Remote desktop to Windows Clients

luke.browning · 2010-06-28 17:33:57

Hi All,

I've just finished setting up my home server and have my router set up so all incoming connections are forwarded to the server. Now I was wondering, as I have Windows machines inside the network, if there is a remote desktop server and client for arch that I can connect to so that I can then remote desktop to the Windows machines on the network? Or is there anyway to bypass the server and go straight to a Windows machine inside the network? Or, would it just be better to use VNC?

Thanks,

Luke.

ngoonee · 2010-06-28 22:53:40

rdesktop is a client. No server I believe.

Much as I hate to admit it, remote desktop just works better than vnc, generally.

graysky · 2010-06-29 00:43:39

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rdesktop

nocain · 2010-06-29 01:01:08

Your best bet is to install and configure freeNX on your server and use that to proxy the connections from the server through to the XP system. This is what I have done in the past. I haven't looked at the Arch freenNX packages lately so you may need some patches that I have written and then some that I have gathered from the launchpad site https://launchpad.net/freenx-server to fix some keyboard breaks, cursor problems, and RDP connection issues. I had to do this a year ago when setting this up as the arch packages were broken. I meant to report the issues and the patches but always seemed too busy to get around to doing that. I would assume most all those problems have been solved now as it has been over a year since I had to do it. better yet would be to just patch nxserver to use freerdp rather then rdesktop, but that may be more complicated.

You would then just use the NX client to connect. here is a quick tear down.
Home network:
-Server: Linux box with xorg, ssh, rdesktop, freeNX, installed and configured prefered if you could it could resolve the XP systems IP address or had it in the /etc/hosts file
-Windows XP box: Remote Desktop enabled

Off site:
Computer with NX Client installed:

Create New connection
:Server:
-Set Host to Home servers external IP address, domain name, etc
-Set Port to whatever port you have SSH listening to on the Home server
:Display:
-Set Display resolution
:Desktop:
-Set Desktop to windows
-Click settings:
:Windows Terminal Server:
-Set Server to either XP boxes ip address or hostname if the server has been configured to resolve the hostname of the XP box
:Authentication:
-Set Show the Windows login screen button
:Session Type:
-Set Run Desktop button

Save everything and you should be good to go.

alternatively you can install copssh on the windows XP box and get it set up and configured and then use port forwarding chains to forward the xp boxes RDP port( 3389 ) through the Server and to your locat port 3389 and then just use rdesktop or better yet freerdp to connect to it. If you go that route you can probably rig up a 10 line bash script to handle the dirty work for you.

nocain · 2010-06-29 01:12:59

Also I quit rdesktop as it is old and crappy and is so out of date it's not really even funny anymore + most the clients suck.

rdesktop replacement:
Check out freeRDP http://freerdp.sourceforge.net/ which someone was nice enough to put in AUR

Remmina Cool remote manager application that uses freeRDP:
http://remmina.sourceforge.net/index.shtml which someone was nice enough to put in AUR as well

great work being done there, I have been following freerdp project mailing list for most the past year and Remmina since I found out about it a few months ago, and finally was able to kill off the many clients that I needed for ssh, vnc, xdmcp, etc and use just this one client and freerdp ensures that wow linux and mac users can now get more then just 5.0 RDP client functionality WOW. still need nx client though but I am sure that won't be necessary for too much longer.

Last edited by nocain (2010-06-29 01:13:42)

.:B:. · 2010-06-29 02:07:36

I haven't had the occasion to test remmina (formerly grdc) yet, but it supports a host of protocols (amongst which also the RDP one that Microsoft uses, FreeNX and others).

I used to use TightVNC server and client, but I'm not really thrilled with how it behaved. TightVNC has problems with multi-user XP installations (they are documented I believe), and the time of single-user installations has been gone for quite a while .

graysky · 2010-09-04 10:00:46

Wow, remmina rocks. Thanks for the recommendation. Much better than rdesktop and it's in community (remmina remmina-plugins)

trusktr · 2010-09-07 06:36:56

Wait, so you can "see" the remote windows desktop while in your Arch desktop?

capoeira · 2010-09-07 16:17:07

trusktr wrote:

Wait, so you can "see" the remote windows desktop while in your Arch desktop?

lol, its all about that

nocain wrote:

Also I quit rdesktop as it is old and crappy and is so out of date it's not really even funny anymore + most the clients suck.
rdesktop replacement:
Check out freeRDP http://freerdp.sourceforge.net/ which someone was nice enough to put in AUR

.

whats the advantage of freeRDP over rdesktop?
I'm using rdesktop and its working fine here

luke.browning wrote:

if there is a remote desktop server for arch .

there is one, but I havn't tested it. It's in AUR
http://xrdp.sourceforge.net/

Last edited by capoeira (2010-09-07 16:28:48)

capoeira · 2010-09-07 19:20:26

capoeira wrote:

nocain wrote:
Also I quit rdesktop as it is old and crappy and is so out of date it's not really even funny anymore + most the clients suck.
rdesktop replacement:
Check out freeRDP http://freerdp.sourceforge.net/ which someone was nice enough to put in AUR

.
whats the advantage of freeRDP over rdesktop?
I'm using rdesktop and its working fine here

I looked at the man-page and the ony difference I found is that freeRDP! has NO "seamless window"-option anymore

BTW: does anybody here having the same problem: When I connect to the windows-machine (XP-pro) everything works fine. But I can't reconnect after disconecting. Alias it reconnects but only for a few seconds (luckily enugh time to make a reboot - only way to solve this)? Doesn't matter if I symply disconnect, or make a log-off or just close the window.
Also I had to enable auto-login-with-no-password on the XP-machine (I have no monitor and/or keybord attached to it), else I couldn't establish a connection. Is this normal?

