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AlgebraicMirror's avatar
AlgebraicMirror
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Jun 23, 2015

Does F5 APM support Microsoft RDP "RemoteApp" mode, or just full remote desktops

I've been looking for documentation on this and haven't been able to find any. Does anyone know if F5 supports Microsoft RDP "RemoteApps"? This is the feature where you can have a desktop fat-client application window be presented to the remote user, so they can use just the application you give them. This is in contrast to the normal mode of giving them an RDP window with the entire remote desktop in it. (Note: These are not web apps that can be shared with portal access or something. This would be like giving the user an RDP window of just the notepad.exe application, rather than an RDP window of a full Windows desktop with notepad.exe on it).

 

RemoteApps are part of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, and you can open them in the native Microsoft RDP client, so I'm just trying to understand if that can be done with F5's plugin. I'm asking this question because I'm helping do a migration from Microsoft's discontinued UAG product (which does support this), to F5 APM.

 

I've been trying to use the "Customer Parameters" field in the APM's Microsoft RDP object, with the goal of putting in various RDP parameters like those pictured below. But I haven't been able to get it to give me less than a desktop, so I'm trying to figure out if this is supported behavior and I'm just not putting in the right parameters, or if it doesn't work at all.

 

 

 

BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)
deployment
microsoft
security
virtualization

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    • andya_273849's avatar
      andya_273849
      Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
      Jun 24, 2016
      Ok This is driving me nuts. We have F5 at work for remote access I want to pass the span option to the mstsc client I.e. mstsc /span will this procedure work in that regard. I ask because I have win7 PRO on the work machine with dual screens and dual screens at home. The setup at the moment only provides access to one screen with no span. (Win7 pro does not support multimon support over RDP only ultimate and enterprise do). In order for span to work all screen sizes must be the same which I have setup. Looking at the above answer in the applications properties section is it possible to use "C:\Windows\System32\mstsc.exe /span" and that work ?
  • Aviv_7392's avatar
    Aviv_7392
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jul 14, 2016

    I have open a cade to ask about remoteapp support and this is the answer:

     

    Hi Aviv,

     

    Thank you for contacting F5 support. I have taken ownership of this case. I have verified the bug id 437343 in our database to check the status. It is not fixed in the current versions and our product development team is working on to fix in v13.0. This is a major version release planned by end of this year.

     

    • Aviv_7392's avatar
      Aviv_7392
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      Jan 18, 2017

      for now,as i know,there is nothing new with version 13. does someone know when it finally will be released?

       

  • Aviv's avatar
    Aviv
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Jul 14, 2016

    I have open a cade to ask about remoteapp support and this is the answer:

     

    Hi Aviv,

     

    Thank you for contacting F5 support. I have taken ownership of this case. I have verified the bug id 437343 in our database to check the status. It is not fixed in the current versions and our product development team is working on to fix in v13.0. This is a major version release planned by end of this year.

     

    • Aviv's avatar
      Aviv
      Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
      Jan 18, 2017

      for now,as i know,there is nothing new with version 13. does someone know when it finally will be released?

       

  • MDec_224637's avatar
    MDec_224637
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    Apr 19, 2018

    Just checking in to see if there has been any update to this. Or if anyone has tried the functionality?

     

    • Aviv's avatar
      Aviv
      Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
      Apr 19, 2018

      i’m about to upgrade to 13.x version. i know that remoteapp is supported in thies versions

       

    • MDec_224637's avatar
      MDec_224637
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      Apr 19, 2018

      Thanks, from what I can tell they only replace the Gateway role. Then Connection Broker still needs to reside on a Windows Server. If you want HA with the RDC role, you need MS SQL. Then you need to look into SQL clustering (or mirroring) should you want to eliminate all single points of failure.