Certain keys (arrows, page-up, page-down) not working in rdesktop-vrdp

Question

I start and stop my VM headless style.

Start

VBoxHeadless -s Windows -v on -e "TCP/Address=0.0.0.0" -e "TCP/Ports=3389" 

Stop

VBoxManage  controlvm Windows poweroff

And I connect to it using the rdesktop protocol that VirtualBox natively supports.

rdesktop-vrdp localhost:3389

However after my kernel was forcefully upgraded for me today, I had to also upgrade my Virtualbox installation from VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.8_75467_fedora16-1.i686.rpm to VirtualBox-4.2-4.2.6_82870_fedora16-1.i686.rpm and after doing so, found myself unable to use arrow keys, control keys, page-up, page-down, etc, in my rdesktop-vrdp VM window.

So the problem is: control/alt/arrow/etc keys not working in rdesktop-vrdp.

Answer 1

As it turns out, rdesktop-vrdp is bundled within the Virtualbox installation, so even though it was working before the upgrade, it has stopped working. That's not the right rdesktop tool anyways.

The right tool is available through the package manager

yum install rdesktop

Solution: Stop using rdesktop-vrdp and start using rdesktop.