Manage RDS Servers

Overview

MSPControl provides two RDS server views:

• Organization > RDS > Servers assigns available RDS servers to an organization, controls whether an assigned server accepts connections, and shows the organization’s server quota.
• Settings > RDS Servers registers and maintains the underlying Remote Desktop Services hosts. Server administrators can review status and system information, restart or shut down a host, install its certificate, and manage applications.

Use the organization view for customer allocation. Use the settings view for server-level administration.

Before you begin

• Register the underlying Windows server and required RDS services in MSPControl before assigning it to an organization.
• Confirm your account has the required view, add, edit, or delete permission for the action.
• Check active sessions before restarting, shutting down, detaching, or removing a server.
• Confirm the organization’s plan has available RDS server capacity.

Check active sessions before a disruptive action

Restarting or shutting down an RDS host interrupts active sessions and can cause users to lose unsaved work. Review RDS Users and notify affected users first.

Register an RDS server

Server administrators register hosts from the global settings area.

1. Open Settings > RDS Servers.
2. Select Add.
3. Enter the server’s fully qualified domain name.
4. Select an organization when the server should be associated during registration.
5. Select the applicable virtual server or Azure service, when used by your deployment.
6. Add a description that identifies the server’s role.
7. Select Add Server.
8. Return to Settings > RDS Servers and confirm the new host appears with the expected FQDN, address, organization, description, and status.

Assign an available server to an organization

1. Open the customer organization.
2. Open RDS > Servers.
3. Select Add.
4. Select one of the available RDS servers.
5. Select Add in the dialog.
6. Confirm that the server appears in the organization list and that the quota indicator reflects the assignment.

If the dialog reports that no free RDS servers are available, register another host or detach an eligible server from its current organization before continuing.

Control whether a server accepts connections

The organization list shows an Allow Connections switch when the server belongs to an RDS collection.

1. Open Organization > RDS > Servers.
2. Find the assigned server.
3. Change Allow Connections to the required state.
4. Confirm the action when prompted.
5. Wait for MSPControl to report that the state was updated, then refresh the list and verify the switch.

Review server health and perform host actions

From Settings > RDS Servers, the table shows the current FQDN, IP address, organization, description, and status. When a server is online, the action area can expose:

• View Info for live server, drive, and network-adapter information;
• Restart;
• Shut Down;
• Certificate installation;
• Delete, when the server is not assigned to a collection;
• Detach Server.

1. Open Settings > RDS Servers.
2. Find the host by FQDN, address, organization, or description.
3. Confirm its status before selecting an action.
4. For an information check, select View Info and review the server, drive, and network details.
5. For a disruptive action, confirm that no active user session will be affected, select the action, and approve the confirmation prompt.
6. Refresh the list and verify the resulting status.

Edit an RDS server

Select the server FQDN in Settings > RDS Servers to open its server-level administration tabs:

• General updates the server record and displays live server information.
• Browse lists available Chocolatey packages and supports install, upgrade, and uninstall actions when applicable.
• Installed lists installed packages and supports uninstall actions.
• Updates lists packages with a newer available version and supports upgrades.

Publishing applications happens on the collection

The server tabs manage what is installed on the host. Use RDS Collections to decide which installed applications are published to users.

Remove or detach a server

• Remove deletes the organization assignment when the server is not attached to an RDS collection.
• Detach Server disconnects the RDS server registration. This action is available to server administrators.

Before either action, remove the server from any collection, confirm that users no longer depend on it, and record how the host can be restored if the change must be reversed.

Verify the result

After adding, assigning, editing, or detaching a server:

1. Reopen the relevant RDS Servers list.
2. Confirm the server appears in the expected organization and collection state.
3. Confirm its status and Allow Connections state.
4. Confirm the quota values are correct.
5. If applications changed, verify the package state on the Installed or Updates tab and confirm publication on the related collection.

Related tasks

• Manage RDS collections
• Manage RDS users
• Configure Chocolatey feeds