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CoE Home | computing | personal |
Use Windows Terminal ServerWhat is Windows Terminal Server:A Windows Terminal Server is a machine running Windows 2003 Server in a special Terminal Server mode. It allows users to connect remotely and perform common Windows tasks using the processing power of the server. As it uses a standard protocol, you can connect to a terminal server using a multitude of clients (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, even mobile devices). The advantage is you get a common environment in all of these places. As an example, here is the linux terminal server client connecting to a Windows terminal server: There are some special features and requirements associated with using a Terminal Server. Connecting:Connecting to the terminal servers is pretty straightforward. Using the Remote Desktop software for your platform, just connect to windows.engr.oregonstate.edu (with the exception of Mac OS X, please read the instructions in the link below). Specific instructions on which software to use and where to get it is available here: Windows: Connect Using Windows Idle Time and Disconnecting:A quick explanation of Disconnecting... In addition to the standard Log Off and Shut Down options, Terminal Server adds a "Disconnect" option. This can be found either through Start->Shut Down or by simply closing the remote desktop application. Your remote session will continue to run (i.e., your applications and documents will remain open) after disconnecting. At a later time or different location, you can simply login again and resume where you left off. This also protects you in the event you lose your connection to the terminal server. To preserve system resources and provide some security, we are implementing some timeouts. There is no limit on active connections (i.e. you're actively working on something). However, if the connection is idle for four hours, you will be disconnected (your session will continue to run). After you have been disconnected for two days (either by disconnecting yourself or the idle timeout), you will be logged out (all of your running applications will quit and you will lose any unsaved work). If you are not planning to use the terminal server for more than two days, it is advisable to just Log Out. Software:The terminal servers are setup with most of the same software that runs on all College of Engineering labs. Some exceptions are AutoCAD and Solidworks as they don't currently work in a terminal server environment. If you would like to have software added to the terminal servers or to the lab machines, send an email to support. Patching:As with all Windows machines, terminal servers require patches and reboots for maintenance. Typically patches come out on the first Tuesday of each month and are applied overnight. This may sometimes result in the servers rebooting. When this happens, all sessions will be logged out and any unsaved data will be lost. The College of Engineering outages list will be used to notify when patches are to be applied. Details: For those interested in the nitty gritty details on how the terminal servers are setup, here is some information. The terminal server windows.engr.oregonstate.edu is actually a load-balanced cluster of several Windows machines. The load balancing is accomplished using the Windows Network Load Balancer software included with Windows 2003 Server. We are also using the Terminal Server Session Manager service to allow users to reconnect their session to the correct machine. This feature is not currently supported by the MS Remote Desktop Client for Mac OS X (thus they need to connect to a specific terminal server as specified in the link above). All of the terminal servers and the session directory machine are running on VMWare ESX servers as virtual machines. Related Articles: Article Information: |
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