Citrix will very soon offer a lot of scripts and tools to give the ability to migrate policies from a XenApp 6.5 farm to a XenApp 7.5, I'm currently testing all these Powershell script to check it out and maybe use it by including it in our migration process. What Citrix haven't give us yet is a tool to move an existing XenApp 6.5 server to a XenApp 7.5 Site, steps are fairly simple and can be automatize : Leave XenApp 6.5 Farm **Reboot** Uninstall XenApp 6.5 **Reboot** Install XenApp 7.5 VDA This is not what I recommend to do because removing a piece of software to replace by another always leave some dirty little things everywhere... This is the reason I prefer to start from scratch and migrate application; sometime it's not possible and we need to go fast, so these few steps are easy to customize and integrate in every deployment system in place. The first step is to leave the XenApp 6.5 farm : To complete this farm leave script, you need to reboot the XenApp server. The second step is to uninstall XenApp 6.5 using this command line : To complete this step the XenApp server needs to reboot again. The last step is to deploy the new VDA (XenApp / XenDesktop 7.5) using this command line : Update 25 April 2014 If you plan to move your XenApp 6.5 servers to XenApp 7.5 you need to clean a bit more than simply XenApp, I had a lot of comments about Edgesight agent, Citrix Profile Management etc... and my answer if yes you need to uninstall each of these component to avoid any conflict with the VDA. For example Esgesight can be uninstall using the following command line : This is it ! I think Citrix will offer a "graphic" tool in some point, but I needed to have that ready now, so I share it ! Resources : XenApp and XenDesktop 7.5 edocs XenApp Uninstallation Best Practices
I blogged about how to automate Citrix XenDesktop 7 deployment and database creation, and how to join and existing XenDesktop 7 site unattended, but now to continue and go a bit further in the automation process, I needed and wanted to know how to automate Hosting Configuration by Adding Connection and Resources to the DDC in an unattended way. This blog will cover creation process for XenServer 6.x and vCenter (vSphere) 5.1 since I don't have access to a Hyper-V (yet), I went over Citrix eDoc to check how I could do this and I found here : [link] Thanks to Livio for some PowerShell help :) It helps to understand whet need to be setup and after few tests I ended up writing this script to automate this part : This script have been tested with Citrix XenDesktop7 and XenServer 6.2 and vSphere 5.1
So auto-install and auto join an already XenDesktop 7 Site is cool but what if you need to automate the first DDC installation ? Here is how I did with help of a great blog (Timm Brochhaus) who made a script available for everyone, and I personally used it. Let's do it for a full automated installation, I will install all the components from XenDesktop 7. Timm Brochhaus wrote a very cool blog and give you the explanation about a script he wrote to automate this part with a very useful script. Juts don't forget to run this script in 32bit mode.... [link] I did use Timm's script and here is the result I got : 3 databases were created, one for the Site informations, one for the log informations and a last one for monitoring (edgesight-like) Now we are ready for the next step which is site creation with the command New-XDSite with the result : If I use the script Timm make available and use the same syntax, this is pretty easy to add this line and add what we need to automate DataBase creation + Site creation in one script : So now your XenDesktop 7 DDC is ready to work, you can launch the Desktop Studio console, you just need to create your Machine Catalogs and Delivery Groups etc... This next part of automation is in my next blog about XenDesktop 7
We all need to automate things, we need to fast deploy, fast provision and stay lazy, not doing the same thing every day... So let check how we can industrialize XenDesktop 7 deployment (the easy part) and configuration (I guess the tricky part). First to deploy XenDesktop 7 using command line is simple and very well documented [link] Installs XenDesktop Server Options can be (see documentation for further details): /COMPONENTS CONTROLLER, DESKTOPSTUDIO, DESKTOPDIRECTOR, LICENSESERVER, STOREFRONT /EXCLUDE <package> excludes a package from installation /HELP, /H, /? Shows this dialog /NOREBOOT Suppress reboot after installation (if needed) /PASSIVE, /QUIET Do not show UI during installation /REMOVE Remove components (instead of installing) /CONFIGURE_FIREWALL Configure Windows Firewall /NOSQL Do not install SQL Server Express 2012 /NO_REMOTE_ASSISTANCE Do not install Windows Remote Assistance when installing Director I will add a second server to my existing deployment (1 DDC, Windows 2012 XenDesktop 7) my command line to install components I need look like : The XenDesktop 7 "Framework" is now installed but the is still configuration an Site join to automate. Using Powershell this is an easy step as well : This command line will update the database automatically, if you do not wish to, you need to specify it : Note : if you had DesktopStudio open, to show the change on the new DDC, refreshing the mmc is not enough, you need to close and open it again. Last thing, to remove a DDC using command line, still with PowerShell : This command line will update the database automatically, if you do not wish to, you need to specify it : Note : You must execute this commend another DDC than the one you want to remove. So to sum-up, this is very easy to automate XenDesktop DDC deployment once the first DDC is set up. The next step will be to try to automate the first DDC installation and configuration.
