How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Jeffrey Randow — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 07:29:00 GMT

This is a common complaint we see in the public newsgroups... People think that the webclient will allow use without forwarding the appropriate port for Remote Desktop and that it will allow connections over a proxy...

Still better yet is the belief that the web client will allow connections to machines behind a NAT firewall from the internet without having to forward the ports/set up a VPN...

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Tristan K — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 17:35:00 GMT

I think it's understandable - I think when something's called a "web client", it creates certain assumptions in the mind of the reader.

Which reminds me of the next topic I was going to cover...

Terminal Services

John Large — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:00:00 GMT

whassssssup

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Xtrix — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 06:19:00 GMT

Try the Citrix Secure Gateway...much safer!!

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

hidden101 — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 18:19:00 GMT

# re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works 3/19/2004 12:29 AM Jeffrey Randow
This is a common complaint we see in the public newsgroups... People think that the webclient will allow use without forwarding the appropriate port for Remote Desktop and that it will allow connections over a proxy...

Still better yet is the belief that the web client will allow connections to machines behind a NAT firewall from the internet without having to forward the ports/set up a VPN...

=============================================

yes, i was under the assumption that this web client would make that possible (without actually thinking it through first, of course). the only server i could get to behind my NAT firewall was the one i was forwarding ports to, so now it's back to the VPN connection to get from work to the home network.

i thought tsweb was going to be pretty cool upon first glance, but in reality, it's quite useless to me.

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Tristan K — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 18:30:00 GMT

Yep, it doesn't do what you want it to do. It's still useful for many situations, but it's not a NAT bypass solution, just an ease-of-use-and-central-administration solution.

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Allen Cook — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:14:00 GMT

Having some problems. I have the activeX. I can pull up the page but I can't log in. Keeps saying the computer cannot accpet connections. Can connect inside the network. Firewall not configured right maybe? Any HELPFUL comments?

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Tristan K — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:28:00 GMT

Check the second KB article listed in the text above; it walks you through it.

Essentially, you need to server publish port 3389 from an internal server; this will work in Firewall or Integrated modes of ISA.

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Tristan K — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:38:00 GMT

One other thing I forgot to mention - the client uses whatever IP Address or DNS name is specified on the web page to connect to the target server.

When you're connecting from the Internet, you may need to add another entry that maps to the public IP address of the ISA Server.

So, Server (Internal) might be 10.0.0.15, but Server (Internet) needs to resolve to 203.x.y.z .

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Jeremy Sproat — Wed, 05 May 2004 06:13:00 GMT

Could you use ssh tunneling with TSWEB? I've tried to forward local port 3391 to my Win2k server port 3389 using ssh (the tsweb page is served via the public website), but when I enter the server name as "localhost:3391" I get an error warning in IE. How do you specify which port to connect to? Do I need to modify the HTML, and if so, what do I change?

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Wed, 05 May 2004 18:42:00 GMT

Instead of specifying the port as part of the server name, the SDK points to it being available as part of the AdvancedSettings2 property.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/termserv/termserv/remote_desktop_activex_control_interfaces.asp

So you should be able to set rdpclient.AdvancedSettings2.RdpPort = 3391 before launching the connection.

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

silvano — Tue, 25 May 2004 13:32:00 GMT

só um teste

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Johnson — Sun, 30 May 2004 01:12:00 GMT

hi i was just wondering what would be the consequesnces if u connected through a remote web connection using the web browser, will your ip address be sent to the server your are connecting to or will the remote dektop websites ip address be sent to the server???
regards Johnson

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Tristan K — Sun, 30 May 2004 06:27:00 GMT

The client always connects directly to the Terminal Server. Think of the web page as being like a batch file that starts the Remote Desktop client, pointed at whatever IP address is specified.

The Web Server doesn't need any type of connectivity to the TS.

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

kikistan — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 07:10:00 GMT

I'd like to know something.
The TSWeb is working fine for me. But when my client is behind a firewalled/proxyed environment ... i can't access the computer (only 80 and 443 are opened). If i change the listening port thrue registry ...is it going to work ?

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 07:16:00 GMT

You *could* change the listening port, but then you'd not be able to run other services on 80 or 443 - IIS (or possibly Web Publishing) might fail if something else grabs its port.

So, changing TS port possible, but probably not so good in the long run (especially if you have to go through an HTTP proxy to get out, in which case it'll fail anyway).

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

kikistan — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 11:53:00 GMT

i'm going out thrue a proxy.
So i'll have to wait RDP over HTTPS with WS2003 R2 .....cool !

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Jose — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:09:00 GMT

Can i use the web connection with 2 or more conecctions at the same time?

re: How TSWeb / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 19:14:00 GMT

As long as you're connecting to a Terminal Server and it's been configured to allow that, I can't think of a reason why not.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

gurel — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:41:00 GMT

is it possible to pass proxy username and password to the activex via parameters in order use RDP over port 80?

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:43:00 GMT

Not as far as I know.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

razeez — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:44:00 GMT

It would seem that the windows explorer behaves sluggish when "browsing" local resources over a Remote Desktop session.
The performance is much snappier from the command prompt using \\tsclient\c\. Could this be as a result of explorer enumerating the files in the folder in some "extensive" way. I also noticed that the "Send to" is also very sluggish when using the Remote Desktop session if when local disk access is enabled.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:21:00 GMT

Yes - Explorer has significantly more on-wire overhead than using CMD - plus - you're squeezing (what I think is) SMB traffic over the same TCP socket you're using for display upates (and any other RDP features), increasing latency a little more. It's not going to be on a par with "real" drive sharing on a low-latency link (latency is the killer, more than bandwidth for this scenario), but for users that only have TS access, it's pretty good.
I haven't noticed Send To being sluggish before, I'll try it next time I'm RDPing with mapped drives (not often).

