I am currently automating the installation of a legacy windows 7 application, that requires a desktop session on the target machine. We are currently setting up automated testing system (using Jenkins) that requires that the desktop app be started and running in a gui session.
This is currently done with a manual step to login to a console with "remote desktop to port 3389" and start this desktop app, however as soon as I try to script this configuration, I run into the problem of needing a GUI app for my rdp tool on the client side.
The application is effectively running as a server, but has a gui that needs to be available within a console or rdesktop session.
Is there a configuration for one of the RDP client tools (for linux or windows) that can connect to the running Rdp server, login and start a session (with no x-server, or local gui app)
Possible solutions
Guacamole is a "clientless" rdp gateway, so I think it might be possible to script it to make an initial connection automatically, which is sufficient for my purposes (though it seems pretty heavyweight)
python rdp library; https://github.com/citronneur/rdpy
Use the Rdesktop in "bitmap" mode, so it streams the remote session to "disk", rather than to a x-server.