base/applications/tsclient/rdesktop/doc/licensing.txt

   1
   2 To be able to connect to Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services (and
   3 probably later versions), you'll need to deal with licensing. This is
   4 complicated. This file is supposed to contain some information about
   5 how rdesktop works with Microsofts license systems.
   6
   7 There's a lot of information on the MS web site, for example,
   8 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;287687.
   9
  10 From the rdesktop mailing list:
  11
  12 Peter Åstrand <peter@cendio.se>, 2003-02-06
  13
  14 > We are running rdesktop 1.2 on machine A and connects to a Windows 2000
  15 > Server (machine B). The W2K machine has 5 real licenses installed ("Windows
  16 > 2000 Terminal Services Client Access License", "Open" type). This can be
  17 > verifier by using "Terminal Services Licensing". The problem is that all
  18 > issued licenses have an expire-date. The expire date for the license issued
  19 > to A was reached today, and no more connections could be made until we
  20 > changed the client name (by using -n).
  21 >
  22 > We also have another similiar systems, with Linux machine C and W2K server
  23 > D. This server has 200 licenses installed of the type "Select". On this
  24 > server, the issued licenses seems to be permanent: The expire date is set
  25 > to "-", and we have no problem with this system.
  26 >
  27 > The question of course is why the first system issues license with
  28 > expiration date, while the second system issues permanent licenses.
  29
  30
  31 Darryn Capes-Davis, 2003-02-07
  32
  33 > I have been through the problems and can tell you what is going
  34 > on. The main difference of Machine B (Server 1) and Machine D (Server
  35 > 2) is that from what I see Machine B has Service Pack 3 installed and
  36 > Machine D does not.  You see in Service Pack 3 there was a change made
  37 > to TS Licencing in that Microsoft introduced a licence recovery
  38 > mechanism. To cut to the point (I don't know the details) rdesktop 1.2
  39 > with SAVE_LICENCE defined works fine.  In the new lic method the
  40 > terminal server expects a valid licence to be presented to renew
  41 > it. Otherwise it just expires it - and a day later you will see it
  42 > actually gone (it does housekeeping once a day)! So if SAVE_LICENCE
  43 > code is not enabled then it just expires and you can't use the licence
  44 > until it cleans it away - and this is where a little gotcha is - if
  45 > you move from using an rdesktop without SAVE_LICENCE to one with
  46 > SAVE_LICENCE then it still won't recover an 'expired' licence. You
  47 > have to wait for the daily housekeeping to clean it up - this really
  48 > had me going for half a day or so! This is exactly what happened to
  49 > you.
  50 >
  51 > The Server pre Spk 3 has the old model where licences never expire. To
  52 > recover a licence that you never wanted to use again you have to call
  53 > the Microsoft Clearing House. That's why they introduced the new
  54 > method. And if you upgrade a Pre Spk3 server to Spk3 then the licences
  55 > granted still stay with the old method - only new licences granted
  56 > will use the new expiry method.