[HOW TO] Can not remote desktop to Windows Server 2008 | fix rdesktop disconnect: disconnect: Internal licensing error when connecting to Windows Server 2008 on Ubuntu/Debian

Hello,

I think I must go to sleep. But I want to share somsthing continuous.

If you are using Linux operating system, I think you can also use rdesktop utility to remote desktop to Windows Machine.

The problem is here. If rdesktop version is 1.7.0 or less that when it remote desktop to Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2, it get an error as below:

$ rdesktop 192.168.2.5 -g 1280x768 -a 8

Autoselected keyboard map en-us

disconnect: Internal licensing error.

Root cause that the licensing mode is set to "per device" or link. You can either set the licensing mode to "per user" or you install rdesktop 1.7.1. The rdesktop 1.7.1 includes a patch for the problem connecting to 2008 terminal servers with "per device" licensing.

Okay, we have 4 solutions to resolution for this case.

Solution 1:

$sudo -s

#chown -R root:root /home/$user/.rdesktop

#chmod -R 444 /home/$user/.rdesktop

Then just delete the license via command:

#cd /home/$user/.rdesktop

#rm -f *

You are trying to connact to a Windows Machine and enjoy :D

Solution 2:

You must install the rdesktop 1.7.1 from source code

$sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libssl-dev

$wget http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/rdesktop/rdesktop/1.7.1/rdesktop-1.7.1.tar.gz

$tar -zxvf rdesktop-1.7.1.tar.gz

$cd rdesktop-1.7.1

$./configure

$make

$make install

Or use apt-get to install

$sudo apt-get install rdesktop 

It will be installing the rdesktop installation latest version (maybe 1.7.1 if your repository is latest)

Solution 3:

#cd /home/$user/.rdesktop

#rm -rf *

Again re-remote desktop

Solution 4:

#cd /home/$user/

#rm -rf .rdesktop

#touch .rdesktop

rdesktop will complain that rdesktop isn't a directory, but it will connect anyway.

You also go to rdesktop's home page to download lastest version http://www.rdesktop.org/

Enjoy :)

Now I'm going to sleep :)

Thank you for reading this article, please a comment if you are interested.
Tiến Phan - R0039
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