ArchY.net » XenApp 5

Remote Desktop published application – Double upper case issue

Stephane THIRION — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:25:16 +0000

At one of my customer place, we need to publish mstsc.exe (RDP Client) through XenApp 4.5 on Windows 2008 x64. Users complained about a weird keyboard behaviour. While typing in their session, users stated using shift for the first letter, the second letter was upper case as well. I’va made a quick video to show you this issue, you can watch it bellow :

On the Citrix Web Interface, one ICA file is used as a template for ICA file creation, default.ica. I edited this file to check what was in :

Code block

[WFClient]
COMAllowed=Off
CPMAllowed=On
ClientName=
KeyboardTimer=50
MouseTimer=10
OutBufCountClient=118
OutBufCountHost=118
OutBufLength=512
PersistentCacheEnabled=On
ProxyFavorIEConnectionSetting=Yes
ProxyTimeout=30000
ProxyUseFQDN=Off
RemoveICAFile=yes
TransparentKeyPassthrough=Local
TransportReconnectEnabled=On
UpdatesAllowed=Off
VSLAllowed=On
Version=2
VirtualCOMPortEmulation=Off

In the WFClient (section bellow) I found the line KeyboardTimer=50 which mean at the end of the specified time period the keyboard data are sent to the server. I didn’t wanted to modify this value without beeing able to test it before, so I right clicked on the published Remote Desktop icon to download the launch.ica file (generated with the defgault.ica and the 50ms value) saved it and the edited it changing the keyboardTimer value to 25 then 15 then 10 and finnaly 5. I had the issue until the last value 5ms tested.

Now I need to make some more test to check if the bandwith consumed is really highter compare with the 50ms default value. I will update this post with the statistics result (Edgesight)

Update : 1st July 2010

I’ve used Citrix Edgesight to check what’s going on while I run some test toward ICA Session Traffic and ICA Session I/O. To run this test I created a script which open notepad and type a text (about 30/40 lines) so the same text input will be use for all the tested values.

I made this test with KeyboardTimer=50 (default), KeyboardTimer=25 and KeyboardTimer=5 and here are the results :

I did blank the “non needed” data to avoid confusion and as you might notice, there is not a huge difference between these different values. I decided to commit the change for wan users and I will check in deeper statistics will real usage on weeks/month, before/after the change.

I wanted to blog this issue because this is an annoying one and you might search a long time around the mstsc configuration, registry tips and tunning before finding out this was the KeyboardTimer value in the default.ica file on the Citrix WebInterface. You can also add the line KeyboardTimer=## (your value) to your WFCLIENT.INI file in your user profile directory, it should make the trick if you don’t want to commit this change for everyone using the WebInterface.

Sources : http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX103444

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Citrix Edgesight architecture scenario – part 2/2

Stephane THIRION — Sun, 23 May 2010 18:37:09 +0000

If you need to build an EdgeSight architecture for more than 6000 agents, you need to know you will have to split your database and EdgeSight server (web server) associated with it. This next architecture doesn’t include Edgesight database broker you will need for XenDesktop VDI deployment. If some of you are looking forward a VDI deployment for EdgeSight just let me know, Twitter, Facebook, email, comment or phone, I can make it simple for you, and you won’t need to read the 300 documentation pages ! This is a slightly different approach with file share and database broker…

A typical data upload size for an EdgeSight for Endpoints agent is 80KB. EdgeSight for XenApp agent data uploads are typically larger due to the greater amount of data collected and can reach 300KB. These data upload sizes depend on a number of factors such as the agent properties and the usage profile of the system hosting the agent.

From Edgesight Admin guide page 22.

Of course it depend how your worker are configured and what data you need to collect. I’m still trying to figure our how to calculate the amount of data transferred from agents to the web server, this is a complex calculation and it take a lot of time for something Citrix should provide.

So architecture for large environment is the same as the one you could watch in the previous blog – Citrix Edgesight architecture scenario – part 1/2 – except you need to split database and EdgeSight server. Only one Citrix license server and you can also keep one SQL Reporting Services for both Edgesight servers.

This configuration means you need to configure agents with a different http address, for example, at one customer I had 4000 XenApp servers and 5000 Endpoint agents, so I choose to split Endpoint agents on one Edgesight server and all XenApp on the other. This is not very handy when you want to check from XenApp servers to the endpoint statistics, but this is the way it is for now. By multiplying EdgeSight environment, complexity is getting stronger and find the good information is sometimes a matter of hours instead of minutes…

What Citrix should consider for the future of Edgesight :

Stop to check Citrix licenses on the Edgesight Servers, only agents is enough I think, then we would be able to load balance Edgesight Servers and SQL Reporting Services servers, spliting wouldn’t be necessary.
Since we don’t have Resource manager anymore, consider to bring at least the same level of information in EdgeSight we had with RM with the Advanced license.
Make available a complete EdgeSight database diagram.
Provide a simple tool to build 1,2,3 custom report.
Correct these annoying bug : When a Desktop is publish, no statistics are recorded, this is the same for an application with an argument in the command line…

Useful Links :
EdgeSight Wikipedia
EdgeSight Forums

EdgeSight Under The Hood

Citrix Edgesight architecture scenario – part 1/2

Stephane THIRION — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:04:42 +0000

During past years, I had to design and deploy several kind of Citrix Edgesight architectures, from the “POC” design to “Large deployment”. I had to consider what was the best way to use this product and handle the number of devices to monitor. One type of architecture I didn’t needed to use yet is with Citrix XenDesktop Virtual Desktop Monitoring and Edgesight Agent Database Server.

