The Citrix Ready workspace hub is an important piece in driving the future of work. It enables users to roam and cast workspace sessions running on their mobile devices to the hub, empowering employees who are constantly on the move and logging onto multiple workstations, enhancing their productivity.

The latest Citrix Ready workspace hub release supports new Citrix Browser Content Redirection (BCR) configurations that enable more fluid video via a browser and host-name validation.

Optimizing Browser Content Redirection

BCR prevents the rendering of whitelisted webpages on the VDA side and uses the Citrix Workspace app to instantiate a corresponding rendering engine on the client side. This fetches the HTTP and HTTPS content from the URL. With our recent release, we’ve modified the overlay engine to support use of the workspace hub and provide a seamless browsing experience.

Here’s how to configure BCR for the Citrix Ready workspace hub:

Step 1: Configure BCR

Users can configure BCR, which is enabled by default, by following the path Citrix Studio > Policy Setting. The Edit BCR Policy screen is shown in the image below.

 

Step 2: Disable the Use Hardware Rendering Function

The hardware rendering function of the Citrix Workspace app for Linux is enabled by default in the workspace hub, but it conflicts with overlay windows. To optimize BCR, you must disable this function by following this path: Connections > Citrix Workspace Hub > Citrix Workspace App > Secondary Display. Disable the Use Hardware Rendering function as shown in the image below.

With this configuration, you‘ll get a seamless browsing experience in workspace hub.

Adding Host-Name Validation

The Citrix Ready workspace hub supports a secure sockets layer (SSL) connection between it and mobile devices. In this release, we’ve added host-name validation to enhance security around the customer’s connection to the workspace hub service. You’ll have to set a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) manually or automatically to identify each device. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Configure the Domain and Host Name

You can configure this manually or automatically. For manual configuration, you’ll need to ensure that the common name of the certificate authority matches the host name of the workspace hub device. Then, you must add your domain to your DNS service. For automatic configuration, you can generate the FQDN directly from the dynamic host configuration protocol server.

Step 2: Install a Certificate

After adding certificates and private keys to the Citrix Ready workspace hub using the path Connections > Workspace Hub > Workspace Hub, you must update the certificate file (cert.pem) and private key file (key.pem) names in the Citrix Ready workspace hub, as shown in the image below.

The changes will take effect after you restart the hub. Click here for more information.

The enhancement is available after the workspace hub version is upgraded to 1904. Click here to learn more about what’s new in this release. Read more about the Citrix Ready workspace hub here, and check out the product documentation.