Linux Virtual Delivery Agent 2109

HDX screen sharing

Overview

As an experimental feature, the Linux VDA lets you share the screen of your virtual desktop with session users on other virtual desktops.

The following example walks you through the procedure of sharing a screen and viewing some else’s screen.

To share a screen:

  1. In the notification area of your virtual desktop, click the screen sharing icon and select Share my screen.

    Select the Share my screen menu

  2. Right-click the screen sharing code that appears, choose Select ALL, and right-click to choose Copy.

    The screen sharing code changes every time you select Share my screen.

    Select the connection code

    Copy the connection code

  3. Share the copied code with session users on other virtual desktops that you want to share your screen with.

  4. To let a viewer control your screen, select Give control and then the viewer’s name. To stop giving control, clear the viewer’s name.

    Give control

  5. To stop sharing your screen, select Stop sharing my screen.

    Select the Stop sharing my screen menu

To view someone else’s screen:

  1. In the notification area of your virtual desktop, click the screen sharing icon and select View someone else’s screen.

    Select the View someone else's screen menu

  2. Enter the connection code of the screen you want to view and then click Connect.

    Enter the connection code

  3. Wait for the screen sharer to accept your request. For example:

    Accept or deny screen sharing

  4. After the screen sharer accepts your request by clicking OK, the shared screen appears in your Desktop Viewer.

    View a shared screen

  5. To request control over the shared screen, click the mouse icon in the upper left corner.

    Request control a shared screen

  6. To disable display scaling or scale to the window size, click the icon next to the mouse icon.

    Window scaling

Configuration

The screen sharing feature is disabled by default. To enable it, complete the following settings:

Tip:

Ports 7510–7525 are open for using the experimental HDX Screen Sharing feature. Starting from the 2112 release, we open ports 52525–52625 for fully supported HDX Screen Sharing.

  1. Enable the graphics status indicator in a Citrix policy on the Delivery Controller.

  2. Enable screen sharing on the Linux VDA by running the following command:

    sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg update -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\Thinwire" -v "EnableScreenSharing" -d "0x00000001"
    <!--NeedCopy-->
    
  3. (Optional) If you are using RHEL 8.x installed with GNOME, install a compatible extension for your GNOME shell to enable AppIndicator support:

    1. Run the gnome-shell --version command to check your GNOME shell version.

    2. Download a compatible extension for your GNOME shell from https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/615/appindicator-support. For example, if your shell version is 3.28, you can select 24 or 26 for the extension version.

      GNOME shell extension

    3. Untar the downloaded package. Verify that the “uuid” value in the metadata.json file in the package is set to appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com.

    4. Run the mv command to move the appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com directory to the location under /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/.

    5. Run the chmod a+r metadata.json command to make the metadata.json file readable to other users.

      Tip:

      By default, the metadata.json file in the appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com directory is readable only to the root user. To support screen sharing, make the metadata.json file readable to other users as well.

    6. Install GNOME Tweaks.

    7. In the desktop environment, reload your GNOME shell by pressing the Alt+F2, r, and Enter keys in sequence or by running the killall -SIGQUIT gnome-shell command.

    8. In the desktop environment, run GNOME Tweaks and then enable KStatusNotifierItem/AppIndicator Support in the Tweaks tool.

  4. (Optional) If you are using Debian 10 installed with GNOME, complete the following steps to install and enable GNOME system tray icons:

    1. Run the sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator command. You might need to log out and then back in again for GNOME to see the extension.

    2. Search for Tweaks in your Activities screen.

    3. Select Extensions in the Tweaks tool.

    4. Enable Kstatusnotifieritem/appindicator support.

      Tweaks

Limitations

  • The screen sharing feature does not support the H.265 video codec.

  • The screen sharing feature is not available for app sessions.

HDX screen sharing