Enable SSH Access to the Horizon Cloud Connector Using a Command Line Interface

Use these steps if you want to use a Secure Shell (SSH) connection before pairing the appliance with the pod or if you want to enable SSH access to the worker node.

If you do not require SSH access to Horizon Cloud Connector before pairing the appliance with the pod, you can wait to enable it until after the appliance is paired with the pod. See Enable or Deactivate SSH on the Horizon Cloud Connector Appliance Using the Configuration Portal in the Administration Guide.

Note: This page's steps apply to Horizon Cloud Connector versions 1.9 and later. If you downloaded an earlier version, we strongly recommend you obtain the latest version from Omnissa Customer Connect (https://customerconnect.omnissa.com).

Prerequisites

For Horizon pods on premises or in VMC on AWS, perform the following tasks.

Verify that the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance is successfully deployed into your pod's environment as described in the subtopics under First-Gen Tenants - Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into Your Pod's Environment, but not yet paired with the Connection Server.
To use the recommended public key authentication for SSH access, generate an SSH public key and register the key during the appliance deployment. See First-Gen Tenants - On-premises and All-in-SDDC Horizon Pods: Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into the Pod's vSphere Environment.

Alternatively, if you do not register the public key during deployment, you can copy the public key to the appropriate keys file after enabling SSH access, as described in the steps later in this topic.

Enable SSH Access With Public-Key Authentication for Horizon Cloud Connector On-Premises or All-in-SDDC Deployments

Important: Beginning with Horizon Cloud Connector 1.9, SSH access is no longer supported for the root user account. For improved security, SSH access is only supported for the ccadmin user account through public-key (strongly recommended) or password authentication.

You can still use the root account to perform non-SSH administrative tasks on the appliance.

Use the following steps to enable SSH access to the Horizon Cloud Connector for the ccadmin user. As a security best practice, it is strongly recommended that you configure an SSH public key for authenticating the ccadmin user to the appliance.

Use vSphere Client to launch the console for the deployed appliance and log in to the appliance using the root account and password you set when you deployed the OVA into vSphere.
Set the password for the ccadmin account.
```
passwd ccadmin
```
Note: Ensure that the new password meets the security standards of a strong password. Verify that the password contains a minimum of eight characters with at least one capital, one numeric, and one special character.
Enable SSH access by running configure-adapter.py with the --sshEnable parameter. Follow the steps appropriate for your Horizon Cloud Connector version.

For Horizon Cloud Connector version 2.5 and later, run the command /opt/horizon/bin/configure-adapter.py --sshEnable

For Horizon Cloud Connector version 2.4.1 and earlier 2.x versions, the configure-adapter.py file is located in the deployed appliance in a bin directory within the /opt/ directory structure. Locate that configure-adapter.py in the deployed appliance, change to that directory, and run the command configure-adapter.py --sshEnable
Configure public-key authentication using one of the following methods.
- If you registered the SSH public key in the Customize template step of the appliance deployment wizard, public-key authentication is already configured and no additional steps are required.
  
  For more information, see First-Gen Tenants - On-premises and All-in-SDDC Horizon Pods: Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into the Pod's vSphere Environment.
- If you did not register the SSH public key during the appliance deployment, run the following command from the client system, replacing <IP_appliance> with the IP address of the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance. When prompted, enter the ccadmin password.
```
ssh-copy-id ccadmin@<IP_appliance>
```
  The ssh-copy-id command copies the public key to the ccadmin user's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.
Note: If you do not configure public-key authentication, password credentials are used to authenticate the ccadmin user for SSH access. For improved security, it is strongly recommended that you use public-key authentication instead of password authentication for SSH access.

SSH access to the appliance is now enabled.

Note: To run commands as a ccadmin user with elevated permissions, append the sudo prefix to the commands in an SSH session.

Deactivate SSH Access to Horizon Cloud Connector for Horizon Pods On Premises or in VMC on AWS

If you need to deactivate SSH access to the appliance, in the deployed appliance, change to the directory with configure-adapter.py, and run the command to disable SSH.

configure-adapter.py --sshDisable

Enable SSH Access to Horizon Cloud Connector for Horizon Pods in AVS

In the Azure portal, navigate to the Horizon Cloud Connector VM. Start the Run command action and choose RunPowerShellScript.
Change to the directory with configure-adapter.py and enable SSH access by running the following command.

configure-adapter.py --sshEnable

SSH access to the appliance is now enabled.

Enable SSH Access to Horizon Cloud Connector for Horizon Pods in GCVE

To enable SSH access to Horizon Cloud Connector prior to pairing the appliance with a pod in GCVE, include the appropriate line in the startup script when creating the Horizon Cloud Connector VM instance. See First-Gen Tenants - Horizon Pods - Federated Architecture with GCVE: Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into Your Pod's Environment.

What to do next

Proceed to First-Gen Tenants - Verify the Horizon Pod and Virtual Appliance Are Ready to Be Paired with First-Gen Horizon Control Plane. Then continue to First-Gen Tenants - Complete Pairing the Horizon Pod with First-Gen Horizon Cloud Using the Horizon Cloud Connector Configuration Portal. When pairing is successfully completed, the Horizon Cloud Connector web-based configuration portal will provide a toggle that you can use to deactivate SSH access for the appliance, or re-enable SSH if it was previously deactivated.

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