Since Ressource Manager (RIP) disappear with Citrix XenApp 6, Edgesight became a mandatory tool to have the big picture of your XenApp farms health. It’s of course a lot more than that with Platinum licenses, this will be the subject for another blog. This blog focuses on Citrix Edgesight 5.3.

Important notes regarding supported database :

SQL Server 2008 (Standard or better) or SQL Server 2005 SP2 or later (Standard or better). Note that SQL Server 2008 R2 is not supported,
Important: Note the following configuration requirements:
In SQL Server 2008, the Reporting Services Role called Manage Shared Schedules no longer exists as a stand-alone role; it is now part of the System Administrator Role. For more information, see Configuring Reporting Services for Citrix EdgeSight.
SQL Server must be configured for case-insensitive collation. Case-sensitive collation is not currently supported for this release.
SQL Server should be configured to use Windows Authentication or Mixed-Mode Authentication.
Reporting Services is included with SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005. Reporting Services can be installed on a separate machine from the data source.
SQL Agent Service running and set to start automatically (if Reporting Services is installed on the machine)

First when you need to practice and want to check out what is Citrix Edgesight, you can easily setup a VM with Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 x64, install SQL 2008 and its SP1 with Reporting Services. Then you can configure Internet Information Services (IIS) to host Edgesight’s website and install the Citrix License Server as well on the same machine. Keep in mind this is for Proof Of Concept only and shouldn’t be used in Production environment.

Before going further you need to estimate the Edgesight SQL Database size regarding the number of agent deployed. Couple of year ago I had to request the mathematics law to Citrix support to know about that; now there is a tool EdgeSight Database Size Estimation Tool this is a Excel sheet witch estimate automatically the requested database size needed regarding the number of XenApp agent and Endpoint agent to deploy (See the screenshot bellow)

For Small and Medium business, you can watch bellow, the typical architecture I choose to deliver. When you plan a deployment in Production, you need to think about your DR and backup plan : Backing up the Database and custom reports stored on the Reporting Services are recommended. If you can restore the Database and upload your custom report back, it will be very fast to install the Citrix Edgesight Website and running Citrix Edgesight after a crash. Don’t think about deploying two Edgesight websites on two different servers with a DNS alias or NLB, the only result you will have is twice more licenses used.

With this scenario, I announce 1000 XenApp Agents and 500 Endpoint Agents can be handle very smoothly and Citrix announces beeing able to support 6000 agents with this architecture design.

Part. 2, Citrix Edgesight for Large deployment and traffic generated understanding.

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Citrix XenApp – Hiding system drives part 2/2

Stephane THIRION — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:58:31 +0000

This is the second part, here is the link to the first part : Citrix XenApp – Hiding system drives part 1/2

If you read the first part, now you know how to apply the Microsoft Windows 2003/2008/R2 GPO to hide A,B,C or/and D drives. But what’s happening if you have a E: drive or O: ? You cannot use this GPO anymore, you need to create your own. This is simple to understand how it works, just read what’s follow.

By default the Hide Drives part in the system.adm file look like this :

Code block

POLICY !!NoDrives
   EXPLAIN !!NoDrives_Help
      PART !!NoDrivesDropdown          DROPDOWNLIST NOSORT REQUIRED
         VALUENAME "NoDrives"
          ITEMLIST
                NAME !!ABOnly           VALUE NUMERIC 3
                NAME !!COnly            VALUE NUMERIC 4
                NAME !!DOnly            VALUE NUMERIC 8
                NAME !!ABConly          VALUE NUMERIC 7
                NAME !!ABCDOnly         VALUE NUMERIC 15
                NAME !!ALLDrives        VALUE NUMERIC 67108863
                ;low 26 bits on (1 bit per drive)
                NAME !!RestNoDrives     VALUE NUMERIC 0 (Default)
          END ITEMLIST
     END PART
   END POLICY
 
[strings]
ABCDOnly="Restrict A, B, C and D drives only"
ABConly="Restrict A, B and C drives only"
ABOnly="Restrict A and B drives only"
ALLDrives="Restrict all drives"
COnly="Restrict C drive only"
DOnly="Restrict D drive only"
RestNoDrives="Do not restrict drives"

Then if I explain you this policy displays only specified drives on the client computer. The registry key that this policy affects uses a decimal number that corresponds to a 26-bit binary string, with each bit representing a drive letter:

Code block

11111111111111111111111111
ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

I choose an example where I want to hide A,B,C,D and E drives :

Code block

00000000000000000000011111
ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

Then convert to decimal. This binary string converts to 31 in decimal. Add this line to the [strings] section in the new HideDrives.adm file:

Code block

ABCDEOnly="Restrict A,B,C,D and E drives only"

After add this entry in the ITEMLIST section above and save the HideDrives.adm file.

