Create a Horizon Smart Policy in Dynamic Environment Manager

You use the Dynamic Environment Manager Management Console to create a Horizon smart policy in Dynamic Environment Manager. When you define a Horizon smart policy, you can add conditions that must be met for the smart policy to take effect.

Note: To control the behavior of the digital watermark feature, you use environment variables instead of Horizon Smart Policies. See Set Up Digital Watermarks on a Linux Desktop With Environment Variables.

You can create policies for user environment settings that control a range of behaviors. Horizon Smart Policies for user environment settings are applied during login and can be refreshed during reconnect of a session. To reapply Horizon Smart Policies when a user reconnects to a session, you can configure a triggered task.

For complete information about using the Dynamic Environment Manager Management Console, see the VMware Dynamic Environment Manager Administration Guide document.

Prerequisites

• Install and configure Dynamic Environment Manager. See Installing Dynamic Environment Manager and Configuring Dynamic Environment Manager.
• Become familiar with the conditions that you can add to Horizon Smart Policy definitions. See Adding Conditions to Horizon Smart Policy Definitions and Environment Variable Definitions.
• Enable the DEMEnable option and configure the DEMNetworkPath option in the /etc/vmware/viewagent-custom.conf file. See Edit Configuration Files on a Linux Desktop.

Procedure

1. In the Dynamic Environment Manager Management Console, select the User Environment to create a policy for user environment settings or the Computer Environment tab to create a policy for computer environment settings.
   Existing Horizon smart policy definitions, if any, appear in the Horizon Smart Policies pane.
2. Select Horizon Smart Policies and click Create to create a new smart policy.
3. Select the Settings tab and define the smart policy settings.
   1. In the General Settings section, enter a name for the smart policy in the Name text box.
      For example, if the smart policy affects the client drive redirection feature, you might name the smart policy CDR.
   2. In the Horizon Smart Policy Settings section, select the remote desktop features and settings to include in the smart policy.
      You can select multiple remote desktop features.
4. Add the conditions required to use the new smart policy with remote Linux desktops.
   1. Select the Conditions tab, click Add, and select the condition that you want to configure.
      For detailed information about configuring supported conditions and condition values, see Adding Conditions to Horizon Smart Policy Definitions and Environment Variable Definitions.
   2. To add more conditions after configuring the first condition, click Add again.
      The AND operator is added by default to combine the conditions.
5. To save the smart policy, click Save.

Results

Dynamic Environment Manager processes the Horizon smart policy each time a user connects or reconnects to the remote desktop.

Dynamic Environment Manager processes multiple smart policies in alphabetical order based on the smart policy name. Horizon smart policies appear in alphabetical order in the Horizon Smart Policies pane. If smart policies conflict, the last smart policy processed takes precedence. For example, if you have a smart policy named Sue that enables USB redirection for the user named Sue, and another smart policy named Pool that deactivates USB redirection for the desktop pool named Ubuntu1804, the USB redirection feature is enabled when Sue connects to a remote desktop in the Ubuntu1804 desktop pool.

Note: In a high-latency network, after saving your new or updated smart policy, allow Dynamic Environment Manager at least a minute to complete processing the changes before notifying the end users to connect to the affected desktops.