Manual Chapter : Configuring App Tunnel Access

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 6.0.0
Manual Chapter

Configuring App Tunnel Access

What are app tunnels?

An app tunnel (application tunnel) provides secure, application-level TCP/IP connections from the client to the network. App tunnels are particularly useful for users with limited privileges who attempt to access particular web applications, as app tunnels do not require that the user has administrative privileges to install.

Additionally, optimization is available for app tunnels. With compression settings for app tunnels, you can specify the available compression codecs for client-to-server connections. The server compares the available compression types configured with the available compression types on the server, and chooses the most effective mutual compression setting. You configure compression for the server in the connectivity profile.

Note: Because app tunnels do not require administrative rights, some features of Network Access and Optimized Application tunnels are not available with app tunnels. For example, the application tunnel cannot easily resolve domain names in applications without a client-side DNS redirector, or modification of the system hosts file.
Important: For tunnels that access backend servers by using DNS resolution, use Optimized Application Tunnels in the Network Access menus instead. Optimized Applications require administrative rights on the local system.

Configure an app tunnel object

When you create an app tunnel object, that object becomes a simple container that holds app tunnel resources. Once you specify those resources from within the app tunnel resource, you can then assign the resource to an access policy.
  1. Log in to the BIG-IQ system with your user name and password.
  2. At the top of the screen, select Configuration, then on the left side of the screen, clickACCESS > Access Groups.
  3. Click the name of the Access group that interests you.
    A new screen displays the group's properties.
  4. Expand Connectivity / VPN and click App Tunnels.
  5. Click Create.
    The New App Tunnel screen opens.
  6. Type a name and description for your app tunnel.
  7. Although an ACL is automatically created for your application object, you can choose to determine the order of your ACL as it appears in the ACL list. Use the ACL Order list to select the placement you want.
  8. Under Default Customization Settings, type a Caption for the app tunnel.
    This caption identifies the app tunnel and enables it to appear on a full webtop.
  9. To save your changes, click the Save & Close button at the bottom of the screen.
You have just created an app tunnel object.