Adaptive access based on the user’s network location
The Citrix Workspace Adaptive Access feature uses advanced policy infrastructure to enable access to Citrix DaaS based on the user’s network location. The location is defined using the IP address range or subnet addresses.
Admins can define policies to either enumerate or not enumerate virtual apps and desktops based on the user’s network location. Admins can also control the user actions by enabling or disabling clipboard access, printers, client drive mapping and so on, based on the user’s network location. For example, admins can set up policies such that users accessing the resources from home have limited access to applications and users accessing the resources from branch offices have full access.
An admin can implement the following policies for accessing the applications:
- Enumerate a few sensitive applications only from corporate location or from their branch offices.
- Do not enumerate sensitive applications if the employees are accessing the workspace from an outside network.
- Disable printer access from the branch offices.
- Disable clipboard access and printer access when the users are outside the corporate network.
Entitlements
The Adaptive Access feature is available for the customers with the any of the following licenses.
- DaaS Premium / Premium Plus
- Secure Private Access Advanced
Prerequisites
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Ensure that the Adaptive Access feature is enabled (Citrix Workspace > Access > Adaptive Access). For details, see Enable the Adaptive Access feature.
When adaptive access is enabled, the DaaS access policies are updated to use the option Connections through Citrix Gateway.
Note:
NetScaler Gateway is required to add smart access tags in DaaS access policies. However, because DaaS consumes tags from Device Posture, Adaptive Access, and Adaptive Authentication services, it isn’t necessary have a configured NetScaler Gateway in your setup.
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Understanding of location tags. For details, see Network Location tags.
Points to note
The following points are only applicable if you want to restrict application enumeration based on the location. If you plan to use adaptive access to restrict user controls like disabling clipboard access, printer redirection, client drive mapping, based on the network location, you can ignore these guidelines.
- If you plan to selectively enumerate Citrix DaaS based on network location, then user management must be performed for those delivery groups using Citrix Studio policies instead of workspace. When creating a Delivery group, in Users setting, either choose Restrict use of this Delivery Group users or Allow any authenticated users to use this Delivery Group. This enables you to configure adaptive access in the Access Policy tab under Delivery Group.
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Changes to Direct Workload Connection when adaptive access is enabled.
- The Location tags field is visible in Citrix Cloud > Network Locations > Add a Network Location > Location tags.
- Existing Direct Workload Connection policies work as intended.
- New policies must be created in the Network Locations service (without defining tags) and also on the delivery group. In addition, the network connectivity type must be Internal.
- For new policies for Direct Workload Connection with tags, tags must be defined in the Network Locations service and also the same tags must be defined on the delivery group or access policy in DaaS Studio. In addition, the network connectivity type must be Internal. Location tags aren’t relevant for Direct Workload Connection.
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The following is recommended testing your Citrix DaaS deployment.
- Identify a test delivery group or create a delivery group to implement this capability.
- Create a policy or identify a policy that can be used with a test delivery group.
Enable the Adaptive Access feature
- Log in to Citrix Cloud.
- Select Workspace Configuration from the hamburger menu.
- Adaptive Access toggle is turned off, by default. Turn the Adaptive Access toggle on.
- Click Yes, enable adaptive access on the confirmation message.
When adaptive access is enabled, you can define the location tags for adaptive access (Citrix Cloud > Network Locations > Add a Network Location > Location tags).
When Adaptive Access is disabled, you can’t add a network location. Location tags aren’t applicable in this case.
Important:
When you try to disable the Adaptive Access feature, the following message appears. Note that Workspace does not send the tags to the DaaS for adaptive access when the feature is disabled.
Configure adaptive access
Configuring adaptive access based on network locations involves the following high-level steps.
- Define the network location policies
- Define the tags in DaaS Studio
For configuration examples, two user types (BranchOffice users and WorkFromHome users) are selected to achieve the following use case.
- BranchOffice users must be able to access applications with all the access.
- WorkFromHome users must not have clipboard access.
In this configuration example, Home and Office are used as the tags in the examples.
Configure network location policies
- Sign into Citrix Cloud.
- Select Network Locations from the hamburger menu. Ensure that the Adaptive Access toggle is enabled. Else the user interface for the Direct Workload Connection is displayed.
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Click Add network location.
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Location name: Enter an appropriate name for the policy.
Example: BranchOffice or WorkFromHome
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Public IP address range: Define the public IP address range for your network.
