Applications

There are two tabs in this page: Applications, in which to define all possible means to connect to an endpoint, and Profiles, in which to group together several applications and assign them to a device.

Applications

An application can be seen as a means to access from a remote PC or workstation equipped with the Endian S.r.l., Italy ConnectApp to an endpoint or to a service running on an endpoint, possibly using a third-party software installed on the workstation.

The page initially shows the Add application link and a table containing the applications available by default and other information:

  • The name given to identify the application.

  • The type of the application (see further on for more information).

  • Some details about the protocol and port(s) used by the application.

  • A description of the application

  • The available actions for each application.

Above the table, on the right-hand side appears a filter, useful to search among all applications that have been defined in the Switchboard.

When clicking on the Add application link, the applications editor opens right above the table, giving the opportunity to define additional applications.

Add Applications

Two tabs are present in this editor: Application and Advanced parameters. The latter appears only for some of the Application types available.

Application

Name

A name to identify the application.

Organization

The name of an organization to which the use of the appliance is reserved. At least an organization must have been defined in the Organizations section for this option to appear.

Description

A description of the application.

Application type

The type of the application, which can be selected from the drop-down menu.

Note

The choice of the application type influences also the availability of some of the next options; also the options that appear in the Advanced Parameter tab will depend on the application type chosen.

Protocol

The protocol that the application should use, chosen from the drop-down menu. It can be TCP, UDP, or TCP & UDP.

Port

The port used by the application.

URL to open

The URL to be used for the connection. This option is available only when the Application type above is either HTTP or HTTPS.

External URL

Tick the checkbox if the URL to open is different from the remote device.

Opening External URLs

The URL to Open option allows to select a URL that the application will open, which always points to the %DEVICE_IP% IP Address, which is the IP address assigned to a remote device (See Available placeholders below). When also the External URL option is enabled, it is possible to open a different URL, that might not be related to the remote device, and can include also placeholders.

Some example, assuming that the remote device has IP address (%DEVICE_IP%) 10.64.100.12, when the External URL option has been enabled.

https://%DEVICE_IP%:3000/   https://10.64.100.12:3000/

https://host.local:1800/  https://host.local:1880/

https://host.local:1800/target=%DEVICE_IP%  https://host.local:1880/target=10.64.100.12
Enabled

Tick the checkbox to enable the application.

Connect App for Windows

Note

Depending on the Application type chosen, the following option may appear or not.

The next options appear only if the Application type above is Custom and allow to define both the path on the local Windows workstation (the one from which the connection to the Switchboard was started) to launch the application and the arguments to be passed to the program. It is possible to use placeholders, that will be replaced accordingly, see below for more details.

Command path

The full path to the program to use.

Command arguments

Additional arguments to be passed to the program.

The next options concern how the ConnectAPP launches the application to connect to the remote device.

Enable integrated application

By selecting this option, the ConnectAPP will use its integrated application for the remote connection.

Open external application

By ticking this checkbox, it will be possible to specify which external application will be launched to establish the connection to the remote device. Two more option will appear, Command path and Command arguments, that are exactly the same described above and for which it is possible to use the placeholders described next.

Connect App for Mac OS X

Note

Depending on the Application type chosen, the following option may appear or not.

The next options appear only if the Application type above is Custom and allow to define both the path on the local Windows workstation (the one from which the connection to the Switchboard was started) to launch the application and the arguments to be passed to the program. It is possible to use placeholders, that will be replaced accordingly, see below for more details.

Command path

The full path to the program to use.

Command arguments

Additional arguments to be passed to the program.

The next options concern how the ConnectAPP launches the application to connect to the remote device.

Enable integrated application

By selecting this option, the ConnectAPP will use its integrated application for the remote connection.

Open external application

By ticking this checkbox, it will be possible to specify which external application will be launched to establish the connection to the remote device. Two more option will appear, Command path and Command arguments, that are exactly the same described above and for which it is possible to use the placeholders described next.

Available placeholders.

The purpose of a placeholder is to allow the same application to be used on every device, independently of the varying configuration values of each device, like for example their (public) IP addresses.

Placeholders can be used in the HTTP, HTTPS, and Custom application types.

For HTTP and HTTPS types, these are the available placeholders:

  • %DEVICE_IP% the IP address assigned to the device.

