Connecting to a Parallels RAS Farm

If you have more than one Parallels RAS Farm in your organization, you can use the same Parallels RAS Console instance to manage any of them. By default, the Parallels RAS Console is installed on the same server where you install other Parallels RAS components, but you can install the console on any computer on your network.

Connecting to a Parallels RAS Farm for the first time

When you open the Parallels RAS Console for the first time, it displays the logon dialog on which you need to specify the following:

• Farm: A Parallels RAS Farm to connect to. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the server where you have RAS Publishing Agent installed.
• If you've installed the Parallels Single Sign-On component when installing the RAS Console, you will see the Authentication type field from which you can select whether to log on using your credentials or SSO. If you reboot after the installation and select SSO, select Single Sign-On and then click Connect. Your Windows credentials will be used to log in to the RAS Farm. If you select Credentials, enter your credentials as described below.
• Username: A user account with administrative privileges on the server where Parallels RAS is installed (usually a domain or local administrator). The account name must be specified using the UPN format (e.g. administrator@domain.com). The specified user will be automatically configured as the Parallels RAS administrator with full access rights.
• Password: The specified user account password.
• If you select the Remember credentials option, this dialog will not be shown the next time you launch the Parallels RAS Console.

After entering the connection properties, click Connect to connect to the Farm and open the RAS Console.

Note that the Edit Connections button will not display any information on first connect (it is used to edit Farm connections that already exist), so you can ignore it at this point. We will talk about using this button closer to the end of this section.

Connecting to a different Parallels RAS Farm

When you need to connect to a different Parallels RAS Farm, you first need to log off from the Parallels RAS Console in order to see the logon dialog again. To do so:

1. In the Parallels RAS Console, click on the arrow icon next to your user name in the upper right-hand corner and then choose Log Off in the context menu.
2. The console will close and the RAS logon dialog will open. The dialog will be populated with the current Farm connection properties.
3. To connect to a different Farm, type the FQDN or IP address of the server where the other Farm is located. Once again, this should be the server where you have the RAS Publishing Agent installed.
4. Specify a username and password and click Connect. The Parallels RAS Console will connect to the Farm using the connection properties that you specified.

Switching between Parallels RAS Farms

After you connect to more than one Farm from the same Parallels RAS Console instance, you can easily switch between them as follows:

1. In the Parallels RAS Console, click the Location drop-down menu in the upper left-hand corner (right below the main application menu, where the current Site name is displayed).
2. The lower portion of the drop-down list will contain names of the Farms to which you connected at least once in the past (the upper portion contains one or more Site names for the current Farm). Click a desired Farm name to connect to it.
3. When you click the Farm name, the console will close momentarily and will re-open connected to the Farm that you selected.

Note that you can also switch between Farms by logging off from the console and choosing a desired Farm from the Farm drop-down list in the RAS logon dialog. The method described above is more convenient, so this one is just another way to do it.

Editing Parallels RAS Farm connections

As was mentioned in the beginning of this section, the RAS logon dialog has the Edit Connections button. When you click it, the Manage Parallels RAS Farm Connections dialog opens.

On the left side of the dialog, the Farm Connections pane lists Parallels RAS Farms to which you connected at least once in the past. If a connection is no longer relevant, you can remove it by selecting it and clicking the "minus sign" icon at the top. Once a connection is removed, it will no longer appear in the RAS logon dialog and in the Parallels RAS Console (the Location drop-down list).

On the right side of the dialog, the Publishing Agents pane lists RAS Publishing Agents for the selected Farm connection. By default, the primary Publishing Agent is included in the list, but you can add more Publishing Agents if needed. When connecting to a Farm, the Parallels RAS Console will try the primary Publishing Agent first. If a connection cannot be established, it will try other Publishing Agents in the order they are listed in the Publishing Agents pane. To add a Publishing Agent to the list, click the "plus sign" icon and then specify the server FQDN or IP address.