Note: The Web subcategory is only available if the gateway mode is set to normal.
The Web category allows you to tweak settings necessary for load balancing in certain scenarios. Here you can specify a redirection URL for web requests and a session cookie name to maintain persistence between a client and a server.
The original web request can reach the gateway one of the following two ways:
The request is sent directly to the Gateway over the local network using its IP address or FQDN. For example, https://192.168.10.10.
The request is sent to a HALB device that load-balances this and other gateways in the Farm. The HALB device often faces the Internet (i.e. located in DMZ) and so its DNS name can be used in the original request URL. For example, https://ras.msp.com. The HALB device is then distributes the request to a gateway.
When the gateway receives the web request, it takes the URL specified in the Web category and sends it back to the web browser for redirection.
Technically, you can enter any URL here, and the original web request will be redirected to that URL. The primary purpose of this field, however, is to give end users an easy way to access the User Portal from their web browsers. Here's how it works:
A user enters the Load Balancer DNS name in a web browser. For example, https://ras.msp.com.
The Load Balancer receives the request and distributes it to the least-busy RAS Secure Gateway for processing.
The gateway receives the original URL and replaces it with the URL specified in the Default URL field. See the Default URL format subsection below.
The replaced URL is then sent back to the web browser, which uses it to open the User Portal login page.
The default URL format is the following:
https://%hostname%/userportal
The %hostname% variable is automatically replaced with the name of the server that received the original request, which in our example is the Load Balancer DNS name. If you wish, you can replace the variable with a specific host name or IP address (e.g. this or some other gateway). For example, https://192.168.5.5/userportal. If you do this, the web requests will always be forwarded to the specified host and will open the User Portal on it. Hard-coding a host may not be very practical, but you can do this nevertheless.
userportal is a constant and is the path to the User Portal login page.
In our example, the resulting URL that the web browser will use to access the User Portal is the following:
https://ras.msp.com/userportal
The fact is, a user could simply use the above URL from the start, but thanks to the redirection feature, users only need to enter the server DNS name (or FQDN/IP-address on the local network) instead of the entire URL.
User Portal Themes is a feature that allows you to custom design the User Portal look and feel for different groups of users.
The default web request URL opens the default Theme. To make it open a specific Theme, add the Theme name at end of the URL as follows:
https://%hostname%/userportal/?theme=<theme-name>
where <theme-name> is the name of a Theme without brackets or quotes.
For users to open a specific Theme, the URL that they enter in a web browser must contain the Theme name, but in this case the format is as simple as the following:
https://<server-name>/<theme-name>
Using our Load Balancer DNS name example from above, the URL may look like the following:
https://ras.msp.com/Theme-E1
For additional information, please see User Portal Theme Settings > URLs.
The Open User Portal button uses the specified gateway address and opens User Portal on this particular gateway in a new tab. You can use this button to test your deployment.
The Web cookie field is used to specify a session cookie name. RAS HTML5 session persistence is normally set by user's IP address (source addressing). If you can't use source addressing in your environment (e.g. your security policy doesn't allow it), you can use the session cookie to maintain persistence between a client and a server. To do so, you'll need to set up a load balancer that can use a session cookie for persistence. The default cookie name is ASP.NET_SessionId.
If you are using a third-party load balancer, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), you need to specify its own cookie name. In case of AWS, when the load balancer first receives a request from a client, it routes the request to a target and generates a cookie named AWSALB, which encodes information about the selected target. The load balancer then encrypts the cookie and includes it in the response to the client. When sticky sessions are enabled, the load balancer uses the cookie received from the client to route the traffic to the same target, assuming the target is registered successfully and is considered healthy.
Parallels User Portal is built into RAS Secure Gateway. It allows users to connect to Parallels RAS and open published resources from a web browser.
Note: To use User Portal, SSL must be enabled on a RAS Secure Gateway. When enabling the client, please verify that SSL is enabled in the SLL/TLS category or on your network load balancer. Please also note that the User Portal category is only available if the Gateway mode is set to Normal.
For the information on how to configure the User Portal URL and how to access the client from a web browser, please see the Web section.
To use Site default settings on the User Portal tab, click the Inherit default settings option. To specify your own settings, clear the option.
To enable or disable RAS User Portal, select or clear the Enable User Portal option.
The Client section allows you to specify application launch methods and other User Portal settings.
Launch sessions using: Specifies which Parallels Client will be used to open a published resource. This can be the User Portal or a platform-specific Parallels Client. Compared to Web Client, platform-specific Parallels Client includes a richer set of features and provides end users with a better overall user experience. Select one of the following:
Browser only: Users can run remote applications and desktops using Web Client only. Use this option if you don't want your users to install a platform-specific Parallels Client.
Parallels Client only: Users can run remote applications and desktops in Parallels Client only. When a user connects to Parallels RAS using Parallels Web Client, they will be asked to install the platform-specific Parallels Client before they can launch remote applications and desktops. A message will be displayed to the user containing the Parallels Client download link. After the user installs Parallels Client, they can still launch a remote application or desktop in Web Client but the resource will open in Parallels Client.
