Let’s say you manage numerous 10ZiG Zero clients and your users all have similar USB hardware that needs to be redirected to the VDI session. In most cases the hardware will be redirected without any configuration necesary, but what about when that doesn’t happen. You need to push a configuration template with the device information to your 10ZiG Zero Clients.
In my case, I use a YubiKey Security Key. I regularly use this for logins in Chrome and noticed that it wasn’t being directed via USB redirection.
If you’re interesting in 10ZiG products and looking to buy, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for information and/or a quote! We can configure and sell 10ZiG Zero Clients (and thin clients), help with solution design and deployment, and provide consulting services! We sell and ship to Canada and the USA!
This post is part two of a three part 10ZiG Manager Tutorial series:
On the 10ZiG Zero Client, go to settings, USB redirection, and change the preference from “Default” to “Include”. This must manually be done on every Zero Client inside of your infrastructure (time consuming).
Add the USB hardware ID to your configuration template inside of the 10ZiG Manager and then push this to all your 10ZiG Zero Clients that you manage (super fast, can be deployed to thousands of devices in seconds).
In this post we’re going to cover the later, and show you how to add this to a config template. In my example, we’ll be adding the YubiKey security key with a hardware identifier (USB Product ID/PID) of 1050/0120 (Vendor ID: 1050, Product ID: 0120). We’ll be manually adding the hardware ID/PID to the config template in this tutorial.
Please Note: You can also add the settings on a 10ZiG Zero Client, and generate a template by pulling the config from that client. You can then push this to others as well.
To find out the Hardware ID/PID, you can either use the “Device Manager” on Windows, or plug in the device in to a 10ZiG Zero Client, go to settings, USB Redirection, and you should see the device name, along with the HID/PID info.
Instructions
Open the 10ZiG Manager.
Randomly choose a 10ZiG Zero Client from the list, right-click on it to open the menu. Expand “Configuration” -> Select “Manage templates”.
In the “Configuration Templates” window, right-click on your existing template (or create a new one), and select “Edit”.
In the “Template Configuration – Template Name” window, double-click on “USB Device Redirection”.
In the “USB Device Redirection” window, click on “Add”.
Enter in a friendly name, and enter your Vendor ID and Product ID in to the fields. For a YubiKey Security key, I did the following.
Click OK on all the fields, save the template. The configuration has been saved to the configuration template.
You’re done! You can now deploy this template to a single 10ZiG Zero Client, or deploy it as a batch to many 10ZiG Zero Clients.
So you’ve purchase some 10ZiG Zero Clients, configured the 10ZiG Manager, and want to create a configuration template to deploy to all your devices.
In this post, we’ll be going over how to create a configuration template from a manually configured 10ZiG Zero Client, so that you can edit it, and then deploy it to other 10ZiG Zero Clients (whether it’s a single unit, or 10,000).
Once you have a configuration template, you can add certificates, modify the VDI configuration, configure keyboard/mouse input, USB Redirection, and more! Doing all this with a configuration template allows you to manage and maintain a large amount of 10ZiG Zero Clients with ease.
If you’re interesting in 10ZiG products and looking to buy, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for information and/or a quote! We can configure and sell 10ZiG Zero Clients (and thin clients), help with solution design and deployment, and provide consulting services! We sell and ship to Canada and the USA!
This post is part one of a three part 10ZiG Manager Tutorial series:
Please Note: We are going to assume that you have manually configured at least one of your 10ZiG Zero Clients as a base configuration that you want to generate a template from. If not, make sure you do this before generating a template. We are also assuming that you have configured the 10ZiG Management software so that the Zero Clients can connect to it.
Instructions
Open the 10ZiG Manager.
Choose the 10ZiG Zero Client that you have already configured in the list and right-click on the unit.
In the menu, expand “Configuration” -> and Select “Generate Template”.
A warning explaining how the configuration is merged is presented, please read and understand this.
In the “Configuration Templates” window, type in a template name in to the “Template Name” field, and then select “Ok”. I’m calling mine “DA-MainTemplate”.
A warning explaining changes is presented, please read and understand this.