R00KIE · 2010-09-07 23:09:02

I think the windows account needs to be password protected for remote desktop to work (although I'm not 100% sure on this).

I use rdesktop and I can connect/disconnect all I want and it works fine (and asks for the password every single time).

nocain · 2010-09-08 19:01:10

The freeRDP is a fork if you will of Rdesktop which is no longer being actively developed, the problem is that rdesktop does not follow microsoft's specifications for rdp as well as it only supports rdp 5.5 while rdp is up to 7.0

freerdp is slowly rewriting the rdesktop code to conform to the microsoft rdp specification and add support for newer rdp protocol version features.

Seamless mode in rdesktop was just a hack to only draw a select window( eg you launch rdesktop to run notepad in seamless mode, an entire desktop connection is made, however everything outside of the notepad window is not being drawn on the xserver ) that it why it is not in freerdp, freerdp will eventually implement the remote app portion of the rdp protocol spec which would be the seamless mode equivalent.

as for rdesktop working fine, I agree saying that you are connecting to windows 2003 or lower, Vista, 7, and 2008 server you will start to notice things not working at all or not quite right, keyboard layouts break, cursor not displaying properly, etc

capoeira · 2010-09-10 01:33:25

R00KIE wrote:

I think the windows account needs to be password protected for remote desktop to work (although I'm not 100% sure on this).
I use rdesktop and I can connect/disconnect all I want and it works fine (and asks for the password every single time).

The account needs to have a password, yes. But i couldn't connect to XP until doing the login directly on the local machine, so I enabled the automatic login. As I said, I can conect....the problem is I can't conect more than once without forcing a reboot. But its not a BIG problem, as I rarely conect more than once

nocain wrote:

The freeRDP is a fork if you will of Rdesktop which is no longer being actively developed, the problem is that rdesktop does not follow microsoft's specifications for rdp as well as it only supports rdp 5.5 while rdp is up to 7.0
freerdp is slowly rewriting the rdesktop code to conform to the microsoft rdp specification and add support for newer rdp protocol version features.
Seamless mode in rdesktop was just a hack to only draw a select window( eg you launch rdesktop to run notepad in seamless mode, an entire desktop connection is made, however everything outside of the notepad window is not being drawn on the xserver ) that it why it is not in freerdp, freerdp will eventually implement the remote app portion of the rdp protocol spec which would be the seamless mode equivalent.
as for rdesktop working fine, I agree saying that you are connecting to windows 2003 or lower, Vista, 7, and 2008 server you will start to notice things not working at all or not quite right, keyboard layouts break, cursor not displaying properly, etc

thanks for the explanation - I indeed use it with XP.

as for seamless, there is a way already it seams: http://www.cendio.com/seamlessrdp/
didn't try it, I don't need it for now

derelict · 2010-09-20 05:43:22

Apparently freerdp no longer supports the -K option that rdesktop does. This makes it difficult to use with ratpoison or stumpwm since the freerdp session grabs all keyboard input. Things also get complicated when trying to take a screenshot of the session. Keybindings to scrot script are swallowed, regardless of window manager. I've not yet found a workaround for this.

nocain · 2010-09-20 22:01:38

derelict wrote:

Apparently freerdp no longer supports the -K option that rdesktop does. This makes it difficult to use with ratpoison or stumpwm since the freerdp session grabs all keyboard input. Things also get complicated when trying to take a screenshot of the session. Keybindings to scrot script are swallowed, regardless of window manager. I've not yet found a workaround for this.

This is something the freerdp folks are currently looking at. I agree there is no good work around for the issue when using the freerdp gui client which is why I pointed out using Remmina for the freerdp GUI client. The default behavior in Remmina is the opposite, all hot keys are processed first by the WM then if not matched get moved to the server. Also Remmina has a keyboard binding button that will force all key presses to be passed by to the server you are connected to. So for instance I use Enlightenment so alt+tab scrolls through open windows just like windows. so by default if I am connected to a windows box using remmina and freerdp and hit alt+tab it cycles open windows in enlightenment however if I want to do this on the windows box I am connected to I hit the keyboard button or key combo( right_ctrl+k ) then when I hit alt+tab it does it on the windows box. then I just hit the keyboard button again( or right_ctrl+k ) then when I hit alt+tab it cycles the open windows in enlightenment again. Also you can customize the hotkey combo for this right_ctrl+k is just the default.

One thing to point out is that freerdp is 2 parts the rdp library( much like mstsc.dll ) and the gui client( much like mstsc.exe ) they do not depend on each other at all so I don't even have the freerdp gui installed, just the library, then I use Remmina for the freerdp gui.

Even if not using it for rdp Reminna is worth checking out as it can also handle NX, XDMCP, sftp, ssh, and vnc connections and you can set up tab groups separate a tab out into it's own window etc...

veljom · 2011-01-26 11:43:35

Remmina is great, has everything I need, so thanks a lot for recommendation. Just need to find to way to minimize/iconify it in openbox.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-28 17:33:57

Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#2 2010-06-28 22:53:40

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#3 2010-06-29 00:43:39

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#4 2010-06-29 01:01:08

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#5 2010-06-29 01:12:59

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#6 2010-06-29 02:07:36

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#7 2010-09-04 10:00:46

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#8 2010-09-07 06:36:56

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#9 2010-09-07 16:17:07

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#10 2010-09-07 19:20:26

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#11 2010-09-07 23:09:02

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#12 2010-09-08 19:01:10

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#13 2010-09-10 01:33:25

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#14 2010-09-20 05:43:22

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#15 2010-09-20 22:01:38

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

#16 2011-01-26 11:43:35

Re: Remote desktop to Windows Clients

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