To configure an RD Session Host:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > RD Session Host.

2. Click a host in the list to open the view displaying the host information.

3. In the navigation bar, click Properties (at the bottom). Configure the RD Session Host as described below.

If you would like to configure user profiles for the host based on the FSLogix technology, select FSLogix in the Technology drop-drown list and specify the settings according to your needs. For the information about how to configure FSLogix Profile Container in Parallels RAS, see FSLogix Profile Container.

RD Session Hosts are used to host published resources (applications, desktops, documents, etc.) in a RAS Farm.

To manage RD Session Hosts, navigate to Infrastructure > RD Session Hosts. The main list displays existing RD Session Hosts. To perform management functions (add, delete, show processes and sessions, etc), use the ellipsis menu, context menu (right-click) and in some cases action icons.

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

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

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

1. 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 Host Properties and Default Host Properties dialogs.

2. Click the plus-sign icon.

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

4. Click OK.

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 host.

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.

In the navigation bar, select General and specify the following:

• Enable Host in site: Enable or disable the host. A disabled host cannot serve published resources to users. When you disable a host, its name becomes grayed out in the main list.

• Host: Specifies the host name.

• Description: Specifies the host 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.

To perform RD Session Host management tasks:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > RD Session Hosts.

2. Click a host to open the host properties view.

3. Use the navigation bar to switch between different views where you can view additional information and perform actions. These views are described below.

RD Session Host properties are split into categories, which are displayed in the middle pane. Each category has its own set of properties. All categories, except General and Scanning, have one common link: Site Defaults or Host pool Defaults, which allows you to view default settings. If you want the properties in a particular category to inherit default settings, select the Inherit Defaults option. When you do this, the default settings will be inherited from one of the following:

• Host pool defaults if the host is assigned to an RD Session Host host pool. Pools are described in Grouping and Cloning RD Session Hosts.

• Site defaults if the host is not assigned to an RD Session Host host pool. Note that a host pool may also inherit Site defaults, but this can be overridden in the host pool properties dialog where you can specify custom settings for a host pool.

Click the Host pool Defaults or Site Defaults link (whichever applies) to open the host pool or Site default properties pane. To modify default settings (if needed), click Edit.

The Overview screen displays the following information:

• The Information section displays the RD Session Host information similar to what is shown on the main RD Session Host list but in one convenient view.

• The Actions section lists actions that you can perform on a host (see below). Please note that you can also perform actions from the main RD Session Host list view by selecting a host and choosing an option from the ellipsis menu.

You can perform the following actions on an RD Session Host:

• Message all: Send a message to users connected to the host.

• Disconnect all: Disconnect all current users.

• Logoff all sessions: Log off all current sessions.

• Update agent: Update the RD Session Host Agent, if required.

• Disable agent: Temporarily disable the agent.

The Control sub-menu contains the following items:

• Enable logons: Enables logons from client sessions, but not from the console. This option performs the same action as the change logon /enable command.

• Disable logons: Disables subsequent logons from client sessions, but not from the console. Does not affect currently logged on users. This option performs the same action as change logon /disable command.

• Drain: Disables logons from new client sessions, but allows reconnections to existing sessions. Drain is kept even after reboot until the admin enables logons.

  Note that while a host is in drain mode, administrators may still log on to the physical console or remotely log on using the /admin or /console command-line option for MSTSC. This allows administrators to remotely maintain the RDS host via Tools > Remote Desktop.

• Drain until reboot: Disables logons from new client sessions until the computer is restarted, but allows reconnections to existing sessions. Drain is kept until the host is restarted. Same action as the change logon /drainuntilrestart command.

• Cancel pending reboot (scheduler): Cancel pending reboot.

• Cancel disabled state (scheduler): Cancel disabled state.

• Install RDS role: Allows to install the RDS role on the host.

• Reboot: Reboot the host.

• Shutdown: Shut down the host.

The Logs sub-menu contains the following items:

• Configure: Allows you to configure logging. For the explanation of log levels, please see below.

• Retrieve: Retrieves a ZIP archive containing the log files to the specified location.

• Clear: Clears all existing logs.

The available log levels are:

• Standard: This is the standard log level that records only the most important events. Unless you are asked by Parallels RAS support to use one of the log levels described below, you should always use this one.

• Extended: This logging involves more information than the standard logging, but it slows down the system because of the additional information that it needs to collect.

• Verbose: Verbose logging involves even more information than the extended logging and can slow down your system significantly.

Please note that to avoid degraded performance, extended and verbose logging should only be enabled for a limited time period (enough to collect the necessary information for analysis). You can set this time period using Reset to the standard level after option. The default value is 12 hours. In specific cases, a Parallels support engineer will advise you whether this time period should be set to a different value. Once this time period is over, the log level will be reset back to standard.

The remaining items include:

• Assign to host pool: Assigns the host to a host pool.

• Remove from host pool: Removes a host from a host pool.

• Refresh: Refreshes the host information displayed on the screen.

• Site Defaults: Opens the RDSH site defaults screen where you can view and configure site defaults.

• Delete: Deletes the host from the RAS Farm.

Printing

The Printing category allows you to configure the renaming format of redirected printers. The format may vary depending on which version and language of the host you are using.

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

The RDP printer name format drop-down list allows you to select a printer name format specifically for the configured host.

Select the Remove session number from printer option to exclude the corresponding information from the printer name.

Scanning

In the Scanning view, configure which imaging interfaces should be enabled on the host(s). Select from WIA, TWAIN, or both.

For troubleshooting information and tasks, select Troubleshooting in the navigation bar.

The data displayed in the Troubleshooting view is retrieved by the RAS Management Portal directly from the RD Session Host, not through the RAS Connection Broker. This view can show data important to troubleshoot issues with the RAS RD Session Host Agent even if the agent cannot be reached by the RAS Connection Broker or is currently registered with a different RAS Connection Broker.

The following data is displayed:

• Host: The RD Session Host name.

• Agent: Agent status (e.g. OK).

• Version: Agent version.

• RDS role: Whether RDS role is enabled on the RD Session Host.

• OS type: Operating system type installed on the host.

• Status: Displays a long version of the agent status. If the agent is OK, it will say so. If there's an issue, this field explains what is wrong with the agent. You can use this information to troubleshoot the issue.

You can also perform the following actions in the Troubleshooting view:

• Retrieve logs: Retrieve host logs as a single ZIP archive.

• Configure logs: Allows you specify a log level for Parallels RAS Components. Note that you should use Extended and Verbose logging for troubleshooting only. When selecting one of these levels, you can also set the time period after which the log level will go back to Standard.

• Clear logs: Clear all existing logs.

• Reboot agent: Reboot the RAS RD Session Host Agent.

• Uninstall agent: Uninstall the agent.

• Refresh: Refresh the agent information.

When you publish resources in Parallels RAS, you need to specify one or more hosts that host them. RDSH host pools allow you to combine multiple RD Session Hosts and then publish the resources from the host pool instead of specifying individual hosts.

The main benefits of using RD Session Host host pools are as follows:

• They simplify the management of published resources and are highly recommended in multi-host environments.

• They allow you to use RD Session Hosts created from a template by utilizing the VDI infrastructure. More on this later in this section.

Note that an RD Session Host can be a member of one host pool only. You cannot add the same host to multiple host pools.

Creating a host pool

To create an RDSH host pool:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > RD Session Hosts > Host pools.

2. Choose New host pool from the ellipsis menu (or click the plus-sign icon).

3. Type a host pool name and press Enter.

4. Click the new host pool name in the list to open the host pool editing screen.

5. Click Properties in the middle pane and configure the host pool. Settings here are similar to settings of an individual RD Session Host. See Configure an RD Session Host.

