Fix error: server hostname was not specified in PAC Manager

This article will guide you handle the error error: server hostname was not specified with /v:<server>[:port] in PAC Manager. If you are a Linux system administrator, you’re probably no stranger to the PAC Manager software. This is a software that helps you manage the server connection quite well.

Error: server hostname was not specified with /v:<server>[:port]

While working on Linux, there are times when you will have to work with some windows servers. It’s easy to remote from a Windows client to a Windows server. But when you use a PAC, you may encounter the following error when setting up a connection with the RDP is xfreerdp.

WARNING: Using deprecated command-line interface!
-a 24 -> /bpp:24
-T  - DANIE -> /title: - DANIE
-g 1364x715 -> /size:1364x715 or /w:1364 /h:715
-u danie -> /u:danie
-x 80 -> /network broadband
-z -> /compression
--ignore-certificate -> /cert-ignore
(null) -> /v:(null)
error: server hostname was not specified with /v:<server>[:port]

I was very upset with this error because I did not know how to solve it. Another solution is to use rdesktop instead of xfreerdp when setting up an RDP connection on the PAC Manager.

But the downside is that rdesktop only display 16bit color screen so the screen will be very bad. I do not like it.

Resolve error in PAC Manager

After a lot of time searching and reading what I’m facing. I found a way to solve that problem.

You will need to edit the PAC Manager code, but it’s pretty simple. You run the following command to open 938 of the file /opt/pac/lib/pac_conn.

sudo nano +938 /opt/pac/lib/pac_conn

You will see two lines as shown in the image below, the line is highlighted in the picture.

You need to edit the content of the two lines from:

$connection_cmd = "$METHOD $CONNECT_OPTS" . ( $MANUAL ? '' : " -u $USER" ) . " $IP:$PORT -T \"$TITLE\"";
$connection_txt = "$METHOD $CONNECT_OPTS" . ( $MANUAL ? '' : " -u $USER" ) . " $IP:$PORT -T \"$TITLE\"";

To:

$connection_cmd = "$METHOD $CONNECT_OPTS" . ( $MANUAL ? '' : " -u $USER" ) . " -T \"$TITLE\" $IP:$PORT";
$connection_txt = "$METHOD $CONNECT_OPTS" . ( $MANUAL ? '' : " -u $USER" ) . " -T \"$TITLE\" $IP:$PORT";

You then save the changes to the file.

Then you can try the RDP connection with xfreerdp to see if it succeeds, with the above method I have done successfully.

Conclusion

If you are also facing the error can not make RDP connection on the PAC Manager as in the article that I stated. Hope through the steps you can solve that error and you can work comfortably.

(This is an article from my old blog that has been inactive for a long time, I don’t want to throw it away so I will keep it and hope it helps someone).