Create a Local URL Content Redirection Setting in Horizon 8

You can create a local URL content redirection setting that redirects specific URLs to open on a remote desktop or published application. A local URL content redirection setting is visible only in the local pod.

You can configure any number of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, mailto, and callto. The callto protocol is not supported for redirection with the Chrome browser.

As a best practice, configure the same redirection settings for the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. That way, if a user types a partial URL into Internet Explorer, such as mycompany.com, and that site redirects from HTTP to HTTPS automatically, the URL Content Redirection feature works as expected. In this example, if you set a rule for HTTPS, but do not set the same redirection setting for HTTP, the partial URL that the user types is not redirected.

VMware recommends that you do not create more than one setting for URL content redirection.

To create a global URL content redirection setting, which is visible across the pod federation, see Create a Global URL Content Redirection Setting Horizon 8.

Prerequisites

• Become familiar with vdmutil command-line interface options and requirements and verify that you have sufficient privileges to run the vdmutil command. See Using the vdmutil Command-Line Utility on a Connection Server Instance in Horizon 8.
• Become familiar with the syntax for URLs in URL content redirection settings. See Syntax for the --agentURLPattern Option in Horizon 8.

Procedure

1. Log in to the Connection Server instance.
2. Run the vdmutil command with the --createURLSetting option to create the URL content redirection setting.

   vdmutil --createURLSetting --urlSettingName url-filtering --urlRedirectionScope LOCAL 
   [--description value] [--urlScheme value] [--entitledApplication value | --entitledDesktop value] [--agentURLPattern value]

   Option	Description
   --urlSettingName	Unique name for the URL content redirection setting. The name must be url-filtering.
   --urlRedirectionScope	Scope of the URL content redirection setting. Specify LOCAL to make the setting visible only in the local pod.
   --description	Description of the URL content redirection setting. The description can contain between 1 and 1024 characters.
   --urlScheme	Protocol to which the URL content redirection setting applies, for example, http, https, mailto, or callto.
   --entitledApplication	Display name of a local application pool to use to open the specified URLs, for example, iexplore-2012. You can also use this option to specify the display name of a local RDS desktop pool.
   --entitledDesktop	Display name of a local desktop pool to use to open the specified URLs, for example, Win10. For RDS desktop pools, use the --entitledApplication option.
   --agentURLPattern	A quoted string that specifies the URL that should be opened on the remote desktop or published application.

3. (Optional) Run the vdmutil command with the --updateURLSetting option to add more protocols, URLs, and local resources to the URL content redirection setting that you created.

   vdmutil --updateURLSetting --urlSettingName url-filtering --urlRedirectionScope LOCAL 
   [--description value][--urlScheme value][--entitledApplication value | --entitledDesktop value] [--agentURLPattern value]

   The options are the same as for the vdmutil command with the --createURLSetting option.

Example: Creating a Local URL Content Redirection Setting

The following example creates a local URL content redirection setting called url-filtering that redirects all client URLs that include the text http://google.* to the application pool called iexplore2012.

VdmUtil --createURLSetting --urlSettingName url-filtering --urlScheme http 
--entitledApplication iexplore2012 --agentURLPattern "http://google.*" 
--urlRedirectionScope LOCAL --authAs johndoe --authDomain mydomain --authPassword secret

The following example updates the url-filtering setting to also redirect all client URLs that contain the text https://google.* to the application pool called iexplore2012.

vdmutil --updateURLSetting --urlSettingName url-filtering --urlScheme https 
--entitledApplication iexplore2012 --agentURLPattern "https://google.*" 
--urlRedirectionScope LOCAL --authAs johndoe --authDomain mydomain --authPassword secret

The following example updates the url-filtering setting to redirect all client URLs that contain the text mailto://.*.mycompany.com to the application pool called Outlook2008.

vdmutil --updateURLSetting --urlSettingName url-filtering --urlScheme mailto 
--entitledApplication Outlook2008 --agentURLPattern "mailto://.*.mycompany.com" 
--urlRedirectionScope LOCAL --authAs johndoe --authDomain mydomain --authPassword secret

What to do next

Assign the URL content redirection setting to a user or group. See Assign a URL Content Redirection Setting to a User or Group in Horizon 8.