Long time I didn't tried to install a Bloomberg component on Citrix XenApp. I know there is not a lot of information and best practices about that on internet, I think it will be a useful blog for everyone looking for information about that. First things first, I wanted to automate the deployment on several XenApp servers so here are the instructions : Unattended Installation Run sotrtxxxx20xx.exe and go in the temp folder to get the "setup.blp" file, you can copy it in the same folder as your Bloomberg installation file is. Here is the content of the setup.blp file : As you can see, you can configure a lot of settings to realize a clean unattended installation, for my installation I just change the directory to Maindir = d:\blp and rename the setup.blp file to archynet.blp. Now you can proceed the installation by creating a batch file with a command line : The /perm extension is mandatory when installing Bloomberg Anywhere on XenApp, without that, I haven't been able to make it work properly. # Command line switch: /perm=<value> # Valid values: default [Permissions set for all user profiles] ie: sotrtMMDDYYYY.exe /s /perm=default # path/file [Permissions set to all usernames in text file (separated by newline)] # ie: sotrtMMDDYYYY.exe /s /perm=c:\users.txt The installation might take some time because the installer upgrade the Microsoft Framework .Net and then install Bloomberg Anywhere. Once the silent installation is done, we do need to test it. Tests and issues When I tested Bloomberg everything looked fine except the media and video part, the screen was blinking, flickering a lot and reseting mouse position to the center of the screen until the process was killed. I had the same issue with some of the button with the Bloomberg macro in Excel 2003 : The screen was flickering and blinking until the process bxlaui.exe was killed. These issue were clearly XenApp issue, to make sure I tried only with RDP protocol, and everything was fine without XenApp. Resolution Using this good old KB about Seamless Configuration settings http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX101644 I combine several parameters to obtain the value 0x87116 Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Citrix/wfshell/TWI Value Name: SeamlessFlags Value Type: REG_DWORD Values: 0x87116 87116 is the number obtained by using : DISABLE CLIENT INFO SYNC EXCEPT WORKAREA : Use this flag to configure the server seamless engine to accept the client work area information (size of the desktop excluding the taskbar) but not…
Other automation blogs I posted : XenApp 6 Automation XenDesktop 5 Automation XenApp 4.5 / 5 Automation Today, I needed to prepare the deployment of Citrix PVS servers in silent mode, as usual I'm using a distribution / deployment software like Altiris or SCCM to use the scripts you will read in this blog. The following scripts have been found on the Citrix Community and it was so well done by Kevin Bacon I didn't want and need to build another one from scratch. To deploy the console and the PVS server, we use PowerShell because I needed to add as well a Windows Feature .NET Framework 3.5.1 before begining the Provisioning Services Server deployment. I bring some modification to these scripts to auto install the .Net Framework Feature, add log files for the installation troubleshooting and the PVS console installation. Unattended installation and PVS farm creation This first cmd script is the one to run to start the silent installation : This PowerShell very short script add the Framework 3.5.1 feature and is launch by the PVSinit.cmd launch script. (Thanx to Joe Shonk IV) and this is the big piece and thanks again to Kevin for this work, you will need two tools from the Microsoft Resource Kit ntrights.exe and subinacl.exe. Unattended PVS farm joining Now We know how to install a new Citrix Provisioning Services server and set it up. The next part of this blog is how to automate the addition of PVS Farm members with ConfigWizard.exe (located wiht a default installation in C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services\) First you need to go to the directory where ConfigWizard.exe is located on a configured PVS server (The one we just installed for ex) to create a response file ConfigWizard.ans, you can do it by running ConfigWizard.exe /s and follow the next steps : You will find the ConfigWizard.and file in the following directory : "C:\ProgramData\Citrix\Provisioning Services" Here is my ConfigWizard.ans file : Now to use this answer file, we need to deploy a new PVS server, copy the ConfigWizard.ans file onto the new servers within the farm and modify the IP address in the ConfigWizard.ans file to match each server in the PVS farm. Once the file is copied in the same directory as ConfigWizard.exe you just need to run the following command : ConfigWizard.exe /a , reboot your server and you're done ! To automate this last step, you…
