To configure an RD Session Host:

1. In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > <site> > RD Session Hosts.

2. Select a server and click Tasks > Properties.

3. The server properties dialog opens where you can configure the RD Session Host properties.

The dialog is described in the subsections that follow this one.

Select or clear the Enable Server in site option to enable or disable the server. A disabled server cannot serve published applications and virtual desktops to clients.

Other elements on this tab are:

• Server: Specifies the server FQDN or IP address.

• Description: An optional server description.

• Change Direct Address: Select this option if you need to change the direct address that Parallels Client uses to establish a direct connection with the RD Session Host.

The Application Packages tab allows you to manage MSIX application packages on RD Session Hosts and groups.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

Adding a package to an RD Session Host

See Using MSIX application packages, subsection "Adding a package to a host".

Adding a package to a VDI pool

See Using MSIX application packages, subsection "Adding a package to a VDI pool".

Managing applications installed from MSIX packages

The following actions are available from the Task drop-down list:

• Add: Add a new package to the RD Session Host.

• Retry Staging: Manually trigger re-staging of all added packages.

• Refresh: Refresh the list of the packages.

• Delete: Delete the selected package.

The Optimization tab allows you to specify settings that will be used to optimize the RD Session Host for best performance in a Parallels RAS environment. You can select Windows components, services, and other options that will be disabled, removed, or optimized to ensure a more efficient, streamlined, and improved delivery of virtual apps and desktops.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

For the complete description, please see Optimization.

Use this tab to configure user profile settings.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

For complete instructions about configuring user profiles, see User profile.

The RDP Printer tab allows you to configure the renaming format of redirected printers. The format may vary depending on which version and language of the server you are using.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

The RDP Printer Name Format drop-down list allows you to select a printer name format specifically for the configured server.

Select the Remove session number from printer name and the Remove client name from printer name options to exclude the corresponding information from the printer name.

The Desktop Access tab allows you to restrict remote desktop access to certain users.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

By default, all users who have access to remote applications on an RD Session Host can also connect to the server via a standard RDP connection. If you want to restrict remote desktop access to certain users, do the following:

1. On the Desktop Access tab, select the Restrict direct desktop access to the following users option. If you have the Inherit default settings option selected, click the Edit Defaults link to see (and modify if needed) the default configuration. The rest of the steps apply to both the Server Properties and Default Server Properties dialogs.

2. Click the Add button.

3. Select the desired users. To include multiple users, separate them by a semicolon.

4. Click OK.

5. The selected users will appear in the list on the Desktop Access tab.

Users in this list will still be able to access remote applications using Parallels Client, but will be denied direct remote desktop access to this server.

Please note that members of the Administrator group will still be able to connect to the remote desktop even if they are included in this list.

Each RD Session Host in a RAS Farm has an RAS RD Session Host Agent installed through which it communicates with other Parallels RAS components. Use the Agent Settings tab to configure the agent.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using default settings.

To configure the agent, set the options as described below.

Application session lingering

• Disconnect active session after: Specifies the amount of time each session remains connected in the background after the user has closed a remote application. This option is used to avoid unnecessary reconnections with the server.

• Logoff disconnected session after: This setting allows you to control how long it takes for a session to be logged off after it is marked as "disconnected".

Other settings

• Port: Specifies a different remote desktop connection port number if a non-default port is configured on the server.

• Max sessions: Specifies the maximum number of sessions.

• Preferred Connection Broker: Select a Connection Broker to which the RD Session Host should connect. This is helpful when Site components are installed in multiple physical locations communicating through WAN. You can decrease network traffic by specifying a more appropriate Connection Broker.

Allow Client URL/Mail redirection

When a user tries to open a URL or an HTML Mailto link in a remote application, the link can be redirected to the client computer and open in a local default application (a web browser or email client) instead of an application on the remote host. To enable this functionality, select the option and click the Configure button. In the dialog that opens, select one of the following:

• Replace Registered Application: This option uses an alternative method of redirecting a link. It replaces the default web browser and mail client with "dummy" apps on the remote server side. By doing so, it can intercept an attempt to open a link and redirect it to the client computer.