Code block

NAME !!ABCDE_Only         VALUE NUMERIC 31

So the whole ADM file must look like this :

Code block

CLASS USER
 
CATEGORY  !!HideDrives
 
KEYNAME Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
    POLICY !!HideDrives
 
    PART !!HideDrivesDropdown    DROPDOWNLIST NOSORT REQUIRED
    VALUENAME "NoDrives"
    ITEMLIST
        NAME !!ABOnly           VALUE NUMERIC    3
        NAME !!COnly            VALUE NUMERIC    4
        NAME !!DOnly            VALUE NUMERIC    8
        NAME !!ABConly          VALUE NUMERIC    7
        NAME !!ABCDOnly         VALUE NUMERIC    15
        NAME !!HideABCDE        VALUE NUMERIC    31
        NAME !!ALLDrives        VALUE NUMERIC    67108863 DEFAULT
        NAME !!RestNoDrives     VALUE NUMERIC    0
    END ITEMLIST
    END PART
    END POLICY
 
END CATEGORY;HideDrives
 
[strings]
Blank=" "
ABCDOnly="Restrict A, B, C and D drives only"
ABConly="Restrict A, B and C drives only"
ABOnly="Restrict A and B drives only"
ALLDrives="Restrict all drives"
COnly="Restrict C drive only"
DOnly="Restrict D drive only"
HideABCDE="Restrict A,C,E,D and E drives only"
HideDrives="Hide Drives"
HideDrivesDropdown="Hide Drives Selection"
MoveProfile="Move Profiles"
MoveProfileDropdown="Move User Profile Location"
MOVEPROFILETOD="Move Profile to D Drive"
RestNoDrives="Restore Drives"

I think you’re good with this one, just import this ADM file and activate it following the part 1.

Links : Microsoft KB (thx to CTXBlog.fr)

CLASS USER

CATEGORY !!HideDrives

KEYNAME Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
POLICY !!HideDrives

PART !!HideDrivesDropdown    DROPDOWNLIST NOSORT REQUIRED
VALUENAME “NoDrives”
ITEMLIST
NAME !!ABOnly           VALUE NUMERIC    3
NAME !!COnly            VALUE NUMERIC    4
NAME !!DOnly            VALUE NUMERIC    8
NAME !!ABConly          VALUE NUMERIC    7
NAME !!ABCDOnly         VALUE NUMERIC    15
NAME !!HideABCDE        VALUE NUMERIC    31
NAME !!ALLDrives        VALUE NUMERIC    67108863 DEFAULT
NAME !!RestNoDrives     VALUE NUMERIC    0
END ITEMLIST
END PART
END POLICY

END CATEGORY;HideDrives

[strings]
Blank=” ”
ABCDOnly=”Restrict A, B, C and D drives only”
ABConly=”Restrict A, B and C drives only”
ABOnly=”Restrict A and B drives only”
ALLDrives=”Restrict all drives”
COnly=”Restrict C drive only”
DOnly=”Restrict D drive only”
HideABCDE=”Restrict A,C,E,D and E drives only”
HideDrives=”Hide Drives”
HideDrivesDropdown=”Hide Drives Selection”
MoveProfile=”Move Profiles”
MoveProfileDropdown=”Move User Profile Location”
MOVEPROFILETOD=”Move Profile to D Drive”
RestNoDrives=”Restore Drives”

Citrix XenApp – Hiding system drives part 1/2

Stephane THIRION — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:59:17 +0000

Hiding system drives C, D, floppy if there is still one and CDRom seems to be easy but I saw many many time at some customer’s place administrator unable to complete this simple operation. The reason is in most of the case, the administrator doesn’t really know how to manage GPO and what is difference between user and machine GPOs.

First you need to know there is a built-in GPO in Microsoft Windows 2003 / 2008 / R2 with these settings ready to be set.

To set it up, you need to create a new GPO or edit an existing one and find these two GPO bellow as follow :

Most of the administrators I spoke with told me they’ve done that already, but it still doesn’t work, they rebooted XenApp servers, Domain controller, everything they could reboot… But they forgot the essential…

These GPO above are USER GPO and this GPO is place on the XenApp OU in the Active Directory where there is no user at all. The solution is very simple you need to activate the GPO loopback :

This setting directs the system to apply the set of Group Policy objects for the computer to any user who logs on to a computer affected by this setting. It is intended for special-use computers, such as those in public places, laboratories, and classrooms, where you must modify the user setting based on the computer that is being used.

Then with a gpupdate /enforce this hiding drives GPO is working ! Finally !

In the second part of this blog I will explain how you can go further and hide drives with other letters than A,B,C or D.

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Citrix EdgeSight 5.3

Stephane THIRION — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:34:45 +0000

With this new version, Citrix give support to XenApp 6 and Microsoft Windows 2008 R2. Beware, the new Edgesight XenApp Client 5.3 is only made for Windows 2008 R2 and XenApp 6. For prior OS and XenApp version you must use the 5.2.1 version. There are a bunch of new reports available now, since Resource Manager is dead, Citrix needs to implement everything what we were use to find in RM. This is a small step but nothing big except for the licensing part, a brand new section is dedicated for licenses reporting.

What’s new ?

