[sf-lug] Remote access to Microsoft Windows server

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):

> The tech support guys suggested that I might be able to solve the
> problem by updating to the latest version of Terminal Server Client,
> as they believe that RDPv5 is old. 

The open source Unix 'rdesktop' utility supports RDP protocol versions
4 and 5, as of rdesktop v. 1.7.0.[0]  tsclient ('Terminal Server
Client'), that GNOME thing you've been trying to use, turns out to be
just a bloatware graphical front-end for rdesktop, for VNC, for Citrix
ICA, and for X11 via Xnest.

The other open-source RDP client is 'FreeRDP', which forked from
rdesktop and switched from GPL to Apache licensing.  (Remmina, which I
mentioned earlier, is a GTK+ graphical front-end for FreeRDP.)  Like
rdesktop, FreeRDP doesn't yet claim to support anything beyond the RDPv5
protocol suite.  They claim that they're trying to 'add features missing
from rdesktop', but my impression is that they don't yet have their act
together, and their documentation is woefully lacking.  (After the fork,
rdesktop itself moved from GPLv2 to GPLv3.)

On the server end, later versions of the protocol started being
introduced starting with Windows Server 2003.  Since RDP is a
proprietary Redmondian thing, I'm pretty sure they've done their usual
shtick of refusing to openly document the protocol, revealing the
protocol specs only under NDA and attempting to shut out open source
implementations.

Ask the technical support guys what software you're attempting to
connect _to_[1], e.g., Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows
Server 2008 R2, Server 2008 R2 SP1.  In theory, one might be able to
look up protocol support for whatever software it is, though I'm not
sure offhand where to look.  Possibly useful in that area is the note on
the Wikipedia page about RDP that says 'RDP 6.1 client and RDP 7.0
client are not supported on Windows Server 2003 x86 and Windows Server
2003 / Windows XP Professional x64 editions.'

(The fact that the tech support guys said only 'Oh, you should try
updating tsclient, because RDPv5 is old' suggests they're a bit clueless
or at best apathetic.)

Welcome to the proprietary protocol treadmill.

My best suggestion would be to check out the svn head version of the
rdesktop development code, compile it, and see if that works, which it
might -- who knows?  Relatively easy way:

1.  Go to http://rdesktop.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rdesktop/ and 
pick the 'Download GNU tarball' link.  This puts rdesktop.tar.gz
wherever you have your browser put downloaded files.  (Personally, I use
/tmp.)

2.  Unpack and go to the correct subdirectory.

$ cd /tmp
$ tar xzf rdesktop.tar.gz
$ cd rdesktop/rdesktop/trunk

3.  Install build dependencies and compilation tools:

You'll need to have tools and dependencies installed sufficient to
compile rdesktop.  These packages:

libx11-dev
autoconf
build-essential
libssl-dev

4.  Configure source code and compile

$ autoconf
$ ./configure
$ make

5.  Install software (default install target should be /usr/local/bin
for the program binaries, and other places under /usr/local

$ sudo make install

6.  Run it, making sure you run the -right- one:

$ /usr/local/bin/rdesktop -u einfeldt [...]

I stress 'the right one' because you probably also have
/usr/bin/rdesktop.

Try that.  If that works, then keep it and get rid of the packaged
version.


[0] Unfortunately, this is true even of the development head version, as
shown here:
http://rdesktop.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rdesktop/rdesktop/trunk/README?revision=1611&view=markup
http://rdesktop.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rdesktop/rdesktop/trunk/README?revision=1611&view=markup

[1] You said only 'some sort of Microsoft Windows server', which is, as
an old boss of mine used to say, 'almost useful'.  ;->