Using host pool defaults

RD Sessions Hosts assigned to a host pool have various settings that they can inherit from the host pool defaults. This makes it simpler to configure a single set of settings for all hosts instead of configuring each host individually. A Site also has its own default settings (Site defaults). Moreover, an RD Session Host host pool can inherit these Site defaults. This gives you the following choices when inheriting default settings by an RD Session Host:

• Configure Site defaults and make the host pool inherit these settings. The RD Session Hosts assigned to the host pool will therefore also inherit Site defaults. This is the default scenario for a new host pool.

• Configure default settings for a given host pool. This way you can have multiple host pools, each having its own host pool defaults (different from Site defaults). Therefore, the hosts assigned to a host pool will inherit the host pool defaults.

To view and manage active session on the RD Session Host, click Active Sessions in the navigation bar. To see the detailed session information, click the user name in the list. This opens the Session Info view. For a detailed description of session metrics, please see Session information.

To perform an action on a session (or multiple sessions), select it in the list and click the ellipsis menu. Choose from one of the following items:

• Show session info: Opens the Session Info view.

• Message: Send a message to the session owner.

• Disconnect: Disconnect the session.

• Log off: Log off the session.

• Show resources: Opens a view displaying running resources.

• Show running processes: Opens a view displaying running processes.

• Monitoring settings: Opens a dialog where you can configure monitoring settings to highlight values in session metrics for RD Session Hosts. The dialog lists available metrics and allows you to set Warning and Critical thresholds for a given metric. To set a threshold, select the checkbox in front of a metric name and specify the desired values. During the RAS Farm operation, when a threshold is reached, a session metric value is highlighted as follows: Warning threshold — orange; Critical threshold — red.

  To reset values for a given threshold, select it and choose Reset from the ellipsis menu (or right-click > Reset). You can also enable or disable threshold color coding for a metric. To do so, select a metric and choose Enable or Disable from the ellipsis menu.

• Refresh: Refreshes the list.

• Export: Exports the information to a CSV file.

The Parallels RAS Management Portal includes a certificate management interface that allows you to manage all of your SSL certificates in one place.

Certificates are managed on a Site level. Once a certificate is added to a Site, it can be used with any RAS Secure Gateway or HALB that also exist in this Site.

To manage certificates, navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates. The Certificates list displays existing certificates. When you install Parallels RAS, the <Default> self-signed certificate is created automatically, so you will see at least this certificate in the list. The default certificate is also automatically assigned to all new RAS Secure Gateways and HALB.

The subsequent sections describe certificate management tasks in detail and provide additional certificate information and instructions.

Let’s Encrypt is a global Certificate Authority (CA). This organization is a non-profit and does not charge fees for their certificates. Each certificate is valid for 90 days. RAS Console allows you to issue, automatically renew and revoke Let's Encrypt certificates.

Issuing a Let's Encrypt certificate

To issue a new Let’s Encrypt certificate:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates.

2. Click the ellipsis menu ( the [...] icon) and choose Let's Encrypt Settings.

3. Select the I have read and accept Let's Encrypt EULA option.

4. In the Expiration emails field list specify the email addresses that will receive notifications from Let’s Encrypt.

5. Optionally, change the time when certificates are renewed automatically in the Automatically renew certificates before expiration field.

6. Navigate back to Infrastructure > Certificates.

7. Choose Add > Issue Let's Encrypt certificate from the [...] menu and specify the following options:

   • Name: Name of the certificate.

   • Description: Description of the certificate.

   • Usage: HALB and/or Secure Gateway.

   • Key size: Key size.

   • Country code: Code of your country.

   • Full state or province: Name of your state or province.

   • City: Your city.

   • Organization: Name of your organization.

   • Organization unit: Name of your organization unit.

   • E-mail: Email address of your organization.

   • Common name: Valid domain name of a HALB or Secure Gateway.

   • Alternative names: Valid domain names of HALBs or Secure Gateways.

8. Click Issue certificate.

Renewing a Let’s Encrypt certificate manually

To manually renew a Let’s Encrypt certificate:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates.

2. Select the certificate that you want to renew.

3. Select Control > Renew from the [...] menu.

Revoking a Let’s Encrypt certificate

To revoke a Let’s Encrypt certificate:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates.

2. Select the certificate that you want to renew.

3. Select Control > Revoke from the [...] menu.

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

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using Site or Group defaults for details. To specify custom settings for a given host, clear the Inherit default settings option and specify agent properties as follows.

Application session lingering

Setting in this section apply only to sessions with no running applications.

• 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 host.

• 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 host.

• Max sessions. Specifies the maximum number of sessions.

• 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. This option allows you to enable or disable the redirection. You can choose from the following options:

  1. Enabled — select this option to enable the redirection and then select the Support Windows Shell URL namespace objects option (bellow the drop-down box). This is the default redirection configuration that works in most common scenarios. The Shell URL namespace objects support means that Parallels RAS can intercept actions in published applications that use Shell namespace API to open links, which is a standard behavior in most applications. The ability to disable the 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).

  2. Enabled (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 host side. By doing so, it can intercept an attempt to open a link and redirect it to the client computer. You may try this option if the default option above doesn't work with your published application.

  3. Disabled — this option disables URL/Mail redirection, so URL or Mailto links always open on the remote host.

• Support Windows Shell URL namespace object:

• Drag and drop. Allows you to set how the drag and drop functionality works in Parallels Clients. You can select from "Disabled" (no drag and drop functionality at all), "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" (default). 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.

• 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 2XRemoteExec to send command to the client. Select this option to allow a process running on the host to instruct the client to deploy an application on the client side. See the Using RemoteExec subsection below for more information.

• 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.

• Enable applications monitoring. Enable or disable monitoring of applications on the host. Disabling application monitoring stops the WMI monitoring to reduce CPU usage on the host 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 host will be absent from a report.

• Manage RDP transport protocol. Select the transport protocol that will be used for connections between Parallels Client and a host.

• Allow file transfer command (Web and Chrome clients). Enables file transfer in a remote session. Select a desired option in the drop-down list. For details, see Configuring remote file transfer below.

• File transfer location. A UNC path to a folder to be used as the default upload location. This path will also be used as the default source location when a user tries to download a file from a remote host. You can select from one of the locations predefined in the drop-down list or you can specify your own. Standard Windows environment variables, such %USERNAME%, %USERDOMAIN%, %USERPROFILE%, can be used. If the location is not found during an upload or download operation, the standard (default) download location will be used.

• Do not allow to change location. Prohibits the user to change the UNC path specified in the File transfer location field. If the option is enabled, the user cannot select a different location while trying to upload or download a file. If the option is cleared, the user can specify a different location.

• Enable drive redirection cache. Improves user experience by making file browsing and navigation on redirected drives much faster.

Using 2XRemoteExec

2XRemoteExec is a feature that facilitates the hosts 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”

Configuring remote file transfer

Parallels RAS provides end users with the ability to transfer files remotely to and from a remote host.

To make the remote file transfer functionality flexible, Parallels RAS allows you to configure it on the following three levels:

• RD Session Host, Provider, or Remote PC

• User Portal

• Client policy

File transfer settings that you configure on each level take precedence in the order listed above. For example, if you enable file transfer on a User Portal, but disable it on an RD Session Host, file transfer will be disabled for all users who connect to the given RD Session Host through the given User Portal. As another example, you can enable file transfer on an RD Session Host and then disable it for a particular Client policy (or a User Portal). This way you can control which clients can use file transfer and which cannot.

To configure remote file transfer:

1. In the Allow file transfer command drop-down list, select one of the following options:

   • Disabled: Remote file transfer is disabled.

   • Client to Server: Transfer files from client to server only.

   • Server to Client: Transfer files from server to client only.