Monitoring of Citrix License Servers and reporting on license usage by product group or individual products. The license servers to be monitored are specified at Configure > License Monitor Configuration > License Servers. License usage reports are available on the Track Usage tab.
Monitoring of Published Applications and reporting on application launches and unique users. Published application reports are available on the Track Usage tab and the Browse tab.
Monitoring of session duration by farm or user group. Session duration reports are available on the Track Usage tab and the Browse tab.
EdgeSight Agent support for XenApp 6

Warning : if you have a SQL 2000 database, you need to upgrade to SQL 2005 or SQL 2008 !

So here are some screen shot about the new tab with the two licenses nodes :

It looks very nice, but you cannot subscribe these license reports to generate an automatic email (yet)…

There still an annoying bug with the filter option on many pop-up pages… The problem is, if you don’t know there is a filter button outside the actual windows you can reach while playing with tab key, you cannot apply your filter… It has always been here in Edgesight 5.x versions… (I will post more detail about that tomorrow)

Next blog about Edgesight will be all architecture I’ve deployed for different customers

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Citrix Online Plug-in for Mac, SSL Error 61: You have not chosen to trust…

Stephane THIRION — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:30:40 +0000

In this post I explain how I tried to troubleshoot this issue, if you need the solution, go at the end of this post.

My company (Activlan) had to renew our certificate installed on our Citrix Secure Gateway 3.1.3. As you might know, Citrix has issued some virtual appliance and I had to chose between, Citrix Access Gateway 4.6.2 VPX and Netscaller VPX Express (Free !). My choice was to integrate a Citrix Access Gateway (CAG) mainly because we are using other product to manage VPN to all our customers and I wanted to install what I needed, nothing less, nothing more.

So here we go, I got my xva file from MyCitrix account and I just deploy it on our XenServer, very easy, very simple, just some clicks. Once installed and basics configuration set, I had to generate the CSR (Certificate Signing Request) and wait for Verisign to send me the certificate I had to use with the CAG. This was a big adventure and of course I should have read the manual before, and configuration isn’t so easy but I guess when you do it all day long you begin to know everything and I can say now, I know how to troubleshoot a CAG from the client side to the Web Interface.

This error I got with my Mac didn’t show up on my Windows computers. In fact Apple doesn’t have a very big list of root certificate install on their OS compare to Windows. Here is the error message I got when I wanted to launch published application (XenApp). I was able to login in the CAG and the Web Interface as well, but not able to launch application.

SSL Error 61: You have not chosen to trust “Verisign Class 3 Secure Server CA – G2″, the issuer of the server’s security certificate.

Error number: 183

Sexy message, isn’t it ?

After searching around a bit I found this thread on Citrix’s forums : http://forums.citrix.com/message.jspa?messageID=447656 everything went clear, I didn’t had the root certificate on my computer to validate my brand new certificate from Verisign… So I tried to find how to get these root certificates, especially Verisign Class 3 Secure Server CA – G2, the one I needed. I found this Verisign address http://www.verisign.com/repository/roots/pca_certificate.html where you just have to fill a form to get a zip with everything what you might need :

Code block

Stephane-THIRIONs-MacBook:VeriSign Root Certificates stephane$ ls ./*
./Roots ReadMe.txt	./SHA1 Thumbprints.txt	./Serial Numbers.txt
 
./Generation 1 (G1) PCAs:
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority.cer	Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority.cer	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority.cer
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority.pem	Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority.pem	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority.pem
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority.txt	Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority.txt	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority.txt
 
./Generation 2 (G2) PCAs:
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.cer	Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.pem	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.txt
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.pem	Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.txt	Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.cer
Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.txt	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.cer	Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.pem
Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.cer	Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.pem	Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G2.txt
 
./Generation 3 (G3) PCAs:
VeriSign Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.cer	VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.cer
VeriSign Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.pem	VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.pem
VeriSign Class 1 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.txt	VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.txt
VeriSign Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.cer	VeriSign Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.cer
VeriSign Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.pem	VeriSign Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.pem
VeriSign Class 2 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.txt	VeriSign Class 4 Public Primary Certification Authority - G3.txt
 
./Generation 4 (G4) PCA:
VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G4.cer	VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G4.txt
VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G4.pem
 
./Generation 5 (G5) PCA:
VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5.cer	VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5.txt
VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5.pem
 
./VeriSign Universal Root CA:
VeriSign Universal Root Certification Authority.cer	VeriSign Universal Root Certification Authority.pem	VeriSign Universal Root Certification Authority.txt
Stephane-THIRIONs-MacBook:VeriSign Root Certificates stephane$

As you can see, the root certificate I’m looking for is here. I just find the good file and click on it, after validate this action with my password the certificate was install in the system Keychain Access in my Mac. You can go to check if the certificate is correctly installed, open Keychain Access in your Mac utilities folder (cmd+shift+U) :

Here it is. I though I was good to go and able to launch my applications, but no, not yet… I still got the same error message… My next step was to import our new certificate on my Mac as well following the same step as above. Importing the certificate didn’t work also, but importing the certificate with the intermediate certificate did the trick. A bit more explanation about Intermediate Certificate here.

