One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions 6.0.2 - Administration Guide

Creating and editing protocol-level RDP settings

RDP settings determine the parameters of the connection on the protocol level. For example, timeout value, the version of RDP permitted in the connection, and display parameters.

Figure 176: RDP Control > Settings — RDP settings

To create a new RDP settings profile or edit an existing one

1. Navigate to RDP Control > Settings and click to create an RDP setting profile. Enter a name for the profile (for example, rdp5only).

2. Click to display the parameters of the RDP connection.

3. Modify the parameters as needed. The following parameters are available:

   • Idle timeout: Timeout value for the connection in seconds. To avoid early timeout, set it to a larger value, for example a week (604800 seconds).

     Caution: Determining if a connection is idle is based on the network traffic generated by the connection, not the activity of the user. For example, if an application or the taskbar of a graphical desktop displays the time which is updated every minute, it generates network traffic every minute, negating the effects of timeout values greater than one minute and preventing One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) from closing the connection.

     Caution: If the value is set below 31 seconds, MSTSC can fail and prevent new connections if Act as a Remote Desktop Gateway is enabled in RDP Control > Connections. To prevent this, set the Idle timeout value to at least 31 seconds.

   • Maximum display width: The maximum allowed width of the remote desktop in pixels (for example 1024).

     NOTE: The Maximum display width and Maximum display height options should be high enough to cover the combined resolution of the client monitor setup. Connections that exceed these limits will automatically fail. Make sure to adjust these settings if your clients use multiple monitors. For example, if your clients use two monitors that have a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels each, set Maximum display width to 4000, and Maximum display height to 2200.

   • Maximum display height: The maximum allowed height of the remote desktop in pixels (for example 768).

     NOTE: The Maximum display width and Maximum display height options should be high enough to cover the combined resolution of the client monitor setup. Connections that exceed these limits will automatically fail. Make sure to adjust these settings if your clients use multiple monitors. For example, if your clients use two monitors that have a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels each, set Maximum display width to 4000, and Maximum display height to 2200.

   • Maximum display depth: The maximum allowed color depth the remote desktop in bits (for example 24). The following values are valid: 8, 15, 16, 24.

     Caution: Using 32-bit color depth is currently not supported: client connections requesting 32-bit color depth automatically revert to 24-bit. Certain Windows versions do not support 24-bit color depth. In this case, those versions can only be displayed in 16-bit color depth. SPS automatically changes its settings to 16-bit.

   • Enable Network Level Authentication: Select this option to enable the use of Network Level Authentication (NLA, also called Credential Security Service Provider or CredSSP).

     • If you enable this option, you have to configure SPS to join your domain. If you use a domain, then the target servers and SPS must be in the same domain, or you must establish trust between the domains that contain the target servers and SPS. For details on the type of trust required, see Using One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) across multiple domains. For details on configuring SPS to join a domain, see Network Level Authentication (NLA) with domain membership.

     • If you cannot or do not want to join SPS to the domain, see Network Level Authentication without domain membership.

     Note the following points:

     • SSL-encrypted connections do not require this option, it is only needed for Network Level Authentication (NLA).

     • Smartcard authentication cannot be used when the Enable Network Level Authentication option is enabled.

     Caution: To access hosts running Windows 2008 Server R2 using Network Level Authentication (NLA), select the Enable RDP4 style authentication option as well.

   • Enable RDP4 style authentication: Select this option to enable RDP4 authentication within the RDP5 protocol. This might be needed for compatibility reasons with certain client applications.

   • Enable pre channel check: Select this option to evaluate the connection and channel policies before establishing the server-side connection. That way if the connection is not permitted at all, SPS does not establish the server-side connection.

   • Permit unreliable usernames: SPS automatically terminates RDP connections if it cannot reliably extract the username from the RDP connection. Enable this option to permit connections with unreliable usernames. For details on ensuring that the usernames in RDP connections are reliable, see Usernames in RDP connections.

     Known issue

     When accessing a Windows Server 2003 R2 host, the Permit unreliable usernames option is disabled, and the username is unreliable, SPS terminates the connection, but only after the user logs in. As a result, the session is not closed on the server-side.

   • Autologon domain suffix: Enter the suffix that the client will append to the domain when using autologon in conjunction with Network Level Authentication (CredSSP).

4. To display a banner message to the clients before authentication, enter the message into the Banner field. For example, this banner can inform the users that the connection is audited. SPS displays this banner in a graphical window that has only an OK button. Note the following points:

   • You can write a plain-text or a basic HTML-formatted banner.

     Caution: If the banner is overly complex HTML using deeply embedded structures, displaying the banner will fail, causing the RDP connections to time out.

   • When using HTML markup, the entire banner must be a single HTML object (for example, a div).

     <div align="center"><b>Your session is recorded using Privileged Session Monitoring</b></div>

   • In HTML, you can embed images (for example, a company logo) as data URLs in an img tag:

     To include a logo or other image, use a base64-encoded data url within an, like this: <img alt="Embedded Image" src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADIA..." />.

   • Note that while you can include links in the text, your users cannot click or copy them.

5. To configure TLS security settings on both the Client side and the Server side, proceed to TLS security settings.

   Figure 177: <Protocol> Control > Settings > TLS security settings - configuring TLS security settings

   

   • Cipher strength specifies the cipher string OpenSSL will use. The following settings options are possible:

     • Recommended: this setting only uses ciphers with adequate security level.

     • Custom: this setting allows you to specify the list of ciphers you want to permit SPS to use in the connection. This setting is only recommended in order to ensure compatibility with older systems. For more details on customizing this list, check the 'openssl-ciphers' manual page on your SPS appliance.

       For example: ALL:!aNULL:@STRENGTH

   • Minimum TLS version specifies the minimal TLS version SPS will offer during negotiation. The following settings options are possible:

     • TLS 1.2: this setting will only offer TLS version 1.2 during negotiation. This is the recommended setting.

     • TLS 1.1: this setting will offer TLS version 1.1 and later versions during negotiation.

     • TLS 1.0: this setting will offer TLS version 1.0 and later versions during negotiation.

   NOTE: Note that SPS only permits TLS-encrypted connections. SSLv3 is not supported.

   NOTE: TLS 1.1 and 1.2 support for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and for Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is not available by default. For more information about the requirements and process of enabling this feature, click here or contact our Support Team.

6. Click .

7. Select this settings profile in the RDP settings field of your connections.