Project Avalon

Great News for citrix lovers.... Here comes Project Avalon Excalibur for you. FlexCast 2.0 architecture on air.Store front for personal desktop experience at its max.No more IMA, no more xenapp,xendesktop separation, Windows server 2012 & windows 8 support. Single control via citrix studio and full L1 activities via director... Try it ,experience it...

More info on the product will be updated soon here...stay tuned

PVS 6.1 full of bugs or myths

Hi,

We recently tried PVS 6.1 and found lot of bugs in the product. Just googled for the same and found that many users were facing the same issue. Citrix released a hotfix but that will be like a full installation kit where we need to uninstall your PVS server and reinstall it with the dump inside the hotfix. Sounds like wierd.right? It would be better if they made the hotfix as PVS 6.2 rather than providing a hotfix of more that 700MB.

Hope they will resolve the issues soon in the product.

Advantages and new features of xenapp compare to presentation server

Even though the core architecture remains the same for both xenapp and presentation server they had introduced some new concepts and feature in xenapp.

1.      Moved many configuration items from citrix advanced configuration tab to citrix policies and stream lined it like Microsoft GPO.

2.      Added many HDX policies to support multimedia

3.      Introduced VM hosted application which works with xendesktop

4.      Added windows 7 user experience to published desktops

5.      Added worker group concept

6.      Increased security features linked with Microsoft UAC & Microsoft RDS

7.      Added VM provisioning feature via provisioning server

SSL Error 37

Error Message: SSL Error 37: The proxy could not connect to ;10; (STA server);(sid) port 1494”
Cause: This problems seems to occur only when the XenApp server and ICA Client are using different DNS servers
Resolution: Enabling XML Service DNS address resolution allows a XenApp server to return the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) to ICA Clients using the Citrix XML Service

best practices in deploying xenapp or xendesktop

1. Reboot schedule for XenApp servers
2. When to dedicate the XenApp Zone Data Collector roles
3. Implications of provisioned XenApp servers on License server redundancy
4. Whether pooled desktops should be rebooted at logoff
5. What components should be backed up
6. Hotfix deployment policy
7. Recommended XenServer pool size when using MCS / PVS
8. Using processor and memory overcommit
9. When the ‘Optimize for XenApp’ setting should be used in XenServer
10. Whether Provisioning Services should be scaled Up/Out

VMs are getting blue dump

VMs are getting blue dump

Hi All,

It has been observed that VMs which are provisioned from PVS 5.6 is going to blue dump state and this is mainly happening for win7 VMs. If you call citrix support they will say you to add additional 8GB of HDD for capturing the dump to find out which component is causing the blue dump. But guys there is a basic check list before calling the support. I can prove that the below check list has solved my issue....

Is there any new hardware device attached to your VM recently.
Any patches or hotfix has been applied to your VM?
Large Send Offload is disabled or not if you are using a xenhypervisor and your ethernet is a citrix PV Ethernet...This need to be checked under the Advanced configuration settings of your PV adapter....

Hope this will fix your issue....guys trust me it is working in many infras after doing the above change...

VDI not available error

1. Determine the UUID of the Storage Repository and the VDI that's exhibiting the issue
2. Run xe vdi-forget uuid=<vdi_uuid>
3. Run xe vdi-scan sr-uuid=&lt;sr_uuid>;
4. Check in XenCenter (or run xe vdi-list sr-uuid=&lt;sr_uuid>;) and you should see the VDI sitting there. Fill in the info you had before in the Properties.
5. Reattach the VDI to your VM of choice and try starting it up.

Checking the license server version

People get confused when some one from citrix team or management asking what is the exact citrix licensing version. You will open the license management console but can't find.Where we can find out it.Yes ofcoarse in your registry..here we go....

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\LicenseServer\Install (for 32 bit operating systems)

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Citrix\LicenseServer\Install (for 64 bit operating systems)

Best Practices of Installing SEP 11 in Xendesktop

1. Do the installation of SEP 11 after doing all tasks in your base image(private image)
2.You can either go for a managed client or unmanaged client
3.After isntallation stop the symantec services
4.Delete the Hardware ID from registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\SMC\SYLINK\SyLink)
5.Delete the sephwid.xml file from c:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\HWID
6.Make the image to standard and publish to clients
7.If you are using a GUP model in your environment this will be enough.
8. If your update is taken care by a LUA server then change the definitions folder location to your write cache drive if it is in cache on harddisk mode
9.Schedule the LUA during the off peak hours
10.Remove ccApp.exe from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
11.Disable the network scan via policy if you are using citrix profile manager

Overview Of Citrix Systems

Overview Of Citrix Systems

                       Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) is a multinational corporation founded in 1989, that provides server and desktop virtualization, networking, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies, including Xen open source products.

Major Citrix Components

1. Xenapp
2. Xendesktop
3. Xenserver
4. Provisioning server
5. Netscaler

XenApp

             Citrix XenApp (formerly Citrix WinFrame Server, Citrix MetaFrame Server and Citrix Presentation Server) is a application virtualization product that allows users to connect to their corporate applications. XenApp can host applications on central servers and allow users to interact with them remotely or stream and deliver them to user devices for local execution.

