Remote Application Server Administrators: Adding, Managing and Configuring

You can have more than one Parallels Remote Application Server administrator who can manage the farm and the sites. If needed, you can configure permissions to limit access to specific categories and sites.

If the Parallels Remote Application Server is installed in an Active Directory environment, any user that has elevated privileges and write access to the installation directory can be configured as a Parallels Remote Application Server administrator.

If the Parallels Remote Application Server is installed on a standalone machine, any user that has elevated privileges and write access to the installation directory can be configured as a Parallels Remote Application Server administrator.

Default Parallels Remote Application Server Administrator

The user you specified when you logged into the RAS Console for the first time is automatically granted full permissions and can perform any task in the farm. There should always be at least one enabled administrator with full permissions in the farm.

Adding an Administrator Account

To add an administrator account to the Parallels Remote Application Server:

1. In the RAS Console, select the Administration category and then click the Administration tab in the right pane.
2. Click the Tasks drop-down menu and choose Add.
3. The Administrator Properties dialog opens.
4. Specify a user name, email address, and the mobile phone number.
5. The Permissions field allows you to configure permissions for this user. By default, the Full Permissions option is selected. To grant specific permissions, click the Change Permissions button. For further instructions, please read the Configuring Administrator Accounts Permissions section
6. In the Receive system notifications via drop-down list, select Email, so any system notifications are sent to the specified email address. Select None to disable email system notifications for this account.
7. Click OK to add the new administrator account.

Configuring Administrator Accounts Permissions

Administrator permissions can be configured when creating a new administrator account or from the Properties of an existing account.

Permissions can be assigned per category (e.g. Farm, Publishing, Universal Printing, etc.) and also per site as seen in the screenshot below.

Select one or more options in the Site permissions section and then select one or more sties to which these permissions should apply.

You can grant the following permissions to an administrator:

• Full Permissions. Can modify all categories, sites, and global settings in the farm.
• Allow Site changes. Can modify the following categories: Site, Load Balancing, Universal
• Printing, Universal Scanning.
• Allow Publishing changes. Can modify the Publishing category.
• Allow Connection changes. Can modify the Connection category.
• Allow viewing of RAS Reporting. Can view reports generated by the RAS Reporting engine.
• Allow viewing of Site Information.Can view (but not modify) the site information.
• Allow Session Management.Can manage running sessions.
• Allow Client Management changes. Can modify the Client Manager category.
• Allow access to Information. Can view the read-only Information category.

Managing Administrator Accounts

To view and modify administrator's accounts:

• In the RAS Console, select the Administration category and click the Administration tab.
• Right-click an account and choose Properties in the context menu.
• Use the Administrator Properties dialog to modify the necessary information.

Logging off an Administrator

When an administrator is accessing a category (e.g. Universal Printing), the category is locked for all other administrators. Therefore, upon trying to access a category locked by another administrator, the administrator will be alerted with an error that the object is locked.

If you need to release a lock, you can do the following:

1. On the Administration tab page, click the Tasks drop-down menu and choose Show Sessions.
2. In the Sessions dialog, select the administrator who's locking a category and then click Send Message to communicate with the administrator or click Log Off.

Using Instant Messaging for Administrators

Parallels Remote Application Server administrators that are logged on to the same farm can communicate with each other using a built-in instant messenger.

To communicate with an administrator (or all logged on administrators) using the instant messenger:

1. In the RAS Console, select the Administration category.
2. Expand the drop-down menu next to your name (top-right corner of the console screen) and
3. click Chat....

The Parallels Remote Application Server Chat window opens.

To send a message:

1. Type the message text in the lower input panel.
2. In the Logged on administrators list box, select a particular administrator to send the message to or All to send the message to all logged on administrators.
3. Click Send.
4. Your message history is displayed in the Messages panel. To clear the history, click Clear All.
5. You can also view the chat history listing all messages between all administrators (not just your own messages). To do so, select the Administration node in the console and then select the Chat History tab.