Agent Settings

Each RD Session Host in the Farm has an RAS RD Session Host Agent installed through which it communicates with other Parallels RAS components. Use the Agent Settings category to configure the agent.

To use default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. See Using Site or Group defaults for details. To specify custom settings for a given host, clear the Inherit default settings option and specify agent properties as follows.

Application session lingering

Setting in this section apply only to sessions with no running applications.

• Disconnect active session after: Specifies the amount of time each session remains connected in the background after the user has closed a remote application. This option is used to avoid unnecessary reconnections with the server.
• Logoff disconnected session after: This setting allows you to control how long it takes for a session to be logged off after it is marked as "disconnected".

Other settings

• Port. Specifies a different remote desktop connection port number if a non-default port is configured on the server.
• Max sessions. Specifies the maximum number of sessions.
• Allow Client URL/Mail redirection. When a user tries to open a URL or an HTML Mailto link in a remote application, the link can be redirected to the client computer and open in a local default application (a web browser or email client) instead of an application on the remote host. This option allows you to enable or disable the redirection. You can choose from the following options:
  1. Enabled — select this option to enable the redirection and then select the Support Windows Shell URL namespace objects option (bellow the drop-down box). This is the default redirection configuration that works in most common scenarios. The Shell URL namespace objects support means that Parallels RAS can intercept actions in published applications that use Shell namespace API to open links, which is a standard behavior in most applications. The ability to disable the support for Shell URL namespace objects is for compatibility with older versions of Parallels RAS. You may disable this option if you want the behavior of an older version of Parallels RAS (RAS v16.2 or earlier).
  2. Enabled (Replace Registered Application) — this option uses an alternative method of redirecting a link. It replaces the default web browser and mail client with "dummy" apps on the remote server side. By doing so, it can intercept an attempt to open a link and redirect it to the client computer. You may try this option if the default option above doesn't work with your published application.
  3. Disabled — this option disables URL/Mail redirection, so URL or Mailto links always open on the remote host.
• Support Windows Shell URL namespace object:
• Drag and drop. Allows you to set how the drag and drop functionality works in Parallels Clients. You can select from "Disabled" (no drag and drop functionality at all), "Server to client only" (drag and drop to a local application, but not in the opposite direction), "Client to server only" (drag and drop to a remote application only), "Bidirectional" (default). Note that this option has changed since Parallels RAS 17.1. In the past, it was a checkbox that would enable or disable drag and drop which worked in the "Client to server only" mode. When upgrading from an older version of Parallels RAS, and if the checkbox was enabled, the "Client to server only" option is selected by default. If the option was disabled, the "Disabled" option will be set. You can change it to any of the new available options if you wish.

  Note: At the time of this writing, the drag and drop functionality is only supported on Parallels Client for Windows and Parallels Client for Mac.

• Preferred Publishing Agent. Select a Publishing Agent to which the RD Session Host should connect. This is helpful when Site components are installed in multiple physical locations communicating through WAN. You can decrease network traffic by specifying a more appropriate Publishing Agent.
• Allow 2XRemoteExec to send command to the client. Select this option to allow a process running on the server to instruct the client to deploy an application on the client side. See the Using RemoteExec subsection below for more information.
• Use RemoteApp if available. Enable this option to allow use of remote apps for shell-related issues when an app is not displayed correctly. This feature is supported on the Parallels Client for Windows only.
• Enable applications monitoring. Enable or disable monitoring of applications on the server. Disabling application monitoring stops the WMI monitoring to reduce CPU usage on the server and network usage while transferring the information to RAS Publishing Agent. If the option is enabled, the collected information will appear in a corresponding RAS report. If the option is disabled, the information from this server will be absent from a report.
• Allow file transfer command (HTML5 and Chrome clients). Enables file transfer in a remote session. Select a desired option in the drop-down list. For details, see Configuring remote file transfer below.
• File transfer location. A UNC path to a folder to be used as the default upload location. This path will also be used as the default source location when a user tries to download a file from a remote server. You can select from one of the locations predefined in the drop-down list or you can specify your own. Standard Windows environment variables, such %USERNAME%, %USERDOMAIN%, %USERPROFILE%, can be used. If the location is not found during an upload or download operation, the standard (default) download location will be used.
• Do not allow to change location. Prohibits the user to change the UNC path specified in the File transfer location field. If the option is enabled, the user cannot select a different location while trying to upload or download a file. If the option is cleared, the user can specify a different location.
• Enable drive redirection cache. Improves user experience by making file browsing and navigation on redirected drives much faster.

Using 2XRemoteExec

2XRemoteExec is a feature that facilitates the servers ability to send commands to the client. This is done using the command line utility 2XRemoteExec.exe. Command line options include:

2XRemoteExec examples:

The following command displays a message box describing the parameters that can be used.

2XRemoteExec -?

This command runs Notepad on the client.

2XRemoteExec C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe

In this example, the command opens the C:\readme.txt file in the Notepad on the client. No message is shown and 2XRemoteExec would wait for 6 seconds or until the application is started.

2XRemoteExec C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe “C:\readme.txt”

Configuring remote file transfer

Parallels RAS provides end users with the ability to transfer files remotely to and from a remote server.

Note: At the time of this writing, file transfer is supported in Parallels HTML5 Client and Parallels Client for Chrome only. Note that bidirectional file transfer is supported in Parallels HTML5 Client only.

To make the remote file transfer functionality flexible, Parallels RAS allows you to configure it on the following three levels:

• RD Session Host, VDI provider, or Remote PC
• RAS HTML5 gateway
• Client policy

File transfer settings that you configure on each level take precedence in the order listed above. For example, if you enable file transfer on a Parallels HTML5 gateway, but disable it on an RD Session Host, file transfer will be disabled for all users who connect to the given RD Session Host through the given HTML5 gateway. As another example, you can enable file transfer on an RD Session Host and then disable it for a particular Client policy (or an HTML5 gateway). This way you can control which clients can use file transfer and which cannot.

To configure remote file transfer:

1. In the Allow file transfer command drop-down list, select one of the following options:
   • Disabled: Remote file transfer is disabled.
   • Client to Server: Transfer files from client to server only.
   • Server to Client: Transfer files from server to client only.
   • Bidirectional: Transfer files in both directions.
2. In the File transfer location field, specify a UNC path to a folder to be used as the default upload location. This path will also be used as the default source location when a user tries to download a file from a remote server. Standard Windows environment variables, such %USERNAME%, %USERDOMAIN%, %USERPROFILE%, can be used. If the location is not found during an upload or download operation, the standard (default) download location will be used.
3. The Do not allow to change location option prohibits the user to change the UNC path specified in the File transfer location field. If the option is enabled, the user cannot select a different location while trying to upload or download a file. If the option is cleared, the user can specify a different location.

Important: Please note that the Do not allow to change location option cannot prevent the user from accessing the specified remote location directly. For example, a user can try to upload a file, note the default location's UNC path (to which he/she has access), then open it in File Explorer and copy it to any folder in his/her profile. To prevent such a scenario from happening, you need to implement additional measures to control locations other than the location that you specify here.