Example: 172.9.2.1-172.9.2.30
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Location Tags: Define tags for your location. This can be a name referring to your location. These tags are used to configure the adaptive access policies in Citrix Studio. For details, see Define tags in Citrix Studio.
Example: BranchOffice or WorkFromHome
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Connectivity type: Define the application launch type.
Internal - Bypass gateway for application launch. External - Use Citrix Gateway service or traditional gateway for application launch.
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- Click Save.
You can now use these tags on DaaS Studio to enable adaptive access.
Note:
While defining the location tags, ensure that you only enter the preferred tag name without the prefix “LOCATION_TAG”, for example “BranchOffice”. However, while defining tags in Citrix Studio, you must prefix the tag name with “LOCATION_TAG”. For example, “LOCATION_TAG_BRANCHOFFICE”.
Define tags in Citrix Studio by using the GUI
In this example, tags are defined in the delivery groups to restrict the application enumeration for users. Two delivery groups are created.
- Adaptive Access Delivery group – For the users from location BranchOffice. These users must see all applications from this delivery group.
- WFH Delivery Group – For the users from location WorkfromHome. These users must see applications from this delivery group.
- Sign into Citrix Cloud.
- On the Citrix DaaS tile, click Manage.
- Create a delivery group. For details, see Create delivery groups.
- Select the delivery group that you’ve created, and click Edit Delivery Group.
- Click Access Policy.
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For customers using adaptive access within the Citrix Workspace platform, perform the following steps to restrict access for a delivery group to internal networks only:
- Right-click the delivery group and select Edit.
- Select the access policy in the left pane.
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Click the edit icon to modify the default Citrix Gateway connections policy.
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On the Edit policy page, select Connections meeting the following criteria, select Match any, and then add the criteria.
For WorkFromHome users, enter the following values in the respective delivery controller.
Farm: Workspace
Filter: LOCATION_TAG_WORKFROMHOME
For BranchOffice users, enter the following values in the respective delivery controller.
Filter: Workspace
Value: LOCATION_TAG_BRANCHOFFICE
You can now use these tags to restrict access to applications.
Note:
Ensure that in the Value field, you enter the correct location tag name as you have defined while creating network location policies prefixed by “LOCATION_TAG”. For example, if you have defined the location tag as “BranchOffice”, then you must enter “LOCATION_TAG_BRANCHOFFICE” in the Value field. For details on configuring location tags, see Configure network location policies.
Restrict access for the applications
In this example, client clipboard redirection is disabled for users from the WorkFromHome location.
- Sign into Citrix DaaS.
- Navigate to Policies and click Create Policy.
- Select Client clipboard redirection, and then click Prohibit.
- Click Next.
- On the Assign policy To page, select Access control.
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Define the following values for the policy:
- Mode: Allow
- Connection type : With Citrix Gateway
- Gateway farm name: Workspace
- Access Condition: LOCATION_TAG_WORKFROMHOME (all in upper case)
- Click Next.
- Enter a name for the policy and add a policy description.
- Click Finish.
Users from the WorkFromHome location can’t perform clipboard access to their launched resources.
Configure session recording policies based on tags
Session Recording allows organizations to record on-screen user activity in virtual sessions. You can specify tags including network location tags when creating a custom session recording policy, event detection policy, or event response policy. For an example, see Create a custom recording policy.
Network Location tags
The Network Locations service provides the following tags.
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Default tags: These tags are defined on the Network Locations service. The following default tags are available.
- Location_internal: Tag sent by default when the network connectivity type is set as INTERNAL.
- Location_external: Tag sent by default when the network connectivity type is set as EXTERNAL.
- Location_undefined: Tag sent for an IP address that is not defined in the policy but is coming through the Network Locations service. Launch for these users are the same as what is defined in the resource group.
- Custom tags: Admins can define custom tag names in the policies. Example: office, home, branch
Examples:
Default tags: LOCATION_INTERNAL, LOCATION_EXTERNAL, LOCATION_UNDEFINED
Custom tags: LOCATION_TAG_OFFICE, LOCATION_TAG_HOME
Note:
When defining tags for the Network Location service, ensure the following:
- The default tags always start with the prefix “LOCATION_
<tag name>. For example, LOCATION_INTERNAL.- The custom tags always start with the prefix “LOCATION_TAG
<tag name>. For example, LOCATION_TAG_OFFICE.
Known issues
If you disable the Adaptive Access feature after it was enabled and the rules were set (tags and connectivity type), this does not remove the locations from the Network Locations page though the location tags and the connectivity type columns are hidden. But these locations are disabled in the back-end. This is a cosmetic issue.