   • Bidirectional: Transfer files in both directions.

2. In the File transfer location field, specify a UNC path to a folder to be used as the default upload location. This path will also be used as the default source location when a user tries to download a file from a remote server. Standard Windows environment variables, such %USERNAME%, %USERDOMAIN%, %USERPROFILE%, can be used. If the location is not found during an upload or download operation, the standard (default) download location will be used.

3. The Do not allow to change location option prohibits the user to change the UNC path specified in the File transfer location field. If the option is enabled, the user cannot select a different location while trying to upload or download a file. If the option is cleared, the user can specify a different location.

To serve published resources to users, an RD Session Host must have the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role installed.

To add an RD Session Host to a Farm:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > RD Session Hosts.

2. Right-click anywhere in the list and choose Add (you can also choose Add from the ellipsis menu or click the plus-sign icon).

3. Select a host (or multiple host) from the displayed list or click the Browse AD button and browse for a host.

4. Click Next.

5. On the next page, specify the following options:

   • Add firewall rules. Add firewall rules required by Parallels RAS in Windows running on the host. See Port Reference for details.

   • Install RDS Role. Install the RDS role on the host if it's not installed. You should always select this option.

   • Enable Desktop Experience. Enable the Desktop Experience feature in Windows running on the host. This option is enabled only if the Install RDS role option (above) is selected. The option applies to Windows Server 2008 R1/R2 and Windows 2012 R1/R2 on which the Desktop Experience feature is not enabled by default.

   • Restart server if required. Automatically restart the host if necessary. You can restart the host manually if you wish.

   • Add host(s) to host pool. Add the host (or hosts) to a host pool. Select the desired host pool in the list box located below this option or create a new host pool by typing a name and clicking Create. For the information on how to create a host pool, see .

6. Click Next.

7. In order for end users to access published resources on the RD Session Host, they must be added to the Remote Desktop Users group in Windows running on the host. This can be done one of the following ways:

   • Adding each user or group directly on the host using standard Windows administrative tools.

   • Adding users or groups through Active Directory.

   • Using the wizard page described below, which is provided for your convenience.

   If you already added your users to the Remote Desktop Users group on the given host (or if for any reason you want to use one of the other methods listed above), you can simply click Next and skip this page.

   To add users to the Remote Desktop Users group using the wizard, click Browse and specify a user or a group.

8. On the next page, review the settings and click Create.

9. If the host doesn't have RAS RD Session Host Agent installed, you'll see a dialog asking for remote installation credentials. Type a username and password that can be used to remotely install the agent software on the host. Click Submit and follow the onscreen instructions.

10. When the installation is finished, click Done. Note that if the agent cannot be installed, you can still add a host to the Farm, but you will not be able to use it. You can always installed the agent later.

On successful installation, the host will appear in the RD Session Hosts list.

Additional information

To learn how to configure and manage an RD Session Host:

To generate a self-signed certificate, navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates. Choose Add > Generate self-signed certificate from the ellipsis menu and specify the following options:

• Name: Type a name for this certificate. This field is mandatory.

• Description: An optional description.

• Usage: Specify whether the certificate should be used for RAS Secure Gateways or HALB, or both. This selection is mandatory.

• Key size: The certificate key size, in bits. Here you can select from the predefine values. The default is 2048 bit, which is the minimum required length according to current industry standards.

• Expire in: The certificate expiration date.

• Country code: Select your country.

• Full state or province: Your state or province info.

• City: City name.

• Organization: The name of your organization.

• Organization unit: Organizational unit.

• E-mail: Your email address. This field is mandatory.

• Common name: The Common Name (CN), also known as the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). This field is mandatory.

• Subject Alternative Names: Add one or more subject alternative names (SANs). Note that because mobile Parallels Client don't support the Subject Alternative Name field, it is recommended to choose a common name that most mobile devices will be using.

Click Generate to generate the certificate. When done, the certificate will appear in the Certificates list with the Status column indicating Self-signed.

To view and modify certificate properties:

1. In the Infrastructure > Certificates view, click the certificate name.

2. In the right pane, review the certificate properties in the Information section.

3. In Actions section, you can enable or disable the certificate. You can also export a certificate to a file. If you wish to delete the certificate, click Delete.

4. To modify some of the certificate properties, click Properties in the middle pane.

5. Click Edit in the upper left-hand corner to modify the settings if needed. You can change the certificate name and description and you can also change whether the certificate should be used for Gateways, HALB, or both.

To view running resources for an RD Session Host, click the Running Resources item in the navigation bar. To see the detailed resource information, click the resource name. This opens a view displaying the basic resource information (ID, name, target, etc) and the corresponding session information. For the detailed information about session metrics, please see Session information.

To perform an action on a resource, select it in the list and click the ellipsis menu. Choose from one of the following:

• Message: Send a message to the session owner.

• Disconnect: Disconnect the session.

• Log off: Log off the session.

• Show running processes: Opens a view displaying running processes.

• Show user session: Open a view displaying the information about the session.

• Show information: Opens a view displaying the resource information.

• Monitoring settings: See the description in Active Sessions.

• Refresh: Refreshes the list.

• Export: Save the list into a CSV file.

When you create a new Let’s Encrypt certificate using Parallels RAS, the following process is carried out:

1. Parallels RAS Primary Connection Broker that hosts the licensing role makes the initial request to the Let’s Encrypt server to create an account.

2. Account creation confirmation is received. Parallels RAS creates a CSR and sends it to the Let’s Encrypt server.

3. A list of challenges is received, and Connection Broker reads the HTTP token sent by the Let’s Encrypt server.

4. Secure Gateway or HALB retrieves the tokens from the Connection Broker.

5. Once ready, Connection Broker notifies the Let’s Encrypt Server.

6. Let’s Encrypt starts the verification process by going to the Secure Gateway or HALB and confirming the availability of the token.

7. Challenges are completed including confirmation that the Secure Gateways or HALB can reply to the domain mentioned.

8. Assuming that the challenge is completed successfully, Parallels RAS requests a certificate.

9. Valid certificate is downloaded from the Let’s Encrypt server to Connection Broker.

10. Connection Broker distributes the certificate to the Secure Gateways or HALB.

Parallels RAS VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) enables you to use server virtualization to reduce the number of physical servers required to host published resources. Parallels RAS VDI supports numerous virtualization technologies, including hypervisor and cloud-based platforms.

Parallels RAS VDI also includes the Template functionality, which gives you the ability to create a template from a preconfigured guest VM (virtual machine) and then automatically clone hosts from it.

Please note that at the time of this writing, the VDI functionality in Parallels RAS Management Portal is limited to viewing existing virtual desktops, recreating hosts, and performing power operations on them. For other VDI tasks, please use the desktop-based Parallels RAS Console.

Virtual desktop list

To see the list of virtual desktops that exist in the Farm, navigate to Infrastructure > Virtual Desktops.

To add or remove columns to/for the Virtual Desktops table, click the gear icon and select or clear desired columns.

To perform a power operation, select a virtual desktop and then choose one of the following from the ellipsis menu:

• Start

• Stop

• Restart — The Restart operation (graceful) has a 10 min timeout. If not completed during this time, the Reset operation (forced) will be used.

• Reset

• Suspend

• Refresh

• Recreate — see more info below.

Recreating a host

If something happens to a template-based host and it becomes unusable, you don't have to delete it and create a new one. Instead, you can recreate it keeping its name and MAC address (to guarantee that VM will get the same IP address from the DHCP server). This way none of the other Site settings, which may rely on a broken host, will be affected. Another reason for recreating a host is to apply changes made to the template (when you exit from maintenance without executing the Recreate command). Please note that keeping the MAC address is supported on ESXi, vCenter, Hyper-v and Hyper-v Failover Cluster only.

