DrBacchus' Journal

Citrix

Ok, here's what's involved in logging in to Citrx, EVERY MORNING.

Application menu -> Citrix
Dialog comes up with available connections (there's only one). Select connection, and press the connect button.
Citrix window opens.
A dialog box opens displaying the message "Private system". I don't know what this means. There's an "ok" button that I have to press.
Login dialog pops up, requesting username and password.
RSA SecureID dialog pops up, requesting my PIN and SecureID code.
Dialog pops up, informing me that I'm using a not-for-resale license. I don't know why I care, but I have to click OK to proceed.

Now, while all of that was irritating, here's the truly inexplicable part. Because this is the Citrix client on Linux, and if this is the first time logging in for the day, the entire Citrix client will now hang, and I have to kill it. Because there are several processes running, I have to kill all of the processes. Because I have to do this every morning, I've written a little shell script to do this bit for me. So at this point in the process, I open a shell and run 'killICA'.

Then, I return to step one above, and do all of that over again.

When I arrive at the "not-for-resale" dialog the second time, it doesn't hang.

Then, I click an icon to launch Internet Explorer. It asks me for a username and password, and I'm logged into the system that I did all of this for.

That's right, boys and girls. All of this is so that I can load a web-based application. So, why couldn't I just do this from Linux? Well, because the sagacious software vendor has opted to make their product web-based, but only via Internet Explorer. So it's not *really* web-based, it's ActiveX, or some other such monstrosity, so that I can't run it from any other browser.

That's right folks. The great thing about Internet Standards is that if you don't like them, you can feel free to make your own.

Posted by rbowen at March 3, 2004 09:04 AM | TrackBack