Open a server’s remote desktop

What it is

I need to look at this Windows server now. Open remote desktop on a server’s page opens its desktop in a full-screen window inside Cenovel, signed in with your own Windows account. Nothing is installed on your computer or beside Cenovel: the remote desktop client ships inside Cenovel and runs in your browser, and Cenovel passes the connection to the server.

It is for Windows servers. For a Linux server, use SSH. To use the Remote Desktop app on your computer instead, choose More › Download .rdp file on the server’s page.

Turn it on

Remote desktop is off until a District Administrator turns on Remote desktop on the server page in Settings › System › Features. Turning it on asks you to confirm it’s you. Turning it off ends every remote desktop that is open.

Who can open one, and to which servers

• Operators and above. Each time, Cenovel may ask you to confirm it’s you first. Windows then decides what your account may do on the server.
• Only a server recorded in Cenovel as Windows (or with its operating system not known), with its own host address in Edit server, inside a network listed in Find devices. Cenovel connects to that address on port 3389 and nowhere else.
• Not while Cenovel has stopped talking to devices.
• At most two remote desktops on one server, and one of yours.

Open a remote desktop

1. On the server’s page, choose Open remote desktop. When it can’t open, the button is unavailable and the server facts say why.
2. Type your Windows User name (DOMAIN\name, name@domain, or a local account) and Password, then choose Connect. The window says Connecting while Windows signs you in.
3. The desktop fills the window. Every key goes to the server; Shift+Escape moves to the window’s buttons. Fit shows the whole desktop, Actual size shows it pixel for pixel, and Send Ctrl+Alt+Del sends those keys to the server rather than to your computer.
4. Close returns to the page you were on, and the session waits in the bar at the bottom of the window. End session ends it.

What Cenovel keeps, and what it doesn’t

• The audit log records who opened each remote desktop, when, to which server, from where, for how long and how it ended. The screen is not recorded.
• Your Windows password goes from your browser into Windows’ own sign-in and nowhere else. Cenovel only connects to servers that use network-level sign-in, so the password never passes through Cenovel in a form it could read, and it is never stored or logged.
• Clipboard, drives and printers are off: nothing is copied between your computer and the server.

When it ends

A remote desktop ends after 15 minutes with no keyboard or mouse input, or after 8 hours in all; its last two minutes count down in the window and on the bar. It also ends when you sign out of Cenovel, when your access changes, when remote desktop is turned off and when Cenovel stops talking to devices. The window says which.

When a server’s certificate changes

The first time a remote desktop opens to a server, Cenovel keeps its certificate. If the server later shows a different one, Cenovel refuses to connect and says so; nothing is sent to it. A District Administrator sees Review certificate on the server’s page, compares the new certificate with the kept one and, if the change was expected (a renewed certificate or a rebuilt server), chooses Trust the new certificate, which asks to confirm it’s you.

When it doesn’t open

The public demo has no Windows server: Open remote desktop opens the window and says remote desktop isn’t available in the demo.

See also: Security & data · What Cenovel may change on a device