If you plan to use RDP rather than VMware Blast or PCoIP for connections to remote desktops, you can choose between using a Remote Desktop (rdesktop) client or FreeRDP (xfreerdp), the open-source implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), released under the Apache license.

Because the rdesktop program is no longer being actively developed, Horizon Client can also run the xfreerdp executable if your Linux machine has the required version and patches for FreeRDP.

Use a package manager, such as apt for Ubuntu or yum for RHEL, to install the latest version of xfreerdp or rdesktop on the Linux machine.

Important: If you plan to connect to remote desktops or applications on a Microsoft RDS host, if that host is configured with the Per Device mode of licensing, you must use xfreerdp or else change the licensing mode to Per User mode. The reason is that Per Device licensing mode requires the RDP client to provide a client ID, and rdesktop does not provide that ID, whereas xfreerdp does.

General Syntax

You can use the vmware-view command-line interface or some properties in configuration files to specify options for xfreerdp, just as you can for rdesktop.

  • To specify that Horizon Client should run xfreerdp rather than rdesktop, use the appropriate command-line option or configuration key.
    Command-line option: --rdpclient="xfreerdp"
    Configuration key: view.rdpClient="xfreerdp"
  • To specify options to forward to the xfreerdp program, use the appropriate command-line option or configuration key, and specify the FreeRDP options.
    Command-line option: --xfreerdpOptions
    Configuration key: view.xfreerdpOptions

For more information about using the vmware-view command-line interface and configuration files, see Using the vmware-view Command-Line Interface and Configuration Files.

Syntax for Network Level Authentication

Many configuration options for the rdesktop program are the same as for the xfreerdp program. One important difference is that xfreerdp supports network-level authentication (NLA). NLA is turned off by default. You must use the following command-line option to turn on network-level authentication: 
--enableNla

Also, you must add the /cert-ignore option so that the certificate verification process can succeed. Following is an example of the correct syntax: 

vmware-view --enableNla --rdpclient=xfreerdp --xfreerdpOptions="/p:password /cert-ignore /u:user-name /d:domain-name /v:server"

If the password contains any special characters, escape the special characters (for example: \$).

Syntax Specific to Using FreeRDP with Horizon Client

Keep the following guidelines in mind:

  • You must escape special characters that you might normally place in quotation marks. For example, the following command does not work because the special character $ in pa$$word is not escaped:

    (incorrect) vmware-view --rdpclient=xfreerdp --xfreerdpOptions="/p:'pa$$word' /u:'crt\administrator'"

    Instead, you must use:

    (correct) vmware-view --rdpclient=xfreerdp --xfreerdpOptions="/p:'pa\$\$word' /u:'crt\administrator'"

  • If end users will use a session-in-session implementation of Horizon Client, you must use the /rfx option. An example of a session-in-session implementation is one in which an end user logs in to Horizon Client on a thin client, so that the Horizon Client interface is the only one the end user sees, and the end user then launches a nested version of Horizon Client in order to use a remote application provided by an RDS host. In cases like this, if you do not use the /rfx option, the end user will not be able to see the remote desktop and application icons in the desktop and application selector of the nested client.

Feature Limitations for RDP Connections

Due to a known issue, rdesktop does not work on Ubuntu systems at this time.

For a full list of other known issues with RDP connections, see the Horizon Client for Linux Release Notes on the VMware Horizon Client for Linux Documentation page.