Checking effective access

Filtering rules described in the previous section allow you to configure who can access a particular published resource. If a Parallels RAS user cannot see one or more published resources in Parallels Client, you would normally have to check filtering settings for each resource to make sure that it is published for a given user. The Effective Access functionality simplifies this task by allowing you to view in one place which published resources are available for a user and which are not.

To open the Effective Access dialog, select the Publishing category in the Parallels RAS Console and then click the Effective Access item in the toolbar at the bottom of the window (if you don't see the item, maximize the console window). You can also open the dialog by right-clicking anywhere in the Published Resources pane and choosing Effective Access in the context menu.

The Effective Access dialog allows you to specify a user (and optionally additional criteria) and then view published resources this user is allowed to access. To choose a user, do one of the following:

• Type the user name in the User field, or click the [...] button next to it and use the Select User or Group dialog to select a user.
• Select a device owned by this user from the list of known devices. To do so, click the Select a Device button then select a device. Note that if a device has never been used to connect to this Parallels RAS Farm, it will not be included in the list. For more information, see the Monitoring devices section. After selecting a device, click OK to return to the Effective Access dialog. All of the fields will be automatically populated using properties of the selected device.

Once you specify a user, enter the additional criteria if needed (all fields except User are optional):

• Client. Client name assigned to a device. This could be a computer name, FQDN, or a custom name that the user could have set in Parallels Client.
• IP Address. Client IP address.
• MAC. Client MAC address.
• Gateway. RAS Secure Gateway name through which the client connects to the Farm.

The Manage groups button allows you to preview how user access changes if the user is added to one or more groups. When you click the button:

1. The Manage Groups dialog opens listing groups to which the user already belongs.
2. Click the [+] button to add the user to one or more additional groups. Note that this will only be a simulation; the user will not be actually added to any additional group.
3. To remove a "simulated" group, select it in the lower pane and click the [-] button.
4. Click Close to return to the Effective Access dialog.

Finally, to view the effective access information for the specified user, click the View button. This opens the Effective Access - Summary dialog, which displays the following information:

• The left pane contains the complete list of resources published in the current Site. To view only the resources that the specified user can access, select the Show only allowed published resources option. If the user is not allowed to access a resource, the resource name is highlighted in red.
• The right pane contains information whether the user is allowed to access a resource selected in the left pane and whether filtering is enabled for the selected resource. Additional information may include filtering details and extended group membership.

By looking though the resource list, you can see which resources the user can or cannot access and take appropriate actions if necessary. If needed, you can export the effective access information to a CSV file. To do so, click the Export button and specify a file name. The CSV file has the following columns:

• Name. Application name.
• ID. Application ID.
• Accessible. Whether the application is accessible to the user (Yes or No).
• Rule. Filtering rule. If no rules are configured for the application, the column will have no value.