Category: StoreFront

reconnect only to published desktop or application

Hi guys,

If you ever find yourself in the situation that you want to be able to only publish applications or desktops to your users you can can create two stores (1 for the applications and the other for desktops). You can configure both stores to point to the same XenApp/XenDesktop farm/site. This blog post by Feng Huang describes the configuration of the StoreFront Store in great detail.  When you have this configured and you connect to the Desktops only store, you are only able to (re)connect to desktops. Any opened or disconnected published applications won’t be reconnected from that store. Vice versa this works off course the same, open or disconnected published desktop(s) aren’t reconnected when connecting to the Applications only store.

 

Differences between WI and StoreFront

In the newly released StoreFront Planning Guide (which you can find here) comes this great overview of differences between Web Interface and StoreFront.

Where StoreFront will go beyond Web Interface in the future

Feature Storefront   Web   Interface
XenDesktop   Deployment Scenarios
Cross farm aggregation and   de-duplication Next   version XA farm   migration Only
Configuration   through Citrix AppStudio Next   version No
IPV6   support Next   version No
Windows   Server 2012 support Next   version No
HTML 5 access on more devices Next   version
Authentication   Services
Smartcard support from most Receivers   (LAN and AG) Next   version Windows PNA on LAN Only
Unified EPA/Smart Access across   Receivers Next   version No
SDK for partner extensions (most   Receivers) Next   version Ad-hoc integrations, Web Only

Where StoreFront matches Web Interface Continue reading “Differences between WI and StoreFront”

StoreFront planning guide

Citrix has released a new planning guide. This time it is the planning guide for StoreFront.

Citrix StoreFront, which is the successor to Citrix Web Interface, authenticates users to XenDesktop sites, XenApp farms, and AppController (SaaS Apps), enumerating and aggregating available desktops and applications into stores that users access through Citrix Receiver for Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Win8/RT or Receiver for Web sites. It has been built on a modern, more flexible and powerful framework which enables Storefront to provide next generation features, such as:

  • Unified StoreFront that delivers SaaS & Native Mobile applications (through AppController) as well as XenApp and XenDesktop resources
  • Simplified Account Provisioning, which enables users to connect to assigned desktops and applications by simply entering their email or server address, or by opening a Provisioning File in Receiver.
  • Access from any Receiver with a consistent user experience, including automatic fallback to an HTML 5 client if a native client isn’t available locally and can’t be installed
  • Synchronization of resource subscriptions across all platforms and devices (Follow-me Apps & Data)

This planning guide provides details about the StoreFront architecture and key design decisions.

You can download this planning guide here.

How to configure StoreFront with Access Gateway 5.0.4 in Controller Mode

Citrix has released this cool video (apporx 30 min long) which shows you how to configure StoreFront with Access Gateway 5.0.4 in Controller Mode.

How to Enable Receiver Logging to Troubleshoot StoreFront Activation/Provisioning

This article describes how to enable Receiver Logging to troubleshoot StoreFront store Activation/ Provisioning in Citrix Receiver for Windows.

Procedure

Caution! This procedure requires you to edit the registry. Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Back up the registry before you edit it.

  • Enable Receiver Logging:
  • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFWARECITRIX

StoreFront version 1.2 available

With the release of CloudGateway version 2 Citrix has also released a new version of the StoreFront product.

Here’s what’s new with this release of StoreFront 1.2:

  1. Enhanced Desktop Support:
    • Desktops now show up on a separate tab in Receiver for Web (RfW) to discern desktops from applications better. Moreover, desktop icon now have a visual indicator that shows if there is an active desktop session running or not.
    • Users can can now start/restart desktop through RfW which was not possible in the previous versions of the StoreFront.
    • Auto-launch is now supported for single published desktops via RfW if there is a single desktop assigned to the user.
  2. Simplified Account Provisioning: Account services is a feature introduced in this release of StoreFront that makes it easier for users to create an account and connect to the CloudGateway infrastructure. Users with the most recent Mobile, Windows or Mac receivers can now provision their accounts simply by entering their e-mail address, no need to remember the AG/StoreFront server address any more! This feature requires the setup of SRV records on the DNS server. Please refer to the SF 1.2 documentation for more details.
  3. Plug-in Updates: Users can now automatically get plugin updates through Citrix.com public cloud! Admins can choose to leverage Citrix.com for plug-in updates or rely on Merchandising server or 3rd party SCM tools. Both Windows Receiver 3.3 and Mac 11.6 supports this feature. selected based on the configuration option We have also added a plug-in called HDX RealTime Media Engine.
  4. SmartAccess Support: With this release of StoreFront, we are now in functional parity with Web Interface in terms of SmartAccess support. This means that StoreFront will now honor the session policies that dictate which resources/applications the users will have access to. The SmartAccess support is only available for Receiver for Web in this release.
  5. Fallback to HTML5 Client: StoreFront will fallback to the html5 client if a native client isn’t available locally and can’t be installed for some reason. In this release the the html5 hdx engine will need to be installed separately on the StoreFront server but in future, we expect to make this available out-of-the-box.
  6. Simplified Admin Interface: The configuration for First Time Use is much easier even though we have added more functionality in this release! For example, the authentication dialogue doesn’t appear on the first time use (we make implicit choices for you). The remote access configuration and the data integration (ShareFile) is also much simpler now.
  7. SQL Server 2012 Support: In addition to 2008 Express and Enterprise editions, we now support 2012 Express edition.

You can download this version here at the Citrix download page. (This download requires a valid MyCitrix ID)

Citrix CloudGateway Express 1.2 – Implementation Guide

If you want to setup a lab or you need a good guide to implement your CloudGateway from Citrix, then you can stop searching.

Here’s a good guide how to implement CloudGateway express. Good document on how to install and configure the Express version of Citrix CloudGateway product.