Hello World,
Recently, I have received an interesting question about RDS infrastructure, more specifically, if it was possible to rename the connection broker. As I never had to perform such operation, this post will be the perfect opportunity to see what can happen when you rename the connection Broker role Server.
A quick research on internet shows that it’s not recommended to rename the connection broker server because this can break the full RDS Topology. After the rename operation, it seems that you cannot load anymore the RDMS management console.
This post series will be divided in multiple parts. The first part will show what happens when your rename the RDS Connection Broker Server
Disclaimer :
This post series is based on some experimental and (possibly) non supported actions so please use the following information at your own risk !!!! We will not be liable for any errors,omissions,problems,damages…arising from using this information. All information here is provided AS-IS.
Renaming Connection Broker Server…
In our test infrastructure, we have deployed a single server hosting the RDWeb, RDHost and RD Connection broker role. Using this simply infrastructure, we want to rename the RDS server and assess what happens after the rename action. In the following screenshot, you can see the RDS Topology that we have setup
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If we open the Server Manager > Local Server, we can see the current name of the Server.
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We want to rename this server from qrds to newqrds as shown in the following screenshot
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We can this that the change has been performed and we need to restart our server to apply the change
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After the reboot of the server, we can see that the name has been changed accordingly. In the Server Manager console, we can also see that the RDMS option is still listed and visible
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However, If you click on the Remote Desktop Services node, you will receive the following error message : The server must be added to the pool
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We have tried to fool the system by adding the old server name into the Server Manager console. In the Server Manager, click on the All Servers, Right-click and select Add Servers. You will be presented with the following dialog box. Notice that we have selected the DNS tab instead of the Active directory tab.
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Because the DNS Record is still present, we have been able to add the server in the Server Manager console but again note the error displayed after the addition operation
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Now, at this stage, if you click on the Remote Desktop Services, you might be lucky enough to access your RDS topology (this is not always working). Note also that the server name displayed in the console is still the old one
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If you click on the Collection node, you might be able to see the published applications as well
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At this stage, you think that you succeeded and fooled the system but If you try to publish a new application will see that message errors will popup and you will not be able to perform any additional operations…. The Server Manager already provided a tip about the fact that the old server name is generating some kerberos issues….
Trying to re-use the old name of the server does not seems to work as expected…..we have broken our RDS Topology….So, our next step is to find a way to fix the issue and bring our RDS Topology back to operational state……
Final Notes
So far, we have seen that indeed renaming the Connection broker server can basically breaks your RDS Topology. We have also tried a basic trick to fool the system. If you are lucky, you will have an access to the RDMS console and you will be able to document your “old” RDS Topology but it seems that any further actions will not work.
I have to say that I didn’t try to open the Web page and try to launch an application but I would expect that this would fail.
In the next post, we will see what can be done to “fix” the issue..
Till next time
See ya