You will be brought back to the 10ZiG Manager, and will see the “Generate configuration template” task in the tasks list at the bottom of the window. It should eventually complete and be marked as successful.
The configuration template has been created.
You have now created a configuration template inside of 10ZiG Manager! You can edit this, and eventually deploy it to other 10ZiG Zero Clients on your network.
In an effort to truly showcase the capabilities of VMware Horizon View and the 10ZiG 5948q Zero Client, I wanted to put together a demo showing the ability to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 7.4) in a VDI environment.
First and foremost, this was super easy to setup. It was almost too easy…
Sidenote: Remember, my company Digitally Accurate Inc. is a 10ZiG partner. We can configure and sell 10ZiG Zero Clients (and thin clients), help with solution design and deployment, and provide consulting services! Contact us today for information or a quote! We sell and ship to Canada and the USA!
Please see below for video:
You’ll notice during login that after the credential prompt multiple desktops were available (we chose to log on to the RHEL instance) to choose from. You’ll see further on in the video versioning and specifications as well as video playback. Again, please note that my environment does not have any GPU or 3D rendering.
Please Note: The momentary black border on the bottom right side during login, was due to a resolution change on the VDI session. This was the first time logging in with this client, and the border doesn’t normally occur unless changing resolutions.
Please note, my company Digitally Accurate Inc, is a VMware Solution Provider Partner, 10ZiG Partner, and Red Hat Ready Business partner. Please don’t hesitate in reaching out for anything VDI! We design, sell, implement, and support VMware and VDI environments!
As promised in my previous post which covered my first impressions, here are some pictures and video of the 10ZiG 5948q zero client in action! In the videos I demonstrate video playback as well as the USB redirection capabilities of the 10ZiG Zero Client and VMware Horizon View. Scroll down to the bottom for videos!
If you’re interesting in 10ZiG products and looking to buy, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for information and/or a quote! We can configure and sell 10ZiG Zero Clients (and thin clients), help with solution design and deployment, and provide consulting services! We sell and ship to Canada and the USA!
Pictures
10ZiG 5948q Zero Client
10ZiG 5948qv Zero Client VMware Horizon View
10ZiG 5900 Series Zero Client VMware Horizon View Login
10ZiG 5948q Series Zero Client Configuration Menu
Videos
In this video, I demonstrate the capability of the 10ZiG 5948q zero client connected to a VMware Horizon View server (via a Unified Access Gateway) playing a video from YouTube. Please note that the ESXi server does not have a GPU and 3D rendering is disabled for the test (this is as low performance as it gets).
In this video, I demonstrate the capability of the 10ZiG 5948q zero client using USB redirection on a live VDI session.
And finally, here’s a video of a 10ZiG zero client cold boot for those that are interested.
And remember, my company Digitally Accurate Inc. is a VMware Solutions Provider and 10ZiG Partner. I’m also regularly posting content on these on the corporate blog as well!
It’s an exciting weekend as I got my hands on 2 new 10ZiG5900 Series Zero Clients (5948qv). My company purchased these for internal testing and demo purposes since we sell VMware VDI solutions and 10ZiG Thin and Zero Clients. I figured I’d do a brief post to offer my first impressions, offer a few pictures, as well as a brief write up.
If you’re interesting in 10ZiG products and looking to buy, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for information and/or a quote! We can configure and sell 10ZiG Zero Clients (and thin clients), help with solution design and deployment, and provide consulting services! We sell and ship to Canada and the USA!
Why a Zero Client
For a brief backstory, zero clients are used for environments and businesses that use desktop virtualization (VDI) instead of traditional computers. This means that an employee won’t actually have a computer, instead they will be using a zero client which relays video/keyboard/mouse (it’s actually more complicated than that, lol) to a desktop computer that’s virtualized on a server (either in the cloud, data center, or on-premise). This allows the company to save on hardware, provide better performance to end users, and really simplify a big portion of the IT landscape.
I’m a big fan of VDI, particularly the VMware Horizon View product. My company has a full demo/test VDI environment we have available to showcase this technology.
