Archive for March 31, 2011

Citrix: Citrix PVS and BSOD when booting target VM from vDisk

Yesterday I spend the day setting up a PoC for Citrix Provisioning Services (5.6.1 SP1) with XenDesktop, XenApp 6 and XenApp 5. But we discovered that all of the target VM’s would give a BSOD (0x0000007b meaning: inaccessible boot device) when booting from the vDisk while the master didn’t have any problems.

citrix pvs

image source: Lako-Home

After investigating this we cloned the master and removed the hard drive. After creating the device in the Citrix PVS console we where able to boot successfully from this vDisk. So the VM was created manually and somewhere along the road there was a misconfiguration. We took the clone and converted it to a template. After this we installed CTX128726 for PVS so we can use the wizard to create XenApp VM’s with this vDisk from the PVS console

 

Citrix: Collection of XenDesktop 5 Documents, KB Articles, Whitepapers etc

Ronald Grass just posted a really good collection of reference material for XenDesktop:

I don’t know how you feel about all the different sources of information around XenDesktop 5. To me it’s confusing where all the XenDesktop infos are stored and what are the keywords to find the right content. So I decided to create a collection of links to all the stuff I know of, may it be eDocs, Citrix Kits,  HowTos, Whitepapers, KB Articles, Videos, etc.

XenDesktop MasterClass Videos available ( hey and don’t forget www.citrix.com/tv )
http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2011/03/25/XenDesktop+Masterclass+Video+Series+Now+Available

Very good XenDesktop 5 PowerShell Blog posts
http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2011/03/18/XenDesktop+5+PowerShell+SDK+Primer+-+Part+1+-+Getting+Started
http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2011/03/23/XenDesktop+5+PowerShell+SDK+Primer+-+Part+2+-+Creating+Hypervisor+Connections+and+Hosts

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2011/03/24/XenDesktop 5 PowerShell SDK Primer Part 3 Creating Pooled Catalogs that Leverage Machine Creation Services

Whitepapers
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128328XenDesktop5 FAQ *HOT!

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128013XenDesktop Licensing FAQ

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127594 XenDesktop 5.0 Quick Start Guide

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127587XenDesktop 5 – Reference Architecture

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128330Planning Guide: XenDesktop 5 Migration

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128277Logon Optimization Guide

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127939XenDesktop 5 Database Sizing and Mirroring Best Practices

https://community.citrix.com/kits/#/kit/1067009XenDesktop Design-Handbook

HowTos

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127546How to Create a VMWare User Account with Minimum Permission to Manage Machine Creation Services on XenDesktop 5.0

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127301How to Deploy and Configure XenDesktop 5 Virtual Desktop Agents with Active Directory Group Policy

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127429How to Repair a Site and Unlock Active Directory Accounts if Virtual Machine Creation is Interrupted

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127388How to Enable Remote Assistance for Desktop Director

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127492How to Enable Controller Service Logging in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127564How to Implement High Availability Features in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127392How to Create ICA Launch Files for High Availability Mode

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127476How to Enable Persistent CDF Tracing in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127301How to Deploy and Configure XD 5 VDA with AD Group Policy

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127578How to Configure XD 5 with Microsoft Hyper-V and SCVMM

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127945How to Change the XML Port in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128190How to Change Virtual Channel Priority in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127441How to Manually Install XenDesktop Web Access

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127538How to Reconfigure a XenDesktop Site to Use a Mirrored Database

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127359How to Configure XenDesktop for SQL Database Mirroring

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128253How to Use a Specific SQL port with XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127421How to Redeploy XenDesktop Without Re-Installing

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127842How to configure logoff behavior of a Desktop Group in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127596How to configure XenDesktop 5 VDA for VLAN tagging in Hyper-V

Tools

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123278XDPing 2.0* NEW

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128075XDDBDiag for XenDesktop

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127257XenDesktop 5 SQL Profiler Template

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127058Export-XenDesktop5Config 

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127070XenDesktop Session State Monitor Tool

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX126699 Citrix XnapShot

additional XD KB Articles

http://support.citrix.com/static/kc/CTX127254Citrix XenDesktop 5 PowerShell online reference *HOT

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128057 Getting started with PowerShell in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127424Citrix XenDesktop 5 – Issues Fixed in This Release

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127418XenDesktop 5 Services Overview

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127998Database Access and Permission Model for XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX126704Registry Entries Used by XenDesktop 5 Broker Service

