John’s Tech Blog for Lawyers

One of the greatest advantages, and ironies, of using Linux applications is that they often interoperate with certain Windows protocols faster and more efficiently than Windows itself. This was true for several years with SMB file server where SAMBA outperformed Windows file servers using a Windows protocol. I still find SAMBA to be easier to configure, secure, and troubleshoot than its Windows counterpart, but, new Windows Servers have made headway to fix that embarrassment. Another application that I found works better than the Windows Citrix client is Linux’s Remote Desktop Client.

One of my pet peeves with many companies’ (and universities’) Windows-reared tech support staff is their absolute ignorance of, and unwillingness to support, any other system other than the one that they currently employ… including former versions of Windows itself. Let me say once and for all that having a short rehearsed script, and Microsoft’s tech support number entered into speeddial does not qualify one to be a computer support technician.

I’ll shed some light on my disdain for certain, but unfortunatley not unique, IT support staff by describing a recent encounter with just such an IT ’specialist.’

A university employee needed to access a certain file server to which the university IT team had understandably restricted access only to local clients and via a citrix interface. Since she was using my laptop, I told her I would get her set up so she could work remotely. So, I phoned the department to get the login parameters through which to access the computer. I specifically asked the server’s address, the domain name, and the client name. Simple? Apparently not.

Out came the script… You need to open IE from the desktop, go to xyz web page, log in to the page, download the client, and then we’ll talk… Oh, you use Linux; we don’t support that.

I didn’t ask him to provide software support for my computer; I asked the login parameters.

If you run into a similar situation, here is the fast and easy way to get the parameters from the .ica file. Citrix usually has a web-based front end through which you can access one or more systems. These links open a configuration file, citrix.ica, which, if you run Windows with an installed Citrix client, will open the client, automatically provide the connection parameters, and let you log in.

With the Linux Remote Desktop Client, you can skip the Citrix interface, and log in directly with Remote Desktop Protocol.

You will need fill out at least 5 fields in the Remotedesktop Client, most of which can be taken from the .ica file. So the first thing to do is download (not open) the ica file, and then open it with cat, pico, vi, or your favorite text viewer.

Computer: Use theIP address listed next to Address, without the four digit port extension :1494. e.g. 123.456.789.123

Username: This is windows login name. e.g. mylogin, not Domain\mylogin

Password: self explanatory

Domain: Put the Windows network domain name here. e.g. Domain, not Domain.com

Click on the Resources tab in Remotedesktop client and choose the keyboard language code, e.g. US. If you do not do this, you will get a keyboard error when attempting to login.

Last, and most importantly, click on the Extended tab and go to the Fake Clientname field: Get the client name from [WFClient] ClientName=

Now, simply login and enjoy troublefree, Citrix-Client-free, remote access.

Good luck.