When you recreate a host:

• The procedure deletes a VM and creates a new one from the same template.

• The new host retains the same computer name as the one it replaces.

• If a host is running, all unsaved data in its memory will be lost. For this reason, an important data should be saved to an external storage.

To view running processes for an RD Session Host, click the Running Processes item in the navigation bar. This opens a view displaying all running processes.

To kill one or multiple processes, select them in the list and chose Kill processes from the ellipsis menu. To refresh the list, choose Refresh.

After you add a certificate, you can assign it to a RAS Secure Gateway, HALB, or both depending on the usage type that you specified when you created the certificate. More on the certificate Usage option below.

Certificate Usage

Certificate Usage is an option that specifies whether the certificate should be available for RAS Secure Gateways, HALB, or both. See Generate a self-signed certificate. When you configure SSL for a RAS Secure Gateway or HALB later, you need to specify an SSL certificate. When you select a certificate, the following options will be available depending on how the Usage option is configured for a particular certificate:

• <All matching usage>: This is the default option, which is always available. It means that any certificate on which the Usage selection matches the object type (Gateway or HALB) will be used. For example, if you are configuring a Gateway and have a certificate that has Usage set to "Gateway", it will be used. If a certificate has both, Gateway and HALB usage options selected, it can also be used with the given gateway. This works the same way for HALB when you configure the LB SSL Payload. Please note that if you select this option for a Gateway or HALB, but not a single matching certificate exists, you will see a warning and will have to create a certificate first.

• Other items in the Certificates drop-down list are individual certificates, which will or will not be present depending on the certificate's Usage settings. For example, if you configure LB SSL Payload for HALB and have a certificate with the Usage option set to "HALB", the certificate will appear in the drop-down list. On the other hand, certificates with Usage set to "Gateway" will not be listed.

As another example, if you need just one certificate, which you would like to use for all of your Gateways, you need to create a certificate and set the Usage option to "Gateways". You can then configure each Gateway to use this specific certificate or you can keep the default <All matching usage> selection, in which case the certificate will be picked up by a Gateway automatically. Same exact scenario also works for HALB.

Gateways

To assign a certificate to a RAS Secure Gateway:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Gateways.

2. Click a Gateway in the list.

3. Click Properties in the middle pane.

4. Select the SSL/TLS category.

5. In the Certificates drop-down list, select the certificate that you created.

Please note that you can also select the <All matching usage> option, which will use any certificate that has the usage set to Gateway or both Gateway and HALB.

HALB

At the time of this writing, HALB cannot be managed in the RAS Management Portal. Please use the desktop-based RAS Console.

To import a certificate from a file, choose Add > Import certificate from the ellipsis menu and specify the following:

• Name: Type a name for the certificate.

• Description: An optional description.

• Usage: Specify whether the certificate will be used for RAS Secure Gateways or HALB, or both.

• Private key file: Specify a file containing the private key. Click Browse to browse for the file.

• Certificate file: When you specify a private key file (above) and have a matching certificate file, it will be inserted in this field automatically. Otherwise, specify a certificate file.

Click OK when done. The certificate will appear in the list with the Status column indicating Imported.

To add a RAS Secure Gateway:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Secure Gateways.

2. In the right pane, choose Add from the ellipsis menu. The Gateway - Add new wizard opens.

3. Enter the server FQDN or IP address or click Browse AD to select a server from the list. To resolve IP address to FQDN or vice versa, click Resolve IP or Resolve Name.

4. Click Next.

5. Select the gateway mode from the Mode drop down menu (Normal or Forwarding).

6. If you selected the Forwarding mode in the previous step, select the destination gateway in the Forward to drop-down list. You can also select a specific IP address in the On IP drop-down list if the Gateway server has more than one.

7. Add an optional description for this Gateway.

8. Select the Enable User Portal option to enable the RAS User Portal support (a browser-based client that can be used to connect to Parallels RAS and launch published resources).

9. Select the Enable firewall rules to automatically configure the firewall on the server hosting the gateway.

10. Click Next.

11. Review the settings and click Create to add the Gateway to the Site.

Select or clear the Enable RAS Secure Gateway in Site option.

• Host: Select a different host if needed.

• Description: Set or modify an optional description.

• Public address: Specify a public address for the Gateway server.

Set IP addresses for client connections

Specify the following IP options:

• Use IP version: Select the IP version(s) to use. RAS Secure Gateway recognizes both IPv4 and IPv6. By default, IPv4 is used.

• IP(s): Specify one or more IP addresses separated by a semicolon, or click Resolve to resolve the IP address automatically. These are the available addresses on the Gateway server. To specify IP addresses that should be used for client connections, use the Bind to IP section (see below).

• Bind to IP: Use this section to specify on which IP address (or addresses) the Gateway will listen for client connections. You can select a specific address or All available addresses, in which case all of the IP addresses specified in the IP(s) field will be used.

• Remove system buffers for: This option can be used when the connection between the Gateway and the Parallels Client has a high latency (such as the Internet). This option will optimize traffic for better experience on the Parallels Client side. You can select one or more specific addresses, all available addresses, or none. What this option will do is delay the internal socket to match the performance of the external socket. If the internal network is fast and the external is slow, RDP detects the fast internal socket and sends a lot of data. The problem is that this data cannot be sent fast enough from the Gateway to the Client, thus ending up with a bad user experience. Enabling this option will optimize the data exchange.

To export a certificate to a file, select it in the list and choose Export certificate from the ellipsis menu.

You can later import the certificate to a different Farm or Site by using Import certificate and specifying the certificate file in the Private key file field.

The Network category is used to configure RAS Secure Gateway network options.

To use Site default settings, click the Inherit Defaults option. To specify your own settings, clear the option and set the following:

• RAS Secure Gateway port: By default RAS Secure Gateway listens on TCP port 80 to tunnel all Parallels RAS traffic. To change the port, specify a new port.

• RDP port: RDP port 3389 is used for clients that require basic load balanced desktop sessions. Connections on this port do not support published resources. To change the RDP port on a gateway select the RDP port option and specify a new port. When setting your own port, make sure that the port does not conflict with the standard "RD Session Host Port" setting.

• Note: If the RDP port is changed, users need to append the port number to their connection string in the remote desktop client (e.g. [ip address]:[port]).

• Broadcast RAS Secure Gateway address: This option can be used to switch on the broadcasting of the gateway address, so Parallels Clients can automatically find their primary gateway. The option is enabled by default.

• Enable RDP UDP Data Tunneling: To enable UDP tunneling on Windows devices, select this option (default). To disable UDP tunneling, clear the option.

• Device Manager port: Select this option to enable management of Windows devices. The option is enabled by default.

• Enable RDP DOS Attack Filter: When selected, this option denies chains of uncompleted sessions from the same IP address. For example, if a Parallels Client initiates multiple successive sessions with each session waiting for the user to provide credentials, Parallels RAS will deny further attempts. The option is enabled by default.

RAS Secure Gateway tunnels all Parallels RAS data on a single port. It also provides secure connections and is the user connection point to Parallels RAS.

In a single tenant environment, you need to install at least one RAS Secure Gateway for Parallels RAS to work. You can add additional Gateways to a RAS Site to support more users, load-balance connections, and provide redundancy.

The following describes how RAS Secure Gateway handles user connection requests:

1. RAS Secure Gateway receives a user connection request.

2. It then forwards the request to the RAS Connection Broker with which it's registered (the Preferred Connection Broker setting by default).

3. The RAS Connection Broker performs load balancing checks and the Active Directory security lookup to obtain security permissions.

4. If the user requesting a published resource has sufficient rights, the RAS Connection Broker sends a response to the gateway which includes details about the RD Session Host the user can connect to.

