Surgient Success

Hi again, I am curious as to the nature of the active X and java components that are installed/ run as part of a the URT test. 

1. In terms of filesize, how large are these items? 
2. How are these handled by the typical home computer security software (e.g. Norton)

In addition, there is a paragraph on page 15 of the VTMS Instructor Handbook that I am unsure of:

"URA plug-ins attempt to gain access to the Hosted Class Center by using as many as 10 different connection methods. If none of these methods succeed at establishing a connection, you will be asked to force URA and/or SSL sessions as a final set of attempts." 

What does that mean -- "force URA..." ?  Also, what are these 10 different conenction methods, is this referring to ports, Active X vs. java, etc?  I am asking as understanding the logic behind the URA programming will greatly assist in troubleshooting and problem resolution.

Best, HiEdTechie

The sizes of our tunnelling and terminal controls varies by access method: RDP, VNC, Citrix ICA or native virtualization console.  In addition the sizes vary by technology: ActiveX or Java.

 You can look at the installed controls in Downloaded Program Files or Java Cached Applets to obtain the actual sizes.  All of our components should be labeled as "Surgient URA", Microsoft RDP (redist), Citrix ICA of VNC so they should be easy to find.

As for how they are handled by AV.  Our controls are signed using a Code Signing certificate from Verisign, so they can be scanned cleanly for  the presence of malware or alteration, i.e. a hacked control would fail the certificate signing validation process.

Environments where ActiveX is disabled default to to Java.  Users must have either ActiveX or Java working to access virtual labs.

As to the connection methods, these are combinatorial attempts at RDP, Citrix, using direct connections on their native ports (3339, 1494, etc) or if blocked, tunnelled over http/https additional to the ActiveX or Java implementations described above.  You can see some of these methods attempted in the URT details section.

 "Force URA" means don't waste your time going through the combinations, we know the ports are blocked so just tunnel RDP/VNC/Citrix/Console using https to minimize connection times.