Opening RDP Files with browser

Question

In my organization, we are planning to make RDP files available via web browser. The hope is that users can just point their browsers to one or the other RDP file and have the remote desktop client launched automatically by the browser.

What I'm seeing instead is that all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer) consider RDP files to be either audio or movie file and consequently open a media player to play it.

My question is thus: is there a simple way to achieve what I want? why are the various browsers considering RDP to be a media format?

Thanks, Klaus.

Answer 1

For Firefox take a look here:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions

Quote from the link:

They are predisposed to the idea that this is "how files are processed" by everything. In the case of files transferred from a web server to a browser, that is not correct. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFC2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1), Section 7.2.1 Type, states:

Any HTTP/1.1 message containing an entity-body SHOULD include a Content-Type header field defining the media type of that body. If and only if the media type is not given by a Content-Type field, the recipient MAY attempt to guess the media type via inspection of its content and/or the name extension(s) of the URI used to identify the resource.

In other words, how a file is processed by a browser is determined by the Content-Type field in the http Response Header; the file suffix should be ignored when there is a Content-Type field.

Do the following:

• Check that you have it Firefox configured correctly - see the above or this link for example:
  • http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+file+types
• If Firefox is configured to open mstsc on application/x-rdp MIME type, then check that your Web server sends the correct MIME type. Here's the link that explains how to set it up in IIS:
  • http://www.isrcomputing.com/knowledge-base/39-networking-tips/79-how-to-create-rdp-or-ssh-link-using-html
• You can use Firebug to check whether the sent header is correct, take a look here:
  • http://getfirebug.com/network