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125578 XenDesktop Error: The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address *READ carefully, MCS needs additional editing of “/” section

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127811Single Sign-On and Xendesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127563Disaster Recovery Guide for XenDesktop 5 using NetScaler

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127461Common Issues with Active Directory Policies in XenDesktop 5

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX126916XenDesktop 5 Database Transaction Log Growing Excessively

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128580 Citrix XenDesktop 5 Support Statement for Microsoft KMS activation with Machine Creation Services (MCS)

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127545XenDesktop 5 Downloads Reference List

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128726XenDesktop Wizard (now as Hotfix for PVS 5.6 SP1)

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127969Desktop Studio Logging Options for XenDesktop 5

He also posted:

XenDesktop 4 is still very popular out there and there is a Installation Sequence Recommendation for all the hotefixes released yet

Citrix XenDesktop 4 – Installation Sequence Recommendations for XenDesktop 4 Hotfixes
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128604

But keep my earlier blogpost in mind, there’s no supported configuration possible for XenDesktop 4 with MS SQL.

Citrix: XenDesktop Planning Guide – XenDesktop Scalability

Citrix just released the XenDesktop Planning Guide – XenDesktop Scalability and these are the results (also from the PDF):

Read more

Citrix: Logon Optimization

Citrix released another good read on how the logon process and logon optimization in Citrix XenApp and/or XenDesktop works and how to optimize this:

Read more

Citrix: Guidelines for Antivirus Software Configuration

Citrix just put the CTX127030 online containing:

Read more

RES Workspace Manager: Launch after Citrix published desktop

Because one of our customers was planning to use the Citrix Desktop Appliance Lock, we needed to publish a Citrix desktop and start RES Workspace Manager after the launch of the desktop. While Microsoft has GPO’s for running a program after logging in, Citrix prohibits this.

ctx0004

Upon installation, Citrix adds tabs to the RDP-TCP Listener Properties in the Terminal Services Configuration. By default, the Environment tab has the “Run initial program specified by user profile and Remote Desktop Connection or Terminal Services client” radio button selected. Also, the Citrix Settings tab has “Only allow administrators to create desktop connections” selected.

ctx0001

 

When leaving this setting default you will get an error message when logging in:

“To log on to this remote computer, you must have Terminal Server User Access permissions on this computer. By default, members of the Remote Desktop Users group have these permissions. If you are not a member of the Remote Desktop Users group or another group that has these permissions, or if the Remote Desktop User group does not have these permissions, you must be granted these permissions manually.”

To correct this you can manually clear the “Only allow administrators to create desktop connections” check box like stated in CTX109925 but you can also create a custom ADM template to clear this check box. The key that’s used for this is:

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\ICA-tcp\fDisableExe

Where 0 is cleared and 1 is checked.

To create a custom ADM file I used the following PDF, the ADM template contained the following information:

;Configure The only allow admins to create desktop connections settings.
CLASS Machine

CATEGORY “Server Based Computing”
CATEGORY “Citrix Presentation Server”
CATEGORY ICA

KEYNAME “SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\ICA-tcp”
POLICY !!fDisableExe
EXPLAIN !!ExplainWords
PART “Disable the only allow admins to create desktop connections settings?” TEXT
END PART
PART “Clear the ‘Only allow administrators to create desktop connections’ check box?”
CHECKBOX
VALUENAME “fDisableExe”
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
VALUEOFF NUMERIC 1
END PART
END POLICY

END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
fDisableExe=”Allows published desktops for users”
ExplainWords=”This policy enables/disables published desktops with autostart programs for users”

I’ve applied this policy to my Windows 2003 w/ XenApp 5 farm and the check box is cleared and I can start a Citrix published desktop (while using the Desktop Appliance Lock) and start RES Workspace Manager after the desktop launch.  This way I can have the best of both worlds!

I denied the GPO on the Administrator accounts so when somebody with an administrator accounts connects via this Citrix Desktop they won’t get this policy and thus Workspace manager won’t get started.

If you’re using XenApp 6 you can use the following policies:

  • ICA\Desktop launches : “Allows or prevents non-administrative users to connect to a desktop session on the server.
    When allowed, non-administrative users can connect. By default, non-administrative users cannot connect to desktop sessions.”
  • ICA\Launching of non-published programs during client connection : “Specifies whether to launch initial applications or published applications on the server. By default, only published applications are allowed to launch.”

Your policies should look like the following image:

ctx0005