Friday, January 29, 2016

Using URL redirection on your Citrix environment

URL redirection is sometimes needed when you want to start an webbased application locally on the computer for different reasons.  You can use “Local App Access” feature in the Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop solutions or you can use the “Netscaler Unified Gateway” for publishing any webbased application  on the portal, both features will start web-based applications locally on the remote pc.

For using URL redirection on the Citrix XenApp 7.* infrastructure you need at least Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop Platinum licenses to activate the “Local App Access” feature.   To use the “Netscaler Unified Gateway” feature you will need at least Netscaler Enterprise or Platinum licenses.
 If you want to know how to configure , just select the links for "Local App Access" or  "Netscaler 11 Unified Gateway"

 In my article I’ll describe what you can do when you don’t have the proper licenses to use URL redirection.

The solution is very simple but you need take to notice of the following:

·        User should be member of local admin group on the workstation or laptop.
·        You will need “PSExec.exe from the Microsoft Sysinternals.
·        Batch file for starting the “PSExec.exe” on the remote PC.
·        A share for the batch and “PSExec.exe” files
·        Publish the batch file in your Citrix environment

You need to create a rule in the batch file for starting the “PSExec.exe” on the remote PC, see below, and just edit the location of the “PSExec.exe” UNC path and between the quotes.

Batch file:
-----------
@echo off
\\UNC path\PSTools$\psexec.exe  \\%CLIENTNAME%  -i -d -e EXPLORER “https://www.google.com
-----------

To allow the PSExec to be copied and start the “Explorer” on the remote pc, the hidden share \\localhostadmin$ should be reachable on the remote pc.  When you are a member of the local admin group you can open this share, if not you should test if \\localhost\c$ can be opened. If not you can follow the following steps:

  • Make a registry change with "regedit"
  • Change the following key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System"
  • Create or modify a REG_DWORD value: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy = 1
  • Restart your remote pc to enable the setting
Of course you can also follow the above steps for any other VDI/SBC solution than Citrix.

Sharing my Knowledge

When you're in the IT business for almost 14 years, like me, you will find that your experience and knowledge has grown to a level in which you have almost seen any designs, IT solutions or troubleshooting issues in your IT field of experience. Sometimes you're looking for  knowledge in the past to solve any questions in the present,  but you can't remember or find in any other blogs or articles.

To solve that problem I'm starting to blog, to build up my own knowledge library and to help others when they are searching for an answer on simple or complicated IT questions.

Have fun reading and just drop any comments.