I have a need to connect to my office using Sonicwall’s netExtender. Once connected I need to use RDP to open a remote desktop session to my work computer. But for some reason I ran into two issues on my AMD-based HP home desktop. First I was unable to get the netExtenderGui to run. It kept throwing errors. And second, I was using Remmina for the RDP client and discovered that it did not support dual monitor displays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After some googling and yahooing, with a bing or two thrown in I had a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
For the netExtender issue I discovered that all I had to do was run it from the command line. I added an alias to my .bashrc file and was done. (confidential information is hidden with asterisks) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
alias work=echo 'y' | \/home\/bob\/Desktop\/netExtenderClient\/netExtender -u Bob -p ******* -d HB ***.hbdesign.com:****<\/pre>\n\n\n\nNow all I have to do is open a terminal window and type “work” and I connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the dual monitor issue I found another command line solution. Instead of using Remmina I use xfreerdp and run it from the command line. Another alias and I am up and running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
xfreerdp +multimon \/u:bob \/p:******* \/v:192.***.***.86 +clipboard<\/pre>\n\n\n\nTo run both commands from a terminal I type <\/p>\n\n\n\n
work &\nbobxps<\/pre>\n\n\n\nWhich starts netExtender to run in the background and then starts my multimonitor session. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To exit the multimonitor session I type ^ctrl alt enter, then right click on the title bar and select close. In the terminal window I enter fg to move netExtender back to the foreground and then type ^c to close it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next Steps, full automation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So now that I can open the VPN and then Remote Desktop into my work computer the next step is to make it all a one click shortcut on the desktop. The first task is to make a bash script. I named it dowork.sh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
!\/bin\/bash\n# start the netExtender in the background, sending the \"y\" \n# to the query it gives about the certificate\necho 'y' | \/home\/bob\/Desktop\/netExtenderClient\/netExtender -u Bob -p ******* -d HB ***.hbdesign.com:**** &<\/strong>\n# give it time to launch\nsleep 6<\/strong>\n# now open the remote desktop in the forground\nxfreerdp +multimon \/u:bob \/p:+intel234 \/v:192.168.0.86 +clipboard <\/strong>\n# when the foreground process terminates, kill the netExtender \n# process\npkill netExtender<\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\nAfter testing this script I installed gnome-panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gnome-panel\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\nand then created a new desktop shortcut with the following command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ gnome-desktop-item-edit ~\/Desktop\/ --create-new\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\nNow I can click on the desktop icon and open the vpn and connect to my work pc with just one click. Nice.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a need to connect to my office using Sonicwall’s netExtender. Once connected I need to use RDP to open a remote desktop session to my work computer. But for some reason I ran into two issues on my AMD-based HP home desktop. First I was unable to get the netExtenderGui to run. It … <\/p>\n