RDS 2012 R2 – Access is denied – Issue 4

Griffon

Hello World,

In the previous posts, we have described some small issues that a user (or an administrator) might encounter while working with a remoteapp infrastructure. So far, we have seen that a group policy can block a user from using remote desktop services (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=8168), that kerberos token size can prevent you to login to the RDS infrastructure (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=8171), incorrect use of the mstsc /admin switch can also have unexpected results when accessing the remote desktop infrastructure (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=8164)

In this post, we will describe a really small issue that can happen when working with multiple Remote Desktop windows open to different servers.

The Problem

One of the new admin guy was trying to connect to a server using remote desktop client and he was receiving each time an access denied error message.  Using this blog; he checked all the possible reason why he would receive such error.  He checked GPO, Kerberos Token, mstsc usage… Everything was configured accordingly but still access denied message showing up

RDS_ADenied0.png

Click on Picture for Better Resolution

The Solution

As usual, when you have this kind of problem, the best is to see what the user is actually doing.  This might give a better understanding of the issue.  So, we moved to his desk and asked him to show us what he was trying to do.

The user was in fact trying from the first remote desktop session to connect to the same server.  Doing this, the access denied was thrown.

On the screenshot below, you can that it was already connected to the remote machine and he was trying to access (within the remote session) exactly to the same machine…

RDS_ADenied2.png

Click on Picture for Better Resolution

This was not a technical issue but more a user issue.  Because he was connecting to multiple servers, the blue banner on the top of the screen showing the servers where he was connected was hidden by banners from the other sessions.

At the end, this was really a stupid but amusing user issue and nothing to do with the RDS infrastructure.

Final Notes

In this post, we have quickly explained why in some really rare case, you might receive an access denied error message while trying to connect.  If you have a lot of sessions open, ensure that you are not trying to connect to a server where you are already connected to through remote desktop client.

This is is for this post

Till next time

See ya

 

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