Well, I guess that you’ve already read all the good things about the new capabilities of the newer Access Gateway plug-in, Receiver and Access Gateway Enterprise that together with StoreFront will add additional features and functions that haven’t existed before. It’s now built to work together with the Receiver on the Windows and Mac OS X platforms and promises a lot by various blog posts from Citrix and others (incl. myself).

Here is an example of what it can (should) do: What’s new with Access Gateway MAC Plug-in release 2.1.4

But is the Access Gateway Plug-in that great? Well, before you plan to implement version 2.1.4 on OS X and especially if you want to leverage the SSL VPN functionality and host checks (EPA) then read the Important notes and Known issues for this release:

Important Notes About This Release:

1. The Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X Version 2.1.4 supports Citrix Receiver Version 11.7
2. Import the secure certificate for Access Gateway into the Keychain on the Mac OS X computer.
3. The Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X Version 2.1.2 and earlier versions are not supported on Mac OS X Version 10.8.
4. Endpoint analysis scans for antivirus, personal firewalls, antispam, Internet security, and EPAFactory scans are not supported for Mac OS X.
5. Client certificate authentication is not supported for Mac OS X.

First of all I’d say that these notes are not that great if you ask me! Why do I have to add the cert into the Mac Keychain? Why doesn’t the plug-in support the more “advanced” host checks like personal firewalls, certificates etc.?

Wait, it get even worse!! And before you go to the whole list I’d highlight these top ones that I’m kind of surprised about:

• It doesn’t support LAN access
• Upgrading doesn’t work
• Doesn’t apply proxy settings configured in session profile
• It doesn’t support SAN certificates
• Users cannot start the Access Gateway plug-in if the Receiver is already started, you first have to shut down the Receiver

Here you see the full Known Issues list for this release:

1. When users disable wireless on a Mac OS X computer and connect by using a 3G card, the Access Gateway Plug-in does not upgrade automatically through Citrix Receiver. If users select Check for Updates to upgrade the plug-in, the upgrade fails and users receive the error message “Updates are currently not available.” [#45881]
2. If you run stress traffic for HTTP, HTTPS, and DNS simultaneously, the Access Gateway Plug-in fails. [#46348]
3. When users disable wireless on a Mac OS X computer and connect by using a Vodafone Mobile Broadband Model K3570-Z HSDPA USB 3G stick, the Access Gateway plug-in does not tunnel traffic. [#256441]
4. If you configure an endpoint analysis policy and also enable the client choices page and proxy servers in a session profile, occasionally a blank choices page appears after users log on. When you disable the choices page in the session profile, the choices page appears correctly. [#316331]
5. If users connect to Access Gateway with the Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X and then run ping with a payload of 1450 bytes, the plug-in fails to receive the ICMP reply. [#321486] Read more…