How to Publish Desktop in Citrix XenApp 6.5
How to Publish Desktop in Citrix XenApp 6.5
In this post, we’ll learn the steps to publish Desktop in Citrix XenApp 6.5, in other words we can also call it Hosted Shared Desktop. In which one Server can be shared with group of Users. In Windows Server it is also known as RDP remote Desktop services which runs on port 3389 and doesn’t require any additional software to be deployed.
In the previous post, we learned the steps to install Citrix XenApp 6.5 and steps to publish an application in XenApp 6.5. Hosted Shared Desktop i.e. HSD is primarily used for the task workers i.e. for the Organizations where one application will be used by multiple users and all the data will get store in the backend database. It is not a preferred kind of Shared Desktops for Developers or for white collar executives.
Steps to Desktop Publishing in Citrix XenApp 6.5
1. To publish Citrix Desktop in XenApp 6.5, open Citrix AppCenter. Through this console, we can manage all the administrative tasks related to Citrix XenApp. Expand the name of your Citrix Farm and right click on Applications and select Publish application. Don’t get confused with the name as it is also used to Desktop Publishing.
2. A welcome wizard is started. Click on Next to continue. This wizard will give you with all the steps that you need to take. Moreover it also gives you an option to click on the back button and change the settings if required.
3. On Name console, enter the name of the application which users can see. In this practical, we have entered “Desktop” as a display name because we are publishing desktop. You can also add a description about the application, it would be good for your reference in future. Once done click on Next to continue.
4. In Citrix XenApp6.5, we can see options related to Content and Application but we need to select “Server desktop” for Citrix desktop publishing. It is the type of application to publish from the console. Click on Next to proceed.
5. On Servers console, configure which servers will host the desktop. This means the server whose remote desktop connection port we’ll connect. At the backend it will connect to RDP i.e. remote Desktop of the Server. Selecting multiple servers will provide load balancing and high availability. Click on Add to add the servers.
6. Double click on Servers to see the list of available servers in the Citrix farm. Select the servers that will host the desktop and click on Add. You can add more than one Server if you want load balancing in your environment. Click on Ok to close this console.
7. Again on Servers console, we can see the selected servers that will host the desktop. If we select more than one Server then user can select either of that, Click on Next to continue.
8. To Publish Desktop in Citrix XenApp, on Users console, define the users who can access the published desktop. Normally in any environment we select set of Domain users whom we want to give access HSD. Select “Allow only configured users” and click on Add to add the users.
9. On Select Users and Groups console, double click on your domain to add the domain users. Enter the credentials of domain administrator to connect to domain console and fetch the user information. Please ensure that the user who you type has access to read domain user details from the Active Directory.
10. Select the users for accessing the published desktop and click on Add. Click on OK to continue.
Steps to create Domain Controller
11. On Shortcut presentation console, click on the button of Change icon to change the icon of the application. We can also create a shortcut of this application on the Start menu or on Desktop from this console. Click on Next to continue.
12. On Publish immediately console, select the option of “Disable application initially” to disable the published application. We can enable this disabled application later. Select the option of “Configure advanced application settings now” to configure the advanced application settings. In this practical, we have not selected any of those options. Click on Finish to publish the Desktop now.
13. To access the published desktop from any client computer, ensure Citrix Reciever should be installed on the client. Now, open the browser and type the URL of your web interface. In this practical, ctx02.itingredients.com is our web interface. On the Log on console, enter the credentials of the user who has the rights to access the desktop. We use the credentials of user Test1. Click on Log On.
14. We can see the published desktop under the Desktops tab. Click on the icon to access, it would open the published desktop.
Hope you understood the steps of Citrix Desktop publishing in Citrix XenApp 6.5. Feel free to leave your feedback, suggestions and comments in the comment section. Do share if you are using Hosted Shared Desktop in your Organization and for what kind of users.