UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello everyone, I have an interesting project I'd like to implement on a Linux server here at work. Essentially, I'd like to replace a handful of Windows servers with a single Linux server. The only task these Windows servers perform, is provide remote desktops via RDP protocol that people connect to. That it!

So Windows apparently cannot handle more than 2 users logged in at once via RDP. So the company in their infinite wisdom simply bought more Windows servers. So we've got 10 of them in total, providing 20 possible RDP remote desktop sessions.

The reason we need these remote GUI desktops, is that our network connection between our office, and the data center, is flaky. It disconnects and goes down and has errors all the time. So we cannot run remote applications on our servers reliably, because the network will drop and we'll lose what we were working on. So instead, we remote desktop to a Windows server that's in the datacenter, and run our programs from there. That way, if the network drops, we simply have to re-establish our remote desktop to the Windows server, and voila, all our programs are still there running and we pick up where we left off. It actually works well.... except for the fact that it takes 10 servers to provide 20 remote desktop sessions.

Still with me? Ok, good. I want to replace these 10 Windows servers with a single Linux server. I know I can ssh to a Linux box and do X11 forwarding and have a program run remotely but display locally...... but that's not what I want to do, since it will fail when the connection drops. I need the same functionality that Windows provides, whereby 20 users can each connect to their own unique gui sessions, and if the network connection drops, they can simply reconnect to their remote gui desktop and be right where they left off.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this? The machines they are connecting from are all Windows desktop PC's. I looked at LTSP but that's more of a thin client thing, where the clients boot from the network. I can't use that. I need to connect to the remote Linux gui sessions from some kind of software client on Windows desktop pc's.

I've searched but didn't find any easy answers, so any advice or guidance is much appreciated - you are helping to eliminate 10 Windows servers, and everyone here likes that idea, right??

Not true, you just have to buy client licenses, which is considerably less than buying another computer and server license.

What about using VNC?

Our management has made it clear that they want to move away from Windows due to the huge licensing costs that are incurred annually. They spend well into $six figures range each year on Microsoft licensing right now. Yikes. So spending more on Microsoft licensing isn't the direction they want to go in.

What about it?

Just so I understand...you have a pyramid with a Linux X-Window application server at the top. The second level is 10 RDP servers running Windows ?????. The bottom row is 20 Windows RDP clients running XP or newer.
Between rows 2 and 3 is a lousy wide area connection.

Yes, that is exactly correct.