Session Recording web player

Overview

The web player lets you use a web browser to view and play back recordings, and configure cache memory for storing recordings while playing. Using the web player, you can:

• Search for recordings by using filters, including host name, client name, user name, application, client IP address, event text, event type, and time. For more information, see the View recordings section in this article.

• View and play back both live and completed recordings with tagged events listed in the right pane. For more information, see the View recordings section in this article.

Note:

Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Firefox are supported.

Enable the web player

The web player is disabled by default.

• To enable the web player, start a Windows command prompt and run the <Session Recording Server installation path>\Bin\TestPolicyAdmin.exe -enablewebplayer command.

• To disable the web player, start a Windows command prompt and run the <Session Recording Server installation path>\Bin\TestPolicyAdmin.exe –disablewebplayer command.

Logon and password

The URL of the web player website is http(s)://<FQDN of Session Recording Server>/WebPlayer. To ensure the use of HTTPS, add an SSL binding to the website on IIS and update the SsRecWebSocketServer.exe.config configuration file. For more information, see the HTTPS configuration section in this article.

Note:

When logging on to the web player website, domain users do not need to enter credentials while non-domain users must.

After you log on to the web player website, all recordings appear, listed. Clicking All Recordings in the left navigation refreshes the page and displays new recordings if there are any.

Installation

As with the other Session Recording components, you can use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops installer to install the web player.

During installation, selecting Session Recording Administration on the Core Components page installs the web player on the same machine with the Session Recording Server. For more information about installing Session Recording, see Install, upgrade, and uninstall.

With the web player installed, the SessionRecordingRestApiService and the WebPlayer applications appear on IIS.

HTTPS configuration

To use HTTPS to access the web player website:

1. Add an SSL binding on IIS.

   1. Obtain an SSL certificate in PEM format from a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).

      Note:

      Most popular browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox no longer support the common name in a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). They enforce Subject Alternative Name (SAN) in all publicly trusted certificates. To use the web player over HTTPS, take the following actions accordingly:

      • When a single Session Recording Server is in use, update the certificate of the Session Recording Server to a SAN certificate.

        

      • When load balancing is in use, ensure that a SAN certificate is available both on Citrix ADC and each Session Recording Server.

        

   2. On IIS, right-click the website and select Add Bindings. The Site Bindings dialog box appears.

      

   3. Click Add in the upper right corner. The Add Site Binding dialog box appears.

   4. Select https from the Type list and select your SSL certificate.

      

      

   5. Click OK.

2. Update the SsRecWebSocketServer.exe.config configuration file.

   1. Locate and open the SsRecWebSocketServer.exe.config configuration file.

      The SsRecWebSocketServer.exe.config configuration file is typically located in the <Session Recording Server installation path>\Bin\ folder.

   2. Enable TLS by editing TLSEnable=1, and fill in the paths to the SSL certificate and its key, respectively.

      Note:

      Only the PEM format of SSL certificates and key files is supported.
      The ServerPort field indicates the port number that the web player uses to collect recording files. In the following screen capture, it is set to the default value (22334).

      

      To extract the separate certificate and key files used in the WebSocket server configuration:

      1. Ensure that OpenSSL is installed on your Session Recording Server that contains the SSL certificate.

      2. Export the SSL certificate as a .pfx file. The .pfx file includes both the certificate and the private key.

      3. Open the command prompt and go to the folder that contains the .pfx file.

      4. Start OpenSSL from the OpenSSL\bin folder.

      5. Run the following command to extract the certificate:

         openssl pkcs12 -in [yourfile.pfx] -clcerts -nokeys -out [aSRS2.pem]
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