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NetScaler Gateway applications

When you configure an AppExpert application to manage a web application through the Citrix® NetScaler® appliance, you also create a set of application units and configure a set of traffic optimization and security policies for each unit. The policies that you configure for each application unit (policies for features such as Compression, Caching, and Rewrite) evaluate traffic that is meant only for that unit. In addition to these policies, you might want to configure Access Gateway policies for the application as a whole to optimize the application traffic when accessed through the Access Gateway. The Access Gateway Applications feature enables you to configure Access Gateway policies (Authorization, Traffic, Clientless Access, and TCP Compression) for an AppExpert application. After you configure NetScaler Gateway policies for AppExpert applications, you can include the policy configuration in the AppExpert application templates that you create.

You can also configure NetScaler Gateway policies for intranet subnets, file shares, and other network resources. Finally, you can create bookmarks for AppExpert applications and certain resources if you want users to be able to access them from the NetScaler Gateway home page.

You can configure the entities in the NetScaler Gateway Applications feature only by using the GUI.

How an NetScaler Gateway application works

When you create an AppExpert application in the Applications node in the GUI, a corresponding Access Gateway application is automatically created in the Access Gateway Applications node. Additionally, a rule that uses the AppExpert application’s configured public endpoint is automatically created for the Access Gateway application entry. If multiple endpoints are configured for the AppExpert application, the rule includes all the configured public endpoints. The NetScaler appliance uses this rule to apply any configured Access Gateway policies to the traffic received at the AppExpert application’s public endpoint. Traffic received at the AppExpert application’s public endpoint is first evaluated against the NetScaler Gateway policies and then evaluated against the policies configured for AppExpert application’s application units.

The rule that is created for the Clientless Access policies for an Access Gateway application is an advanced expression that also uses the public endpoint that is configured for the AppExpert application. Therefore, before you configure NetScaler Gateway policies for an AppExpert application, you must configure public endpoints for the AppExpert application.

When you include the NetScaler Gateway configuration in an application template, deployment-specific information, such as IP address and port information, and the rule that is created from this information are not included in the template.

How a NetScaler configuration for a file share works

On the NetScaler appliance, you can configure Authorization policies for a file share that is hosted on your organization’s network.

When you create a file share, you specify a name for the file share and the network path to the file share. In the network path, you can specify either the name of the server or the server IP address. A rule that uses the components of the file share path is automatically created for the file share. This rule enables the appliance to identify requests for files hosted on the file share server. Any Authorization policies that are configured for the file share are applied to incoming requests.

The NetScaler configuration for a file share cannot be saved in AppExpert application templates.

How a NetScaler configuration for an intranet subnet works

For the intranet subnets that form a part of your network, you can configure policies for Authorization, Traffic, and TCP Compression on the NetScaler appliance. When adding an intranet subnet, you specify the IP address and the netmask of the intranet subnet. A rule that uses these two parameters is automatically created for the intranet subnet. The appliance applies the configured policies to any request that has a destination IP address and netmask set to the subnet’s IP address and netmask, respectively.

The NetScaler configuration for an intranet subnet cannot be saved in AppExpert application templates.

How other resources category works

The Other Resources category enables you to configure Access Gateway policies for any network resource by using a rule of your choice. When you configure the NetScaler appliance to process requests for the network resource, you configure a classic expression to identify the requests that are associated with the network resource. You can configure Authorization, Traffic, Clientless Access, and TCP Compression policies for a network resource in Other Resources. The NetScaler appliance applies the configured NetScaler Gateway policies to any requests that match the configured rule.

The NetScaler configuration for a network resource in Other Resources cannot be saved in AppExpert application templates.

Entity naming conventions

The NetScaler Gateway Applications feature enforces a naming convention for some of the entities that you create in this feature. For example, the names of the profiles that you create for Traffic policies for an intranet subnet always begin with a string that consists of the name of the intranet subnet followed by an underscore (_). The name that you provide for the entity is appended to this string. If the name of a subnet is “subnet1,” the name of the profile begins with “subnet1_.” When such a naming convention is required (in the text box in which you type the name of an entity, for example), the user interface automatically inserts the string with which the name of the entity must begin and does not allow you to modify it.

NetScaler Gateway applications