Virtulbox Remote Desktop

[gregg]

Is there any chance that Virtualbox's RDP implementaiton will be brought up to standard?

I am wanting to use an RDP client from an iPad to manage multiple instances remotely. But none of the RDP clients for the iPad/iPhone work well with the RDP implementation in VirtualBox. They all crash or just dont work enough to use.

I have contacted multiple vendors and they all say that its VirtualBox's implementation of RDP that is the problem.

I have used all of these RDP clients on windows systems just fine, so I know its not the software (Jump, WinAdmin, and Wyse are the 3 I have tried.)

[Sasquatch]

AFAIK, VB uses the RDP protocol version 5, which is the same as the one you find in Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003. So if the clients of the iPad and iPhone are able to connect to 2003 terminal servers, they should work on VB too. If they don't, they are the ones who got it wrong.

[gregg]

AFAIK, VB uses the RDP protocol version 5, which is the same as the one you find in Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003. So if the clients of the iPad and iPhone are able to connect to 2003 terminal servers, they should work on VB too. If they don't, they are the ones who got it wrong.

I wish that were the case, but nope. They work fine on server 2003, and 2008. Everything is absolutely flawless on microsoft RDP implementations. On VirtualBox's they fail pretty hard. And when you contact them they all say the same thing: Its VirtualBox's VRDP implementation.

Jump is the only one who has told me they will try and make it work for me. But that was 4 versions ago and it still isnt working.

[Sasquatch]

Jump gave me this in the VM logs:

Code: Select all

00:04:36.107 VRDP: New connection: 
00:04:36.713 VRDP: Flags 0x00000000
00:04:36.713 VRDP: Channel: [rdpdr] [1004]. Not supported.
00:04:36.713 VRDP: Channel: [rdpsnd] [1005]. Accepted.
00:04:36.713 VRDP: Channel: [cliprdr] [1006]. Accepted.
00:04:36.713 VRDP: Channel: [] [1007]. Not supported.
00:04:36.786 VRDP: Connection closed: 
00:04:36.786 VRDP: Logoff: Sumomo (<NULL>) build 3790. User: [<NULL>] Domain: [<NULL>] Reason 0xFFFFFFFF.

Wyse works for me. Though the display can be better. This is the log entry from it:

Code: Select all

00:20:13.526 VRDP: New connection: 
00:20:13.541 VRDP: Flags 0x0000001b
00:20:13.541 VRDP: Channel: [rdpdr] [1004]. Not supported.
00:20:13.541 VRDP: Channel: [cliprdr] [1005]. Accepted.
00:20:13.541 VRDP: Channel: [WYSEB] [1006]. Not supported.
00:20:13.541 VRDP: Channel: [VIDBST] [1007]. Not supported.
00:20:13.747 VRDP: Client seems to be MSFT.
00:20:13.747 VRDP: Logon: pocketcloud (192.168.1.253) build 41079. User: [] Domain: [] Screen: 0
00:20:13.748 VRDPAUTH: User: []. Domain: []. Authentication type: [Null]
00:20:13.748 VRDPAUTH: Access granted.
00:20:13.750 VBVA: VRDP acceleration has been requested.
00:20:35.829 VRDP: Connection closed: 
00:20:35.829 VRDP: Logoff: pocketcloud (192.168.1.253) build 41079. User: [] Domain: [] Reason 0xFFFFFFFF.
00:20:35.829 VBVA: VRDP acceleration has been disabled.

WinAdmin works just fine too. This is the log entry from it:

Code: Select all

00:22:17.675 VRDP: New connection: 
00:22:17.696 VRDP: Flags 0x00000003
00:22:17.863 VRDP: Client seems to be rdesktop.
00:22:17.863 VRDP: Logon: Sumomo (192.168.1.253) build 2600. User: [] Domain: [] Screen: 0
00:22:17.864 VRDPAUTH: User: []. Domain: []. Authentication type: [Null]
00:22:17.864 VRDPAUTH: Access granted.
00:22:17.865 VBVA: VRDP acceleration has been requested.
00:22:40.359 PIT: mode=2 count=0xe07 (3591) - 332.27 Hz (ch=0)
00:22:40.837 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:22:41.104 PIT: mode=2 count=0xe07 (3591) - 332.27 Hz (ch=0)
00:24:16.449 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:24:18.532 PIT: mode=2 count=0xe07 (3591) - 332.27 Hz (ch=0)
00:24:23.178 VRDP: Connection closed: 
00:24:23.178 VRDP: Logoff: Sumomo (192.168.1.253) build 2600. User: [] Domain: [] Reason 0xFFFFFFFF.
00:24:23.178 VBVA: VRDP acceleration has been disabled.

This means that at least two programs work fine, from which the last one, WinAdmin, works perfectly. I could provide information about the user experience and that helps in displaying a correct desktop with text and everything. Wyse was unable to show the text on my automatic update dialogue.
For the record, I've used Wyse version 2.0 and WinAdmin version 1.2.1. Jump was version 3.0, but didn't work.

[gregg]

Wyse and WinAdmin latest versions here. Jump is version 3.5 which is the latest.

Wyse connects and stays connected, but a lot of the text boxes and the task bar go black. It cant display a LOT of the material on the screen and updates are amazingly slow. With so many text boxes and other items looking like just solid black blocks I cannot interact with the system in any usable way.

WinAdmin connects and displays properly. But clicking on things doesnt actually work with any consistancy. I cant click on the start menu, I have to use the built in WinAdmin button on the top of the screen to get the start menu to appear. And when I try to click on anything on the menu it just disappears and nothing gets clicked.

Jump just wont even stay connected.

When I report these things to all 3 companies, they all report back that it is indeed VirtualBox's problem and not theirs.

if anything is actually working really good for you, then thats awesome for you, but it sucks even more for me. I really need this working and I dont want to have to go with something like LogMeIn Ignite to get it going.

So where do we go from here?

edit:
Also just to add to this, I have used all 3 on my dedicated servers running windows server 2003 just fine. It is only the VirtualBox RDP that is giving me any problems with any of these tools.

[Sasquatch]

Switch from VRDP to RDP? Enable Windows' own RDP server and use that instead. If you use NAT on the VM, then use port forwarding.

[gregg]

Thats a workaround. And I guess I can do it, but it would be really nice to have an actual fix. I can only guess that tsclient and the microsoft client both have a lot more error correcting built into them and thats why they work ok with vrdp.

[gregg]

For anyone else who reads this thread, I just got this back from Jump Support:

Jump Desktop Support, Sep 26 18:28 (PDT):
Gregg,

We're working on it: We actually made some progress on this problem with 3.5, though 3.5 still doesn't work with VRDP. We're going to have another run on this in the 4.0 release. I can't give you an eta on this yet but I can tell you that this is an important bug for us and we will fix this.

Thanks.

[RonPinkas]

You might want to review TeamViewer, they have a free and very fast ipad client, and very easy single download to control your remote HOST Win/Mac/Linux including full control of the guest. No setting of any kind is needed, and they even have a browser based client.