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First you need to install Tenant Broker on a dedicated server. Please note that if you have Parallels RAS already installed on a computer where you are planning to install Tenant Broker, you need to uninstall it first. The two installation versions cannot coexist on the same machine.
To install Tenant Broker:
Run the standard Parallels RAS installer.
On the Select Installation Type page, select Parallels RAS Tenant Broker.
Click Next and follow the onscreen instructions.
Once the installation is finished, run the Parallels RAS Console.
When the console starts, you'll see that it has a different set of categories and managed objects compared to the standard RAS Console. The purpose of the Tenant Broker console is to manage shared resources and Tenants. It is not used to manage RD Sessions Hosts, VDI, or any other standard RAS resources because they are deployed and managed in individual Tenant Farms.
You can manage the following categories and object in the Tenant Broker console:
Farm. This category allows you to manage Tenants, Gateways, Connection Brokers, HALB, and Certificates. The Settings subcategory allows you to manage global logging and the Tenant Broker itself.
Administration. Allows you to perform management tasks similar to the standard RAS Console: Accounts, Settings, Mailbox, Reporting, Settings Audit.
Information. Lists services and components running in the Tenant Broker and their status.
As with the standard RAS Console, every time you modify any of the objects, you need to click the Apply button for the changes to be saved in the configuration database.
By default, Tenant Broker does not have any RAS Secure Gateways installed. To add a Gateway, log in to the Tenant Broker console, navigate to Farm > Secure Gateways and click Tasks > Add. If you already have one or more RAS Secure Gateways, which are not used in any other RAS Farm, you can also add such a Gateway to the Tenant Broker. Please note that existing RAS Secure Gateway installations must be RAS version 17.1 or newer. Gateways from older RAS versions cannot operate as shared gateways.
To install a new gateway, run the Parallels RAS installer on a desired server, choose Custom and select the RAS Secure Gateway component. After the installation is finished, go back to the Tenant Broker console and add the gateway to the Tenant Broker.
A typical scenario of deploying the multi-tenant architecture of Parallels RAS consists of the following steps:
Deploy Tenant Broker.
Deploy a traditional RAS Farm to operate as a Tenant.
Configure network between the Tenant Broker and the Tenant to allow the following connections:
Shared RAS Secure Gateways to Tenant RAS Connection Brokers.
Shared RAS Secure Gateways to resources hosts.
Tenant RAS Connection Brokers to Tenant Broker RAS Connection Broker.
For the information about ports numbers, please see Communication ports.
Create a Tenant object and a corresponding invitations hash in the Tenant Broker console, or create a secret key (more on this later in this chapter).
Join the Tenant to the Tenant Broker using the invitation hash or the secret key.
Assign a public domain address to the Tenant. This can be done at this point (after you join a Tenant) or it can be done in advance if you wish. Either way it has to be done or the clients will not be able to connect to the Tenant Farm.
Set up routing for incoming Tenant traffic from the Internet to shared RAS Secure Gateways and HALB.
Configure a certificate for the Tenant. By default, a self-signed certificate created during the installation will be used.
Test the client connectivity.
The subsequent sections describe the steps above in detail.
After deploying a Tenant, you need to configure networking between Tenant Broker and Tenant in order to allow the following communications:
Tenant Connection Broker > Tenant Broker Connection Broker: port 20003
Tenant Broker Gateway > Tenant Broker Connection Broker: port 20002
Tenant Broker Gateway > Tenant Connection Broker: port 20002
Tenant Broker Gateway > Servers hosting published resources: port 3389
These are standard RAS ports, which are also described in the Port reference section.
In addition to an invitation hash, you can join a Tenant to the Tenant Broker using a secret key. As described earlier, a secret key can be used to join an unlimited number of Tenants to the same Tenant Broker.
To create a secret key:
Log in to the Tenant Broker console.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Settings.
Select the Tenant broker tab.
Select Allow RAS Farms to register in Tenant Broker using a secret key.
Optionally, select Do not show billing information to hide billing information in the Licensing category of Tenants joined with secret keys.
The secret key is generated automatically. To generate a different key, click Generate.
If you want to register Tenants as subdomains, specify the domain part of the hostname in the Domain field. For example, to use "subdomain.domain.com" as a Tenant host name, specify "domain.com".
Once you have the key, you can use it to join one or more Tenants to the Tenant Broker.
Note: Due to its unlimited usage capability, only the Tenant Broker administrator should have access to a shared secret key. Secret keys can be practical when the Tenant Broker administrator manages Tenant Farms, so instead of generating a hash for every Tenant, he/she can use a single secret key to join all of them to the Tenant Broker.
To join a Tenant using a secret key:
Log in to the Tenant.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Site.
Click Tasks > Join Tenant Broker.
In the Join Tenant Broker dialog, specify the following:
Enter the secret key in the first field from the top. If the Tenant is able to reach the Tenant Broker, the Tenant Broker field will be populated automatically.
