Hi everyone, 

I'm setting up System Center App Controller 2012 for the first time, and really like the product. My question is about the Remote Desktop connection feature, which appears to build and .rdp shortcut which is then downloaded by the browser and launched from the client machine. Is there any way to configure a RD Gateway in this .rdp connection? This is necessary to support connections by clients from the Internet, which would not be able to resolve the host name of the internal VM.

I have looked through the registry and configuration files to no avail.  Any ideas? Thanks!

- Noah

I've discovered that the RDP options are actually hard-coded and not pulled from any configuration file or registry keys. Therefore, my assumption is that the current version supports only the hard-coded RDP options and cannot be customized to allow for any other options, including an RDP gateway. This is too bad, because it would be great to be able to offer Internet access for users who aren't VPN-enabled, which is often true for customers and partners.

Would be curious if anyone with Microsoft could confirm or take this as a feature request? Thanks, 

- Noah

I've discovered that the RDP options are actually hard-coded and not pulled from any configuration file or registry keys. Therefore, my assumption is that the current version supports only the hard-coded RDP options and cannot be customized to allow for any other options, including an RDP gateway. This is too bad, because it would be great to be able to offer Internet access for users who aren't VPN-enabled, which is often true for customers and partners.

Would be curious if anyone with Microsoft could confirm or take this as a feature request? Thanks, 

- Noah

• Marked as answer by Richard RundleMicrosoft employee, Owner Tuesday, July 16, 2013 9:26 PM

Hi Noah,

You are correct - it is not currently possible to configure the content of the .RDP file that is generated by App Controller.

Apart from being able to specify the RDP gateway, are there other options you would like to set in the generated RDP file?

We have heard this as a feature request and would like to add your feedback to the record tracking this request.

Thanks

Richard

Thanks Richard. The main things I'm interested in right now are the gateway setting, as well as the Logon Settings and Server Authentication options in the advanced tab. That said, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to expose the entire RDP properties as a default template of sorts, in case we wanted to allow drive redirection or other options. That would at least give a configurable set of defaults to apply across the board. Ideally, there would be a way to have per-VM RDP settings to handle different cases (pass through authentication for same-domain targets, use separate credentials for other targets, etc). 

- Noah

Thanks Noah,

This is really helpful information. I've added this to our list of feature requests and will post back to this thread if I have additional questions for you.

For other folks reading this thread, please respond to this thread with any additional requirements you have for configuring RDP.

Thanks

Richard

Hi,

I have a requirement to be able to completely remove the "Remote Desktop" option from the right click menu in App Controller. So far I haven't found a way to do this. Is this possible?

Hi Richard,

we have also the demand, that the RDP-File over a non-VPN-Connection can inject a RD-Gateway!

can we also ask for the Console Connection? To change the name from the Hyper-V Host to that the Console will be done, because we cannot resolve the internal Host-Name of the Hyper-V Host to the Internet, but we publish the Host throgh the Firewall with an public Hostname!!

So please send me feedback if this feature request will come.

thx Stefan

I myself found out: NO it's not possible.

But with R2 ;)

• Proposed as answer by sdenninger Friday, July 05, 2013 12:02 PM

For remote desktop, the R2 version of App Controller has the same functionality as the SP1 version. i.e. it is not possible to customize the RDP file that is generated or to remove the remote desktop task.

We did add a feature into System Center with the Windows Azure Pack that allows RDP connections to go through a gateway. We also added the ability to do a console connection through a gateway.

Thanks

Richard