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AWS Documentation » Amazon WorkSpaces » Administration Guide » Manage Directories for Amazon WorkSpaces » Manage Your Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

Manage Your Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

As with Windows WorkSpaces, Amazon Linux Workspaces are domain joined, so you can use Active Directory Users and Groups to administer your Amazon Linux WorkSpaces, and to provide access to those WorkSpaces for users. Because Linux instances do not adhere to Group Policy, we recommend that you use a configuration management solution such as AWS Opsworks for Chef Automate, AWS OpsWorks for Puppet Enterprise, or Ansible to distribute and enforce policy.

Control PCoIP Agent Behavior on Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

The behavior of the PCoIP Agent is controlled by configuration settings in the pcoip-agent.conf file, which is located in the /etc/pcoip-agent/ directory. To deploy and enforce changes to the policy, use a configuration management solution that supports Amazon Linux. Any changes take effect when the agent starts up. Restarting the agent ends any open connections and restarts the window manager. For a full listing of the available settings, run man pcoip-agent.conf from the terminal on any Amazon Linux WorkSpace.

Enable or Disable Clipboard Redirection for Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

By default, Amazon WorkSpaces supports clipboard redirection. Use the PCoIP Agent conf to disable this feature, if needed.

The Group Policy setting change takes effect after the WorkSpace's next Group Policy settings update and the session is restarted.

To enable or disable clipboard redirection for Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

  1. Open the pcoip-agent.conf in an editor with elevated rights by using the following. 

    [domain\username@workspace-id ~]$ sudo vi /etc/pcoip-agent/pcoip-agent.conf

  2. Add the following line to the end of the file:

    pcoip.server_clipboard_state = X

    Where the possible values for X are:

    0 — Disabled in both directions

    1 — Enabled in both directions

    2 — Enabled client to agent only

    3 — Enabled agent to client only

Grant SSH Access to Amazon Linux WorkSpaces Administrators

By default, only assigned users and accounts in the Domain Admins group can connect to Amazon Linux WorkSpaces by using SSH.

We recommend that you create a dedicated administrators group for your Amazon Linux WorkSpaces administrators in Active Directory.

To enable sudo access for members of the Linux_Workspaces_Admins Active Directory group

  1. Edit the sudoers file by using visudo, as shown in the following example: 

    [example\username@workspace-id ~]$ sudo visudo

  2. Add the following line:

    %example.com\\Linux_WorkSpaces_Admins ALL=(ALL) ALL

After you create the dedicated administrators group, follow these steps to enable login for members of the group.

To enable login for members of the Linux_WorkSpaces_Admins Active Directory group

  1. Edit /etc/security/access.conf with elevated rights.

    [example\username@workspace-id ~]$ sudo vi /etc/security/access.conf

  2. Add the following line:

    #+:(example\Linux_WorkSpaces_Admins):ALL

Use the Amazon Linux Extras Library Repository

With Amazon Linux, you can use the Extras Library to install application and software updates on your instances. For information about using the Extras Library, see Extras Library (Amazon Linux) in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Note

If you are using the Amazon Linux repository, your Amazon Linux WorkSpaces must have internet access or you must configure virtual private cloud (VPC) endpoints to this repository and to the main Amazon Linux repository. For more information, see Provide Internet Access from Your WorkSpace.