Question : Did our new certificate with the intermediate certificate without the root certificate update is enough to make it work ? The answer is YES

Conclusion: If you have this issue, don’t follow the error message on your screen, your computer might have everything needed about root certificate,. The only thing missing is your new certificate with the intermediate certificate. I don’t know why we need to import this certificate yet but I will find out. Certificate are not really my cup of tea with PKI, private key, public key etc… I need to dive again in this subject for a while to understand.

Update : Re issuing the certificate and importing it onto my Citrix Access Gateway with the intermediate certificate

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Citrix XenApp tuning tips

Stephane THIRION — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:21:06 +0000

There are many post around to tune Citrix XenApp in many ways and there are even more to tune Microsoft Windows 2008 R2.

I want to begin a new document as we had with Citrix Metaframe 1.8 tuning tips on Microsoft Windows NT4 TSE. This was a great document and very helpfull in many way.

If you have any ideas, agree on what I will write or disagree, I take everything to form a big document available online for everyone.

First I would like to know if we should create a wiki-like to let everyone working on the document and add/change at will, what do you think ?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you choose other please add a comment bellow !

XenApp 4.5 / 5 unattended installation

Stephane THIRION — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:32:39 +0000

Unattended installation is very usefull in large XenApp farm, of course if you’re deploying one server per two month you might not be interessed by this process automation but this is always interresting to know this kind of tips. Scripts bellow are example I use every day in production to install servers, of course its needs to be change and adapt to your own settings and of course if you have some ideas to share, I take it !

This unattended example assume you have only one network card enable, a local XenApp source installation file and IP address type 192.168.3 / 192.168.10 / 192.168.200 / 10.113 / 10.112. This file allow to join an existing farm named CTX_TEST with a datastore hosted on a SQL server. Finally, you need to create one folder per farm inside your XenApp source folder if you are automating multi farm setup.

This is the UnattendedTemplate.txt you can find on your XenApp installation media, this file is very simple to fill and everything is comment and explain. This file example is for the XenApp zone named ZoneA

I wanted to comment every option bellow but I think existing comments are very clear and you will understand everything. If you have any question, just ask on the forum.

Code block

***************************************************************
* This is a sample answer file for unattended installations of
* Citrix XenApp 5.0.
*
* To run an unattended installation of XenApp,
* make a copy of this file and customize it for
* your needs.
*
* If you do not use an answer file or if you use an answer
* file but do not specify answers to some questions, default
* answers are used for those questions. The default answers
* in the installation are identical to the default answers
* listed in this sample answer file.
*
* This file installs only components contained in mps.msi.
* You must install prerequisites, including a Citrix XenApp
* Plugin for Hosted Apps from the XenAppHosted.msi, before
* installing XenApp. See the "Stage 4: Configure Pass-Through
* Client Authentication" section in the Citrix XenApp
* Installation Guide.
*
* Important: For security reasons, account passwords are not
* stored in this file and must be provided in the command-line
* when you run the answer file. For information about the
* msiexec commands used for providing credential information,
* see the “Setup Property Names and Values” section in the
* “XenApp Windows Installer Properties Reference” chapter of
* the Citrix XenApp Installation Guide.
*
* For information about installing XenApp, see the
* Citrix XenApp Installation Guide and the XenApp Installation
* Checklist. For information about Setup properties for
* other components, see their respective administrator's
* and installation guides.
*
***************************************************************
 
***************************************************************
* Citrix License Agreement
*
* This section specifies your acceptance of the Citrix End-User
* License Agreement. Set this value to "Yes" to
* indicate your acceptance of the Citrix End-User License
* Agreement.
*
* The unattended installation fails if you use any value other
* than"Yes".
***************************************************************
 
[Citrix License Agreement]
AcceptLicense=Yes
 
***************************************************************
* Data Store Configuration
*
* This section specifies whether you are creating or joining a
* farm and how to connect to the data store.
*
* Multiple options are available as follows:
*
* -> To create a farm using an Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or
*    IBM DB2 database:
*    - Set CreateFarm to Yes
*    - Set DirectConnect to Yes
*    - Complete the Direct Connect Settings section
*    - Complete the Farm Settings section
*
* -> To create a farm using an Access database:
*    > Set CreateFarm to Yes
*    - Set LocalDBType to Access
*    - Set DirectConnect to No
*    - Complete the Farm Settings section
*
* -> To create a farm using a SQL Server Express database:
*    - Set CreateFarm to Yes
*    - Set LocalDBType to SQL
*    - Set DirectConnect to No
*    - Complete the Farm Settings section
*
*
* -> To join a farm using an Oracle, SQL Server, or DB2
*    database:
*    - Set CreateFarm to No
*    - Set DirectConnect to Yes
*    - Complete the Direct Connect Settings section
*
* -> To join a farm by connecting to an Access or SQL Server Express
*    database stored on another server (Indirect Connection):
*    - Set CreateFarm to No
*    - Set DirectConnect to No
*    - Complete the Indirect Connect Settings section
*
*
* Specify the name of the zone where this server will reside.
* If no zone name is specified, a default zone name is applied
* to the first server in a farm. If no zone name is specified
* for servers joining a farm, the servers are added to the zone
* of the first server in the farm.
*
* If you are using an Oracle, SQL Server, or DB2 database,
* manually create a .DSN file within the ODBC Data Source
* Administrator "File DSN" option before running the unattended
* installation process.
*
* IMPORTANT: Read the Citrix XenApp Installation
* Guide and the Citrix XenApp Administrator's
* Guide for information about data store configuration, supported
* databases, setting up a DSN file, moving servers within
* farms, and renaming zones.
***************************************************************
 
