Windows Terminal Server Login

For D-BAUG IGP user, see here for using the institute owned Terminal Server.

For D-PHYS user: We offer a Windows 2008 Terminal Server that allows you to log in to Windows from a non-Windows computer (LTSP thin client or Linux) with rdesktop.

The intention of the Terminal Server is to offer native Windows applications for users working on a non-Windows systems without them having to install the whole system.

There is just a small set of applications installed on the Terminal Server which can be enlarged if needed (see below).

• Before you can log in the first time, you have to visit our password page and reset your password in case your physics account is older than the terminal server itself. This is necessary to feed your password to the Windows Terminal Server initially.
• Printers have to be configured once according to the readme document Printing with SMB Windows.
• In the taskbar you'll find an icon to change your keyboard layout.
• Right now we have installed a base set of applications:
  • MS Office
  • Acrobat Pro
  • FileMaker
  • Firefox
  • Sophos Anti-Virus
  • ETH Fonts
  • 7-Zip
  • please contact us if you think you're missing an application of general interest.

As always, we're grateful for any comments or suggestions regarding our services. Just drop us a line.

• Windows logins are not enabled by default on our thin clients. Please contact us if you want one.
• The standard login screen of all thin clients is Linux. To get to the Windows login, press CTRL-ALT-F8. To get back to Linux, use CTRL-ALT-F7. You can use both systems at the same time.
• Sound and USB devices are not working. Use Linux to copy files from/to a USB stick to/from your home directory which is automatically mounted in Windows as the H: drive.
• Sometimes switching between operating systems causes some screen distortion. Just continue working, the effect vanishes.

• You can also access the Windows Terminal Server from any regular Linux machine. Just run

  $ rdesktop -d AD -x l -z -k en-us -x 0x80 -g 1280x1024 winlogin.phys.ethz.ch
  

  and log in with your D-PHYS user account. You can replace en-us with you favorite keyboard layout and 1280×1024 with another windows size if you wish.

• If you have a Swiss-German keyboard layout, use -k de-ch instead of -k en-us.
• if you get an error message: “disconnect: Internal licensing error.”, do rm ~/.rdesktop/licence.*

Under Mac OS X, you can install the Application “Remote Desktop Connection Client” from Microsoft.

After starting the program, you can connect to “winlogin.phys.ethz.ch”. Make sure to change the Domain to “AD” at the login window and log in with your D-PHYS user account.

The Windows Terminal Server is only reachable from inside the D-PHYS network but you can tunnel your Remote Desktop session with SSH on either OS;

If you come from outside of the Physics Department, you need to open an appropriate SSH tunnel beforehand, e.g. run

$ ssh -l yourloginname -C -f -L 3389:winlogin.phys.ethz.ch:3389 login.phys.ethz.ch sleep 60
$ rdesktop -d AD -x l -z -k en-us -x 0x80 -g 1280x1024 localhost

Replace yourloginname with your D-PHYS account name.

Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and paste the following command to open an SSH tunnel

ssh -l yourloginname -C -f -L 3389:winlogin.phys.ethz.ch:3389 login.phys.ethz.ch sleep 60

replacing yourloginname with your D-PHYS account name. Then open the Remote Desktop Connection application and connect to 127.0.0.1. Make sure to change the Domain to “AD” at the login window and log in with your D-PHYS user account.

• Please install PuTTY the free SSH client for Windows prior your first attempt to connect the Windows Terminal Servers from outside.
• After you've successfully installed PuTTY, please follow the steps described in this HOW-TO.