14. Publishing through the Citrix Management Console

Publishing an application on a MetaFrame XP server makes it available to ICA Client users (with proper authorization). You can publish applications across multiple servers in the server farm. With optional Citrix Load Manager, you can balance connections from ICA Client users, to connect users to the least-loaded MetaFrame XP servers.  With application publishing, you can:

       Increase your control over application deployment

       Shield users from the mechanics of the Windows server environment

       Push application icons and shortcuts to user desktops through Program Neighborhood

The Citrix Management Console simplifies application publishing. With the Citrix Management Console, you can publish applications on any server in the MetaFrame XP server farm, including servers that are temporarily out of operation.

Types of Applications You Can Publish

MetaFrame XP supports publishing of the following types of applications.

Standard Applications 

You can publish any application that can run on the Windows console (32-bit Windows applications, 16-bit Windows applications, DOS applications, POSIX applications, and OS/2 applications).

Citrix Installation Manager Applications

To publish Citrix Installation Manager Applications, you must install Citrix Installation Manager on your network. Citrix Installation Manager performs remote unattended installation of applications on Citrix servers. Using Installation Manager, you can simultaneously install an out-of-the-box application on all Citrix servers on your network from a single point without manual intervention. You can install applications on servers regardless of their physical location, network connection type, or individual hardware setup.

Citrix Installation Manager can push application installations to Citrix servers and it can uninstall applications. Publishing a Citrix Installation Manager application causes each server that you specify, to download and install the application. Deleting a published Installation Manager application uninstalls the application from each server that you specified to run the application.  For more information on Installation Manager please refer to the Installation Manager Chapter later in this document.

Content Publishing

Content Publishing was added to MetaFrame through Feature Release 1 and it required that you have a FR1 licenses installed and activated.

Using Published Applications

When you publish an application, configuration information for the application is stored in the IMA data store for the server farm. The configuration information includes properties of the ICA connection, including its name, users who can connect to the application, and client-side session properties that includes window sizes, number of colors, level of encryption, and audio settings.

To the ICA Client user, a published application appears very similar to an application running locally on the client device. When the users access applications through an NFuse application portal, the applications they are authorized to access appear as icons on a customized Web page. NFuse connects the users client device to the application and downloads the appropriate ICA Client, if necessary, to the users device.

14. 1.    How to Publish an Application

1.       Click Start  Click Programs  Click Citrix  Click Citrix Management Console

2.       Enter an administrator account and click OK

3.       Right click on the Applications container and click Publish Application.

4.       The Application Publishing Wizard appears (as shown below)

5.       Enter the required Display Name, entering an Application Description is optional, then click Next.  

6.       You are now promoted for the Published applications executable.   Enter the path  or browse to the application executable and click Next.

Note: If you want to publish a Desktop select the Publish Desktop radio button.

7.       You can specify a folder to contain the applications icon.  Enter the desired settings and click Next.

8.       You are now prompted to specify the application appearance.  In the Session Window Size drop down box select Percent of client desktop.  In the Colors drop down box select High Color (16 bit) .  Check the Hide application title bar checkbox and click Next.

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9.       Select Audio Off in the Audio drop down box.  Select Basic in the Encrption drop down box and click Next.  (we will supply additional encryption through Citrix Secure Gateway explained later in this document)

10.    The next screen you are presented with is only available to servers with a Feature Release 1 license.  You can set the number of instances the particular application is available for.  You can also select the CPU priority level for a particular published application.  

11.    You are now prompted to specify the servers that will host this application.  Select the appropriate servers and click Next.

12.    The next screen is asking you to specify the users and or groups that have access to the published application.   From the Available Account list box, highlight the users and or groups you would like to give access to the application and click Add to add them to the Configured Accounts list box.  When finished click Finish.

You have now successfully published an application that will be accessible through the NFuse application portal.

14. 2.    How to Publish Content

With MetaFrame XP Feature Release 1, you have the ability to provide access to content files including media files, Web pages, or documents. After selecting this application type, you must specify the URL or UNC path to the file that you want to publish.  The end-users will need to have access to the content you are publishing.  i.e., if you are publishing a document by UNC name the end-user would need to have access to that particular UNC name from their local machine. 

1.       Open the Citrix Management Cosole and right click on Applications - Click Publish Applications

2.       Enter a Display name and application description (optional) and click Next

3.       Select the Content radio button  enter the URL or UNC address of the content you want to publish.  Click Next

4.       You are now prompted to select where the icon will reside within the Program Neighborhood / NFuse interface.  You are also able to select how a shortcut will be generated on the end-users desktop / start menu and how Program Neighborhood agent will deal with it.  You are also able to change the icon that will be presented to the end-user.   Click Next when finished.

5.       You are now prompted to specify the users who will have access to the published content and click Next.

You have now successfully published content that will be available the specified end-users via the locally associated application.

14. 3.    How to Publish a Shortcut

From time to time you will run across an application that you are not able to publish because you need to make changes to the applications shortcut and or you want to publish a Microsoft Management Console and are unable.  Unfortunately, MetaFrame XP in unable to publish a shortcut at this time but the workaround for this shortcoming is to create a batch file to launch the shortcut with the START command and then publish the batch file.  

To publish a shortcut, follow these steps:

1.       Create the shortcut and modify its properties as necessary.

2.       Create a batch file with the following line:

start d:\app\shortcut.lnk

where shortcut.lnk is the shortcut file you created in Step 1.

3.       Publish this batch file as discribed in How to Publish an Application shown above.

The following are the arguments of the DOS Start command.

14. 4.    How to Publish the Windows Explorer 

In a published application environment (vs. published desktop) it may be necessary to allow users to remotely run an explorer window.  A savvy administrator could use this methodology to publish a users home drive, or the Printers folder for example. 

On TSE, this can be done relatively securely with little or no modification to the shell environment.  In Win2K, however, it is much less secure because of the Address bar.  Make sure your environment is secured satisfactorily before using this in either environment.

Create a copy of explorer.exe called something else (like pubExplorer.exe). 

Publish the new exe with some of the following parameters:

For example, publishing pubExplorer.exe /e, /root, u:\ would open an Explorer window set at the root of the U: drive.

For details on how to publish the Printers folder visit this: http://www.tweakcitrix.com/Site%20File%20Repository/Publish%20Printers%20Folder.txt

14. 5.    How to Publish the Printer Folder

If you will be giving access to Published applications only you might want to publish the Printer Folder to give the end-user access to add, edit and remove printers.  

The Printers folder is a shell extension that usually resides off of the Control Panel. A globally unique ID (GUID) declares shell extensions.  Printers is a Control Panel extension in the registry under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}. This generated identifier represents the extension and points to the proper DLL to run it. It defines the icon, the folder name, and so on. Using this extension with its default name value (Printers), you can run the extension independently in an Explorer instance. For example, you could create a new folder on your root drive or desktop and name it Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}. When you press Enter after you create this folder, you'll notice that the folder icon changes to the Printers folder icon. If you open the folder, you'll see your printers.

You can create this new folder in the All Users profile folder in the Start Menu, and you can also publish the folder as a published application. First, copy the \WTSRV\explorer.exe program to a new location with a new name (e.g., D:\Print\explorerp.exe). You rename it so that it runs as a unique process. Then publish the function using the new Explorer instance. You can name the application Print and use the following command line (assuming you created the Printers folder on the root drive M):

D:\print\explorerp.exe /n,/root,D:\Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}.

The procedure I've just described gives you a Printers folder that is accessible from a locked-down desktop and a published ICA application.