Manual Chapter : Configuring Remote Desktop Access

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 6.0.0
Manual Chapter

Configuring Remote Desktop Access

What are remote desktops?

Remote desktops allow users to access the following types of internal servers in virtual desktop sessions:

  • Microsoft Remote Desktop servers
  • Citrix servers
  • VMware View Connection servers

You can configure remote desktops by name or by their internal IP addresses, and grant or deny users the ability to set up their own favorites.

Configure a resource for remote desktops

You can configure BIG-IQ so users can access internal servers in virtual desktop sessions. Refer to the online help for more information about the parameters you can configure for remote desktops.
  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 VDI / RDP > Remote Desktops.
  5. Click Create.
    The New Remote Desktops List screen opens.
  6. In the Name field, type a name for this desktop resource.
  7. From the Type list, select Citrix, RDP, or VMware View.
  8. For Destination, select a destination Type (Host Name, IP Address, or Pool) then specify destination servers for Citrix, Microsoft RDP, or VMware View:
    • Host Name - Type the host name and, in the Port field, type a port number.
      Note: For Citrix and VMware View, the standard port is 80 and for Microsoft RDP, the standard port is 3389.
    • IP Address - Type the IP address and, in the Port field, type a port number.
    • Pool - Select, or create and then select, a pool of Citrix XML Brokers or View Connection servers.
  9. To provide SSL capabilities between the BIG-IP system and the Citrix or the VMware View destination servers, for Server Side SSL select Enable.
  10. In ACL Order, type a number.
    This specifies the ACL order of this remote desktop resource for APM ACLs.
  11. To enable the system to log packets sent from any of the destination servers, from the Log list, select Packet.
  12. To enable the first application from Citrix to run automatically, select the Auto Launch check box.
  13. To open a cross-platform Java client for a Microsoft RDP connection, select the Java Client check box.
    When Java Client is enabled, Windows, Mac, and Linux clients can use RDP connections through the same connection. Also, these areas are disabled: Access to Local Resources and User Experience, and 32-bit color depth is disabled from Screen Properties.
  14. To specify custom settings that affect the rendering of certain features for Citrix or Microsoft RDP, type text in the Custom Parameters field .
    The format of the value for each terminal resource is different.
    Custom parameters example for Citrix: [Section1]Name1=Value1 Name2=Value2[Section2]
    Custom parameters example for Microsoft RDP: screen mode id:i:1use multimon:i:0desktopwidth:i:1440desktopheight:i:900session bpp:i:32

Use these steps to enable Single Sign-On.

  1. To configure Single Sign-On, for Enable SSO select Enable.
  2. For RDP or VMware View remote desktop types, specify the Username Source, Password Source, and Domain Source fields.
  3. For a Citrix remote desktop type, select from the SSO Method list and specify values for any additional fields that display.

Use these steps to configure additional settings for an RDP remote desktop resource type.

  1. In the Application Properties area, to specify an Application to Start, type the full path to the application on the target server and prefix the application name with a pound (#) sign for published applications. For example, type #app_name.
  2. In the Customization Settings for English area, in the Caption field type a caption for the remote desktop resource.
  3. To save your changes, click the Save & Close button at the bottom of the screen.