Syntax includes a path part to specify the server, and, optionally, a query to specify a user, remote desktop or published application, and actions or configuration options.

URI Specification

Use the following syntax to create URIs for starting HTML Access: 

https://authority-part[/?query-part]
authority-part
Specifies the server address and, optionally, a non-default port number. Server names must conform to DNS syntax.

To specify a port number, use the following syntax: 

server-address:port-number
query-part
Specifies the configuration options to use or the actions to perform. Queries are not case-sensitive. To use multiple queries, use an ampersand (&) between the queries. If queries conflict with each other, the last query in the list is used. Use the following syntax: 
query1=value1[&query2=value2...]

Observe the following guidelines when creating the query-part:

  • If you do not use at least one of the supported queries, the default VMware Horizon Web portal page appears.
  • In the query part, some special characters are not supported, and you must use the URL encoding format for them, as follows: For the pound symbol (#) use %23, for the percent sign (%) use %25, for the ampersand (&) use %26, for the at sign (@) use %40, and for the backslash (\) use %5C.

    For more information about URL encoding, go to http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp.

  • In the query part, non-ASCII characters must first be encoded according to UTF-8 [STD63], and then each octet of the corresponding UTF-8 sequence must be percent-encoded to be represented as URI characters.

    For information about encoding for ASCII characters, see the URL encoding reference at http://www.utf8-chartable.de/.

Supported Queries

This topic lists the queries that are supported for HTML Access. If you are creating URIs for multiple types of clients, such as desktop clients and mobile clients, see the installation and setup document for each type of client system.

action
Table 1. Values That Can Be Used With the action Query
Value Description
browse Displays a list of available remote desktops and published applications hosted on the specified server. You are not required to specify a remote desktop or published application when you use this action.
start-session Starts the specified remote desktop or published application. If no action query is provided and the remote desktop or published application name is provided, start-session is the default action.
reset Shuts down and restarts the specified remote desktop. Unsaved data is lost. Resetting a remote desktop is the equivalent of pressing the Reset button on a physical PC. This action is not valid for a published application.
logoff Logs the user out of the guest operating system in the remote desktop. This action is not valid for a published application.
restart Shuts down and restarts the primary remote desktop after the user confirms the restart operation request. This action is not valid for a published application.
applicationId
The published application display name. The display name is the name specified in Horizon Console when the application pool was created. If the display name contains a space, the browser uses %20 to represent the space.
args
Specifies command-line arguments to add when starting a published application. Use the syntax args= value, where value is a string. Use percent encoding for the following characters:
  • For a colon (:), use %3A
  • For a back slash (\), use %5C
  • For a space ( ), use %20
  • For a double quotation mark ("), use %22

For example, to specify the filename "My new file.txt" for the Notepad++ application, use %22My%20new%20file.txt%22.

desktopId
The remote desktop display name. The display name is the name specified in Horizon Console when the desktop pool was created. If the display name contains a space, the browser uses %20 to represent the space.
domainName
The NETBIOS domain name associated with the user who is connecting to the remote desktop or published application. For example, use mycompany rather than mycompany.com.
tokenUserName
The RSA or RADIUS user name. Use this query only if the RSA or RADIUS user name is different from the Active Directory user name. If you do not specify this query and RSA or RADIUS authentication is required, the Windows user name is used.
userName
The Active Directory user who is connecting to the remote desktop or published application. The user name can be in one of the following formats:
  • userName
  • domainName%5CuserName
  • user principal name (UPN), that is, userName@domainName
unauthenticatedAccessEnabled
If this option is set to true, the Unauthenticated Access feature is enabled by default. HTML Access starts and an anonymous user account appears. An example of the syntax is unauthenticatedAccessEnabled=true.
unauthenticatedAccessAccount
Sets the account to use if the Unauthenticated Access feature is enabled. If Unauthenticated Access is disabled, then this query is ignored. An example of the syntax using the anonymous1 user account is unauthenticatedAccessAccount=anonymous1