[Data Store Configuration]
CreateFarm=No
LocalDBType=
DirectConnect=Yes
; Leave this blank to use the default zone name
ZoneName=ZoneA
 
***************************************************************
* Direct Connect Settings
*
* This section specifies settings for an Oracle, SQL Server, or
* DB2 database.
*
* This section is used only if the value for DirectConnect is
* Yes in the Data Store Configuration section.
*
* In this section, specify the path to the DSN
* file for this database:
*    - If you are creating a farm, see the Citrix XenApp
*      Installation Guide for details on how to
*      create a DSN file to use here.
*    - If you are joining a farm, specify the path
*      to the DSN file created on the server where you
*      created the farm or a copy of it. For details, see the
*      Citrix XenApp Installation Guide.
*
* Note: Specifying passwords in the unattended answer file is
* not supported for security reasons. When you run the command
* to install XenApp using this answer file, add the
* CTX_MF_ODBC_PASSWORD Setup property to the command line.
*
* If Windows NT authentication is being used, include
* the domain in the user name in the form domain\username.
* This command is described in the Citrix XenApp
* Installation Guide.
* Note: Fully Qualified Domain Names are not supported.
***************************************************************
 
[Direct Connect Settings]
DSNFilePath=c:\Citrix\XenApp5\CTX_TEST\MF20.dsn
UserName=CTXTEST_RW
Password=password123654
* To specify the password, use the CTX_MF_ODBC_PASSWORD Setup
* property.
*
*
***************************************************************
* SQL Server Express Settings
*
* This section specifies which SQL Server Express settings to use when
* connecting to the database.
*
* Use this section if you set CreateFarm to Yes and
* LocalDBType to SQL
*
* In this section, specify the name of the SQL Server Express
* instance to use when connecting to the data store. The
* default is CITRIX_METAFRAME.
*
*
***************************************************************
 
[SQL Server Express Settings]
InstanceName=CTX_TEST
 
***************************************************************
* Indirect Connect Settings
*
* This section specifies settings for connecting indirectly to
* an Access or SQL Server Express database on another server.
*
* This section is used only if CreateFarm is No AND
* DirectConnect is No.
*
* In this section, specify:
*
* 1. The name of the server you want to indirectly connect to
*    and the port number to use.
*
* 2. The username and domain of the farm administrator account
*    that can access the first server in the farm.
*
* Note: Specifying passwords in the unattended answer file is
* not supported for security reasons. When you run the command to
* install XenApp using this answer file, add the
* CTX_MF_INDIRECT_JOIN_PASSWORD Setup property to the command line.
* This property is described in the Citrix XenApp
* Installation Guide.
*
* Note: When using the indirect connect settings, you must specify
* the domain name and the user name since both fields are required.
* Fully Qualified Domain Names are not supported.
***************************************************************
 
[Indirect Connect Settings]
IndirectServerName=
IndirectServerPort=2512
UserName=
DomainName=
 
*To specify the password, use the CTX_MF_INDIRECT_JOIN_PASSWORD Setup
*property in the command line.
 
***************************************************************
* Farm Settings
*
* This section specifies the settings for creating a farm.
*
* This section is used only if CreateFarm is Yes in the Data
* Store Configuration section.
*
* In this section, specify:
*
* 1. The name of the farm you are creating.
*
* 2. A Windows NT user (user name and domain) who will be the
*    administrator of this farm. This user can later designate
*    other users as administrators of the farm using the
*    XenApp Advanced Configuration tool.
***************************************************************
 
[Farm Settings]
FarmName=CTX_TEST
FarmAdministratorUsername=
FarmAdministratorDomain=
 
***************************************************************
* Shadowing Restrictions
*
* This section specifies whether or not shadowing is enabled. If
* shadowing is enabled, this section specifies shadowing
* restrictions.
***************************************************************
 
[Shadowing Restrictions]
AllowShadowing=Yes
ProhibitRemoteControl=No
ProhibitNotificationOff=No
ProhibitLoggingOff=No
 
***************************************************************
* Citrix XML Service
*
* This section lets you specify if you want the XML Service to use
* a dedicated port or share a port with IIS.
*
* The default port is 80 for the XML service. If IIS is installed,
* you can share port 80 between IIS and the XML service,
* or you can dedicate a different port to the XML Service.
*
*
* If ExtendIIS is set to No, the specified port is used for the
* Citrix XML Service, and EnableVirtualScripts is ignored.
* If ExtendIIS is set to No and IIS is installed (or any
* service is already using port 80), Citrix XML Service takes the
* secondary default port as 8080.
*
* If ExtendIIS is set to Yes, DedicatedPortNumber is ignored
* and EnableVirtualScripts is used to decide if the virtual scripts
* directory will be created. It will be created ONLY if
* Virtual Scripts Directory does not yet exist on the system. If it exists,
* EnableVirtualScripts has no effect on the installation.
*
* If you do set ExtendIIS to Yes and IIS is not available, the
* dedicated port number is used.
*
* If you do set ExtendIIS to Yes and IIS exists and
* VirtualScriptsDirectory does not yet exist on the system but
* EnableVirtualScripts is set to No, installation fails.
*
* If you do not use the default port 80, all XenApp plugins
* using TCP/IP with HTTP server location must be configured to
* make requests to the specified port number.
*
* If ExtendIIS is set to Yes and you are installing on Windows
* Server 2008 x64 Edition, the ExtendIIS setting
* will be disregarded and ExtendIIS set to No.
***************************************************************
 
[Citrix XML Service]
ExtendIIS=No
; This setting applies only if ExtendIIS is No
DedicatedPortNumber=80
; This setting applies only if ExtendIIS is Yes
EnableVirtualScripts=Yes
 
***************************************************************
* Options
*
* This section contains additional options for unattended
* installation.
*
* - RebootOnFinish -
*
* RebootOnFinish specifies whether Setup shuts down and restarts
* the server after the installation completes.
*
* If you set RebootOnFinish to No, manually restart the server
* before using XenApp.
*
* - LogLevel -
*
* LogLevel specifies the granularity of Windows Installer logging in
* the log file.
*
* To disable Windows Installer logging, set LogLevel to No.
*
* To configure Windows Installer logging, set LogLevel to one of the
* following values:
*
* 	*	everything (the same as using all options listed
*               below for voicewarmup)
* 	v	verbose
* 	o	out of disk space
* 	i	informational messages
* 	c	command line parameters
* 	e	error messages
* 	w	warning messages
* 	a	action execution messages
* 	r	informational messages for the currently
*               running action
* 	m	out of memory errors
* 	u	user request messages
* 	p	property values
* 	+	append to an existing log file
* 	!	flush each line to the log
*
*
* Logfile specifies the path to the log file for the
* installation.
*
* - UILevel -
*
* UILevel specifies how much appears on the screen during
* the silent installation. Default is BASIC_UI_NO_MODAL.
* You can set UILevel according to one of the following:
*
* NO_UI
* BASIC_UI
* BASIC_UI_NO_MODAL
* BASIC_UI_MODAL
* REDUCED_UI
*
* NO_UI is equivalent to the msiexec q option. Setup
* displays no UI.
*
* BASIC_UI is equivalent to the msiexec qb option. Setup
* displays basic UI, but hides Cancel buttons.
*
* BASIC_UI_NO_MODAL is equivalent to the msiexec qb-
* option. Setup displays no modal dialog boxes.
*
* BASIC_UI_MODAL is equivalent to the msiexec qb+ option.
* Setup displays no UI except for a modal dialog box
* at the end of the installation.
*
* REDUCED_UI is equivalent to the msiexec qr option.
* Setup displays a reduced UI without a modal dialog box
* at the end of the installation.
*
*
***************************************************************
 
[Options]
RebootOnFinish=No
LogLevel=*v
LogFile=c:\XENAPPCTX_PROD.log
 
IgnoreMCM=No
RemoveWITurnkey=No
 
***************************************************************
 
* XenApp
*
* ServerType specifies the edition of XenApp that you
* are installing.
*
* Supported values:
*      Platinum (Platinum Edition)
*      Enterprise  (Enterprise Edition)
*      Advanced  (Advanced Edition)
*
***************************************************************
 
[PresentationServer]
ServerType=Enterprise
 
***************************************************************
* Citrix License Server
*
* This section describes the Citrix License Server settings.
*
* If CreateFarm is set to Yes, supported values for
* LicenseServerChoice are:
*
* - "Point"
* - "DontKnow"
*
* If CreateFarm is set to No, supported values for LicenseServerChoice
* are:
*
* - "Point"
* - "UseFarmSettings"
* - "DontKnow"
*
* If you set LicenseServerChoice to "Point," set
* LicenseServerName to either the name of the license server
* or its IP address.
*
* If you want to set a different license server port from the
* default value, you must set both LicenseServerPortDefault=No and
* LicenseServerPort. For example:
*
* LicenseServerPortDefault=No
* LicenseServerPort=27009
*
***************************************************************
 
[LicenseServer]
LicenseServerChoice=UseFarmSettings
 
LicenseServerPortDefault=Yes
LicenseServerPort=27000
 
***************************************************************
*
* MFRDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)
*
* Set DisableRDPPrompForPassword to "Yes" if you enable
* Terminal Services to accept credentials directly from the
* Remote Desktop Windows Client.
*
* If you set DisableRDPPrompForPassword to "No" users are
* prompted for credentials each time they connect using
* Remote Desktop Protocol.
*
***************************************************************
 
