Impero with VDI

[jamin100]

Hi

 

Does anyone use Impero with a VDI solution?

 

Im facing a bit of a quandary at the minute.

 

If I install the Impero client into the golden image then everything is logged against the correct username as it should be. However, because these are virtual machines I cant group them into rooms as they are just in the virtual pool and any actions I want to perform against the machines will only be done on the virtual machine and not the physical machine.

 

So, if I install the impero client on the physical machine, I can group the machines as required and then perform any actions as needed (power off etc). However, because these machines are logged in as a local admin (not on the domain) and shelled to display a custom login window. When the user logs In, Impero is pulling the administrator username from the local machine rather than the username of the student that logs into the VDI so any keyword captures are against the admin and not the user

 

Any ideas?

[kmount]

Are you accessing the VDI from thin clients (or such other fixed device)?

 

If so, you may find that the client is passing over an environment variable such as %CLIENTNAME% (typically a mac address or end point device computer name) which in Terminal Services mode some of our customers have set their groups in Impero.

 

(so in effect, the virtual desktop becomes less relevant, the grouping is done on the physical end point)

 

Been a few years since I've done it but it could be a good place to start.

[jamin100]

Thanks

 

Basically they are computers with a custom shell installed that launches the VDI to the end user.

Ill have a look into the %clientname% bit

[kmount]

If it's using RDP it will be passing %CLIENTNAME% over to the VDI Session.

 

If it's using PCoIP (View) it could be passing over %ViewClient_MAC_Address% or %ViewClient_Machine_Name%

 

For Citrix, I'm not sure off of the top of my head.

[jon-senso]

Thought I'd help out on this one, when you group the computers in Impero, choose the Hostname option from the list, rather than computer name... it will then pull the thin client hostname from where the students are sitting. See image:

 

[ksls]

Thank you very much all! I'm fairly new at my school and had the problem described by jamin100 to solve and the solution described by @jon-senso works perfectly. Some rooms have a mix of thick and thin clients, and I needed a solution that would include both, which this does.

 

Just to update the solution, it looks like (from their position in the list) Impero renamed "Computer Name" to "Impero Host" and "Hostname" to "Endpoint" (see attached). My school was setup with using "Impero Host", so I've switched us to using "Endpoint" and now can see VDI computers as well as our thick client computers in their respective groups as this is most useful for classroom management - you get to see both the computer name and the student name for the VDI users.

Edited October 13, 2021 by ksls