NSS with Thin Clients and Terminalserver

[otbftr]

Just setting up Netsupport school in a thin client environment which ...well... lets put it like this: made me learn a lot about Terminalsservers...

 

Is there someone out there who has a similar configuration, as I seem to run into another problem just when i think i solved the last one.

 

Here are the basics:

- 3 identical Terminalservers (2003) clustered in loadbalancing

- about 80 thin clients in 5 rooms connecting to the servers

 

The clients run with the terminal configuration where each server has 100 ports and at startup, the control searches the ports on each of the servers (i.e. 5100-5199 on the first, 5200-5299 on the second and 5300-5399 on the third)

 

Teachers use profiles that are set to connect only to clients within the room (registry is set to connect to clientnames, not usernames) as the rooms are used by several classes.

 

class.nss file is set as write protected which forces NSS to search for clients with every new start (lesson). Otherwise it would always connect with the clients that use the same ip/port combination (which changes when they leave the terminalsession). Therefore layout won`t work either.

 

The Problem:

The control can connect to most (!) of the clients, the trouble is, the ones that it cannot connect to are scattered over the 3 servers (so not server related) and as far as i can see all the servers are configured the same anyway...

 

It just seems somehow it cannot find these clients although the client32.exe runs on the clients and they seem to have the correct IP/Port combination (which the control is set to find).

And: Sometimes the clients are connected with the wrong clientname (which is worrying, because the clientname is set on the machine itself)

 

Example: client 5 (i.e port 5105) is connected but not client 6. If i log off client 5, NSS can suddenly connect to client 6 (port 5108, so th reason cannot be that they both use the same port)

 

At the moment I am trying to figure out what makes the clients connect and what doesn`t....Sadly enough if I log off the clients that are not connected and log them on again (and sometimes again) NSS finds them eventually....

 

Thanks for your help!!

[Ric_]

It's not something as daft as not enough licenses is it? (one off, one on situation especiall would point to this!)

[otbftr]

Thanks for the quick reply!!

 

No, the licenses shouldn`t be the problem, because

a) this happens while testing one room (only 18 clients logged on) and

b) after logging them off and on again I eventually get all of them

[rdhawkins]

Sounds like you're doing all the right things. I suggest you get in touch with our technical support guys so they can help diagnose the problem. We're currently working with a number of thin client manufacturers so this environment is something we're familiar with.

 

Regards

 

Rob