5. Depending on the connection mode, the client either connects through the gateway or disconnects from it and then connects directly to the RD Session Host host.

RAS Secure Gateway operation modes

RAS Secure Gateway can operate in one of the following modes:

• Normal Mode: RAS Secure Gateway receives user connection requests and checks with RAS Connection Broker if the user making the request is allowed access. Gateways operating in this mode can support a larger number of requests and can be used to improve redundancy.

• Forwarding Mode: RAS Secure Gateway forwards user connection requests to a preconfigured Gateway. Gateways in forwarding mode are useful if cascading firewalls are in use, to separate WAN connections from LAN connections and make it possible to disconnect WAN segments in the event of issues without disrupting the LAN.

Planning for high availability

When adding RAS Secure Gateways to a Site, the N+1 redundancy should be configured to ensure uninterrupted service to your users. This is a general rule that also applies to other Parallels RAS components, such as Connection Brokers or RD Sessions Hosts.

To generate a CSR:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Certificates.

2. Choose Add > Generate a certificate request from the ellipsis menu and specify the required information. The information is exactly the same as described in .

3. After entering the information, click Generate. The certificate information view will open.

4. Click Certificate Request in the middle pane to view the request data. Copy and paste it into a text editor and save the file for your records. This view also also allows you to import a public key at this time. You can submit the request to a certificate authority now, obtain the public key, and import it without closing the view, or you can do it later.

To submit the request to a certificate authority and import a public key:

1. If the certificate request view is closed, open it (click the request in the main list and click Certificate Request).

2. Copy the request and paste it into the certificate authority web page (or email it, in which case you will need to come back to this view later).

3. Obtain the certificate file from the certificate authority.

4. Click the Import public key button and finalize the certificate registration by specifying the key file and the certificate file.

The traffic between Parallels RAS users and a RAS Secure Gateway can be encrypted. The SSL/TLS category allows you to configure data encryption options.

To use Site default settings, click the Inherit default settings option. To specify your own settings, clear the option.

HSTS

The HSTS section allows you to enforce HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), which is a mechanism that makes a web browser to communicate with the web server using only secure HTTPS connections. When HSTS is enforced for a RAS Secure Gateway, all web requests to it will be forced to use HTTPS. This specifically affects User Portal, which can normally accept only HTTPS requests.

• Enforce HTTP strict transport security (HSTS): Enables or disables HSTS for the gateway.

• Max-age: Specifies the max age in months that the web browser should remember that it can only communicate with the gateway using HTTPS. The default (and recommended) value is 12 months. Acceptable values are 4 to 120 months.

• Include subdomains: Specifies whether to include subdomains (if applicable).

• Preload: Enables or disables HSTS preloading. This is a mechanism whereby a list of hosts that wish to enforce the use of SSL/TLS on their Site is hardcoded into a web browser. The list is compiled by Google and is used by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge browsers. When HSTS preload is used, a web browser will not try to send a request using HTTP, but will use HTTPS every time. Please also read the important note below.

Please also note the following requirements:

• Your website must have a valid SSL certificate.

• All subdomains (if any) must be covered in your SSL Certificate. Consider ordering a Wildcard Certificate.

Encryption

By default, a self-signed certificate is assigned to a RAS Secure Gateway when the gateway is installed. Each RAS Secure Gateway must have a certificate assigned and the certificate should be added to Trusted Root Authorities on the client side to avoid security warnings.

SSL certificates are created on the Site level. Once a certificate is created, it can be assigned to a RAS Secure Gateway. For the information about creating and managing certificates, see Certificates.

To configure encryption:

1. Select the Enable SSL on port option and specify a port number (default is 443).

2. In the Accepted SSL versions drop-down list, select the SSL version.

3. In the Cipher Strength field, select a desired cipher strength.

4. In the Cipher field, specify the cipher. A stronger cipher allows for stronger encryption, which increases the effort needed to break it.

5. The Use ciphers according to server preference option is ON by default. You can use client preferences by disabling this option.

6. In the Certificates drop-down list, select a desired certificate. The <All matching usage> option will use any certificate configured to be used by gateways. When you create a certificate, you specify the "Usage" property where you can select "Gateway", "HALB", or both. If this property has the "Gateway" option selected, it can be used with a gateway. Please note that if you select this option, but not a single certificate matching it exists, you will see a warning and will have to create a certificate first.

Parallels User Portal is built into RAS Secure Gateway. It allows users to connect to Parallels RAS and open published resources from a web browser.

Note: To use User Portal, SSL must be enabled on a RAS Secure Gateway. When enabling the client, please verify that SSL is enabled in the SLL/TLS category or on your network load balancer. Please also note that the User Portal category is only available if the Gateway mode is set to Normal.

For the information on how to configure the User Portal URL and how to access the client from a web browser, please see the Web section.

• To use Site default settings on the User Portal tab, click the Inherit default settings option. To specify your own settings, clear the option.

• To enable or disable RAS User Portal, select or clear the Enable User Portal option.

Client

The Client section allows you to specify application launch methods and other User Portal settings.

• Launch sessions using: Specifies which Parallels Client will be used to open a published resource. This can be the User Portal or a platform-specific Parallels Client. Compared to Web Client, platform-specific Parallels Client includes a richer set of features and provides end users with a better overall user experience. Select one of the following:

  1. Browser only: Users can run remote applications and desktops using Web Client only. Use this option if you don't want your users to install a platform-specific Parallels Client.

  2. Parallels Client only: Users can run remote applications and desktops in Parallels Client only. When a user connects to Parallels RAS using Parallels Web Client, they will be asked to install the platform-specific Parallels Client before they can launch remote applications and desktops. A message will be displayed to the user containing the Parallels Client download link. After the user installs Parallels Client, they can still launch a remote application or desktop in Web Client but the resource will open in Parallels Client.

  3. Parallels Client and fallback to browser: Both Parallels Client and a browser (HTML5) can be used to launch remote applications and desktops. Parallels Client will be the primary method; Parallels Web Client will be used as a backup if a published resource cannot be launched in Parallels Client for any reason. A user will be informed if Parallels Client cannot be used and will be given a choice to open it in the browser instead.

• Allow users to select a launch method: If selected, users will be able to choose whether to open remote applications in a browser or in Parallels Client. You can enable this option only if the Launch session using option (above) is set to Parallels Client and fallback to browser (i.e. both methods are allowed).

• Allow opening applications in a new tab: If selected, a user will be able to open remote applications in a new tab in his/her web browser.

• (Parallels Client with fallback to Browser and the Parallels Cient only) Additionally, you can configure Parallels Client detection by clicking on the Configure button:

  • Detect client: Select when Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client.

    • Automatically on sign in: Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client immediately.

    • Manually on user prompt: Parallels RAS shows users a prompt where can they select whether they want to detect platform-specific Parallels Client .

  • Client detection timeout: Time period during which Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client.

• Use a client IP detection service: If selected, allows configuring an IP detection service to report IP addresses of connected Parallels Web Client applications. To enable a client IP detection service, select this option and click the Configure button. In the dialog that opens, provide the URL to the IP detection service you want to use. You can press the Test button to ensure the API works as expected. When you click the Test button, the Connection Broker will take the role of the client and call the API. If successful, you will be presented with a window showing the IP address of the Connection Broker.

Network Load Balancer access

The Network Load Balancers access section is intended for deployment scenarios where third-party front-end load balancers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs) are used. It allows you to configure an alternate hostname and port number to be used by the Network Load Balancer (NLB). This is needed to separate hostnames and ports on which TCP and HTTPS communications are carried out because AWS load balancers don't support both specific protocols over the same port.

The following options are available:

• Use alternate hostname: Select this option and specify an alternate hostname. When the alternate hostname is enabled, all platform-specific Parallels Clients will use this hostname to connect to the RAS Farm or Site.

