stopping unauthorized applications

[Gaz076]

In our current Citrix environment (Metaframe XPe FR2) we publish a desktop with the users' allowed applications. We do not use groups to determine the applications on a users desktop but custom build each users desktop. Our users are tightly controlled as to what applications they are presented. There are however, some allowed applications that will permint you to link to an application that we do not show on the desktop, which the users should not be accessing(e.g. in Excel you can create a link to an application in a cell). Is anyone aware of a way to prevent the users from launching 'unauthorized applications'? I had thought of one way by creating groups of application users and giving only them access to the 'base' executable of an applications. I'm not sure if this is the best way to approach this.

Thanks for any assistance with this problem.

 

[JeffHicks]

another way is to use Group Policy to either explicitly allow or explicitly deny access to run named executables. This requires Active Directory to do by group membership.

 

[Gaz076]

I left out one important piece of information in our environment description. We are running a Windows NT4(SP6a) environtment (and don't have active directory available).

 

[MikeKap]

SysTrack 3.1 from Lakeside Software allows you to create Alarm Profiles for each type of server you are monitoring; Citrix, Exchange, SQL, etc. And it works on WinNT, 2K and 2003. In an alarm profile you can configure SysTrack to watch for the launching of unauthorized applications, web sites, etc. When SysTrack sees this activity, you can issue different actions; one being to "Kill the Process". This activity can also send out notifications in several forms (page, e-mail, SNMP, etc) if you choose. The unauthorized activity attempt is also logged for reporting. Hope this helps!

Mike
kapski@yahoo.com

 

[Ogi]

Try Appsense, they do some really powerful software that locks down Citrix servers!

Cheers,
Carl.