Setup - Expanded Version

Setup Quick List

  1. Build a terminal server whose operating system is either:
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Terminal Services enabled.
  • Microsoft Windows 2003 Server with Terminal Services enabled.
  • Microsoft Windows 2008 Server with Terminal Services enabled.
  1. Create a Licensing Server and add a TS CAL (Terminal Server Client Access License) for each thin client.

    See Microsoft Terminal Services Licensing Activation.

  1. Install ACP ThinManager software onto a computer to create a ThinManager Server.

    2. Note: The ThinManager Server can be a terminal server, but doesn't have to be. It can be on any server or a Windows 2000/XP Workstation if need be. The clients will connect to the ThinManager Server and download the firmware and configuration. See ThinManager Installation.

  2. Install a ThinManager License for each ThinManager Ready thin client.

    See ThinManager Licensing.

  3. Select a Client-Communication protocol. The default RDP Client-Communication Protocol installs with Terminal Services. If using the ICA protocol, available separately from Citrix, install and license on each terminal server.

    Note: In the past ThinManager came bundled with a lite version of the ICA protocol called Citrix Device Services. Citrix stopped support of this version when Windows 2003 Server was released so ThinManager uses RDP as the default. ThinManager Ready thin clients can still connect to established Citrix Device Services terminal servers, but no new ones can be licensed.

    See Client Communication Protocol.

  4. Create a Microsoft user profile for each user on the terminal server or the domain.
  5. Apply appropriate security to each user profile using the standard Microsoft techniques.
  6. Establish the IP addressing scheme for the ThinManager Ready thin clients, using either DHCP or Static IP.

    If using DHCP, configure Option 066 to list the IP address of the ThinManager Server and configure 067 to list "firmware.acp" as the bootfile name.See IP Address Assignment.

    See BootRom 5.01, BootRom 4.5, BootRom 4.4.0.8, and/or DHCP for details on setting client IP addresses.

  7. Attach the ThinManager Ready thin clients to ThinManager by either:
  • Turning on the terminal and selecting the "Create New Terminal" option when the unit boots.
  • Pre-creating the terminals in ThinManager and selecting the proper terminal name when the terminal is turned on and offline terminals are listed.

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Required Components

ThinManager Ready Thin Clients require a number of components to function properly. These include:

  1. Terminal Services from Microsoft
  2. Client Communication Protocol, either RDP or Citrix ICA
  3. ACP ThinManager software
  4. ThinManager Ready Thin Client Hardware
  5. Standard TCP/IP network infrastructure
  6. Windows Terminal Server Operating System

Microsoft Server with Terminal Services

The first component is the Terminal Server. This is a computer with a version of Microsoft's Windows 2000 Server or 2003 Server that have the Terminal Services functionality activated. The operating system allows multiple users to log into the server and run independent, isolated sessions. The operating system controls the server, provides security, controls user access, and runs the applications.

The terminal server needs Windows 2000, 2003, or 2008 Server with Terminal Services enabled and TS CALs added.

See Microsoft Licensing for details.

Client Communication Protocol

The second component is the Client Communication Protocol. This can be either the ICA protocol available from Citrix or the RDP protocol that is installed by default with any Windows Terminal Server operating systems. In the past ThinManager came bundled with a lite version of the ICA protocol called Citrix Device Services. Citrix stopped support of this version when Windows 2003 Server was released so ThinManager now uses RDP as the default. ThinManager Ready thin clients can still connect to established Citrix Device Services terminal servers, but no new ones can be licensed.

The Client Communication Protocol is the protocol used for client-to-server communications in the Terminal Services Environment. The protocol handles all video, information, and user input such as keyboard and mouse input.

The RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) is the Client-Communication Protocol that is included with Microsoft Terminal Services and can be used by ThinManager Ready Thin Clients to connect to Windows 2000 Terminal Servers and Windows 2003/2008 Terminal Servers. The RDP connection to a Windows 2000 Terminal Server is limited to a 256-color depth (8-bit) while the Windows 2003/2008 Server connection can be made at a higher color depth.

The ICA (Independent Computer Architecture) Protocol is available from Citrix and installed and licensed on all of the Terminal Servers.

ThinManager Administrative Software

The third component is ACP ThinManager software from Automation Control Products. ThinManager is used to configure, manage, and control the ThinManager thin clients. Although ThinManager is treated as a single entity, it really has two main components, the ThinManager interface and the ThinServer service.

ThinServer is a service that is the engine of the program. It starts automatically and runs in the background and provides essential functions to control the thin clients. ThinServer is installed during ThinManager installation if selected.

ThinManager is the administrative software that facilitates the configuration and organization of the thin clients. This is the visible component of the ThinManager software. ThinManager displays information generated by ThinServer. ThinManager can be installed on any computer on the network, including the terminal server.

Note: ThinManager Server is used to describe a computer running ThinManager and ThinServer that provides control and configuration to ThinManager Ready Thin Clients, even if the computer is a workstation.

One instance of ThinManager can provide client connection to several terminal servers. The thin clients would boot from the ThinManager server, but could be assigned to any of several terminal servers.

ThinManager Ready Thin Client Hardware

ACP ThinManager is designed to control and configure ACP Enabled Thin clients. These are ThinManager Ready thin clients produced by a variety of manufacturing partners and display the ThinManager Ready sticker. The ACP web site, www.thinmanager.com and www.thindustrial.com have links to the ACP Partners.

ThinManager Ready Logo
ThinManager Ready Logo

Standard TCP/IP Network Infrastructure

ThinManager Ready Thin Clients use a standard TCP/IP network. This can include hubs, routers, gateways, cables, and wireless components. ThinManager Ready thin clients behave on a network as a PC would, but because the thin clients are connected to a terminal server where the actually processing takes place, thin clients are more sensitive to poorly deployed networks.

