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  • 1.  Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 06/26/24 09:19 AM

    Good morning,

    We are running RDi in a Citrix environment, and are currently in the process of moving from 9.6 to 9.8.

    At RDi 9.8, the default location of configuration files seems to have changed. Where 9.6 defaulted to <user-home-dir>/.eclipse/<product-id>_<product-version>/configuration, 9.8 defaults to <install_area>/configuration. 

    I found that I could set osgi.configuration.area in RDi.ini - and that successfully created configuration folders in the location I specify (under @user.home) - but it also has the effect of installing plugins in that location which we don't want. We want plugins to install to a shared location so that we can install/update them for all developers. 

    I've found the following topic in Eclipse help... https://help.eclipse.org/latest/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fmulti_user_installs.html but I'm not still quite clear on how to configure things to meet our needs (i.e. how 9.6 worked - each user has their own area where configuration settings are stored, but plugins are loaded from the install area/plugins folder etc)

    Can anyone point me to a good explainer on this or can advise how to configure RDi to meet our needs please?

    Thank you

    Stuart



    ------------------------------
    Stuart Bramley
    ------------------------------

    #RationalDeveloperfori


  • 2.  RE: Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 06/27/24 10:07 AM

    Hi Stuart,


    Here are the settings to review:
    https://help.eclipse.org/latest/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fruntime-options.html&cp%3D2_1_6_0 

    The setting that seems relevant is "osgi.configuration.cascaded".

    Here is a thread from the citrix community:
    https://community.citrix.com/forums/topic/243809-problems-of-publishing-eclipse-ide-on-citrix/#_=_

    Here is a Windows blog for users of Windows:
    https://jeremystein.com/brain/eclipse-with-multiple-users/

    Hope this helps!



    ------------------------------
    Steve Ferrell
    Principal Software Engineer Lead RDi
    Fortra
    https://www.youtube.com/@SteveFerrellRDiVideos
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 06/27/24 10:37 AM

    Thank you Steve, 

    A combination of setting that value to true, and setting the application install folder to read only for non-administrator users seems to have done the trick - I will need to run RDi as an admin when remoted in to the server to install/update plugins for other users but that's no hardship. 



    ------------------------------
    Stuart Bramley
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 04/17/25 09:37 AM

    Hi,

    Since we need to use a jumpserver for remote support, I'm trying to setup RDi 9.8 in a multi user environment as well (not Citrix however) and found this thread however my attempts are less successful. The problem is that with a normal install (actually just dropping the IBM Rational Developer for i folder on a drive, it fails with a "log is null" message for the second user that attempts to launch RDi.

    When I add...

    osgi.configuration.area=@user.home/Local Settings/Application Data/Eclipse/configuration

    osgi.sharedConfiguration.area=INSTALL_DIR/configuration

    osgi.configuration.cascaded=true

    ... it seems to solve this (BTW I changed /LocalSettings/Application Data/ to /Documents/ as the first is not accessible) for just working in RDi.

    But then it starts to act very strange when I update to 9.8.0.4 (which during the restart dumps)... for the first user it makes the icon a red square and I don't see the About details anymore), while for the second user it still says 9.8.0.0 ???

    I tried playing with the cascaded but it keeps on acting weird... of course I want a setup which the administrator can upgrade (but it should do so for each user, actually there should be only one copy of RDi while it now seems to put plugins for each user - which is the reason someone else see 9.8.0.0 maybe ?).

    Any tips on how to get this going are appreciated.

    Kind regards,
    Paul



    ------------------------------
    Paul Nicolay
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 04/22/25 04:57 PM

    IBM suggested to install and update it in C:\Program Files (as opposed to a non-special Windows directory) as Administrator and this worked fine.

    Even starting RDi now remembers the correct workspace name for each different user which it didn't do in the past.

    So far everything looks fine (I'm not using Citrix however but just Windows Server).



    ------------------------------
    Paul Nicolay
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Multi User (Citrix) RDi 9.8 installation/configuration

    Posted 05/08/25 10:49 AM
    Edited by Stuart Bramley 05/08/25 12:05 PM

    Hi..

    I'm revisiting this again as the current configuration is causing an issue - the configuration works as originally intended in that configuration is now under the user's profile in  <user-home-dir>/.eclipse/<product-id>_<product-version>/configuration - and we're able to install plugins as administrators.. that's all good so far. 

    The problem is that when users first access RDi over Citrix, they get the following dialog:

    Whether they Cancel or follow the wizard through, the application works fine - but if they do follow the wizard then it copies all of the plugins in this list into the user's profile (I'm not sure where the list comes from - as items in the list aren't in the . The impact of this is making the user's profiles very large and making it slow to sign on to Citrix as their roaming profile is copied from a network drive at logon (and back at logoff). 

    I am therefore trying to work out how to prevent this wizard from appearing as we do not want these plugins to be copied to users' profiles. It's something to do with the eclipse p2 provisioning setup in RDi but I haven't managed to work out how to stop this from happening (and keep breaking my test installation trying!). 

    I have tried the following settings in our config.ini but have now reverted them to defaults and left the install area as read only as it caused the red square of doom!

    osgi.configuration.area=@user.home/.eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_4.23.0_131994667_win32_win32_x86_64/configuration
    osgi.sharedConfiguration.area=E:/App/RDi/configuration
    osgi.configuration.cascaded=true
    eclipse.p2.data.area=@user.home/.eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_4.23.0_131994667_win32_win32_x86_64/p2

    Thank you in advance for any help and advice!



    ------------------------------
    Stuart Bramley
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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