The Tenant Name field is populated automatically based on the name of the current Site, but you can specify a Tenant name of your choosing. The name you enter will be used in the Tenant Broker to name the corresponding Tenant object.
In the Public domain addresses field, you can specify public domain addresses that will be used to access the Tenant. Configuring this is optional. If the Domain field is configured in the Tenant Broker settings (see above), you may enter subdomain only rather then the full domain address.
Click Join.
On successful join, you will see a message welcoming you to the Tenant Broker. If the primary Connection Broker in your Tenant Farm can't reach the Tenant Broker, you will see a corresponding error message. Make sure that the Tenant Broker computer is reachable from the machine where you have the primary Connection Broker running.
The Tenant Broker IP address is detected automatically when you generate a secret key and is embedded into it. If a Tenant can't reach the Tenant Broker using this address, you have the ability to override it as follows:
Log in to the Tenant Broker.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Settings and click the Tenant broker tab.
Select the Override Tenant Broker address in tenant invitations and secret keys option.
Enter the desired IP address in the field provided.
One other thing that you have to do after you join a Tenant to the Tenant Broker, is set up routing for the incoming traffic from the Internet to shared RAS Secure Gateways or HALB.
User authentication in the RAS multi-tenant architecture is performed by the RAS Connection Broker running in the Tenant Farm. The Connection Broker is selected randomly by a shared RAS Secure Gateway. If the Connection Broker is unavailable, then it's marked accordingly and no communication is conducted with it from the same shared gateway for a period of time. The gateway checks the Connection Broker status periodically and resumes communications as soon as the agent becomes available.
Every Tenant must have a unique public domain address for end users to connect to it through Tenant Broker. Although every Tenant must have a unique public domain address, it is not required for every Tenant to have a unique IP address. Different public domain address can be configured to resolve to the same IP address to reach the Tenant Broker shared Gateways. This way the Tenant Broker is still able to forward traffic to the right tenant based on the hostname requested by an end user.
A public domain address can be chosen a number of different ways. For example, a service provider can register a subdomain (e.g. Tenant1.Service-Provider.com) and assign it to a Tenant. Another approach could be using a private domain address (e.g. RAS.Tenant1.com) and have it routed to RAS Secure Gateways in the Tenant Broker. For testing purposes, you can even use an IP address.
The Public domain address is also a property of a Tenant object in the Tenant Broker console. After joining a Tenant to the Tenant Broker, you must ensure that this property contains the correct address. Otherwise end users will not be able to connect to the Tenant through the Tenant Broker.
To verify (and set if necessary) the Tenant's public domain address:
Log in to the Tenant Broker.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Tenants.
Right-click a Tenant and choose Properties.
In the Properties dialog, verify that the Public domain address field contains the correct address.
After you join a Tenant to the Tenant Broker, you should verify that the procedure was successful.
First, verify the Tenant Broker status in the Tenant console:
Log in to the Tenant Farm.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Site and select the Site tab in the right pane.
You should see the Tenant Broker section with the Status column, which should say OK. If the status is Not verified, make sure that the Tenant Broker is operational (or contact the Tenant Broker admin if you are not him or her).
You can also see additional Tenant Broker information by right-clicking it and choosing Properties. The information includes the following:
Name: The Tenant Broker name.
Primary address: The primary RAS Connection Broker address.
Secondary address: The secondary RAS Connection Broker address (if available).
You should then verify the Tenant status in the Tenant Broker console:
Log in to the Tenant Broker.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Tenants.
In the Tenants tab, find the Tenant of interest and examine the Status column, which should say OK if the Tenant is joined properly. For other possible Status column values, see .
Once the Tenant Farm is operational, you can join one or more sites in it to the Tenant Broker.
Note: A Tenant is a Site in a separately deployed Parallels RAS Farm. When you join a Tenant to Tenant Broker, you join a Site. When you want to join the whole Farm, you do it one Site at a time. Of course, if you have just one Site in a Farm (and have no plans to create more sites), you are essentially joining the whole Farm.
There are two ways you can join a Tenant: (1) Using an invitation hash or (2) Using a shared secret key. The difference between the two is as follows:
Invitation hash. An invitation hash is an automatically generated encrypted string that can be used to join a single Tenant to Tenant Broker. Invitation hash is a property of a Tenant object, which is created in the Tenant Broker console. You email the hash to the Tenant Farm administrator, so they can use it to join the Tenant Broker. Once used, an invitation hash cannot be used again by any other Tenant.
Shared secret key. A shared secret key is similar to an invitation hash, with one important difference. It can be used to join an unlimited number of Tenants. A Tenant object is not pre-created for a secret key in the Tenant Broker. Instead, the object is created when the key is used to join a Tenant. Because of its unlimited usage capability, only the Tenant Broker admins should have access to a shared secret key. This scenario is useful when there are multiple Tenants, all managed by the same Tenant Broker administrator.
The invitation hash scenario is described below. For the secret key scenario see .
First, you need to generate an invitation hash and create a Tenant object on the Tenant Broker side:
Log in to the Tenant Broker.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Tenants.
