TSL blog

Often administrators have would like to to turn off or reboot a server remotely.

We have this problem every two weeks. Every two weeks we were testing our virtualized backup images of all terminal servers. (In future posts I will describe how we managed to backup multiple physical Terminal servers on one virtual using VMWare). Servers are collocated to another continent

When backup system is tested we need to turn off our terminal servers and boot virtual servers that are identical to the production servers. This is required because in order to avoid duplicate IP or NETBIOS name (virtual servers have the same network configuration as the production servers).

Before we bought ibootbar Appliance we had to call somebody to go to the company and turn on the production servers. This procedure is always tested over weekend so employees were not happy to come to work just to plugin the servers.

We decided to implement remote power control for servers and choose iBootBar appliance because it has support for TCP/IP protocol.

Picture shows a scheme of the implemented solution.

Solid lines are network connections and bold lines in the bottom are the power lines. Users are using server via regular network connection. ibootbar and backup server are also connected to same switch because users and administrators are entering network via one switch. Power is plugged into iBootBar and then from iBootBar into servers.

In production only terminal server is turned on. Backup terminal is off.  Users are connecting via network switch to terminal server.

Here is the backup procedure performed via iBootbar:

• Backup server is turned on via iBootBar
• While backup server is on we can connect to it via RDP (server has the same network name and network configuration as production server)
• When tests are over, we will turn off backup server from RDP and use iBootBar to turn on the production server.

iBoorBar console is accessible via web console and only thing you will need to allow is HTTPS traffic though firewall to iBoorBar.

Our iBoorbar has external IP so we are able to connect to it from anywhere without problem and control power on all of our servers.

For any extra information I would recommend iBootbar homepage at his webiste

Terminal services log is the first and only application that will provide exact information about users activity on Terminal Server/Citrix, showing for how long an user was connected on server, how much of that time he was idle (not working anything) or active (working something on server).

TSL 2.0 provides information about application usage. Data collected is displayed in forms of charts and grids that can be exported to PDF and Excel.

By using our product you can have detailed usage reports of all terminal servers in your organization. Here are some business problems you might be facing in your own company.

Example of all users summary report (summary for total time, active/idle/disconnected)

Users and sessions

Let’s say you want to see all the users that connected to your server in a particular time frame:

Our application comes with a built in report that lists all the sessions on your TS/Citrix server, including the information about the time they started-ended and information about total time user spent in active / idle /disconnected state during that session.

What are my users doing on the server?

Now you want to check summary for all user activity on terminal server. This way you will have insight how much of the time users are really working something on the server. TSL will allow you to have precise time in how much of the particular user was active, idle or disconnected from the server.

If only desktop for the end user is remote desktop connection, and for 7 hours of the 8 working hours some of the users were idle or disconnected then you will know that something is not good with employee, maybe he is not satisfied, maybe he just don’t like to work.

Summary of all applications usage (note on the screenshot there is summary for applications for Microsoft Office)

I would like to know if an employee is always late…
This want be a problem any more, TSL will allow you to capture exact time whan a user logged on your server. TSL will also capture the time user logged off.

If suspect that someone is connecting to your TS/Citrix server outside regular working hours you can use a built in report to see which users connected to your termianal server and processes they run during that session.

Conclusion

With TSL application logging you have powerful insight in all activities on your Terminal Server/Citrix. If you suspect that there is something fishy going on, TSL is the proper tool for you. It controls users and their sessions but also processes. With just one application you can monitor and anylze the productivity of your employees.

I am happy that we can announce Terminal services log 2.0. New appliactions next to user monitoring allows also application monitoring.

For all extra info please visit Terminal services log homepage.

Did you know that 32 bit applications consume 50% more memory on the 64 bit system?

But that is acceptable memory consume because today Terminal servers need much more memory than 4GB what is the limit of 32Bit system. 4GB of memory is enough for around 50 users, using regular office applications but for anything else 64bit system is a must have.

In last post I have described changes on /console and /admin switch in RDP clients newer then 6.0.

Now is possible to start console session from your PDA computer running windows mobile?

Unfortunately it is not. This makes a little sense because why do you want to administer your windows terminals erver from your PDA? But this makes no sense if you are on the road and only device you have with terminal services client is your PDA. This way you will need to call somebody to free TS CAL that you can connect and try to fix what is wrong.

With old rdp client versions up to 6 you were able to connect to console sessions of your terminal server by using mstsc /console” command.

In XP SP3 and vista SP1 there is no any more that switch, and now you have to use the /admin switch.

To me seems meaningless but on the internet they claim this is a reason because of an architectural change in Windows Server 2008. Session 0 is not interactive session, it is only used for services, and this way /console session is not different from any other session that is connected to windows 2008 terminal services.

The /admin switch is now used to access only session which is free of Terminal Services CALs.

I will describe in this article terminal services licensing discovery methods in workgroup and domain.

In Work group there are two methods for discovering licensing:

License Servers Registry Key Query

go to the registry to key

We are happy to announce Terminal services log 2.0 gallery of screenshots.

Final v2 will be published in a day or two, until that you can check screenshots on http://www.terminalserviceslog.com/gallery.asp

If you want to try new version, or you have comments feel free to contact us.

If some of users see everyone else redirected printers on Terminal server, the probably they are members of the Administrator or Power Users user group.

Check in users and groups for membership.

If this is the case there is no way to them from seeing all printer on terminal servers.

Only solution is to make them normal users again, and that way they will see only their printers.

On this link you can find HP LaserJet printers and supported driver versions for Citrix. Terminal services are also supported but they are not mentioned in this list because Citrix runs on top of Terminal services.
PDF is available at http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA0-8465ENW.pdf

List has been update April 2008 so it is pretty fresh list of HP devices that will work on Server based computing environment.