Rubenerd

As mentioned last week, SecureCRT’s Session Manager is one of my new favourite things. Being able to access all the hosts I manage in one hierarchical sidebar has improved my quality of life more than I care to admit. About all it can't do is define RDP hosts.

Or... can it? If you use Microsoft Remote Desktop app, you can export a host definition, then launch it from a local shell connection from SecureCRT. It’s a hack, but it works!

1. Open Microsoft Remote Desktop on the Mac. Choose a host, then go File/Export. Save the resulting file somewhere memorable.

2. Choose Create New Session in SecureCRT, and name it the same as your Microsoft Remote Desktop host.

3. Under Connection/Protocol, choose Local Shell.

4. Under Terminal, check Close on disconnect. We don't want the empty tab sticking around when we launch RDP.

5. Under Logon Actions, click Add... and add the following (or equivalent) to Send:

open ~/Documents/RDP/Host.rdp && exit

Now I have RDP, SSH, telnet and serial consoles for all the hosts I maintain in the one place. Living the dream, people.