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

razeez — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 07:49:00 GMT

Just for giggles - I arranged the folowing test - two computers on same router. Then use TS from one to other. The disk access via TS is much slower than when via plain net share access. I wonder if the disk resource thottleing could be the culprit. If I transfer I large file via net share - it hogs the network and make RDP sluggish. If I transfer via TS - the RDP session is responsive and the transfer takes a little longer as expected - which is good. Could this BW throttleing however be causing explorer to suffer ? Sorry for seeming to be persistent. I am betting a major project on TS and I would like to know the variables. Thanks.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

krang00 — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 15:07:00 GMT

Is it possible to make a link or TSWEB specifically connect to a server and not give the user the option of entering a server name?

Thanks, Chris

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:03:00 GMT

Razeez- I guess it could be disk throttling, but I've not heard of that before. My thinking (which may be incorrect) is as follows:
- explorer is sensitive to latency, because it's quite "chatty" (take a network trace of browsing a share on your test network)
- SMB is also sensitive to latency
- When connecting directly to an SMB share, you have a whole TCP connection to try to saturate
- When connecting to TS and trying to do SMB over the TS session, you're fighting for bandwidth with everything else in the TS session, and TS is geared for screen updates, not file sharing - it's going to be slower, as latency will be introduced: causing the knock-on effect of Explorer being slower.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:06:00 GMT

Chris - sort of - you could customize the sample page to not prompt for a server name, and just have a "Connect" button. Or, you could script the connection in the onload event (I think, haven't tried it).
There's no tsweb://servername protocol that I know of though, if that's what you're asking.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

krang00 — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:08:00 GMT

How do I customize the page so that it only has a connect button and the size option so that when they click on Connect it connects to the server I want?

Thanks for the info!
Chris

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:38:00 GMT

Some HTML required - find the tag that reads something like:
<input type="text" name="Server" id="editServer">
And replace it with
<input type="text" name="Server" id="editServer" value="myservername">
for a pre-typed name, and/or change the type to "hidden" to hide the name.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

krang00 — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:41:00 GMT

Never mind, I was able to make the server field hidden. Although they could still see it if they viewed the source, this way is quick and dirty :-) Thanks for your help and great info!

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

bb1194 — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:25:00 GMT

I installed Server 2003 and enable RDP web. All of the local workstations are set up for remote connectivity with permissions set. The firewall has ports 80 and 3389 forwarded to the server. When I get to the \tsweb page and try to connect to a local computer, it says that it can not be contacted. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.
Bob

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 20:06:00 GMT

In general terms: Try using the regular TS/RDP client to connect rather than tsweb - if it too doesn't work, you need to work out what's wrong there first.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

bb1194 — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 05:57:00 GMT

The way I am doing it should work, correct? I will test it the other way. Do I need to enable RDP web on the desktop computer as well? I only have it on the server at this point. I am trying to connect through the server to the desktop. Thanks!

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 08:27:00 GMT

The Web part is just enough to run the client- it's the RDP part that's important. If you can do what you want through the "regular" client, the web client should work identically.

I'm not quite clear on what you're trying to do, so here's what I think is most likely: If you're trying to connect from the server itself, yes, it should work. If you're trying to connect from outside the firewall, you'll only be able to connect to the computer you've forwarded 3389 to, by specifying the external IP of the firewall.

To do more computers with a single IP address, your firewall needs to do PAT, so you can publish each internal PC on a different external port. Then, you connect using (external IP of firewall):(port) eg www.example.com:3390 for desktop 1, 3391 for desktop 2, and so on (port numbers are arbitrary here).

Essentially, it's the same as dealing with any other NATted service; the usual rules'o'NAT apply.

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Sat, 24 Jul 2004 04:07:00 GMT

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re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Paul T — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 05:43:00 GMT

Hello!

Im researching to make this work over a ssl connection. is there anyone who has any links of someone trying the same.
so far im trying this:

Using a http load balancer to point to different logon screens. (installed the web-logon.asp on each of the TS servers). Tuned the ActiveX component to use different NAT ports on my firewall. I am still trying to make a certificate approve the PAT'ed connection based on ip/port from the source. (certificate is issued to fw when logon credentials on TS server are ok), and finally finding a wrapper that can forward this in a SSL tunnel back to the client.

Is this way off, or could it be possible? I'm not a MS person and now to wandered in all the Tec groups. I use many different solutions already. (etc. iptables in Linux for NAT/PAT/FW. same for SSL and certificates)

Love the reading on this site, much usefull tips.I only wish MS would release RDP over SSL one year earlier :-)

Thanks.

Paul

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

Dele — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 03:16:00 GMT

Hello Tristan,

What I had like to know is: if I'm at a different location from my LAN, how can I connect to my office computer using remote desktop web connection.

Been trying to do this without much success

re: How TSWeb / TSAC / Remote Desktop Web Connection Client Works

TristanK — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 07:53:00 GMT

Hi Dele,
That's what the picture above is trying to explain - you need to be able to connect to the internal computer directly, and you'll need to jiggle your firewall configuration - and the connection page, probably - to do that.

The easiest way to make sure it'll work is to get the MSTSC client working, then fiddle the web page into doing the same thing.

The web client doesn't make it any easier to connect from external networks, it just "formalizes" the connection so that you don't have to enter settings into the RDP client directly.

Publishing RDP (Terminal Servers, XP Remote Desktop) with TSWeb (and ISA 2004)

Extra Bits That Didn't Fit — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 09:39:00 GMT

Common misconception about TSWeb

David's blog — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 15:26:00 GMT