Parallels Client and fallback to browser: Both Parallels Client and a browser (HTML5) can be used to launch remote applications and desktops. Parallels Client will be the primary method; Parallels Web Client will be used as a backup if a published resource cannot be launched in Parallels Client for any reason. A user will be informed if Parallels Client cannot be used and will be given a choice to open it in the browser instead.
Allow users to select a launch method: If selected, users will be able to choose whether to open remote applications in a browser or in Parallels Client. You can enable this option only if the Launch session using option (above) is set to Parallels Client and fallback to browser (i.e. both methods are allowed).
Allow opening applications in a new tab: If selected, a user will be able to open remote applications in a new tab in his/her web browser.
(Parallels Client with fallback to Browser and the Parallels Cient only) Additionally, you can configure Parallels Client detection by clicking on the Configure button:
Detect client: Select when Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client.
Automatically on sign in: Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client immediately.
Manually on user prompt: Parallels RAS shows users a prompt where can they select whether they want to detect platform-specific Parallels Client .
Client detection timeout: Time period during which Parallels RAS tries to detect platform-specific Parallels Client.
Use a client IP detection service: If selected, allows configuring an IP detection service to report IP addresses of connected Parallels Web Client applications. To enable a client IP detection service, select this option and click the Configure button. In the dialog that opens, provide the URL to the IP detection service you want to use. You can press the Test button to ensure the API works as expected. When you click the Test button, the Connection Broker will take the role of the client and call the API. If successful, you will be presented with a window showing the IP address of the Connection Broker.
The Network Load Balancers access section is intended for deployment scenarios where third-party front-end load balancers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs) are used. It allows you to configure an alternate hostname and port number to be used by the Network Load Balancer (NLB). This is needed to separate hostnames and ports on which TCP and HTTPS communications are carried out because AWS load balancers don't support both specific protocols over the same port.
The following options are available:
Use alternate hostname: Select this option and specify an alternate hostname. When the alternate hostname is enabled, all platform-specific Parallels Clients will use this hostname to connect to the RAS Farm or Site.
Use alternate port: Select this option and specify an alternate port number. The port must not be used by any other component in the RAS Farm or Site. To reset the port number to the default value, click Default. When the alternate port is enabled, all platform-specific Parallels Clients will use this port to connect to the RAS Farm or Site. Note that RDP sessions in Web Client will still be connecting to the standard SSL port (443).
Note: Please note that using an alternate host or port is not suitable in a multi-tenant environment as Tenant Broker RAS Secure Gateways are shared between Tenants, which would require different configurations.
In addition, the AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB), which handles HTTP/s traffic required by the Parallels Web Client, only supports specific cookies that are usually automatically generated. When a load balancer first receives a request from a client, it routes the request to a target and generates a cookie named AWSALB, which encodes information about the selected target. The load balancer then encrypts the cookie and includes it in the response to the client. When sticky sessions are enabled, the load balancer uses the cookie received from the client to route the traffic to the same target, assuming the target is registered successfully and is considered healthy. By default, Parallels RAS uses its own ASP.NET cookie named _SessionId, however in this case you must customize the cookie specifying the mentioned AWS cookie for sticky sessions. This can be configured using the Web cookie field in the User Portal > Web subcategory.
The Restrictions section is used to allow or restrict the following User Portal functions:
Use Pre Windows 2000 login format: Enables legacy (pre-Windows 2000) login format.
Allow embedding of Parallels User Portal into other web pages: If selected, the Parallels User Portal web page can be embedded in other web pages. Please note that this may be a potential security risk due to the practice known as clickjacking.
File transfer command: Enables file transfer in a remote session. Select a desired option in the drop-down list. For more information, see Configuring remote file transfer below.
Clipboard redirection: Select a clipboard option that should be allowed in a remote session. Choose from Client to server only (copy/paste from client to server only), Server to client only (copy and paste from server to client only), Bidirectional (copy and paste in both directions).
Allow cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): Enables cross-origin resource sharing (CORS). To enable CORS, select this option and then specify one or more domains for which access to resources should be allowed. If you don't specify any domains, the option will be automatically disabled. In the Browser cache time field, specify for how long the end-user's browser will cache a resource.
Parallels RAS provides end users with the ability to transfer files remotely to and from a remote server.
Note: At the time of this writing, file transfer is supported in Parallels Web Client and Parallels Client for Chrome only. Note that bidirectional file transfer is supported in Parallels Web Client only.
To make the remote file transfer functionality flexible, Parallels RAS allows you to configure it on the following three levels:
RD Session Host, Provider, or Remote PC
User Portal
Client policy
File transfer settings that you configure on each level take precedence in the order listed above. For example, if you enable file transfer in User Portal, but disable it on an RD Session Host, file transfer will be disabled for all users who connect to the given RD Session Host through the User Portal. As another example, you can enable file transfer on an RD Session Host and then disable it for a particular Client policy (or an User Portal). This way you can control which clients can use file transfer and which cannot.
To configure remote file transfer for a User Portal, select one of the following options in the File transfer command drop-down list:
Disabled: Remote file transfer is disabled.
Client to Server: Transfer files from client to server only.
Server to Client: Transfer files from server to client only.
Bidirectional: Transfer files in both directions.