Terminal Server and loopback address usage

citrixloopbackterminal-serverwindows-server-2008

Been trying to research this question to no avail yet!.

Perhaps somebody can help.

I am trying to identify if localhost on a TS works in the same way as a straight server. If I have an application being launched in every TS session listening on a certain port will it fail or will it treat every RDP session as a separate localhost instance? Will to port fail to bind in more than one session or will it just treat every RDP session as a ringfenced environment?

Thanks

Best Answer

A service or application listener can bind to only one unique combination of host address and port.

If a given program instance binds to a specific ip address and a specific port on a host to listen for incoming connections, a second instance trying to bind to the same combination will fail.

Just as a thought you could solve this by implementing a connection broker intercepting the incoming connections on a given port and using one mechanism or other (proxying? redirecting?) passing these on to the correct unique application listener.

This assumes each terminal session user has the power to invoke a custom listener. Enabling that would be highly unusual sysadminship.