How to automate testing connectivity to Windows 2003 server?

Question

Hi all -

I am writing an app to test RDP connectivity to a bank of VM Windows 2003 servers. The typical failure mode is for some code running on the server to get itself in a loop, preventing RDP connections -- and most any other type of connection, as well. When this happens, you can still ping the server and it seems to be fine, but you cannot do much of anything else.

I am using C#, .NET 3.5 and RDP version 6.1 -- I have tried launching the ActiveX RDP client (MSTSC..) but that requires human intervention and doesn't work very well. I found another post here that has a possible solution from Expert Sexchange, but that solution uses Java and the Net::Telnet library, which I do not have access to.

Any ideas from the .NET camp?

Thanks, Dave

Answer 1

Use a TCPClient to try and connect to the servers on 3389 (or whatever port you are configured for) if you get a connection, disconnect and report success, if the connection is refused report failure.

 class Program
    {
       static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            RDPAvailable("someserver", 3389);
        }
        public static bool RDPAvailable(string remoteHost, int port)
        {
            bool available=false;
            try
            {
                TcpClient client = new TcpClient(remoteHost, port);
                client.Close();
                available = true;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                //do some logging or whatnot 
            }
            return available;
    }

EDIT: Some handy code

MsRdpClient51.Server = somServer
MsRdpClient51.UserName = somUserID
MsRdpClient51.Domain = someDomain
MsRdpClient51.AdvancedSettings6.ClearTextPassword = somePassword
MsRdpClient51.Connect

Answer 2

You can use the undocumented WinStationServerPing API to check connectivity to Terminal Server. Basically if this function succeeds it means that Terminal Server is available.

This is the (Delphi) signature of the function (exported from winsta.dll):

function WinStationServerPing(hServer: HANDLE): BOOLEAN; stdcall;