• Use alternate port: Select this option and specify an alternate port number. The port must not be used by any other component in the RAS Farm or Site. To reset the port number to the default value, click Default. When the alternate port is enabled, all platform-specific Parallels Clients will use this port to connect to the RAS Farm or Site. Note that RDP sessions in Web Client will still be connecting to the standard SSL port (443).

In addition, the AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB), which handles HTTP/s traffic required by the Parallels Web Client, only supports specific cookies that are usually automatically generated. When a load balancer first receives a request from a client, it routes the request to a target and generates a cookie named AWSALB, which encodes information about the selected target. The load balancer then encrypts the cookie and includes it in the response to the client. When sticky sessions are enabled, the load balancer uses the cookie received from the client to route the traffic to the same target, assuming the target is registered successfully and is considered healthy. By default, Parallels RAS uses its own ASP.NET cookie named _SessionId, however in this case you must customize the cookie specifying the mentioned AWS cookie for sticky sessions. This can be configured using the Web cookie field in the User Portal > Web subcategory.

Restrictions

The Restrictions section is used to allow or restrict the following User Portal functions:

• Use Pre Windows 2000 login format: Enables legacy (pre-Windows 2000) login format.

• Allow embedding of Parallels User Portal into other web pages: If selected, the Parallels User Portal web page can be embedded in other web pages. Please note that this may be a potential security risk due to the practice known as clickjacking.

• File transfer command: Enables file transfer in a remote session. Select a desired option in the drop-down list. For more information, see Configuring remote file transfer below.

• Clipboard redirection: Select a clipboard option that should be allowed in a remote session. Choose from Client to server only (copy/paste from client to server only), Server to client only (copy and paste from server to client only), Bidirectional (copy and paste in both directions).

• Allow cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): Enables cross-origin resource sharing (CORS). To enable CORS, select this option and then specify one or more domains for which access to resources should be allowed. If you don't specify any domains, the option will be automatically disabled. In the Browser cache time field, specify for how long the end-user's browser will cache a resource.

Configuring remote file transfer

Parallels RAS provides end users with the ability to transfer files remotely to and from a remote server.

To make the remote file transfer functionality flexible, Parallels RAS allows you to configure it on the following three levels:

• RD Session Host, Provider, or Remote PC

• User Portal

• Client policy

File transfer settings that you configure on each level take precedence in the order listed above. For example, if you enable file transfer in User Portal, but disable it on an RD Session Host, file transfer will be disabled for all users who connect to the given RD Session Host through the User Portal. As another example, you can enable file transfer on an RD Session Host and then disable it for a particular Client policy (or an User Portal). This way you can control which clients can use file transfer and which cannot.

To configure remote file transfer for a User Portal, select one of the following options in the File transfer command drop-down list:

• Disabled: Remote file transfer is disabled.

• Client to Server: Transfer files from client to server only.

• Server to Client: Transfer files from server to client only.

• Bidirectional: Transfer files in both directions.

The Web category allows you to tweak settings necessary for load balancing in certain scenarios. Here you can specify a redirection URL for web requests and a session cookie name to maintain persistence between a client and a server.

Redirection URL

The original web request can reach the gateway one of the following two ways:

• The request is sent directly to the Gateway over the local network using its IP address or FQDN. For example, https://192.168.10.10.

• The request is sent to a HALB device that load-balances this and other gateways in the Farm. The HALB device often faces the Internet (i.e. located in DMZ) and so its DNS name can be used in the original request URL. For example, https://ras.msp.com. The HALB device is then distributes the request to a gateway.

When the gateway receives the web request, it takes the URL specified in the Web category and sends it back to the web browser for redirection.

Technically, you can enter any URL here, and the original web request will be redirected to that URL. The primary purpose of this field, however, is to give end users an easy way to access the User Portal from their web browsers. Here's how it works:

1. A user enters the Load Balancer DNS name in a web browser. For example, https://ras.msp.com.

2. The Load Balancer receives the request and distributes it to the least-busy RAS Secure Gateway for processing.

3. The gateway receives the original URL and replaces it with the URL specified in the Default URL field. See the Default URL format subsection below.

4. The replaced URL is then sent back to the web browser, which uses it to open the User Portal login page.

Default URL format

The default URL format is the following:

https://%hostname%/userportal

• The %hostname% variable is automatically replaced with the name of the server that received the original request, which in our example is the Load Balancer DNS name. If you wish, you can replace the variable with a specific host name or IP address (e.g. this or some other gateway). For example, https://192.168.5.5/userportal. If you do this, the web requests will always be forwarded to the specified host and will open the User Portal on it. Hard-coding a host may not be very practical, but you can do this nevertheless.

• userportal is a constant and is the path to the User Portal login page.

In our example, the resulting URL that the web browser will use to access the User Portal is the following:

https://ras.msp.com/userportal

The fact is, a user could simply use the above URL from the start, but thanks to the redirection feature, users only need to enter the server DNS name (or FQDN/IP-address on the local network) instead of the entire URL.

Opening a specific User Portal Theme

User Portal Themes is a feature that allows you to custom design the User Portal look and feel for different groups of users.

The default web request URL opens the default Theme. To make it open a specific Theme, add the Theme name at end of the URL as follows:

https://%hostname%/userportal/?theme=<theme-name>

where <theme-name> is the name of a Theme without brackets or quotes.

For users to open a specific Theme, the URL that they enter in a web browser must contain the Theme name, but in this case the format is as simple as the following:

https://<server-name>/<theme-name>

Using our Load Balancer DNS name example from above, the URL may look like the following:

https://ras.msp.com/Theme-E1

For additional information, please see User Portal Theme Settings > URLs.

Open User Portal

The Open User Portal button uses the specified gateway address and opens User Portal on this particular gateway in a new tab. You can use this button to test your deployment.

Web cookie

The Web cookie field is used to specify a session cookie name. RAS HTML5 session persistence is normally set by user's IP address (source addressing). If you can't use source addressing in your environment (e.g. your security policy doesn't allow it), you can use the session cookie to maintain persistence between a client and a server. To do so, you'll need to set up a load balancer that can use a session cookie for persistence. The default cookie name is ASP.NET_SessionId.

If you are using a third-party load balancer, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), you need to specify its own cookie name. In case of AWS, when the load balancer first receives a request from a client, it routes the request to a target and generates a cookie named AWSALB, which encodes information about the selected target. The load balancer then encrypts the cookie and includes it in the response to the client. When sticky sessions are enabled, the load balancer uses the cookie received from the client to route the traffic to the same target, assuming the target is registered successfully and is considered healthy.

Encrypting Parallels Client connection

By default, the only type of connection that is encrypted is a connection between a Gateway and backend servers. To encrypt a connection between Parallels Client and the gateway, you also need to configure connection properties on the client side. To do so, in Parallels Client, open connection properties and set the connection mode to Gateway SSL.

To simplify the Parallels Client configuration, it is recommended to use a certificate issued either by a third party Trusted Certificate Authority or Enterprise Certificate Authority (CA). If an Enterprise CA certificate is used, Windows clients receive a Root or Intermediate Enterprise CA certificate from Active Directory. Client devices on other platforms require manual configuration. If a third-party certificate issued by a well-known Trusted Certificate Authority is used, the client device trusts using Trusted Certificate Authority updates for the platform.

Parallels Clients Configuration

In case the certificate is self-signed, or the certificate issued by Enterprise CA, Parallels Clients should be configured as follows:

1. Export the certificate in Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) format.

2. Open the exported certificate with a text editor, such as notepad or WordPad, and copy the contents to the clipboard.

To add the certificate with the list of trusted authorities on the client side and enable Parallels Client to connect over SSL with a certificate issued from an organization’s Certificate Authority:

1. On the client side in the directory "C:\Program Files\Parallels\Remote Application Server Client\" there should be a file called trusted.pem. This file contains certificates of common trusted authorities.