What’s really awesome is that you don’t necesarily even need to use a zero client. You could instead use an old netbook, laptop, computer, or even a cellphone to connect to these virtualized desktops using the VMware Horizon View client.
The next question you may be asking, is what about graphics quality? Well, you can implement special graphics cards to virtualize GPUs (such as the AMD FirePro MxGPU class of cards) and provide high end graphical capabilities to your users.
In my deployment we’ve been using software based VDI clients, but it was time to get our hands dirty with some zero clients. We decided to partner up with 10ZiG, and order a couple of these units for internal and demo purposes.
Now let’s get started!
10ZiG 5948qv Zero Client (5900q Series Zero Client)
Unboxing
10ZiG 5948q Zero Client
The 5948qv is part of 10ZiG’s power class of zero clients. This bad boy is the latest and greatest model and supports 3 displays (yup, that’s right) and 4K UHD resolutions. The hardware itself is based off an Intel Braswell (refreshed version) CPU. The device has 1 HDMI port, as well as 2 DisplayPort connections. It also has a microphone, audio line out, and a ton of USB ports (including both USB2 and USB3) for USB redirection. You can choose from 4GB or 8GB RAM configurations.
The 5948qv runs off 10ZiG’s NOS operation system. This is a compact and lightweight operating system that includes the VMware Horizon View client, as well as all the configuration utilities you’ll need to get up and running (as well as troubleshoot the device if needed).
When I received the first two units, I noticed that the boxes were very heavy (I was actually really surprised).
10ZiG 5900q Series Zero Client Box Shot
10ZiG 5948q Series Zero Client Box Shot
The packaging was very nice, and the contents were safely secured with proper cardboard spacers to avoid items shifting during transport.
The Zero Client
Finally it was time to take the zero client out! It is a very sleek, and very well put together device (I was actually surprised). As mentioned, it has some weight to it. It just looks great…
10ZiG 5948qv Zero Client
The bottom of the device swivels and turns to expose 2 hidden USB ports which can be used for any type of USB device. The device also has 2 x USB3.0 ports on the front, an additional 1 x USB2.0 on the front, and 2 x USB2.0 ports on the back.
10ZiG NOS – Linux Based OS
Plugging in the device and turning it on, it brings you to a big 10ZiG splash image and then on to first time configuration. In the first time configuration with the 10ZiG NOS Operating System you specify your locale and region settings, date and time, and others. One problem I came across, is that when choosing Canada, it defaulted the keyboard to French for some reason. I actually didn’t even realize this until later when trying to log in to my VDI session (it was registering the wrong characters when pressing keys) and rejecting my password. It actually took me over an hour to realize this when I finally started poking around in the console and noticed that the “/” key was triggering an entirely different character. Changing the keyboard to US English fixed this (although in my opinion it should have been the default).
Usage
After the first time setup is complete, the interface is very simple yet powerful. You can configure your VMware View Connection Server address (and properties for the connection), as well as all the hardware components of the zero client, this includes: Network, Display, Mouse, Keyboard, USB devices, printers, etc…
After specifying my View connection server and then leaving the control panel, I logged in to my VDI session and it worked great!
Initially I tested some videos on YouTube, which looked great, and then moved on to trying some other things that involved audio and all was perfect. This product was production ready! I also tested the USB redirection by connecting a USB thumb flash drive to a USB port. The Windows 10 VM detected the USB drive, and I was able to partition, format, and use the stick without any problems. Initial testing resulted in 4MB/sec USB redirection speeds.
I’m really hoping that when my budget permits, I can purchase an AMD MxGPU S7150 card so I can test the 10ZiG with some high performance graphic applications. In the meantime though, this works great!
Now before I leave you, there are two important things I want to mention:
The 10ZiG zero clients can be completely centrally managed and provisioned by the 10ZiG Manager, which is completely free if you own the products. You’d use this to deploy many zero clients (hundreds, thousands, etc…) in large scale deployments.
All in all, I’m very impressed with the device and have absolutely no complaints. I’ll be doing some more write ups and videos on the device soon! Stay posted!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.
Do you accept the use of cookies and accept our privacy policy? AcceptRejectCookie and Privacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
