Specifications

DeTOS 7 Administration Manual
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6.5 Achieving Persistence in VDI Blaster PCs
Once you have installed the VDI Blaster software, for all intents and purposes, your PC has been converted into a thin
client terminal and now possesses virtually all of the same attributes and behaviors one would expect from a typical thin
client device. Your PC now runs in a stateless, non-persistent mode. This means any connections or system settings
configured in the DeTOS Control Panel will be discarded on reboot unless the terminal is being remotely managed by
Devon IT's Echo Thin Client Management server. More specifically, a profile must be created AND applied to these newly
converted thin client terminals to maintain persistent settings across multiple system reboots.
The VDI Blaster terminals run a service, the DeTOS Agent, which communicates back and forth with the Echo server.
When a terminal is booted, the DeTOS Agent will announce its presence to the Echo server by continuously sending
XML-based messages known as heartbeats. By default, the agent will be sending these messages out to a server named
”ws-broker.” You can change the “Server Address” to another IP in the DeTOS Control Panel, by clicking Management.
Once the agent heartbeats into the server for the first time, the discovery process begins and varied information about that
device will be displayed in a new row in the “Terminals” table in Echo. The default name of the device will be set to a
unique identifier, consisting of 32 alphanumeric characters. The terminal's IP Address and MAC Address are also reported
in this row. The best method for identifying newly discovered terminals is to match these two addresses with the IP and
MAC addresses reported on the terminal's Interface Status screen.
Once you locate your terminal in the inventory table, it is recommended that you rename that terminal entry to a more
meaningful value. To do this, right-click the terminal row and select Rename from the context menu. On the right hand side
of the screen, enter the nickname of your terminal in the “Name” field and press the OK button.
Another important step that occurs during the discovery process is the application of profiles. Upon receiving a heartbeat
message, Echo will determine whether a profile has been associated to this terminal. If so, then all connections and
settings included in that profile will immediately be applied to that terminal. If the terminal does not have a profile
associated with it, then the next step that Echo takes is to search for a special profile named Default in its profile
inventory and proceed to apply all connections and settings defined within that “default “profile to the terminal. At this
point, if a default profile isn't found, then Echo has reached the end of its profile search and the result will be a terminal
that simply has no connections or settings permanently associated with it.