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Network Overview

The simplest thin client network consists of a single computer, configured as a terminal server, with the TS CALs, ThinManager, ThinServer, and the applications installed on it. All the ThinManager Ready thin clients connect to this single computer.

A more common scenario includes the use of multiple computers. These might be additional terminal servers for failover functionality, additional terminal servers for increased capacity, domain controllers, e-mail servers, file servers, database servers, and workstations. One of the strengths of ThinManager and ThinManager Ready Thin Clients is their versatility in networking. They do not demand a rigid proprietary network configuration, but have the flexibility to run in almost any network configuration.

ACP Networks require:

  1. A ThinManager Server, that is, a computer running ThinManager. This does not have to be a "server", but can be any Windows computer, including a workstation.
  2. A Microsoft Terminal Server with a Client Communication Protocol and all desired applications. This computer may also be the ThinManager Server.
  3. A Microsoft Terminal Server Licensing Server for the TS CALs (Microsoft Terminal Server Client Access Licenses). This does not need to be a separate computer, but can run on a terminal server or a domain controller.
  4. A DHCP Server or Static IP addresses for the thin clients.
  5. ThinManager Ready Thin Client hardware.
  6. A standard Ethernet network.

Note: ThinManager does not have to be installed on a terminal server, but can be installed on a workstation.

Connection Overview

When a terminal is powered on:

  • An IP address is requested from a DHCP server by default. The DHCP server needs to have Option 066 set to the ThinManager Server IP address and Option 067 set to firmware.acp to specify a ThinManager Server IP address. See DHCP Server Setup for details.
  • Alternately, the terminal may be assigned a static IP address and the ThinManager Server IP address. See BootRom 5.01 or BootRom 4.5 for details.
  • The terminal connects to the ThinManager Server to download its configuration.
  • The ThinManager configuration will tell the terminal which terminal server to login to.
  • The terminal will connect to that terminal server and display the Windows login dialog box or will automatically login with help from the ThinManager configuration.
  • The terminal will create a session on the terminal server, allowing applications to run.

The ThinManager Ready Thin client can be assigned to a single terminal server, or it can be assigned to multiple terminal servers in case of terminal server failure. ThinManager 2.6 introduced Terminal Server Groups. These are groups of terminal servers that control the added functionality for the thin client.

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Terminal Server Group/ Application Group Overview

Terminal Server Groups, now called Application Groups in thinManager 3.2, are collections of Terminal Servers. A ThinManager Ready thin client can connect to one or more terminal servers that are members of an Application Group. Instead of specifying individual terminal server that a terminal will connect to a terminal server defined in the application group. The specific terminal server that the terminal connects to is based on the Application Group configuration and options.

  • A standard Application Group has the terminal servers listed in a pre-defined order. The terminal connects to the first available member of the group.
  • The SmartSession option of Application Groups provides load balancing by using CPU availability, memory, and the number of sessions on the member terminal servers to determine the resource availability on member terminal servers. A ThinManager Ready thin client connects to the terminal server in the Application Group with the most available resources.
  • The Instant Failover option allows a terminal to connect to two terminal servers within a Application Group. The terminal will have an active session on two terminal servers but will only display one session. If the first terminal server fails, the session of the second terminal server is immediately displayed, eliminating any downtown due to terminal server failure.
  • The AppLink option provides the Initial Program function to members of an Application Group. When specifying the Initial Program function, a program is started instead of the desktop. Closing the program will terminate the connection.
  • MultiSession is a terminal configuration that allows a ThinManager Ready thin client to connect to multiple terminal servers from multiple Application Groups. The user can switch between groups using an on-screen menu or hot keys. These groups may be standard Application Groups, Application Groups with SmartSession, AppLink, and/or Application with Instant Failover.

These Application Group options can be combined on the same Terminal Server Group, for example a Terminal Server Group could use SmartSession to choose the server connection order, Instant Failover to maintain a backup, while using AppLink to limit the terminal to a single application. Additionally, a terminal server may be a member of several Terminal Server Groups.

See Terminal Server Groups for details.

Failover Overview

Server failures in any network or system can disrupt productivity and data management. ACP ThinManager (version 2.3 and later) has a failover capability built into it that allows terminals to connect to a secondary terminal server if the terminal server that they are logged into fails. This will lessen the effect of server failures on the terminal server network. The terminals can detect the server crash, drop the connection to it, and connect to a secondary server in seconds.

To initiate ACP ThinManager Failover protection, four steps are needed.

  1. Multiple Servers: The first step is to have multiple terminal servers, with a Client Communication Protocol and appropriate licenses added.
  2. Sufficient Memory: The second step is to have sufficient memory capacity on the servers to accommodate the addition of terminals during failover. If you do not plan for the extra capacity, the servers can be taxed with the addition of the new terminals.
  3. User Permissions: Each terminal server needs the appropriate Windows 2000/2003 user profiles and permissions. The terminals will not log into a secondary session unless it has a user profile on that server.
  4. IP Addressing In ThinManager: When configuring the terminal, list the terminal servers, in the order of preferred connection, in ThinManager. Upon boot, each terminal will try to connect to the first server in the list (the primary server). If it is not available, it will try the next on the list (a secondary server) until a connection is made

ACP ThinManager allows the use of several terminal servers, defined as the primary and as backups. If the primary terminal server fails, the ThinManager Ready thin client will detect the server failure and will initiate a new session on a backup server. This allows the operator to continue their work and minimize the effect of a server failure.

Note: ThinManager can be installed on any computer including the terminal servers, domain controllers, file servers, or workstations.

See Failover for further details.

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(Updated 11/10/2008)