Feature Article

With the SSLVPN solution within Novell Access Manager, users can run in one of two modes. Enterprise and Kiosk mode (see http://www.novell.com/communities/node/2974/ssl-vpn-architecture for more details on each mode).

Enterprise mode requires administrator privileges whilst the Kiosk mode does not. The mode of operation is currently controlled at the client level, and not at the server. If a client has enough rights to the local file system, it will run in Enterprise mode, else it will run in Kiosk mode. For security reasons, administrators may prefer to force SSLVPN clients coming into their server to run in Kiosk mode, regardless of whether the user has admin privileges or not on this host.

With Access Manager 3 Support Pack 3, this is now possible. In order to do this, the following steps need to be performed:

1. Add the 'ForceKiosk=true' statement to the config.txt file on the SSLVPN servlet
   

   idpcluster:/ # more /var/opt/novell/tomcat4/webapps/sslvpn/WEB-INF/config.txt
   ServerIP=127.0.0.1:Port=2010
   AllowTestLogin=false
   RoundRobinCluster=false
   ForceKiosk=true
   
   

2. Restart the tomcat engine where the SSLVPN servlets are running
   

   idpcluster:~/ # /etc/init.d/novell-tomcat4 restart
   Stopping tomcat4: Using CATALINA_BASE:   /var/opt/novell/tomcat4
   Using CATALINA_HOME:   /var/opt/novell/tomcat4
   Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /var/opt/novell/tomcat4/temp
   Using JAVA_HOME:       /opt/novell/java
   
   waiting for processes to exit
   waiting for processes to exit
   Starting tomcat4: Using CATALINA_BASE:   /var/opt/novell/tomcat4
   Using CATALINA_HOME:   /var/opt/novell/tomcat4
   Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /var/opt/novell/tomcat4/temp
   Using JAVA_HOME:       /opt/novell/java
   
   idpcluster:~/ # 
   
   

3. purge cache on the browser and Access Gateway
   To clear the cache on the Linux Access Gateway, execute the following two commands
• lagcluster:~ # rm /var/novell/.~newInstall
• lagcluster:~ # /etc/init.d/novell-vmc restart

To clear the cache on the NetWare Access Gateway, run the 'purgecache' command from the command line interface

4. From the browser, access the SSLVPN URL (for example, http://sslvpn.novell.com/login/sslvpn). You can run it in either ActiveX mode or applet mode using the forcejre=true argument (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novellaccessma...)
5. Once connected, look at the 'Log Entries' TAB on the SSLVPN portal page and make sure that the mode of operation is Kiosk mode. The highlighted line below confirms that the client was forced to run in Kiosk mode.

Users will always connect in Kiosk mode from now on, regardless of whether they have admin privileges or whether the Enterprise mode client was already running on the host.

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