DIY Terminal Server – a Caveat

// August 26th, 2004 // Personal

As Jeremy over at Ensight has included my post on rigging RDC for true remote access in his ClipBlog, I feel it would be prudent of me to clear up a couple of things that I didn�t mention in the original post.

Firstly, my tutorial is strictly for the home user. It is in no way recommended for professional or office use. There are a number of very powerful, professional terminal server applications out there (Citrix MetaFrame and the Windows 2003 Terminal Services to name but two) which allow for much more control over security and user management. These programs also deal with the licensing implications of having a thin client / terminal architecture. Namely they allow multiple users to run the same program but in order to do this legally, you need to own licenses for each unique connection. In my example you are connecting to a Windows XP or Windows 2000 machine which will only allow one connection at any time. Connecting via RDC will actually lock the host computer so effectively there are no licensing implications other than those that already existed.

Secondly would like to re-iterate the security implications of setting up your home PC to allow RDC from the outside world. You could be opening up your system to absolutely anybody so it is imperative that you lock your system down before allowing access. This post over at Scobleizer* covers very neatly the concept of layering security and can be applied to any system. I would ensure that you can check off everything on Robert Schole�s list before you even attempt the stuff listed below.

Other than that I�d like to say thanks to Jeremy for the link. I�ve been reading his site for a couple of weeks now and have already found it to be a wonderful source of information about all things tech / business.

* I�ve seen this list referenced on so many tech blogs recently that I can�t remember where I saw it first so no hat tip� sorry.

Share and Enjoy: