Thin Client Overview

Implementing a thin client strategy can make a lot of sense during your next technology refresh.  Thin clients coupled with VMware’s View (formally known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI) offer not only a substantial return on investment (ROI), but can greatly reduce your day to day support efforts, especially for your remote offices where you might not have support staff.

You might recall the old diskless workstation days... there was a big push for thin clients, but they were slow and lacked basic features.  These early attempts at a thin client were impracticable and lacked many features offered by a traditional desktop; it’s no wonder thin clients never gained wide spread adoption.  But with advances in network bandwidth, CPU power and most recently virtualization, the thin client story has begun a new chapter in an otherwise old tale.

Today’s thin clients run comparable to native desktops, both in terms of speed and functionality.  This is a big difference from the X-terminals and Novell diskless stations that we once knew.  You can now run the same applications your corporate users are accustomed to, but without any changes to either the application or the interface they already use and know.  We are going to skip over the many advantages you’ll have with a thin client solution and move straight into the configuration but we’ll have more articles very soon on the many features and advantages.

Thin clients have no moving components.  That means no CPU fans, hard drives or other moving parts that can break or failing causing downtime.  Downtime makes for unhappy customers and unhappy customers mean phone calls to you.   In this article, we’ll show you how-to configure one of today’s hottest thin clients (Wyse’s V10L) with VMware’s View.

Components for Configuration

We will assume you already have a fully functioning View environment that utilizes VMware’s View connection broker.  We are going to configure a Wyse V10L to handle the user authenticate and single sign-on for our users to access their virtual desktop running on our ESX cluster.

The WYSE V10L uses DHCP boot options to obtain its initial configuration.  For those of you who have experience with IP phones, it works almost the same way.  The DHCP boot options tell the WYSE V10L it’s protocol and location for its configuration.  Retrieving these values from DHCP, the WYSE V10L then FTP’s its configuration file (wnos.ini) down to gain its remaining configuration (desktop options, connection broker IP address etc.)

For this deployment, we will need the following components:

• View Connection Broker (with a functioning View environment)
• DNS server (for name resolution)
• DHCP server (for IP address assignment and for the WYSE V10L to retrieve its power-on config)
• FTP server (to store the configuration file – wnos.ini - of the WYSE V10L)

DHCP Boot Options

We’ll begin our configuration with the DHCP boot options.  I have included a table below with the most commonly used options:

For our example, we’ll use Microsoft’s DHCP snap-in to configure a new DHCP scope and options for our thin clients.  Let’s begin by opening the snap-in as a domain administrator from a DHCP server configuring DHCP with custom options 161, 162, 184, 185, 186 and 188:

1. Click ‘Start’ then ‘Run’.  In the ‘Run’ window, type ‘dhcpmgmt.msc’ and click OK
   
   
   
   
2. Right click on the hostname of your DHCP server and select the ‘Set Predefined Options’ from the menu
   
   
   
   
3. Click the ‘Add’ button on the Predefined Options and Values window
   
   
   
   
4. You be presented with the following window:
   
   
   
   
5. I’ve provided the following example for option ID 161:
   
   
   
   Repeat steps 3 through 5 to create DHCP options - 161, 162, 184, 185, 186 and 188 on your DHCP server:
   1. In the ‘Name’ field, provide a brief description of the new Option value.
   2. Change the ‘Data type’ to ‘String’
   3. Enter the DHCP Option in the ‘Code’ field (i.e. 161)
   4. Provide a brief description in the ‘Description’ field so you know what this value represents when looking at this later

Creating a DHCP Scope

We must now create our first DHCP scope and assign the relevant values to it:

1. From your DHCP snap-in, right click on the hostname of your DHCP server and select ‘New Scope’.
   Note: You may also modify an existing scope if you already have one
   
   
2. You’ll be presented with the ‘New Scope Wizard’, click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
3. Provide a name and description for your new scope and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
4. Provide the relevant IP block and subnet information for the scope and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
5. Enter any exclusions (if any) for the scope and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
6. Enter the desired lease time and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
7. Select the ‘Yes, I want to configure these options now’ value and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
8. Add your default gateway and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
9. Provide your networks DNS information and click ‘Next’
   
   
   
   
10. Provide a WINS server and click ‘Next’
    
    
    
    
11. Select the ‘Yes, I want to activate this scope now’ option and click ‘Next’
    
    
    
    
12. Complete the Wizard by clicking the ‘Finish’ button
    
    
    
    
13. Your new scope will now be listed beneath your DHCP server
    
    
    
    
14. Expand the newly created scope.  Right click on the ‘Scope Options’ and select ‘Configure Options’
    
    
    
    
15. You will be presented with the Scope Options Window.  Place a check mark beside the relevant options you wish configured for your new scope and provide the appropriate Data for your network.  Once your done, click ‘Next’
    Note: At a minimum, you’ll need options 161, 184 and 185.
    
    
    
    
16. Confirm these options are set correctly in the DHCP snap-in before proceeding
    
    
    
    

Configuring the WYSE V10L

Now that we have configured the necessary boot options, we need to create a custom configuration file (wnos.ini) containing the remaining parameters for our WYSE V10L.  WYSE has a wealth of documentation on their site for creating the parameters for the wnos.ini, but I prefer to use the Configuration Generator, a.k.a. ConfGen provided by Thomas Moellerbernd and the team over at www.technicalhelp.de.  ConfGen is a great little tool that has almost every option available for the WYSE V10L in a nice easy to use GUI.  We have ConfGen available in our Downloads area as well as a sample wnos.ini.

1. If you do not already have a wnos.ini file, download our quick start file from the downloads area or, generate a new file using the ConfGen utility.
   
   
2. Modify the wnos.ini to suite your environment.  In particular, pay close attention to the following directives:
   • AddCertificate=rootcert.cer
     

     If you are using a self signed certificate, it’s important that the certificate file name be included here.  If you do not provide the self signed certificate, the WYSE V10L will fail to authenticate to your connection broker.  If you are not using a self signed certificate, or use a certificate authority, you can comment out this option.

   • VDIBroker=https://view.tcpdump.com
     

     If you have not set the DHCP option 188 on your DHCP server, you must provide the URL for your connection broker here.  If your connection broker requires https, make sure the URL contains https.  Otherwise, you may use http.

     Note: If you are using TCX MMR, please see our WYSE TCX MMR and VMware VDI KB for additional details on configurations with TCX MMR support
     
3. Copy your newly created wnos.ini to your FTP server in the following path:
   /wyse/wnos/
   
   
4. If using a self signed certificate, copy it to your FTP server in the following path:
   /wyse/wnos/cacerts/
   

If all has gone well, you are now ready to use your new thin client!  Plug it in and turn it on!  Once it has booted up, you should see a screen similar to the following:

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GANAPATHY  - HOW TO CONFIGURE AND INSTAL THIN CLIENT |08/08/2009 07:21:37 I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO INSTAL THIN CLIENT IN SERVER 2003 AND BOOTING WITHOUT HARD DISK Reply | Quote

thirt |21/08/2009 12:24:00 Hi Ganapathy, I'm not sure what your asking. Perhaps you are interested in Microsoft's version of Hyper-v with VDI? As of now, Microsoft doesn’t support a VDI environment but it looks like things will change with Server 2008. Check out the following article for additional details: http://www.virtualization.info/2008/11/microsoft-to-enters-vdi-space-extending.html Best, Tom Reply | Quote

balaji  - thin clint |14/09/2010 00:29:25 Dear Sir, How to configer thin clint please help me sir Reply | Quote

santosh yadav  - Yadav |27/02/2012 22:01:01 plz.mail me complete steps how to install thin clinet. Reply | Quote

keitre |02/12/2009 21:08:25 hi, would like to ask if wyse V10L works with hyper-v? Reply | Quote

thirt |04/12/2009 21:31:18 Hi Keitre, To the best of my knowledge, Hyper-V doesn't offer a desktop offering at this time (but I'm sure Microsoft has one in the works.) Either way, I would probably steer clear of Hyper-v for the time being and let someone else work out the bugs. Your best off sticking with Xen or VMware. Best, Tom Reply | Quote

Manish Kumar  - thin client |06/01/2010 05:51:37 how to configure thin client in ibm thin client machine Reply | Quote

Anil Kumar |29/01/2010 12:29:00 How to configure outlook in thin client environment Reply | Quote

Empty Kumar |18/02/2010 11:20:28 How to get idiots to stop asking others to do their work for them Reply | Quote

Anonymous |20/05/2010 04:59:31 i want to connect my server Reply | Quote

vijay chawan  - thin client problem |31/05/2010 04:41:49 i m having problem with thin client installed in windows server 2003. problem is that everytime the next boots the first one gets hang up. also we are having a problem with our configuration. the clients pc hang up in 2-3 minutes. please reply if you know about it. Reply | Quote

Harinder kumar gound  - how are configure thinclients |02/07/2010 09:58:38 i am know the how are configure thnclients for windowsxp2003 server Reply | Quote

badsai  - with HP thin client |13/08/2010 22:07:58 Hi...thirt can Hp thin client also work with this guide. i have hp t5725 thin client . I want to deploy like this guide. Thank.. Reply | Quote

Wizim |12/11/2010 12:52:06 No, HP has diferent options for HP device managment.... You can find this options in the manual of HPDM Reply | Quote

vinesh  - thin client |08/12/2010 04:43:10 sir, i don't know how to configur thin client ,would u help me Reply | Quote

Raju Gunnal  - Raju Gunnal |22/12/2010 01:12:13 Hi, I have HP thin Client Configured ,and i joined it in Domain, but the problem is that whenever there is some power maintainance or the ThinClient is shutdown , than that HP thinclient device is no longer available in Domain , it wont allow to login, again i have to add that device in Domain , than only it allows users to login , its for Temporary solution like adding HP ThinClient device to domain repeatedly, is there any Permanent Fix for the Same. If yes can sombody please how to fix it. Regards Raju Gunnal Reply | Quote

Shaik  - Configuration of Thin Cllien server 2003 |22/12/2010 05:22:57 How to configure thin client server 2003 please guide me step by step. Reply | Quote

Rakesh Gupta  - configurestion |26/12/2010 23:08:13 how to configure thin client Reply | Quote

Anonymous |28/12/2010 01:01:08 how to configer sunray270 thinclient Reply | Quote

Tapas ranjan sutar |03/01/2011 03:39:01 I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO INSTAL THIN CLIENT IN SERVER 2003 AND BOOTING WITHOUT HARD DISK Reply | Quote

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