An interesting feature of PCoIP in VMware View

Good day.

During testing of VMware View 4.6 with the vSphere 5 virtualization platform (as part of vCenter 5 + ESXi 5), my colleague Mikhalych and I discovered an interesting feature - when a user is in a VMware View session using PCoIP, the virtualization platform administrator can connect to the virtual work console user station, but he will only see a black screen:


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However, if you try to switch the focus to the black area of ​​the console, the button presses and mouse movements will be transferred to the VMware View user session.

In addition, if in the registry of a virtual workstation with Windows XP to create the key “HKLM \ SOFTWARE \ VMware, Inc. \ VMware SVGA DevTap \ NoBlankOnAttach”
type DWORD and set its value to 1, then, according to reviews on forums, the current state of the user's screen will be displayed in the VM console.
In Windows 7, this registry key did not work for us.

With incorrect configuration of user rights in vCenter, this feature of PCoIP protocol implementation in VMware View can lead to a decrease in security level when working in virtual workstations.
The mention of the need for such a setting is in the Release Notes to View 4.0 -
http://www.vmware.com/support/view40/doc/releasenotes_viewmanager40.html

If you’re a client, you’ll be able to watch your own virtual machine (or VI Client) Console view displays a blank screen. Do not type or mouse-click within the Console, because doing so disrupts the user. It’s not a problem.
Workaround: This is a vSphere role-based privilege of access to the console.

but for some reason not in the Release Notes to View 4.5 and 4.6 -
http://www.vmware.com/support/view46/doc/view-46-release-notes.html
http://www.vmware.com/support/view45/doc/view45_releasenotes.html

We recommend checking the roles used in your vCenter servers, and for all users who do not need access to the VM consoles, disable the corresponding item in the virtual infrastructure role settings:



Ps. for everyone interested - VMware View 4.6 runs without problems on the vSphere 5 virtualization platform, including the integration of View Composer with vCenter 5.