RD Connection Broker HA and the RDP Properties on the Client

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In an earlier Wiki, we walked through the new High Availability (HA) feature of the RD Connection Broker (RDCB) in Windows Server 2012.

If, after completing the steps in that wiki, we would launch MSTSC and enter the DNS farm name as the destination host (as shown below):

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-k9aDWyyozXA/T4-_4wXlwfI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/bf-5wAVxRew/image_thumb1%25255B1%25255D.png?imgmax=800

That would result in the error below. Why? Because we’re actually launching an RDP session to one of the RDCB servers, and of course that’s denied for our end user.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-cb8pVxNCnZo/T4-_6qUGpPI/AAAAAAAAAuc/vsRlNQ5maQo/image_thumb3.png?imgmax=800

What we need to do is configure some properties in an .RDP file so that it has knowledge of the fact that we’re trying to connect through a HA Connection Broker.

These are the properties that need to be added:

***full address:s:*FARM.LAB.LOCAL
***workspace id:s:****FARM.LAB.LOCAL
**use redirection server name:i:**1
loadbalanceinfo:s:tsv://MS Terminal Services Plugin.1.Wortell_sLab_Ses
**alternate full address:s:*FARM.LAB.LOCAL

If we try that as our end user, the connection bar would still show the RDCB DNS farm name, but we’re now logged in on the RDSH server.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8RMHYKHZwKs/T4-_8MnbpMI/AAAAAAAAAus/DXg2IR1tpPQ/image_thumb5.png?imgmax=800

This also gets automatically configured for your RemoteApps. RemoteApps integrated on the client are stored inside RDP files in the following location:

C:\Users\username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Workspaces\Workspace-ID>\Resource

Editing such a .RDP file in notepad would (amongst some other properties that we left out here) results in:

***full address:s:**FARM.LAB.LOCAL
alternate shell:s:||calc
remoteapplicationprogram:s:||calc
gatewayhostname:s:rdgw.lab.local
**remoteapplicationname:s:**Calculator
remoteapplicationcmdline:s:
**workspace id:s:**FARM.LAB.LOCAL
**use redirection server name:i:**1
loadbalanceinfo:s:tsv://MS Terminal Services Plugin.1.Wortell_sLab_Ses
**alternate full address:s:*FARM.LAB.LOCAL

RD WebAccess also automatically points to the RD Connection Broker farm

http://lh3.ggpht.com/-YaOCCOsUz7A/T4-_9oupNUI/AAAAAAAAAu8/XI4__8Zmzcc/image_thumb1.png?imgmax=800

So that’s how to configure your .RDP files if you want to connect through a HA RD Connection Broker.

Original source: http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/04/rd-connection-broker-ha-and-rdp.html