Click Tasks > Add.
In the Tenant properties dialog, specify the following:
Name: Type a Tenant name (this can be any name that you like).
Public domain address: If you've already assigned a public domain address to the Tenant, specify it here. If not, you can leave it blank. The address is not required for the Tenant to join the Tenant Broker. However, without the address specified here, end users will not be able to connect to the Tenant, so you will need to come back and fill it in later. For details, see .
Clients in gateway mode connect to published tenant resources by server IP: When selected, clients will use the Tenant IP address instead of the DNS name. You can use this option when a Tenant farm does not share the same DNS provider as the Tenant Broker farm.
Do not show billing information: When selected, billing information is not shown in the category of the Tenant.
Description: Type an optional description.
Connection Brokers: This filed is disabled and will be populated automatically when the Tenant joins the Tenant Broker. See more in .
Tenant invitation hash: This is the hash that the admin of the Tenant Farm will need to use to join the Tenant Broker. A hash is generated automatically when you open this dialog. To generate a new hash, click Create new hash.
Send via email. You can give the invitation hash to the Tenant admin directly or you can use this button to send it via email. When you click the button, you'll see a dialog where you can enter the recipients and where you can review and modify the email message. By default, the message contains instructions on how to join the Tenant Broker. Please note that SMTP settings must be configured in the RAS Console before you can use the email option. You can configure SMTP first and then return to this screen to complete this step.
Click OK to close the Tenant properties dialog. The new Tenant will appear in the Tenants list in the console. At this time, the Tenant is not joined yet. Read on to learn how to join it.
To join the Tenant to the Tenant Broker:
Log in to the Tenant Farm.
In the RAS console, navigate to Farm > Site. Note that you are joining a Site to the Tenant Broker, not the whole Farm, so if you have more than one Site, you need to join them one by one.
Click Tasks > Join Tenant Broker.
In the Join Tenant Broker dialog, enter the invitation hash that you obtained from the Tenant Broker in the previous steps (or, if you are an admin of a Tenant Farm, the one your received in the invitation email).
Click Join.
On successful join, you will see a message welcoming you to the Tenant Broker. If the primary Connection Broker in your Tenant Farm can't reach the Tenant Broker, you will see a corresponding error message. Make sure that the Tenant Broker computer is reachable from the machine where you have the Tenant's RAS Connection Broker running.
The Tenant Broker IP address is detected automatically when you generate an invitation hash (or a secret key) and is embedded into the hash. If a Tenant can't reach the Tenant Broker using this address, you have the ability to override it as follows:
Log in to the Tenant Broker.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Settings and click the Tenant broker tab.
Select the Override Tenant Broker address in tenant invitations and secret keys option.
Enter the desired IP address in the field provided.
When done, the specified IP address will be used instead of the auto-detected address when generating an invitation hash or secret key. When the hash is used on the Tenant side to join the Tenant Broker, the Tenant will use this address to connect to the Tenant Broker.
Once used on the Tenant side, an invitation hash binds the Tenant Farm to the corresponding Tenant object in the Tenant Broker and the tenancy becomes effective.
A Tenant Farm is deployed just like a traditional Parallels RAS Farm. The only difference is, when installing the Farm, you don't need to install RAS Secure Gateways in it.
Note: If you decide to install a local (private) RAS Secure Gateway in a Tenant Farm (e.g. for local connections), you can do that, but please keep in mind that you cannot mix HALB and Gateways from the Tenant Broker and a Tenant Farm. The HALB appliance installed in the Tenant Broker will not support this scenario.
To set up a Parallels RAS Farm to be used as a Tenant:
Run the Parallels RAS installer.
On the Select Installation Type page, select Custom.
Click Next.
Make sure that the following components are selected for installation:
RAS Connection Broker
Parallels RAS Console (optional; you can have the RAS Console installed on a different machine)
Other components are optional. You can install them now or you can install them later if needed.
Click Next and follow the onscreen instructions to complete the installation.
The public domain address assigned to a Tenant must have a matching certificate. The Tenant Broker admin must create a certificate for every Tenant in the Tenant Broker console. Shared RAS Secure Gateways must then be configured to use these certificates. Tenant certificates are created and managed in Parallels RAS the same way as other certificates using the Farm > Site > Certificates subcategory. For the complete information about how to create certificates and how to assign them to RAS Secure Gateways and HALB, please see the SSL Certificate Management chapter.
When a user connects to the Tenant's public domain address, a certificate with the common name matching the requested public domain address is selected automatically for every connection. The first available certificate is used which might not be the self-signed (say it was deleted)
If no matching certificate is found, the default self-signed certificate will be used, but the user will see a certificate warning in the web browser.
To unjoin a Tenant from the Tenant Broker, do the following:
Log in to the Tenant Farm.
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Site.
Click Tasks > Unjoin from Tenant Broker.
The Tenant will be unjoined from the Tenant Broker. As a result, the Tenant users will no longer be able to connect to the Tenant Farm through the Tenant Broker.