Per-device license support of RDP-HTML5 in SMA/SRA release 8.5

03/26/2020 9 11448

DESCRIPTION:

When a Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) server is configured to use the Per-Device licensing mode, and a client computer or device connects to an RD Session Host server for the first time, the client computer or device is issued a temporary license by default. When a client computer or device connects to an RD Session Host server for the second time, if the Remote Desktop license server is activated and enough Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Per-Device Client Access Licenses (CALs) are available, the license server issues the client computer or device a permanent RDS Per-Device CAL. If the license server is not activated or does not have any RDS Per-Device CALs available, the device continues to use the temporary license. The temporary license is valid for 90 days.

A permanent RDS Per-Device CAL issued by a license server is configured to automatically expire after a random period between 52 and 89 days, at which time the RDS Per-Device CAL returns to the pool of available RDS Per-Device CALs on the license server.

From SMA/SRA 8.5 release, Per-device license is supported by HTML5 RDP.

RESOLUTION:

Configuring a per-device license server

 To configure Per-Device licensing on Windows Server 2008 R2, follow the steps as below.

Install Remote Desktop Services role

Step 1, Open the Server Manager, navigate to Roles and click Add Roles in the right pane.

Activate license server

Step 2, On Windows 2008 server R2, navigate to Start > Administrative Tools > Remote Desktop Service > Remote Desktop Licensing Manager, in RD licensing Manager window  right click the license server and select "Activate Server", complete the install licenses wizard.

Add a license server

Step 3, In the Server Manager screen under Edit Settings, double-click Remote Desktop license servers. In the Properties dialog, on the Licensing tab, click Add. Then in the Add License Server dialog, fill in the License server name or IP address field and click Add. 

Add a HTML5 RDP bookmark on SRA

Step 4, On SRA 4600 for instance, navigate to Service > Bookmarks, click Add Bookmark button to create a bookmark as below.

How to test

Step 5, Open the web browser on SSL-VPN client machine and visit "https://your SRA's IP address" with user "test@LocalDomain". 

Step 6, Click the appropriate bookmark and then access the remote desktop with the correct credentials.

Step 7, Try step 5 and 6 with different web browsers like Chrome, Firefox and IE...

Step 8, On windows server 2008 R2, navigate to Start > Administrative Tools > Remote Desktop Service > Remote Desktop Licensing Manager, in RD licensing Manager window left pane, click the licensing server, you will see the licenses issued to all clients.