• Support Windows Shell URL namespace objects: The Shell URL namespace objects support means that Parallels RAS can intercept actions in published applications that use the Shell namespace API to open links, which is a standard behavior in most applications. The ability to disable support for Shell URL namespace objects is for compatibility with older versions of Parallels RAS. You may disable this option if you want the behavior of an older version of Parallels RAS (RAS v16.2 or earlier).

  Please note that you can configure a list of URLs that should never be redirected, even if the redirection is enabled. This can be done on the Farm > Site > Settings > URL Redirection tab. See more in Site settings.

Enable Drag and drop

Allows you to set how the drag and drop functionality works in Parallels Clients. To enable drag and drop, select the option, click the Configure button and then select from the following:

• Server to client only: Drag and drop to a local application, but not in the opposite direction.

• Client to server only: Drag and drop to a remote application only.

• Bidirectional: Note that this option has changed since Parallels RAS 17.1. In the past, it was a checkbox that would enable or disable drag and drop which worked in the "Client to server only" mode. When upgrading from an older version of Parallels RAS, and if the checkbox was enabled, the "Client to server only" option is selected by default. If the option was disabled, the "Disabled" option will be set. You can change it to any of the new available options if you wish.

• Note: At the time of this writing, the drag and drop functionality is only supported on Parallels Client for Windows and Parallels Client for Mac.

Allow 2XRemoteExec to send command to the client

Select this option to allow a process running on the server to instruct the client to deploy an application on the client side. Read more about 2XRemoteExec in the Using RemoteExec subsection at the end of this topic.

Use RemoteApp if available

Enable this option to allow use of remote apps for shell-related issues when an app is not displayed correctly. This feature is supported on the Parallels Client for Windows only.

Manage RDP transport protocol

Select the transport protocol that will be used for connections between Parallels Client and a server. To do this, select this option and click the Configure button.

Enable application monitoring

Enable or disable monitoring of applications on the server. Disabling application monitoring stops the WMI monitoring to reduce CPU usage on the server and network usage while transferring the information to RAS Connection Broker. If the option is enabled, the collected information will appear in a corresponding RAS report. If the option is disabled, the information from this server will be absent from a report.

Allow file transfer command (Web and Chrome clients)

Enables file transfer in a remote session. To enable file transfer, select this option and click the Configure button. For more information, see Configuring remote file transfer.

Enable drive redirection cache

Improves user experience by making file browsing and navigation on redirected drives much faster. For details, see Drive redirection cache.

Using 2XRemoteExec

2XRemoteExec is a feature that facilitates the servers ability to send commands to the client. This is done using the command line utility 2XRemoteExec.exe. Command line options include:

2XRemoteExec examples:

The following command displays a message box describing the parameters that can be used.

2XRemoteExec -?

This command runs Notepad on the client.

2XRemoteExec C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe

In this example, the command opens the C:\readme.txt file in the Notepad on the client. No message is shown and 2XRemoteExec would wait for 6 seconds or until the application is started.

2XRemoteExec C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe "C:\readme.txt"

The server properties dialog consists of tabs, each containing their own specific set of properties. All tabs, except General, have either Group Defaults or Site defaults link, which allows you to view and modify default settings. If you want the properties on a particular tab to inherit default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. When you do, the default settings will be inherited from one of the following:

• Group defaults. Groups are described in .

• Site defaults. Note that a group may also inherit Site defaults, but this can be overridden in the group properties dialog where you can specify custom settings for a group.

To view or modify default settings, click the Group Defaults or Site defaults link. Note that each individual tab can inherit default settings independently from other tabs.

To specify custom settings for an RD Session Host, clear the Inherit default settings option and use the controls on a given tab to set the desired options.