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Non-domain-joined Linux VDAs

June 20, 2024
Contributed by: 
B C

Overview

Non-domain-joined VDAs obliterate the need to join VDAs to Active Directory domains for VDA and user authentication. When creating a non-domain-joined VDA, you generate a public-private key pair for registering the VDA to the cloud control plane. Thus, joining an Active Directory domain is no longer required. When a user launches a session from the non-domain-joined VDA, the VDA creates a local mapping account using the user name that the user uses to log on to Citrix Workspace app. The VDA assigns a random password that the local mapping account uses for SSO and session reconnection. If you change the random password, SSO and session reconnection fail. To disable SSO, see Non-SSO authentication.

Important:

  • Non-domain-joined VDAs are supported for Citrix DaaS.
    • Your control plane must be deployed over Citrix DaaS.
    • You can deploy non-domain-joined VDAs in a public cloud or on-premises data center. The control plane in Citrix DaaS manages non-domain-joined VDAs.
    • To create non-domain-joined VDAs, you must enable Rendezvous V2. Cloud Connectors are required only if you plan to provision machines on on-premises hypervisors or if you want to use Active Directory as the identity provider in Workspace.
  • To create non-domain joined VDAs, you can use both Machine Creation Services (MCS) and easy install. For more information, see Create non-domain-joined Linux VDAs using MCS and Create a non-domain-joined Linux VDA using easy install.
    • MCS doesn’t support bare metal servers.

Features available for non-domain-joined Linux VDAs

Create local users with specified attributes on non-domain-joined VDAs

When you open a session hosted on a non-domain-joined VDA, the VDA automatically creates a local user with default attributes. The VDA creates the local user based on the user name that you used to log on to Citrix Workspace app. You can also specify user attributes including the user’s User Identifier (UID), Group ID (GID), home directory, and log-in shell. To use this feature, complete the following steps:

  1. Run the following command to enable the feature:

    /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\Software\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\LocalMappedAccount" -t "REG_DWORD" -v "CreateWithUidGid" -d "0x00000001" --force
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  2. Specify the following attributes in the /var/xdl/getuidgid.sh script under the installation path of the VDA:

    Attribute Required or optional Description
    uid Required A User Identifier (UID) is a number assigned by Linux to each user on the system. It determines which system resources that the user can access.
    gid Required A Group Identifier (GID) is a number used to represent a specific group.
    homedir Optional The Linux home directory is a directory for a particular user.
    shell Optional A login shell is a shell given to a user upon the login to their user account.

    The following is an example of the getuidgid.sh script:

    Note:

    Make sure that the attributes specified in the script are valid.

    #!/bin/bash

###############################################################################
#
# Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops For Linux Script: Get uid and gid for the user
#
# Copyright (c) Citrix Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
#

export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

function get_uid_gid_for_user()
{
echo "uid:12345"
echo "gid:1003"
echo "homedir:/home/$1"
echo "shell:/bin/sh"
}

get_uid_gid_for_user $1
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Non-SSO authentication

By default, the Linux VDA has single sign-on (SSO) enabled. Users log on to Citrix Workspace app and to VDA sessions using one set of credentials. To have users log on to VDA sessions using a different set of credentials, disable SSO on the Linux VDA. For more information, see Non-SSO authentication.

Authentication with Azure Active Directory

The non-domain-joined VDAs that you deploy in Azure integrate with the AAD identity service to provide user authentication. For more information, see Authentication with Azure Active Directory.

Rendezvous V2

Non-domain-joined VDAs are supported for using Rendezvous V2 to bypass Citrix Cloud Connectors. For more information, see Rendezvous V2.

Non-domain-joined Linux VDAs
June 20, 2024
Contributed by: 
B C
June 20, 2024
Contributed by: 
B C

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