Windows 2000 Terminal Server

I've got a strange problem with our terminal servers. Here in the office we run two terminal servers that both employees inside the office at their workstations and outside the office at home and abroad connect to for work.

A user connected to a remote session on the terminal server from a workstation inside the same LAN can stay connected indefinitely until he/she terminates the connection, even if they sit idle for a while (which is how it should be).

However, it's a different story for users connecting from the outside WAN world. A WAN terminal server connection will be automatically terminated if they sit idle for a few minutes.

I tested this by moving my computer from inside our LAN to a DMZ, connecting it to an extra port on the router and thus going around the LAN so it's seen as a box from the WAN. Sure enough, my terminal services connection died after I sat idle for a few minutes. Rejoined the LAN, and it stayed connected indefinitely.

So what could cause this difference between WAN and LAN terminal services connections? How can I change things so that a user from the WAN can stay connected to our terminal servers without being booted for idle time?

Hey:

In terminal services connection manager, check out the disconnect settings. I've ran into issues where, for what ever reason: network jitter, noise, dropped packets, the edit SERVER believes the session is ended.

In these cases I make sure the sessions are not disconected and that sessions are allowed to reconnect.

Well I've got it set by each user -- And users that are configured to never be disconnected are still disconnected after being idle for a short while when connecting from the WAN.

Sorry for double posting, but I can't edit my message for some reason:

Quote:

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The administrator has specified that you can only edit messages for 1440 minutes after you have posted. This limit has expired, so you must contact the administrator to make alterations on your message.

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It hasn't even been 1440 seconds yet. :D

Anyway, a (slightly off-topic) question for those complaining about CALEA: Which do you value more? The ability for law enforcement to have easier access to data for the sake of tracking down cyber criminals (particularly online predators, those after our children, etc.), or your privacy?

Always a double-edged sword of sorts...

Still can't figure this darn problem out.

So I checked configuration settings:

In the domain controllers Active Directory Users and Computers, when I select a specific user and go to the Sessions tab, it shows this:

End a disconnected session: Never
Active session limit: Never
Idle session limit: Never

What are the client side settings? Can you provide a screen shot?

What client side settings are you referring to? I don't know of any settings client side that handle connectivity and idle times.

Hey, um, where'd the bump thread button go?

Hi Angelic~

Have a look in "network and dial up connections", "properties", "options"

I think that you will find some settings there?

:)

I assume you're not using citirix

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Originally posted here by AngelicKnight
Hey, um, where'd the bump thread button go?

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Must be a result of userxx's rampage?

I have a feeling this is a networking issue rather than a software configuration issue. My money would be on a "keep-alive" issue. It would be rather hard to diagnos without knowing your complete external network structure.

Is there a VPN in use? I had a very similiar problem with two remote offices that VPN together and one uses the exchange server of the other. The VPN connection itself would time out and then disconnect the exchange connection.

Try this for sh1ts and giggles. Setup a WAN machine and have it ping nonstop, the TS server and see if the session drops while you're idle. I'll be it doesn't.

Well this is strange -- I can connect to it via RDP client, but even with that being the case, it will not respond to any pings at all. How in the world could that be?