XenDesktop

          Desktop virtualization(sometimes called client virtualization), as a concept, separates a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client–server model of computing.
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a virtual machine (VM) running on a hosted, centralized or remote server.Xendesktop is the VDI software provided by citrix. It helps in the easy management and administration of Virtual desktops.

Xenserver

       A hypervisor, also called virtual machine manager (VMM), is one of many hardware virtualization techniques allowing multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently on a host computer.Xenserver is an open source from Xen aquired by citrix. XenServer is a server virtualization platform that offers near bare-metal virtualization performance for virtualized server and client operating systems. XenServer uses the Xen hypervisor to virtualize each server on which it is installed, enabling each to host multiple Virtual Machines simultaneously with guaranteed performance. XenServer allows you to combine multiple Xen-enabled servers into a powerful Resource Pool, using industry-standard shared storage architectures and leveraging resource clustering technology created by XenSource.

Provisioning Server

              One of the major head ache of IT is to manage the OS and applications updates and fixes in 1000s of desktops & Laptops.Provisioning Server takes a very different approach by fundamentally changing
the relationship between hardware and the software that runs on it. Using“Software Streaming Technology”, Provisioning Server enables organizations to reduce the number of systems that they manage, even as the number of computers continues to grow. This solution simultaneously provides the efficiencies of a
centrally managed solution with the benefits of distributed processing.

difference between citrix XD4 & XD5

No IMA and LHC concept in XD5
no more oracle database in XD5.it only supports sql
machine creation services added in XD5
desktop studio and desktop director implemented
no more terminal services required for XD5
registry based discovery implemented in XD5
no farm

Load Manager Values

0 to 9998: This is the normal range for Load Manager.
99999: No load evaluator is configured.
10000: Load is at 100 percent (full load).
20000: The Presentation Server Console contains an incorrect server edition or a license mismatch.
99990: Results when a custom administrator with restricted rights runs the following QFARM commands:

Difference between ICA & RDP:-

1. RDP works only under TCP/IP, while ICA works on many protocols.
2. RDP doesn't permit applications to run in a browser, while works for ICA
3. Session Reliability will be there in ICA,it is not in the RDP
4. Encryption is possible in ICA,it is not present in RDP
5. ICA also supports non windows like DOS, UNIX, MACOS, mobiles
6. RDP supprots only desktop or server console.
7. ICA supports published applicaion, Desktop, Content, and it will work under 10kb- 20kb
ICA- Independent Computing Architecture (Citrix Protocol) 1494
RDP- Remort Desktop Protocol (Microsoft protocol) 3389

How to recover when Datastore failing?

data store can be recreated by the *.mdb file  which is located at %program files/Citrix/Indipendent Architectute Management%

this file can be moved to another server and a data base connectivity and be created using ODBC and creating a *.dsn file.

What will be happen if Data store down in Citrix?

If Data store is down then MetaFrame administrators will not be able to edit any configurations in the Management Console such as publishing applications and new MetaFrame Presentation Servers cannot be added to the farm.

what is a datastore

Datastore is the citrix database which stores all the static information including the following

-Farm Configuration
-Published application configuration
-Metaframe administration accounts
-Server configurations
-Printer configurations
-Trust relationships

another answer to the above qn
Its a database that has info of citrix farm like Xenapp server, Data collector, Zone, Citirx policies, printers, license server, ports etc.....it provide this info to all citrix xenapp server in a for

want to learn virtualization

Your Doubts & Questions

Hi All,

Please post your doubts,queries and questions regarding citrix products and our team will help you in resolving them. This blog is a knowledge sharing portal too...

Thanks in Advance
AMAL

Xen Desktop Questions

Difference between XD4 and XD5
What is requirement for installing XD5
What is difference between pooled & streamed applications
what is machine creation service in XD5
what is PVS?

Xenapp Questions

what is a data store?
The data store is the database where servers store farm static information, such as configuration information about published applications, users, printers, and servers. Each server farm has a single data store.

what is a data collector?
 A data collector is a server that hosts an in-memory database that maintains dynamic information about the servers in the zone, such as server loads, session status, published applications, users connected, and license usage. Data collectors receive incremental data updates and queries from servers within the zone. Data collectors relay information to all other data collectors in the farm.
By default, the data collector is configured on the first server when you create the farm, and all other servers configured with the controller server mode have equal rights to become the data collector if the data collector fails. When the zone’s data collector fails, a data collector election occurs and another server takes over the data collector functionality. Farms determine the data collector based on the election preferences set for a server.
Applications are typically not published on the data collector.

what is the use of zones
A zone is a grouping of XenApp servers that communicate with a common data collector. In large farms with multiple zones, each zone has a server designated as its data collector. Data collectors in farms with more than one zone function as communication gateways with the other zone data collectors.

what will happen if IMA fails
if IMA service stops the communication between data store and the server not happen. new connections can't be broked but existing connections will remain.

what will happen if data store corrupts
what is the requirement for installing xenapp6



Query command in citrix?
query [appserver | object | process | session | user] [/?] 

How does Citrix load balancing work?
Difference between published applications and Published Desktops? Pros/Cons of both.

Load Evaluators in Citrix?
1. Default Load Evaluators
2. Advance Load evaluators
3. Custom load evaluators

IMA port number?How to change IMA port?
IMA port:-2512...we can change IMA port via "imaport /set" command line or via local registry.