Parsec has become a go-to remote desktop tool for game developers, 3D graphics artists, designers, and video editors. As more and more people access their office workstations through Parsec, companies have asked Parsec to develop administrative tools to add, revoke, and manage accounts with access to machines. Parsec for Teams is a new product from Parsec that gives organizations and administrators that level of control, so they can feel comfortable letting their team work from home on a low bandwidth, 60 FPS, UHD remote desktop tool that doesn't get in the way of their work.
Your designated administrator should sign up for Parsec for Teams and choose the number of seats your company will need. Add a corporate credit card and save the details before creating your team.
Installing Parsec on your office workstations can be done via the installation GUI or command line. If you'd like to assign the machine at installation, please reference the Teams Computers article.
If you're installing via the installation GUI, you need to install Parsec for Windows. Once the account logged into Parsec on the computer is on your team, the computer will be hosting in Teams mode, which comes with the additional security to block incoming connection attempts from anyone who is not on your team or in your group.
If you're deploying via the command line, SCCM, or another packaging tool, you only need to download Parsec for Windows. The installer comes with both the Teams ID setting and Parsec in one bundle, so with your command line, run
parsec-windows.exe /norun /silent(this is case sensitive). The flag /norun tells Parsec that it should not run after installing. The flag /silent tells Parsec to install silently.
If you're installing the software as a Teams Computer, you need to download the PowerShell script referenced at the top of the Team computers dashboard. To learn more about Teams computers, please read this article.
Use the Parsec for Teams admin page to invite people through their email, and they will receive an email asking them to join. They need to sign in to Parsec and/or create an account with the exact email address you invited.
Once people join your team, on the Parsec for Teams admin page you can search for users based on email and click the three white dots next to their name to add them as an admin. Only the owner of the account (the original creator of the Team) can add people as admins, change seat count, and change billing details.
Once people join your team, on the Parsec for Teams admin page, you can put people into security groups that allow you to manage who they can connect to.
It's simple. Just go back to the administrator panel and revoke their access. They will lose the ability to connect to the company's PCs. Any admin can do this.
You can give your users the ability to connect to the Windows log on screen. This will allow Parsec to start on Windows startup as the Parsec user designated in a Windows registry key. When it starts in that mode, the Parsec user will be hosting even while Windows is not logged in. The Parsec user will then connect to the Windows log in, and log into Windows with their Windows credentials.
The Parsec application communicates with our backend via TCP, with our STUN server via UDP, and peer-to-peer with other Parsec hosts via UDP. All TCP traffic is encrypted and uses port 443, STUN UDP traffic uses port 3478, and the encrypted peer-to-peer UDP traffic uses port ranges specified in Parsec Settings or the configuration file. A value of 0 for the port settings will cause Parsec to use psuedo-random defaults based on the computer's hostname. Parsec will use one port, incremented from the Host Start Port, per client connection. If you want to allow for collaboration, you should reserve 2 or 3 ports (for 2 or 3 people to connect at once) to each workstation. If your organization's firewall allows for UDP hole punching, Parsec will work without any additional configuration. If not, choose whatever works best with your security model to allow the peer-to-peer UDP traffic to the Parsec application. If whitelisting by domain name or IP is necessary, here is the full list:
| Domain / IP address | Purpose | Protocol and Port |
|
kessel-ws.parsecgaming.com |
Websocket API | TCP 443 |
| kessel-api.parsecgaming.com | API | TCP 443 |
| api.parsecgaming.com | API | TCP 443 |
| builds.parsecgaming.com | Automatic Updates | TCP 443 |
| parsec.imgix.net | Image CDN | TCP 443 |
| public.parsecgaming.com | CDN | TCP 443 |
| IPv4 52.86.26.213 | STUN Server | UDP 3478 |
| IPv6 2600:1f18:63d9:c506:1337:1337:1337:1337 | STUN Server | UDP 3478 |
Parsec offers an on-prem relay server in the Parsec for Teams enterprise package. The HPR gives you more control over Parsec traffic in your network. Learn more here.
- Deny non-Team usage of Parsec by blocking connections to this domain:
Block kessel-ws.parsecgaming.com - Allow connections for your team to this domain:
Allow YOURTEAMID.team-ws.parsecgaming.com
For example, if your team ID is 1abcdefg, you would configure your network to Allow 1abcdefg.team-ws.parsecgaming.com - (Optional) Block *.team-ws.parsecgaming.com at a lower priority than the Allow rule from step 2. This will ensure that someone cannot sign up for a different team and connect to it from your network.
Go to the configuration options in the Parsec for Teams admin panel and enable "Use Team Websocket".
You can remove features and change settings for your entire team with the Admin Config settings. There are several admin configuration options that you can set across your organization in the Parsec for Teams App Config settings tab.
You can apply settings configuration policies to the Parsec app via the Windows Registry. Configuration settings policy applied via the Registry will override any user configuration done in the Parsec settings UX, or in the configuration file (config.txt).
Create a String Value named "Configuration" in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Parsec Registry Key.
The value data will be based on the configuration options you select, the configuration values should be colon(:) separated.
An example sets the connection to use a maximum of 15Mbps, and default to using H265 video codec when possible. It also hides the Parsec Arcade and Friends List from the Parsec App. Just note that setting this does not disable the Arcade or Friends list functionality at an account level, but rather just hides those features from the Parsec UI on the computer the policy was configured on.
In order for the configuration policy to apply, the Parsec app must be restarted. You can validate the policy by viewing the settings section of the Parsec app. Your users will also be able to see which settings are applied by policy and cannot be changed.
You can also add these Windows Registry settings by creating a .reg file, with the contents like this.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Parsec]
"Configuration"="encoder_bitrate=15:encoder_h265=1:app_arcade=0:app_friends=0"
You can view advanced configuration settings here.
To make your life easier, here are some settings you may be interested in.
Set the connection bandwidth limit to 15Mbps:encoder_bitrate=15
Disable hosting on a computer:app_host=0
Set the Parsec computer name:host_name="This_is_the_computer_name"
Set the first UDP port the Parsec app will try use when a connection is initialized to this computer:network_server_start_port=8000
We have a handy set of scripts that will set up a virtual machine perfectly to play, test, and develop games on. Please check out our open source scripts here.
In the settings area of Parsec, you can add Approved Applications. This is valuable when you plan on inviting people to play test a game or view just one application. The person joining still needs to be a member of your team, but when they connect, they'd only be able to see and interact with the applications approved in settings. Please read more about Approved Applications here.
With the Parsec for Teams enterprise upgrade, you can automate your deployment, management of users and computers, and a lot more. Check out the Parsec for Teams API docs here.
You can download Parsec and try it on your computer at work before you buy it. The consumer version of Parsec is not licensed for commercial use, and it does not include key security features included in Parsec for Teams. That being said, you can use the consumer version for your personal testing to make sure Parsec will work for your setup before you subscribe.
Parsec for Teams is priced based on the number of accounts you have on your team. You set the total number of accounts and then invite people or remove people based on need. You can install Parsec for Teams on any number of computers, but you will always be charged based on the total accounts you subscribe to.
Team Computers You can claim computers for your team as Team Computers and manage them from the computers tab of the Teams Admin portal. This process can be done during installation or at any point through the Parsec installer. A Team Computer can be assigned to an individual, a group, or to Guest Access. You can assign computers to people, groups, or guest access running Parsec with these parameters. More information on Team Computers is available here.