There are multiple ways of deploying an application that is not multiuser friendly in an Aqua Connect Terminal Server environment. This document will list the Aqua Connect supported methods. It is important to note that some single user applications will flat out not work in a multiuser environment but most will. The exact choice depends on your needs, your users’ needs and the software in question, so there is no “right” answer. There are also some notes you should read at the bottom.
The methods all involve casing the application’s binary files and bundles to be accessed individually with out overlap. To do this you have one of 4 choices: 1. Install the Application in a User specific but accessible location such as the User’s home folder
2. Install the Application into an ACMFS mount point for each user
3. Install the Application into a User template profile and clone that profile for each user
4. Install the Application into an Application Pool and combine access to the Application Pool using ACMFS
In the near future, other options will be come available. Here are some details for the each specific setup:
“Install the Application in a User specific but accessible location such as the User’s home folder”: A typical setup is to just install the target application into the User’s home folder, usually into a sub folder titled “Applications”. An example is to install the application “FileMaker 10″ into “/Users/johndoe/Applications/FileMaker”.
“Install the Application into an ACMFS mount point for each user”: This is a typical extension to the previous method in that the target application physically resides in a location like above but the user accesses it from a typical shared location. As an example, the user would access the target application (”FileMaker 10″) by going to the server’s “/Applications” folder. In there the user would find a “FileMaker” folder (”/Applications/FileMaker”) and in that folder the user would launch and access the application accordingly. However what is really going on is that when the user goes to the “/Applications/FileMaker” folder, the user would instead be taken to the “/User/johndoe/Applications/FileMaker” folder and so while the application and the user thinks he/she is viewing the contents and files in the “/Applications/FileMaker” they are really viewing the contents and files in the “/Users/johndoe/Applications/FileMaker”. Of course the ACMFS will substitute the username’s name for “johndoe” thus each user will be taken to their home folder. This can also be extended to work over a network, SAN, NAS, File Server, etc. storage solution. In those cases quite often “/Applications/FileMaker” folder would be redirected to “/Network/Server/Volume/Applications/FileMaker” or “/Network/Server/Volume/Users/johndoe/Applications/FileMaker” folders, depending on how you configured ACMFS.
“Install the Application into a User template profile and clone that profile for each user”: In this situation, the application is installed into a “template” user’s home folder. This template user serves as a base for all new user accounts on the system or existing user accounts where the user’s preferences can be overwritten. To do this, you would simply create a new user and enable it for Aqua Connect remote connections in the ACAdminTool. Then log in as that user and install the application or applications. You can also take the time to customize the Dock, Finder and other applications. After doing all that, you would log out and disable that user in the ACAdminTool. To further increase security, it is also advised that you scramble the user password using a long random number/letter password. Now you can clone the templates home folder overwriting the target user’s home folder in the process. (See separate document number for scripting examples that include easing template cloning).
“Install the Application into an Application Pool and combine access to the Application Pool using ACMFS”: In this solution, a pool folder is created. This folder can exist anywhere including on a remote server, SAN, NAS, iSCSI, etc. Once an Application Pool folder is created, the Application is installed into a “Master” sub folder. Once the application is installed into the Master sub folder then session folders are created where the Master folder is cloned into them. ACMFS would then pull a random session sub folder from the Application Pool whenever a user logs in and accesses the Application. When an update for the Application is installed into the “Master” sub folder it can simply re-cloned over the session sub folders. Since session sub folders are not persistent, the administrator only has to worry about having enough session folders for the number of users that are active on a server at a given time. In the near future, ACMFS will be able to automatically clone template user accounts and application pool’s masters to sessions dynamically but these features are not supported at this time.
Special Note:
It should be noted that some applications require a modification to their manifest file, “Info.plist”. To do this, modify the file “Info.plist” located in the application’s bundle. The specific XML key you wish to modify is “LSMultipleInstancesProhibited”. The key pair can is usually displayed as:
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LSMultipleInstancesProhibited
...
You would then change the “” to “” resulting in:
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LSMultipleInstancesProhibited
...
