding is not). Obviously if it will not be
possible to access Windows there I'll keep escalating in hopes this
solution gets accepted. Thankfully the GUI access to Linux works so
poorly even for my sighted coworkers, the cloud migration was once
again postponed for everyone, though obviously that will not be going on
indefinitely. I'm in contact with the Vispero support - lets hope we
will figure out where the problem lies.
--
Regards
Lukasz
On Fri, 10 May 2024 09:04:21 -0400
"Jason J.G. White via Blind-sysadmins"
Another option might be ssh port forwarding, so that connecting a Web browser to a local port on your machine forwards the request over ssh to connect to the remote Web server. It's fairly easy to do.
On 10/5/24 05:43, Andrew Hodgson via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
Hi.
I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation?
Thanks. Andrew.
Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote mach in e : WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
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On 10/5/24 10:55, Lukasz Golonka via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
I have considered using SSH port forwarding, but that that apparently breaks several security policies )don't ask me why SSh as such is allowed, yet port forwarding is not). Obviously if it will not be possible to access Windows there I'll keep escalating in hopes this solution gets accepted. If you wrap the ssh in a WireGuard tunnel, would that make them feel any better?
Hi.
I really hope they get this sorted for you. I think you should be able to get Jaws working using AWS Workplace. There is a lot of this going on at the moment, teams trying to consolidate their network either by making everyone use a VDI or by putting everyone through an enforced VPN tunnel. I have been on the end of both solutions. Unfortunately the VDI solution sucks for even sighted developers. I find that even with really good setups I have to really watch using the keyboard as it can lag behind and I end out missing characters. Its lovely when the team do this just after upgrading everyone to top end Macbooks!
Andrew.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lukasz Golonka via Blind-sysadmins
Another option might be ssh port forwarding, so that connecting a Web browser to a local port on your machine forwards the request over ssh to connect to the remote Web server. It's fairly easy to do.
On 10/5/24 05:43, Andrew Hodgson via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
Hi.
I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation?
Thanks. Andrew.
Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote mach in e : WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
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Hello Andrew, all, I am using VMWare with two nested virtual machines over Remote desktop and not Amazon Workspaces that you have been discussing. However, JAWS is extremely slow and non-responsive when connecting over the second nested VM. Could you please tell me what settings you used for Video ram or other desktop settings that may be helpful to make JAWS more responsive? I have been using Hyper-V, but have found that some of the keyboard shortcuts are lacking compared with VMWare. I am using VMWare 17. I also have issues with my Braille display not working inside the second nested virtual machine with remote access. It works on the first virtual machine, but not the second machine. This is a problem for VMWare and Hyper-V. Thank you for your time and attention. Respectfully, Beth On 5/10/2024 5:43 AM, Andrew Hodgson via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
Hi.
I think you are on the right track using Windows here, I don't think there is anything in Linux which supports this stuff. Have you tried contacting FS support? I have used a couple of virtual desktop solutions in this scenario, and usually there was something we needed to modify to get this working and I wouldn't have got to the bottom of this without help from FS. In one case it was video ram, and in another case it was some settings in the protocol. This was using VmWare and Citrix solutions so haven't used Amazon Workspaces. I take it you also have the remote license on your Jaws authorisation?
Thanks. Andrew.
Lukasz Golonka wrote:
Dear all, My employer recently decided to move most of our software development activities to a remote systems accessed via Amazon WorkSpaces. By default it just connects to an Amazon Linux 2 running Mate as an GUI, which obviously will not work with a screen reader. My initial idea was to access this remote system via SSH, which is a supported scenario for accessing WorkSpaces, and while it will be possible to write and compile code that way, there are some activities that require a GUI, accessing our GitLab instances via a web browser being a prime example. Note that these web applications are not and will not be accessible from our main machines i.e. they are reachable only from the systems running inside the WorkSpace. According to JAWS's documentation its remote access solution has support for accessing remote Windows inside WorkSpaces, so I gave this a try. Sadly this either does not work, or I'm missing something very obvious. AWS supports two protocols when creating a remote machine: WSP and PCoIP. When running JAWs on a remote machine using the former it does not detect that it is running in a remote access scenario and relies on transferring audio to the client. For the latter while JAWS claims to be running in the remote mode the authorization is not taken from the client JAWS's speech is also transferred as an audio and not using a remote channel. Has anyone tried and successfully used JAWS's remote support in Amazon WorkSpaces? JAWS's documentation for remote access is sadly very basic in this area. Note that I am aware it should be possible to achieve the similar goal by using NVDA Remote, however that will require a remote server which is visible both from my work machine and from the system running inside the WorkSpace, which is going to be pretty difficult, as main reason for deploying WorkSpaces in the first place was separation of these two environments. Obviously any alternative proposals for accessing remote Windows in WorkSpaces are very welcome. Thanks for your help!
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participants (4)
-
Andrew Hodgson -
Beth Fogle-Hatch -
Jason J.G. White -
Lukasz Golonka