The presence of a session manager component keeps all the user sessions separate and handles the relevant tasks such as allowing a user to reconnect after accidentally closing the RDP client. On this type of architecture, the RDP client communicates with the terminal server through a connection port. The RDP protocol is a desktop or mobile application whose job it is to connect to the terminal server and display the session’s contents. Most end users connect to a terminal server by applying the remote desktop protocol (RDP) client.

This is different from multi-session environments that Windows file servers mainly use, because the operating system renders a user interface (UI) for each of these sessions. How a Terminal Server Works?Īlthough the way a Terminal Server works depends on different vendor characteristics, Windows based Terminal Servers use the Operating System OS in order to support multiple user sessions.

The common architecture used for terminal servers is by connecting the one side with their RS-232C interface, a RS-423 serial port or UDP and the other side of the terminal server connected through network interface cards (NIC) to a local area network ( LAN), a wide area network (WAN), Dial-Up modems, to an X.25 network or a 3270 gateway. Nowadays in the IT community we define with the term Terminal Server, any hardware device or computer server that provides terminals, such as PC computers, printers and other devices with a common connection point to a local (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).

Terminal server session manager