Using Remote Graphics Software

∙Concerns - May require redundant networking channel. Requires administrator or operator availability to support.

Anticipating User Disconnects and Reconnection

∙Issues - Users must first be warned about the consequences of disconnection. Agents that provide protection for a disconnected session can also provide a nuisance for unsuspecting users if they fail to address protective measures in place for their safety. For example, users must know how much time they have to reconnect before safeguards take action. If a remote agent arms itself for application termination, users should be presented with a large, unmistakable disarming "opt-out" panel that, upon login and discovery, they can halt any agent actions before termination. Organizations should carefully discuss and publicize safety measures due to potential data loss.

∙Concerns - Users should not be able to disable or specify their own timeouts due to potential irreversible data loss.

General Design Issues

∙All active agents should externally log their decisions and actions for post mortem analysis.

∙Independent agents should provide their own opt-out, disarming dialogs with countdown feedback before taking action.

∙Expect the unexpected - where possible, limit your actions to those areas you are certain of the outcomes to minimize loss of data and productivity.

∙Always inspect error codes when reading event logs - the reliability of this RGS communication method depends upon the Windows Event Log system. While we have yet to see a failure in this path, we recommend using all information available to its fullest potential.

Additional Safeguard Features for Windows systems

The following optional procedures for the RGS Sender service can improve the reliability of your remote agent solution if required in your environment.

RGS Sender Service Recovery Settings

∙By default, most Windows services are installed without any automatic restart/recovery settings. This means that when a service terminates, Windows will, by default, not restart the service unless explicitly set. When RGS Sender software is first installed, it is installed with Windows defaults (do not restart).

∙Restarting the RGS Sender service can support RGS reconnection with a RGS Receiver client (unless a system error prevents the RGS service from restarting).

∙Agent designs should take into account whether or not to check for the existence of a running RGS Sender service as an indication of a sufficient

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