|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If you need to transfer files between the local and remote systems, you can take the steps listed at Transferring Files Via the Remote Desktop.
A program that can be run on one of those operating systems is rdesktop. If you have a Linux system, you may find that it is already installed. If not you can download and install it for free.
You can determine if rdesktop is already installed by using the
command which rdesktop.
$ which rdesktop /usr/bin/rdesktop
Rdesktop allows you not only to remotely manage a Microsoft Windows system, but also map a directory on the system running rdesktop to what appears to be a shared network drive on the Microsoft Windows system.
$ rdesktop -0 -r 'disk:Linux=/home/jdoe/Documents/' -u administrator 192.168.0.5
I used the following options with the rdesktop command
issued on a Ubuntu Linux system:
-0
The -0 option allows you to attach to the console of the server (requires Windows Server 2003 or newer), which would be akin to sitting down at the system to which you are logging on, i.e., it doesn't establish a session separate from the login session you would get when sitting at the system. So, if you were already logged into the system locally, when you connect remotely via rdesktop, you will see all of the open programs and files.
-r disk:<sharename>=<path>,...
Redirects a path to the share \\tsclient\<sharename> on the server (requires Windows XP or newer). The share name is limited to 8 characters.
In this case I used -r 'disk:Linux=/home/jdoe/Documents/'.
I picked "Linux" for the sharename, but you can use whatever name you like.
The name you select is the name the Microsoft Windows system will see for
a shared network drive. The /home/jdoe/Documents/ means that
if, from the Microsoft Windows system, I use the Explorer or an application
to browse to the shared network drive named Linux it is really
pointing to /home/jdoe/Documents on the Linux system. So I
can place a file in /home/jdoe/Documents/ on the Linux
system and access it from the Microsoft Windows system. Or I can save
a file with an application on the Microsoft Windows system to the directory
/home/jdoe/Documents on the Linux system.
-u <username>
The -u option allows you to spcify the Username for authentication on the Microsoft Windows system to which you wish to logon. In this case, I'm logging in as the administrator.
The 192.168.0.5 is the IP address of the Microsoft Windows system
to which I wish to connect. You can also use a
fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) as well, e.g., a.example.com.
If you go to My Computer on the remote system or use Windows Explorer, you should see the drives on the local system from which you connected listed among the drives visible on the remote system.
References:
I sometimes encounter a problem where I can't see the taskbar at the
bottom of the Windows display or the bottom of windows displayed on the
remote Windows system due to differences in the resolution for the
screen on the Linux/Unix system and the resolution of the Windows system.
The problem can be resolved by specifying the -f option when
starting rdesktop, so that you get a full screen display., e.g.
rdesktop -0 -f -u jsmith 192.168.0.44. But what do you do
when you wish to put the remote session in a window rather than have it
occupy the full screen without disconnecting? You can hit the
Ctrl-Alt-Enter keys simultaneously to switch to a windowed
view. You can also use Ctrl-Alt-Enter to switch to a full-screen
view, if you didn't start redesktop with the -f
option.
References:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server
key in the registry of the remote system. By changing the
value of fDenyTSConnection from 1 to 0 and
then rebooting the system, you can enable Remote Desktop
support.
With rdesktop you get an X Window display on your Linux/Unix system that looks very similar to what you would see if you were sitting at the Windows system. It works much like Windows remote desktop software that allows you to control one Windows system with another.
If you are using a Linux system, rdesktop may already be present. You can check
by issuing the command rdesktop. If it isn't present,
installing rdesktop is easy. Download the file from
www.rdesktop.org,
SourceForge.net:rdesktop, or
here and then
issue the following commands on your Linux
or Unix system, subsituting the particular version number you have downloaded:
tar -xvzf rdesktop-1.4.1.tar.gz
cd rdesktop-1.4.1
./configure
make
make install
You can then run the software with the rdesktop command. E.g., if I wanted
to connect to a Windows system with IP address 192.168.0.3, I could issue the command
rdesktop 192.168.0.3. If the Windows system is behind a firewall, you
will need to open TCP port 3389.
I often boot a Windows system with a Knoppix Linux Live CD when I am working at a site, so that I can be sure that I am working on a secure system rather than a system that may have been compromised by viruses, trojans, spyware, etc. If I need to access a server at the site, such as a Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 server, I can still access it from the system booted into Knoppix Linux with a Live CD by using rdesktop. Knoppix Linux comes with rdesktop, but you may have another Linux Live CD, which doesn't already provide rdesktop. Since you are booting from a Live CD and can't alter its contents, you need to specify a directory that is stored in memory rather than on the CD when you are installing rdesktop. You can do so by using "--prefix" to specify the directory into which you wish to install it. Otherwise, you will get the following error when you attempt to install it.
$ make install
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
mkdir: cannot create directory `/usr/local/bin': Permission denied
make: *** [installbin] Error 1
To eliminate the problem, you can use the following commands after you have downloaded the software into a virtual disk Live CDs will typically set up in memory. Suppose you have /ramdisk/tmp as such an area and you have made that your working directory.
tar -xvzf rdesktop-1.4.1.tar.gz
cd rdesktop-1.4.1
./configure --prefix=/ramdisk/tmp
make
make install
./rdesktop 192.168.0.3
Unless you specify otherwise, a new logon session will be established to the system.
The current one won't be terminated. But, perhaps a user is already logged onto the
system and you wish to connect to the current console session on the system, to see
exactly what you would see if you were sitting at the system. Then you should use
the -0 option to attach to the console, e.g. rdesktop -0
192.168.0.3. You can specify the userid to use with the -u option,
e.g. rdesktop -0 -u administrator 192.168.0.3. You may also want to
change the color depth with the -a option. The default value is 8-bit
color, which gives you only 256 colors. If you use -a 16, you will
get 16-bit color, which is 2 raised to the power of 16 colors, i.e. 65,536 colors.
If you use rdesktop alone with no options, you will get a list of other
available options for the command.
References:
