A while ago Dane Young posted an excellent blogpost on the ITVCE site on how to create a load balanced multi-node Citrix StoreFront 2.0 server group with the Citrix NetScaler 10.1. You can find the blog post over here: http://blog.itvce.com/?p=4605 and I did a blogpost over here: Creating a Load Balanced Citrix StoreFront 2.0 Server Group with Citrix NetScaler 10.1
Based on my previous blogpost and considering the fact that the NetScaler 10.5 release brought us a completly different interface for the NetScaler I thought it would be a good idea to refresh the blogpost with the newly released technology:
Installing StoreFront 2.5:
I downloaded the Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 files from the website, extracted them and installed them both of my web services (DIASF01 and DIASF02).
Configuring StoreFront 2.5:
After I logged on to the SF01 I did an initial configuration of StoreFront, as you can see I’m using HTTP here but HTTPS can be used too and is recommended by Citrix (but not used for this blogpost). Robin Hobo did an excellent blogpost on how to configure StoreFront with SSL over here: Installing and Configuring StoreFront 2.0.
Join Server Group:
Server Groups were introduced with the launch of StoreFront, as much has been said about StoreFront 1.x the new release of StoreFront brings stability and scalebility. I’ve added the actions on SF01 to allow a server to be joined to the existing group and the actions on the SF02 to be added to this existing group.
Create DNS Record:
As I changed the base URL for StoreFront to something I want to loadbalance I had to add the DNS Record.
Configure Citrix NetScaler:
This speaks for itself, this is how you can configure the Citrix NetScaler to load balance HTTP traffic over two web servers.
Almost forgot, configure StoreFront Monitors:
While you can do a standard TCP handshake as probe to check if your server is up it doesn’t say anything about IIS or the StoreFront Services. Thus Citrix created an additional monitor to check if your StoreFront server is fully operational, this is a way to configure these StoreFront Monitors.
Proof:
Here you can see the traffic is being load balanced over the Citrix NetScaler configuration to the two web servers running StoreFront.
Kees Baggerman
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Hi Kees,
Thank you for the video’s explaining how to load balance StoreFront using a NetScaler. I do have two small remarks:
– Persistence is better set to ‘SOURCEIP’ when used behing a Access Gateway to avoid “Cannot complete your request” – see solution 5 in http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133904
– In the Storefront monitor there’s no need to specify the destination IP. If you keep it empty it will use the IP of the server and 1 generic monitor can be used (instead of 1 per server). Also keep in mind that in the “Special Parameters” the name of the store is specified. When a different store then “Store” is used you should change this.
Cheers
Ingmar
I am running Storefront 2.5.2 and NetScaler 10.5 and have an issue. I am trying to integrate the published applications thru the gateway portal. I have several published bookmarks that I do not want to host on XenApp but want them to be obsurced when external.
I have noticed that the applications section of the Gateway Portal says “This content cannot be displayed in a frame”. How do I get this section to populate with applications?
HI cory you managed to solve this problem???
Hi Cory, did you see this post? http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/300714-passing-credentials-to-storefront-from-internal-portal-web-site/ Looks very similar to what you’ve been seeing.
Hi this is my scenerario:
I have 2 NS vpx in LB on a DMZ, also I have 2 SF on the servers LAN, I did step by step but I always have the same issue on the event viewer (error 3003) http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133904
but any of those solutions help my on my deplyment.
just a question,
the load balancing VIP need to be on the same network as the backend storefornt servers?,
now I have these configuration
SF1(10.0.0.1)-servers network
SF2(10.0.0.2)-servers network
LBSF(10.1.0.1)-DMZ network
the ports that I open it was:
80
443
icmp
also I have a DNS record to give the LBSF a name that can be resolve by my to NS.
please can you help me.. I at this close to change SF for WI…
I’ve done similar deployments, maybe you should check your persistency on the lb VIP as Ingmar states in his previous comments:
– Persistence is better set to ‘SOURCEIP’ when used behing a Access Gateway to avoid “Cannot complete your request” – see solution 5 in http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133904
I did it to.. the only thing that I didnt do was use https instead of http
[…] Creating a Load Balanced Citrix StoreFront 2.5 Server Group with Citrix NetScaler 10.5 […]
Ensure that the ROOT cert and Intermediate Cert used for binding on Netscaler vServer i.e., End Entity Certificate -> intermediate 2 -> intermediate 1 ( cross sign certificate ) -> sha-1 root or sha-2 root are all installed on the storefront cert store (MMC- Certificate snapin- Trusted and intermediate store (Add respective files here)). This was missed out on my storefront servers. Its still intriguing why https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995347.aspx root and intermediate certs were not available on Storefront servers which should be pushed in the form of patching.