If you're looking for automation / unattended installation of Citrix XenApp 4.5 / 5 check here : XenApp 4.5 / 5 unattended installation If you need to industrialize the installation of Citrix XenApp 6, you can follow this blog to create a new farm using command line and add a new XenApp server to an existing farm. On my side, I used the scripts you'll read bellow with a deployment software (Altiris, SCCM etc...) Unattended XenApp 6 farm creation Before begging to install XenApp 6 you need to add one role and one feature to your Windows 2008 R2 server. To do so, you need to use PowerShell since servermanagercmd.exe reach his end of life. Open a PowerShell shell and type Import-Module Servermanager to Load the Server Manager module into the Windows PowerShell session before working with Server Manager cmdlets. Once it's done, you need to type this two command lines to add the .NET Framework 3.5.1 feature and the Remote Desktop Session Host role You will need to reboot the computer before running the Citrix XenApp 6 unattended installation. To run an automated installation you will use the XenAppSetupConsole.exe tool on the DVD in the "XenApp Server Setup\bin" folder. This tool can be use with the following parameters : So, If you want to install XenApp 6 Enterprise Edition and create logs of this installation, just execute the following line where x:\ is either your DVD drive, a mapped drive or a share \\server\share\... The setup done and a reboot is required. The next step you will create a new Citrix XenApp 6 farm. You need to continue this configuration to create a dsn file where you'll include the database name and the database server name. I used for this example a Microsoft SQL2008 SP3 server where I previously created the TEST_XA6 empty database. The file sql.dsn : Save the sql.dsn file as a text file and you can either copy it before launching the configuration either leave it on a share and change the path in the next command line to use the correct path. To realize an unattended farm creation, we will use the XenAppConfigConsole.exe utility (you can find it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\XenApp\ServerConfig\ ) and here are the parameters you can use : So I want to setup a new farm (XA6_TEST), add the local administrator as XenApp administrator, specify the license server address and port,…
I needed to find a way to deploy XenDesktop 5 Desktop Delivery Controller on demand, and the best way to industrialize the auto insertion in a XenDesktop 5 existing site. Of course, as the environment will be very large, I have access to an automation software like Altiris, SCCM etc... You need to know, adding and removing XenDesktop controller from site require some privilege and rights on the database server. In large environment, this is not so easy to gain access to the database servers but at least you'll have the information and the script to send to the SQL DBA. First I install manually the first XenDesktop 5 server to configure database and have everything ready. This is a old XenApp habit and you'll see with the information bellow, you can even industrialize the installation and the site / database creation pretty easily. To do so, there is an executable XenDesktopServerSetup.exe on the DVD (x:\x64\XenDesktop Setup\XenDesktopServerSetup.exe) and if you type /? the information bellow appears : Here is the command line I used to deploy the DDC, without the Web Interface, database and license server, I also have disable the firewall with Active Directory GPOs so I don't use the /configure_firewall option. Don't forget the server where you chose to deploy XenDesktop 5 must be in an Active Directory Domain otherwise the installation will be fine but you won't be able to launch Desktop Studio (many error messages...) Now XenDesktop is installed but not configured. The next steps took me a while because there is no 1,2,3 manual to industrialize the integration of a new XenDesktop 5 server in a site, at least I didn't find any on the net... I wanted to download and install Citrix XenDesktop 5 SDK but it's already install by default with XD5, to check if you can use and access it, launch the PowerShell (Start/All Programs/Accessories/PowerShell) and type Asnp Citrix.* then Get-Command –Module Citrix.* to check if you're able to list all the command available to use. You should see the same list as bellow : If you have some issue with the security in PowerShell, refer to the build-in help to set the proper level of execution security. To go further with all these Cmdlet, Citrix have online a webpage : CTX127254 where you can read and learn more about each Cmdlet. I made 3 scripts to get the information (1),…
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. 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). 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 :
