RD Connection Broker HA and the RDP properties on the client.

In some earlier posts I discussed the new High Availability (HA) feature of the RD Connection Broker (RDCB) in Windows Server 2012 (formally known as Windows Server 8).

1. RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 1 Better High Availability of the RD Connection Broker
2. How to configure High Availability for RD Connection Broker on Windows 8
3. RD Connection Broker HA – SQL Permissions

In the blog post regarding the configuration of HA (no. 2 in de above list) I ended the blog with the comment that we would now be able to connect to the environment by using MSTSC and entering the DNS farm name as the destination host to connect to. Having read that you’re probably wondering how this works. Because we’re launching an RDP connection using MSTSC with the destination set to the DNS farm name that points to the brokers. Would that not result in launching an RDP session to the RDCB server and not to the RDSH server(s) behind it? Yes it would!

If, after completing the step in blog post no. 2, I would launch MSTSC and enter the DNS farm name as the destination host (as shown below):

That would result in the error below. Why? Because we’re actually launching an RDP session to one of the RDCB servers, and of course that’s denied for our end user.

What we need to do is configure some properties in an .RDP file so that it has knowledge of the fact that we’re trying to connect through a HA Connection Broker.

These are the properties that need to be added:

full address:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL
workspace id:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL
use redirection server name:i:1
loadbalanceinfo:s:tsv://MS Terminal Services Plugin.1.Wortell_sLab_Ses
alternate full address:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL

If we try that as our end user, the connection bar would still show the RDCB DNS farm name, but we’re now logged in on the RDSH server.

This also get’s automatically configured for your RemoteApps. RemoteApps integrated on the client are stored inside RDP files in the following location:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Workspaces\<Workspace-ID>\Resource

Editing such a .RDP file in notepad would (amongst some other properties that I left out here) results in:

full address:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL
alternate shell:s:||calc
remoteapplicationprogram:s:||calc
gatewayhostname:s:rdgw.lab.local
remoteapplicationname:s:Calculator
remoteapplicationcmdline:s:
workspace id:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL
use redirection server name:i:1
loadbalanceinfo:s:tsv://MS Terminal Services Plugin.1.Wortell_sLab_Ses
alternate full address:s:FARM.LAB.LOCAL

RD WebAccess also automatically points to the RD Connection Broker farm

So that’s how to configure your .RDP files if you want to connect through a HA RD Connection Broker!

Good luck testing this. If you have any questions, let me know!