2. Paste the content of the exported certificate (attached to the list of the other certificates).

Securing RDP-UDP Connections

A Parallels Client normally communicates with a RAS Secure Gateway over a TCP connection. Recent Windows clients may also utilize a UDP connection to improve WAN performance. To provide the SSL protection for UDP connections, DTLS must be used.

To use DTLS on a RAS Secure Gateway:

1. In the SSL/TLS category, make sure that the Enable SSL on port option is selected.

2. In the Network category, make sure that the Enable RDP UDP Data Tunneling option is selected.

The Parallels Clients must be configured to use the Gateway SSL mode. This option can be set in the Connections Settings > Connection Mode drop-down list on the client side.

Once the above options are correctly set, both TCP and UDP connections will be tunneled over SSL.

SSL server configuration

When configuring RAS Secure Gateway to use SSL encryption, you should pay attention to how the SSL server is configured to avoid possible traps and security issues. Specifically, the following SSL components should be rated to determine how good the configuration is:

• The certificate, which should be valid and trusted.

• The protocol, key exchange, and cipher should be supported.

The assessment may not be easy to perform without specific knowledge about SSL. That's why we suggest that you use the SSL Server Test available from Qualys SSL Labs. This is a free online service that performs an analysis of the configuration of an SSL web server on the public Internet. To perform the test on a RAS Secure Gateway, you may need to temporarily move it to the public Internet.

RAS Secure Gateway can operate in one of the following modes:

• Normal Mode: RAS Secure Gateway receives user connection requests and checks with RAS Connection Broker if the user making the request is allowed access. Gateways operating in this mode can support a larger number of requests and can be used to improve redundancy.

• Forwarding Mode: RAS Secure Gateway forwards user connection requests to a preconfigured Gateway. Gateways in forwarding mode are useful if cascading firewalls are in use, to separate WAN connections from LAN connections and make it possible to disconnect WAN segments in the event of issues without disrupting the LAN.

To use Site default settings, click the Inherit Defaults option. To specify your own settings, clear the option.

Setting the normal mode

To set the normal mode, in the Gateway mode drop-down list, select Normal.

The Preferred Connection Broker drop-down list allows you to specify a RAS Connection Broker that the gateway will connect to. 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. For the gateway to select a Connection Broker automatically, select the Automatic option.

The Forward requests to HTTP Server option allows you to forward requests that do not belong to RAS Secure Gateways (gateways handle HTML5 traffic, Wyse, and URL scheme). To specify multiple servers, separate them with a semicolon. An HTTP server can be specified using an IPv6 address if necessary. Please note that the HTTP server must support the same IP version as the browser making the request.

Setting the forwarding mode

To configure the forwarding mode, in the Gateway mode drop-down list, select Forwarding and specify one or more Gateways. A gateway in forwarding mode will forward all the user connection requests to a pre-configured gateway. Gateways in forward mode are useful if cascading firewalls are in use, to separate WAN connections from LAN connections and make it possible to disconnect WAN segments in the event of issues without disrupting the LAN.

You can allow or deny user access to a gateway based on a MAC address. This can be accomplished using the Security tab in the RAS Secure Gateway Properties dialog.

To use Site default settings, click the Inherit default settings option. To specify your own settings, clear the option.

To configure a list of allowed or denied MAC addresses, click the Security tab and select one of the following options:

• Allow all except. All devices on the network will be allowed to connect to the gateway except those included in this list. Click Tasks > Add to select a device or to specify a MAC address.

• Allow only. Only the devices with the MAC addresses included in the list are allowed to connect to the gateway. Click Tasks > Add to select a device or to specify a MAC address.

Please note that the Gateway MAC address filtering is based on ARP, so client and server must be on the same network for the filtering to work. It does not work across network boundaries.

To configure a RAS Secure Gateway:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Secure Gateways.

2. Click a Gateway in the list to open the view displaying the Gateway details.

3. In the middle pane, click Properties.

Configure Gateway properties as described in the subsequent sections.

RAS Connection Broker provides load balancing of published applications and desktops. A RAS Connection Broker is automatically installed on a server on which you install Parallels RAS and is designated as the primary Connection Broker. Each Site must have a primary RAS Connection Broker but can also have secondary Connection Brokers added to it. The purpose of a secondary Connection Broker is to ensure that users do not experience any interruption of the service due to possible failure of the primary RAS Connection Broker.

To perform RAS Secure Gateway management tasks:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Secure Gateways.

2. From here, you can either select a Gateway and use the ellipsis menu to perform a management task. You can also click a Gateway to open a view displaying Gateway details where you can also perform the same tasks. The tasks are described below.

Control

Allows you to enable or disable the Gateway.

Logs

A RAS Secure Gateway is monitored and logs are created containing relevant information. To configure logging click one of the following:

• Configure: Allows you to configure logging. For the explanation of log levels, please see below.

• Retrieve: Retrieves a ZIP archive containing the log files to the specified location.

• Clear: Clears all existing logs.

The available log levels are:

• Standard: This is the standard log level that records only the most important events. Unless you are asked by Parallels RAS support to use one of the log levels described below, you should always use this one.

• Extended: This logging involves more information than the standard logging, but it slows down the system because of the additional information that it needs to collect.

• Verbose: Verbose logging involves even more information than the extended logging and can slow down your system significantly.

Please note that to avoid degraded performance, extended and verbose logging should only be enabled for a limited time period (enough to collect the necessary information for analysis). You can set this time period using Reset to the standard level after option. The default value is 12 hours. In specific cases, a Parallels support engineer will advise you whether this time period should be set to a different value. Once this time period is over, the log level will be reset back to standard.

Other actions

• Refresh: Refreshes the displayed Gateway information.

• Site defaults: Opens the Site defaults view.

• Delete: Removes the Gateway from the Farm.

The Site defaults category allows you to configure default settings for various RAS components and services. At the time of this writing, you can configure Site defaults for the following:

• Publishing — See Site defaults (Publishing).

• Gateways — See Configure a Gateway.

• RD Session Hosts and Host pools — see Agent Settings.

• Multi-factor Authentication — see Multi-factor authentication.

When you add a component to a RAS Farm, or when you publish a resource, Site defaults are used so you don't have to enter the values manually every time. You can easily override the defaults with your own values if necessary.

To view Site defaults, click any of the available categories. To modify the default settings, click Edit in the Site defaults view.

To publish applications from the Parallels RAS to thin clients using the Wyse thinOS, select the Enable Wyse ThinOS support option.

By enabling this option, the RAS Secure Gateway will act as a Wyse broker. You need to make sure that DHCP option 188 on your DHCP server is set to the IP address of this gateway for thin clients that will be booting via this gateway. Once the DHCP server is configured, click the Test button to verify the DHCP server settings.

The Do not warn if server certificate is not verified option can be selected (enabled) if a Wyse device shows an SSL warning when connecting to a RAS Secure Gateway because the hostname does not match the certificate. When the option is selected, the Gateway will send Wyse clients the following parameters in the wnos.ini file: SecurityPolicy=low TLSCheckCN=no, which will disable SSL checks. Note that the option is not required if a certificate has the following:

• The CNAME set to the FQDN of the RAS Secure Gateway.

• The SAN set to the RAS Secure Gateway IP address.

Note that if you use a custom wnos.ini in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\ApplicationServer\AppData\wnos" folder on Gateway, the Gateway will not send the SSL check parameters.

To view RAS Connection Brokers installed in a Site, navigate to Infrastructure > Connection Broker.