  • %PHYSICAL_IP% the physical IP of the device.

  • %SERVER_EXTERNAL_HOST% the FQDN of the server’s public hostname.

  • %SERVER_INTERNAL_IP% for the internal, private IP address.

In the Custom application type, the available placeholders are:

  • %PROGRAM_PATH%: The default installation directory for applications (usually C:\Program Files).

  • %SYSTEM_DRIVE%: The drive containing the Windows root directory (C:\).

  • %SYSTEM_ROOT%: The Windows root directory (C:\Windows).

  • %HOME_PATH%: The user’s home directory (C:\Documents and Settings\`username`).

As an example of application, suppose that each workstation equipped with Windows and the ConnectApp has also the program PuTTy installed in user’s home directory. To allow users to use putty to connect via SSH, define an application with the following configuration values:

  • Name: PuTTy -SSH

  • Description SSH via PuTTy

  • Application Type: Custom

  • Protocol: TCP

  • Port: 22

  • Command path: %HOME_PATH%\putty.exe

  • Command args: username@%DEVICE_IP%

Note that username must be a valid user account on the endpoint.

Advanced parameters

Depending on the application type chosen in the other tab, the following common options are available for all types except for Custom.

See also

To find more detailed information about the configuration of the advanced options of the VNC, RDP, SSH, and Telnet connections, refer also to the Connection configuration section in the guacamole manual.

Advanced protocol configuration

Username

The username used for the remote login.

Password, Confirm Password

The password that is used for the login, repeated twice for confirmation.

There is also the possibility to define advanced options for the following types:

  • SSH

    Private key

    Use the textfield to paste the private key used for the connection.

    Passphrase, Confirm Passphrase

    Write here the passphrase that corresponds to the private key.

    Terminal color scheme

    Select from the drop-down menu the colors used in the SSH terminal.

    Font

    The font used in the terminal.

    Font size

    The size of the font.

  • RDP

    There are a number of options that can be configured with this type of connection, but they are not required in most cases. These options allow to customise the authentication, the session, the audio support, some performance boost, and the RemoteApp.

  • VNC

    Number of connection retries

    The number of times the connection should be attempted after an unsuccessful try.

    Color depth

    Choose the color depth used for the connection.

    Swap red-blue

    Invert the red and blue colours.

    Cursor

    Choose from the drop-down menu whether to use the local or remote cursor.

    Read only connection

    Tick the checkbox to disallow the client to make changes on the remote device.

    Clipboard encoding

    The encoding to assume for the VNC clipboard. This should be changed only if the VNC server supports encodings different from the standard ISO 8859-1.

  • Telnet

    Username regex

    The regular expression that recognises the correct moment when to send the username to the remote device.

    Password regex

    The regular expression that recognises the moment when to send the password to the remote device.

    Terminal color scheme

    Select from the drop-down menu the colors used in the SSH terminal.

    Font

    The font used in the terminal.

    Font size

    The size of the font.

  • Custom

    For custom applications, click on Add row to add a new parameter, and then fill in the following information:

    Parameter name

    The name of the parameter.

    Value

    The value of that parameter.

It is possible to add any number of options and their values, these will be passed on the command line to the application.

Profiles

Applications can be grouped together into Profiles and attached to single endpoints, tailoring the possibility to access them. In other words, it is possible to configure applications on a given endpoint so that it can be reached only via some given protocols (e.g., RDP, SSH or HTTP) or services (e.g., VNC). The choice of the applications can be influenced also by the endpoint’s running operating system and services.

The page contains the Add profile button, above the table carrying the list of all the available profiles and some information about each profile:

  • The name given to the profile.

  • The applications that are part of the profile.

  • The available actions on each profile.

Note

In case one or more profiles are deleted, the single applications will not be deleted: To remove an existing application, go to Applications.

Above the table, on the right-hand side appears a filter, useful to search among all profiles that have been defined in the Switchboard.

When clicking on the Add profile link, the editor opens right above the table. Here, additional profiles can be created, by supplying the following information:

Add Profile

Name

A name to identify the profile.

Organization

Select for which organization the Profile will be available.

Description

A note about the profile.

Applications

Available applications are listed in this dual-listbox. To search for an application, use the textbox on top of the box, To move an application from one column to the other, simply click on it, while to move all applications from one column to the other, click on the or icons on top of the columns.