Self-service Remote PC enrollment

As an alternative to the admin-initiated Remote PC enrollment described above, end users can add their preferred PCs to a RAS Farm in a self-service manner. A computer enrolled this way is automatically added to a RAS Farm as a Remote PC and a corresponding published desktop is created with access granted (through automatic filtering) to the user who performed the self-enrollment. The Remote PC can then be accessed by the user from any device, anywhere.

Note: This feature applies to standalone Remote PCs. It is not intended for Remote PCs configured through VDI technology.

Requirements

• Users enrolling their PCs must have local administrator privileges in Windows to install Parallels RAS Remote PC Agent.
• Mailbox must be configured in a RAS Farm to send an invitation email to end users.

Configure self-service enrollment

To configure self-service Remote PC enrollment:

1. In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > Site > Remote PCs.
2. In the right pane, click the Tasks menu and choose Self-service enrollment. In the dialog that opens, specify the options described below.
3. To enable self-service enrollment, select Allow or Allow until. For the latter, specify the date and time. To disable the functionality (e.g. temporarily), select Do not allow.
4. In the Settings section, specify a publishing folder in which the PCs will appear as published resources. You can select an existing folder or create a new one. Click the [..] button to select or create a folder.
5. The Remote PC invitation hash field contains a hash that must be specified when enrolling a PC. The hash can also be copied from here and used separately for scripting purposes. IT administrators can make use of this hash along with the msiexec command to silently install and configure Remote PC on users’ behalf. For details, see Enrolling a PC below.
6. To send an invitation email to users that will contain instructions on how to enroll their PCs, click the Send via email button.
7. In the dialog that opens, specify the recipients by typing (or pasting) their email addresses. You can also click the [..] button and select the recipients.
8. In the Review the invitation email text box, review or modify (if needed) the email. The variables used in the email are set internally and are substituted with their values in the actual email. To preview the final email text, click Tasks > Preview.
9. Click Send to send the email. If you don't want to send the email at this time, click Cancel to return to the previous dialog where you can click OK to save the changes.

Enrolling a PC

When a user receives the invitation email, they will follow the instructions that it contains to enroll their PC. The installation process consists of the steps described below.

Log in to the Remote PC. Download or copy the RASInstaller.msi file (the Parallels RAS installer) and run the following command with administrative privileges (the invitation email will contain this command with the hash value already in it):

msiexec /qb /i <RAS installer> ADDLOCAL=F_PCAgent ADDFWRULES=1 SELFENROLL=<hash key> [OVERRIDEUSER=user@domain] [OVERRIDEPAIP=ip of PA] [OVERRIDEHOST=published name]

The following arguments can be used to customize the enrollment. Such arguments are required if a Remote PC is not in the Active Directory domain:

• OVERRIDEPAIP: The IP address of one of the Publishing Agents in the Farm Site. Use this if the standard installation fails to connect using the system detected IP address.
• OVERRIDEUSER: Use this argument if you don't want to register the Remote PC to the user logged in to the machine.
• OVERRIDEHOST: Use this argument if you want to change the published item name from the hostname of the Remote PC.

Once the installation is complete, launch Parallels Client and log in using the local machine credentials or the ones specified in the OVERRIDEUSER argument. Look for your Remote PC using the IP address or the name specified via OVERRIDEHOST in the list of published resources and launch the desktop.