Greg pretty much covered why they're banned.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Warren Simondson <caditc@tpg.com.au> wrote:
I agree with Greg with regards to using USB keys in a corporate setting and the risk they pose,
and it does become ever so boring to hear yet another spiel about how Citrix doesn't really have it
right and of course there is a certain third party vendor that "almost" has the solution, but not
quite – and of course we should all buy this solution in anticipation for what is about to come.
Having said that, I know that XP embedded devices were mentioned here as the chosen device,
but I have found great success in using plug and play USB keys through Citrix by using WYSE S10
and V10L devices – using WTOS of Course.
Provided you have client drive mapping on, and you have your wnos.ini with the following setting,
you can have most plug and play USB storage drives operate dynamically without logging in and
out of a Citrix session. In other words you can pull a USB key in and out during an active session
and it will read it without issues. Some key drive do not work however, but I have found about
80% do in my tsting so far.
This line must be in the WNOS.ini
WNOS.ini
;*************************************************************
;* General Session *
;*************************************************************
SessionConfig=ALL MapDisks=yes
;*************************************************************
If you use WYSE terminals with WTOS and you aren't sure how to modify the WNOS.ini, just use
CONFGEN, a great tool that lets you build a wnos.ini with a simple GUI. Download it from:
http://www.technicalhelp.de/download.htm - latest version is ConfGen 5.0.02.
Also for the programmers among us, Windows 2008 WTSAPI has a new reference which probably
has already been discussed at some stage. It's called Dynamic Virtual Channels and it has the
ability to create plug and play USB "mappings" with it's various reference calls. I have written one
example that dynamically maps a USB memory stick in a Terminal Server 2008 Session, but I
haven't released it yet because it was a quick whip up for a customer and I'm sure there's more to
do to it. But just as an example, it can be done.
--
Warren Simondson
Ctrl-Alt-Del IT Consultancy Pty Ltd
Website: http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com.au
> > P.S. Sorry if this is a double post… wasn't sure if the first one
Quoting Greg Reese <gareese@gmail.com>:
> I've been watching this thread. I don't see anything wrong with
> simply
> telling users that if they want to access their thumbdrive, then they
>
> need to insert it before initiating their session. Yes it is
> inconvenient but it is low impact. Remember, not all solutions are
> technical. If the users don't like it then tough $hit, usb drives
> spread viruses and steal corporate secrets anyway.
>
> That said, It also might be worth testing to connect back to it as a
>
> network drive. We're talking about and xpe thin client here so the
> drive configuration should remain predictable. So mapping a drive to
> \
> \clientname\d$ should circle back to that USB drive. You could wrap
>
> that up in a batch file for the user to run after they plug in the
> drive. Client name or client ip is a session variable you can access
>
> so one script should do it.
>
> Greg
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 4:52 AM, Rick Mack <ulrich.mack@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi David,
> >
> > One thing has to be made clear. Citrix do not support USB
> > redirection with XenApp server. Not for USB storage devices, nor
> USB
> > Activesync nor USB printers. XenDesktop now supports USB redrection
>
> > using the new HDX USB Virtual hub, XenApp doesn't.
> >
> > Plugging in a USB storage device on a Windows system initiates the
>
> > USBSTOR driver and mounts that USB device as a local drive. When
> you
> > initiate an ICA or RDP session and have client drive remapping
> > enabled, the client's local drives, including the USB storage
> device
> > will be visible in the terminal services session.
> >
> > But only when you start your terminal services session, not if the
>
> > USB drive is plugged in later. DynamicUSB gets around this problem
>
> > by dynamically linking USB storage drives to a subdirectory on the
>
> > local user's C: drive. So all you're doing when you plug in a drive
>
> > during a session is changing the contents of a directory. This is
>
> > actually pretty elegant since it nicely gets around the need to
> > restart a session to see a new local drive.
> >
> > It turns out that USB redirection on a terminal server is both very
>
> > easy and actually nearly impossible. Creating a redirected USB
> > virtual hub isn't all that hard, but that's visible to every user
> on
> > a terminal server. Session isolation and the incorporation of stuff
>
> > like virtual loopbacks etc to support Activesync gets quite
> difficult.
> >
> > To date the only company to support true isolated USB redirection
> on
> > terminal services is Quest's provision Networks division (USB-IT).
>
> > Trouble is USB-IT was only aimed at specified relatively low speed
>
> > PDA devices and not a lot else (though it was extensible). We're
> > working on something totally generic for USB-IT V2 but that's still
>
> > a few months away before we've got something to show.
> >
> > Otherwise there's always Server 2008/Windows 7 but from what I can
>
> > tell I don't think that's going to be generic USB redirection
> > either. But I could definitely be wrong.
> >
> > It might be worthwhile to persevere with DynamicUSB. If it let you
>
> > use a folder off a RAM disk on an embedded XP device it'd be
> perfect.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > Rick
> >
> > --
> > Ulrich Mack
> > Quest Software
> > Provision Networks Division
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:16 AM, David Demers
> <David.Demers@sos.state.co.us
> > > wrote:
> > Sorry, specifically we are mostly dealing with USB portable
> drives.
> >
> >
> >
> > From: thin-bounce@freelists.org [mailto:thin-bounce@freelists.org]
>
> > On Behalf Of Steve Greenberg
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 3:14 PM
> > To: thin@freelists.org
> > Subject: [THIN] Re: USB devices on Windows based clients
> >
> >
> >
> > What type of USB device are you attaching?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Steve Greenberg
> >
> > Thin Client Computing
> >
> > 34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
> >
> > Scottsdale, AZ 85266
> >
> > (602) 432-8649
> >
> > www.thinclient.net
> >
> > steveg@thinclient.net
> >
> >
> >
> > From: thin-bounce@freelists.org [mailto:thin-bounce@freelists.org]
>
> > On Behalf Of David Demers
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 12:36 PM
> > To: thin@freelists.org
> > Subject: [THIN] USB devices on Windows based clients
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I've been fighting with an issue with USB devices on my Windows XP
>
> > Embedded devices. The problem is (as I'm sure many of you have
> > experienced) that if a user plugs in a device after the ICA session
>
> > has begun, the session does not detect the device being added. When
>
> > we used Linux based thin clients this was not an issue, but it
> > appears that the windows based ICA client is unable to provide this
>
> > feature.
> >
> > We found a nifty little utility called DynamicUSB
> (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX112588
> > ) that sort of addresses this issue, but the basic premise and the
>
> > assorted workarounds to make it palatable in our environment is
> > frankly a bit cludgy. I was wondering if others are experiencing
> > similar issues and/or what other methods have been employed to
> > address this.
> >
> > -David
> >
> we************************************************
> > nt to the correct address
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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