A Site must have at least the primary Connection Broker installed, which is marked so in the Priority column. You can also add secondary agents for redundancy.

To modify the configuration of a Connection Broker, click it in the list and then click Properties in the middle pane. Click Edit and specify the following options:

• Enable: Enables or disables the Connection Broker.

• IP: Specifies the server IP address.

• Alternate IPs: Specifies one or more alternate IP addresses separated by a semicolon. These addresses will be used if RAS Secure Gateways fail to connect to the RAS Connection Broker using the address specified in the IP field. This can happen, for example, if Gateways are connecting from a network which is not joined to Active Directory.

• Standby: If selected, puts a secondary Connection Broker into a standby mode. This means that no agent will connect to this Connection Broker until another Connection Broker goes offline. This option is enabled automatically for any new secondary Connection Broker in excess of the three agents that already exist. It is not recommended to have more than three active Connection Brokers because it may degrade system performance. Using this option you can have more than three agents, but have them in standby mode until they are needed. For more information, see Add a secondary Connection Broker.

When done making the changes, click Save and then click Apply All Changes.

The ellipsis menu on the main Connection Brokers view has the following items:

• Add: Adds a RAS Connection Broker to the Site. See the section that follows this one for the information on how to add secondary Connection Brokers.

• Update agent: Update the agent.

• Disable/Enable agent: Enable or disable the agent.

• Logs: Allows to manage logging.

• Promote to primary: Promotes a secondary Connection Broker to primary.

• Rise priority: Rises the priority of a secondary Connection Broker (moves it up in the priority list).

• Lower priority: Lowers the priority of a secondary Connection Broker (moves it down in the list).

• Refresh. Refreshes the Connection Brokers list.

• Delete. Deletes a secondary Connection Broker from the Site. To delete the current primary Connection Broker, you first need to promote a secondary Connection Broker to primary.

Providers are hypervisors or cloud-based virtualization solutions that can be added to a RAS Farm to use virtual machines as Virtual Desktops.

Please note that at the time of this writing, the Provider functionality in the RAS Management Portal is limited to viewing the available providers, hosts, and active sessions. To perform other Provider tasks, please use the desktop-based Parallels RAS Console.

Provider list

To see the list of providers, navigate to Infrastructure > Providers.

To add or remove columns to/from the Providers table, click the gear icon and select or clear desired columns.

To perform a task, select a provider in the list and choose one of the following from the ellipsis menu:

• Show hosted VDI desktops: Opens the Host list with a filter applied to show only the hosts that belong to this provider.

• Show active sessions: Opens the Sessions list with a filter applied to show only session that belong to this provider.

A secondary Connection Broker is added to a Site for redundancy. This way if the primary Connection Broker fails, the secondary Connection Broker is still available to handle the requests. Connection Brokers work in active/active manner to ensure high availability. In case of a Connection Broker failure, the next agent is always ready to handle the load. In general, the N+1 redundancy approach should be used per Site. Note that for auto-promotion you shouldn't have more than three Connection Brokers (auto-promotion is described later in this section).

When you have one more secondary Connection Brokers installed, the runtime data is replicated on each agent, so if any service fails, the downtime is reduced to a minimum. In addition, any active Connection Broker is used for authentication purposes with both the AD and any 2nd level authentication provider used.

The primary Connection Broker performs the same tasks as secondary Connection Brokers but has additional responsibilities. It manages certain processes that must be managed by a single Connection Broker. The following table lists processes managed by the primary Connection Broker and secondary Connection Brokers:

As a demonstration of how load distribution between multiple Connection Brokers works, consider the following example:

• Suppose we have two Connection Brokers: PA1 (primary) and PA2 (secondary).

• Suppose we also have 10 RD Session Hosts: RDS1, RDS2 ... RDS10

The resulting load will be distributed as follows:

• RDS1—RDS5 will use PA1 as their preferred Connection Broker.

• RDS6—RDS10 will use PA2 as their preferred Connection Broker.

Planning for secondary Connection Brokers

RAS Connection Brokers running on the same Site communicate with each other and share the load. The amount of data being transmitted from one agent to another is quite large, so a reliable high-speed communication channel must be ensured (e.g. a subnetwork can be configured for Connection Broker communications).

When adding a secondary Connection Broker to a Site, you specify an IP address for it. Make sure that the IP addresses of all agents belong to the same network segment. The port that Connection Brokers use to communicate with each other is TCP 20030.

There's no physical limit to how many Connection Brokers you can add to a Site. However, the best results are achieved with only two-three agents present. The three-agent scenario is highly recommended, especially when you have Providers and want to enable high availability for VDI. Adding more than two secondary Connection Brokers to a Site may have a reverse effect and actually degrade the system performance. Note that this does not apply to secondary Connection Brokers in standby mode, which is explained in Configuring RAS Connection Brokers.

Adding a secondary RAS Connection Broker to a Site

To add a secondary Connection Broker:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Connection Brokers.

2. Choose Add from the ellipsis menu (or click the plus-sign icon). The Add new wizard opens.

3. On the Host page, specify the following:

   • Host name: FDQN of the host that hosts the RAS Connection Broker. Click Resolve IP to obtain the host IP address automatically.

   • IP address: The host IP address. Click Resolve Name to obtain the host FQDN automatically.

4. On the Agent Settings page, specify the following:

   • Alternative IPs: One or more alternative IP addresses, separated by a semicolon. These addresses will be used if RAS Secure Gateways fail to connect to the RAS Connection Broker using its FQDN or the address specified on the previous page. This can happen, for example, if Gateways are connecting from a different network, which is not joined to Active Directory.

   • Description: Add an optional description.

   • Enable firewall rules: Select to automatically configure the firewall on the host.

   • Restart host if required: Automatically restart host after the installation, if it is required.

   • Install a gateway with a Connection Broker: Select this option if you also want to install a RAS Secure Gateway on the specified host. If you select this option, you may also select the Enable HTML5 Gateway option to automatically enable User Portal on the Gateway.

5. On the Summary page, review the settings and click Create.

From this point, follow the onscreen instructions and add the Connection Broker to the Farm.

To perform RAS Connection Broker management tasks:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Connection Brokers.

2. Select a Connection Broker in the list and click the ellipsis.

3. In the menu, choose one of the options describe below.

Add

See .

Update agent, Disable/Enable agent

Update, disable or enable the Connection Broker.

Logs

To configure logging choose one of the following:

• Configure: Allows you to configure logging. For the explanation of log levels, please see below.

• Retrieve: Retrieves a ZIP archive containing the log files to the specified location.

• Clear: Clears all existing logs.

The available log levels are:

• Standard: This is the standard log level that records only the most important events. Unless you are asked by Parallels RAS support to use one of the log levels described below, you should always use this one.

• Extended: This logging involves more information than the standard logging, but it slows down the system because of the additional information that it needs to collect.

• Verbose: Verbose logging involves even more information than the extended logging and can slow down your system significantly.

Please note that to avoid degraded performance, extended and verbose logging should only be enabled for a limited time period (enough to collect the necessary information for analysis). You can set this time period using Reset to the standard level after option. The default value is 12 hours. In specific cases, a Parallels support engineer will advise you whether this time period should be set to a different value. Once this time period is over, the log level will be reset back to standard.

Promote to primary

This option is enabled for secondary Connection Brokers only. In the event that the primary Connection Broker is down and cannot be recovered, you can promote a secondary Connection Broker to primary.

Rise priority / Lower priority

This option is enabled for secondary Connection Broker only. Each secondary Connection Broker is given a priority. To change the priority, choose Rise priority or Lower priority. The Connection Broker will move up or down the main list. The higher the agent is in the list, the higher the priority.

Refresh

Refreshes the current view.

Delete

Remove the Connection Broker from the Farm.