RES Workspace Manager 2014 SR2 – Citrix XA/XD 7.x Support: Publishing
This post originally appeared on the RES blog before the company was acquired by Ivanti in July 2017.
Today we will dive into the Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop integration and publishing options within RES Workspace Manager 2014 SR2. There is a lot to tell, so let’s start.
Configure Integration
Prior to publishing applications, you can optionally configure the integration options under Setup -> Application Virtualization -> Citrix XenApp Publishing.
Out of the box, RES Workspace Manager will determine the available Delivery Controllers, within the Citrix site, which can be used for communication (publishing applications and retrieve Delivery Groups). Publishing applications will be performed under the context of the RES Workspace Manager Console user. This user needs to be at least a Citrix Delivery Group Administrator. There might be requirements to assign these tasks to a dedicated Delivery Controller. Even a dedicated account can be configured, which will be used for publishing applications and Delivery Group updates. This account also needs to be at least a Citrix Delivery Group Administrator.
Reasons to define a Delivery Controller and/or account are:
- Application Managers without permissions within Citrix Studio need to be able to publish applications.
- Remote publishing, i.e., publishing applications from a Windows 7 client without Citrix Studio, will use the RES Workspace Manager Agent Service credentials from the Citrix server. By default, this service runs under Local System with lack of permissions within Citrix.
Go to Setup > Application Virtualization > Citrix XenApp Publishing. At the Citrix XenApp 7.x tab, configure the following:
- Enable “Use the following credentials to publish applications” to define the account which will be used for communication with Citrix. This account is required to be at least a Citrix Delivery Group Administrator. Optionally you can define a different account per Site.
On the Defaults tab, use the refresh button () to retrieve the available Delivery Groups.The refresh button is only available on a computer with both RES Workspace Manager and Citrix Studio installed, or on a Delivery Controller with RES Workspace Manager installed.
Every 12 hours the Delivery Groups are being updated automatically. Requirements for this automatic update:
- Citrix Delivery Controller with RES Workspace Manager installed.
- Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent with RES Workspace Manager + Citrix Studio installed.
Verify the configuration using Setup -> Application Virtualization -> Citrix XenApp Publishing -> Settings -> Test Publishing Ability. Using this button will test for every configured Citrix Site if they can be contacted with the provided credentials or with the Console user account.
Publishing Applications
It is possible to publish, unpublish, and update published applications to Citrix XenDesktop 7.x / XenApp 7.x. Within Citrix XenDesktop 7.x/XenApp 7.x applications can be published only in Delivery Groups. Due to this limitation, it is no longer possible to use servers or server groups.
- On the application Publishing tab, select Servers and the appropriate Delivery Group to which the application needs to be published.
- On the Settings tab, select “Enable Instant Passthrough for computers not publishing this application” if it is required.
For Citrix Receiver 4.x with Citrix StoreFront, no further configuration is necessary in the Instant Passthrough Settings. The correct settings will be detected automatically. It is important here to follow the guidelines outlined in How to Configure Citrix Receiver Pass-Through Authentication for StoreFront or Web Interface.
Receiver 3.x with StoreFront is supported with the following remarks: Do not use the Legacy Receiver / Enterprise Received, only supported for Citrix XenDesktop 7.x / XenApp 7.5 published applications. Citrix XenApp 6.x or earlier published applications (via RES Workspace Manager) are not supported.
For Legacy Citrix Receiver 3.x (with PNA) with Citrix StoreFront, fill in the Citrix Store Service Delivery Controller name in the XenApp Services Site Farm name field. Configure Citrix Receiver 3.x to connect to the XenApp Services URL, which can be found in the Citrix StoreFront console under Stores > Configure Legacy Support.
- If the so called Citrix ‘KEYWORDS’ are required, these can be entered in the Description field of the application. You will find more information on this here:
- In the Client Settings tab, the Category can be configured. This is the Application Category where the application is shown in the Citrix Receiver.
The following order will be respected in the case of publishing applications from within the RES Workspace Manager Console:
- Citrix Studio available on the local machine – publishing will be handled locally
- Citrix Studio not available on the local machine – the application will be published remotely. Consider the following order:
a) Citrix Delivery Controller with RES Workspace Manager installed
b) Citrix Virtual Desktop Agent with RES Workspace Manager + Citrix Studio installed
c) Any other computer with RES Workspace Manager + Citrix Studio installed
Coming soon in our next post, we will describe how to migrate published applications with RES Workspace Manager.