[MFRDP]
DisableRDPPromptForPassword=Yes
 
***************************************************************
*
* IMA Encryption
*
* Setting EncryptionEnable to 1 instructs Setup to enable IMA
* Encryption for the farm during a Create Farm server installation.
*
* This option is only relevant for a Create Farm installation. If you
* need to enable encryption on a join, use the console. The default
* is 0.
*
* Set KeyType to "generate," "file," or "existing" to indicate how
* Setup will receive the IMA Encryption settings. The default is "file."
*
* Set NewKeyPath to the complete path where you want the generated key to
* be saved. This option is only available when using KeyType=generate.
*
* Set KeyPath to the location where an already-generated key will be loaded.
* This option is only available when using KeyType=file.
*
* The KeyPath, NewKeyPath, and KeyType attributes are useful only when they
* are used in conjunction. Setting one of the options and not the other will
* result in the encryption key not being loaded.
*
***************************************************************
 
[IMAEncryption]
EncryptionEnable=0
KeyType=file
NewKeyPath=
KeyPath=

And if you want to go further, you can create one file per zone and use a script to deploy your XenApp server to the right zone while checking the machine IP address. This script needs XenApp installation files locally on your server (c:\Citrix\XenApp5).

Code block

On Error Resume Next
 
Dim objShell
Dim WshNetwork
Dim INSTMF
Dim objFSO
 
Set WshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 
' ---------------------------------------------------------------------
' ---------------------------------------------------------------------
' ------------------------ Zoning XenApp ------------------------------

Dim objWMIService, IPConfigSet, IPConfig, IPAddr, TabloIP, SrvSite
 
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")
 
Set IPConfigSet = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration Where IPEnabled=TRUE")
 
' This part check if more than one network card is enable
If IPConfigSet.count <> 1 Then
	Err.Raise "666","Network card check","Two network card are enable, XenApp zoning will now stop"
	wscript.echo "Error : " & err.number & " \ " & err.description
	WScript.Quit(Err.Number)
Else
	IPAddr = ""
	For Each IPConfig in IPConfigSet
	    If Not IsNull(IPConfig.IPAddress) Then
        	For i=LBound(IPConfig.IPAddress) to UBound(IPConfig.IPAddress)
	            IPAddr = IPConfig.IPAddress(i)
        	Next
    	End If
	Next
	TabloIP=split(IPAddr,".")
	If TabloIP(0) & "." & TabloIP(1) = "10.113" Or TabloIP(0) & "." & TabloIP(1) = "10.112" Then
		SrvSite = "ZoneD"
	Else
		Select Case TabloIP(0) & "." & TabloIP(1) & "." & TabloIP(2)
			Case "192.168.3"
				SrvSite = "ZoneA"
			Case "192.168.10"
				SrvSite = "ZoneB"
			Case "192.168.200"
				SrvSite = "ZoneC"
			Case Else
				SrvSite = "UNKNOW"
				Err.Raise "666","UNKNOW IP","This zone isn't setup in the installation process"
				wscript.echo "Erreur : " & err.number & " " & err.description
				WScript.Quit(Err.Number)
		End Select
	End If
End If
' ---------------------------------------------------------------------

objShell.CurrentDirectory = "C:\Citrix\XenApp5"
' This is the command line installation
INSTMF = objShell.Run("""CTX_TEST\UnattendedInstall.exe"" ""XenApp Server\w2k8x64\mps.msi"" " & Chr(34) & "CTX_TEST\CTX_TEST-" & SrvSite & ".txt"" " & Chr(34) & "CTX_MF_ODBC_PASSWORD=passwors123654 /qb-",9,true)
 
If Err.Number <> 0 Then WScript.Quit(Err.Number)

This unatended installation generate a verbose log file on c:\XENAPPCTX_PROD.log , don’t under estimate this part, it can be very usefull to troubleshoot your silent installation.

One last thing before you go, don’t forget to use a valid MF20.dsn :

Code block

[ODBC]
DRIVER=SQL Server
UID=CTXTEST_RW
Network=DBMSSOCN
DATABASE=CTX_TEST
APP=Citrix IMA
SERVER=DBINSTANCE_NAME

Join the forum discussion on this post

How to debug Java website publish application

Stephane THIRION — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:49:34 +0000

These last days I had to find out what was wrong with an extranet publish through XenApp. This extranet is using java and the issue users reported was random disconnection with a java popup. Find out what is wrong with extranet application is very hard because this is just a published browser with an URL pointing to a website in another company, everything works well until one day… My goal was to bring as much information and details as possible to the extranet’s support team and I needed to use the java console and grab the most verbose log possible.

First you need to publish the Java Control Panel, you can do it easily by make a new publish application and using the executable file called javacpl.exe in the java/bin directory of your Java JRE installation directory. Look the next screenshot for details about published application :

Once you Java Control Panel is published you need to grant access to this publish application to the target account and launch it. Then you need to go to the advanced tab and use the same configuration as above :

Next, you need to go to Java tab and view to add this command line after the javaw.exe path

-Djavaplugin.trace=true
-Djavaplugin.trace.option=basic|net|security|ext|liveconnect
-Djavax.net.debug=all

The click on Apply the OK to close everything.

The setup to trap all the information in the java console is done, now you can open you publish browser and go the the website and get all the debug information you will need to send the the dev of the problematic website.

You can test you console/debug mode with this url : http://java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml it should give you something like that :

The word should appear in the console.

If you have any request or detail to ask, just go on the forum and ask.

Join the forum discussion on this post

ArchY.net » XenApp 5

Remote Desktop published application – Double upper case issue

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