FreeRDP Linux Solution for Azure Virtual Desktop VMs

Attention fellow Linux users!

I’ll be beginning my time at McMaster soon, and I was browsing computing options for dedicated software for my studies, namely SAS. I come across the virtual desktop solution on the UTS website, but behold! There are no options for Linux! There is a web client, but I don’t enjoy using these as the Windows/Super key never manages to work properly and grabbing keyboard/mouse events can be finnicky.

I could see the only option was to spin up a VM and use the “Windows App” as described in their instructions. I reached out to UTS for alternative solutions to connect to the Azure Virtual Desktops other than the Windows App (which does not have a proper Linux program). They informed me the connection protocol is just using RDP, which I know has robust options on Linux and have had success using in the past.

Once I was guided to use FreeRDP, I went on an adventure and decided it was worth sharing this information in case this might be helpful to the few who prefer using Linux as their OS of choice. Here are the steps I took to get it running.

• Download the .rdpw
  • Take this link to the Windows App web client and login with your McMaster credentials
  • Revert the client to the legacy version by hitting the question mark in the top right hand side of the page and selecting "Go back to Remote Desktop". You'll need to fill out a questionnaire.
  • Once you've landed at the legacy client, go to the Settings (gear icon) on the top right hand side of the screen. Under "Resources Launch Method", choose "Download the rdp file".
  • Click on the computer icon for the virtual desktop session you would like to use. This should have downloaded a .rdp or .rdpw file.
• Acquire your distributions version of FreeRDP
  • Never got the xfreerdp v3.27.1 from the Gentoo repository to work, run into a RSTLS error
  • Source-built wlfreerdp v 3.28.1-dev0 with AAD and Webview (not too sure if this made a difference or not)
  • Arch xfreerdp3 v3.28.0 from the Extra repository
• Run the freerdp binary. I had success with the following commands:
  • xfreerdp <your rdp file.rdpw>
  • xfreerdp <your rdp file.rdpw> /gateway:type:arm /sec:nla
• Credentials
  • After executing the program, you will be prompted in the terminal to browse to a link. Click on the link, copy the resulting address (quickly, as the window will redirect to another page), and paste the link into the terminal. Next, enter your credentials. You will be prompted with 3 fields. Fill them accordingly:
  • Username: your McMaster email address
  • Domain: erase AzureAD so the field is blank
  • Password: your McMaster email password

And there you have it! As I mentioned before, I am using the source-built wlfreerdp as the keyboard grabbing/release and Super key works best for my workflow. I also appreciate some of the flexibility FreeRDP affords over the Windows solution. Hope this helps, and happy computing!