Citrix has just released a new version of the Citrix License Server VPX which are a self-contained Linux-based virtual appliance that allows you to easily deploy licensing in your Citrix environment. The requirement is only 256 mb which are sufficient for up to 500 Citrix servers and approximately 50.000 licenses. Currently the Citrix License Server VPX is only available for Citrix XenServer 5.6 Feature Pack 1 / Service Pack 2 or higher.

To get started download and import the Citrix License Server VPX Appliance via XenCenter and then configure hostname, dns suffix and ip address. If you’re testing this out I would recommend using the same name as your current Citrix License Server. This way you don’t need to return and reallocate all your licenses. Even though the hostname is the same it won’t register in DNS so you’re all safe.

Log on to your license server and import all your licenses and restart the appliance.

Most likely you’re using Citrix Policy to define your License server host name. Simply change this to the ip address of your new Citrix License Server VPX.

To be sure that everything is working properly you should stop your old Citrix Licensing Server Service. Then run the command : gpupdate /force and qfarm /load on one of your Citrix XenApp servers to verify that everything is okay.

If the Server Load is 20.000 there’s something wrong, most likely the hostname. Remember that this is case sensitive.

For those wanting to Return and then ReAllocate the licenses to a new host name please logon to your MyCitrix account.

So should you transfer all your licenses to this new Citrix License Server VPX appliance? That’s up to you, but since the current Windows version normally runs side by side with Remote Desktop Services Licensing it won’t make sense to me. On the other side this is a great way to setup a standby Citrix License Server for Disaster Recovery.

Resource :

• Citrix License Server VPX

Setting up Microsoft Office 2010 on Citrix XenApp delivered by Citrix Provisioning Services can be very confusing if it’s not done correctly. So in this post we will go through the necessarily requirements step-by-step.

First of all only a KMS license is valid, so forget about trying to get a MAK key working, even though you can see it in the Citrix Provisioning Services Console, this option is for OS only.

Install Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack on a dedicated server e.g. the same as your Microsoft RDS and Citrix License Server. Make sure you get a _VLMCS record created in DNS under _TCP. If you have many _VLMCS records make sure you delete them to make troubleshooting easier.

1. Set vDisk to Private Mode
2. Set Microsoft Volume Licensing to None
3. Start the VM
4. Run Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Microsoft shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform\OSPPREARM.EXE
5. Shutdown the Target Device
6. Set to Shared Mode
7. Set Microsoft Volume Licensing to KMS
8. Start two or more PVS Target Devices and check that the GUID is unique

An unexpected mapi error occurred :

This happens when you’re switching from Private to Shared image if Microsoft Volume Licensing is set to KMS. The workaround on Citrix Provisioning Services 5.6 is to follow the steps above since we make a copy of the vDisk for every new version.

Guess what, there’s a major bug in Citrix Provisioning Services 6.0. Since we no longer make copies of the vDisk, but rather create new versions which are a fantastic feature. The problem is that as long as the vDisk is in use (like always) we’re not able to change the Microsoft Volume Licensing! So the only way to fix this is to shutdown ALL devices OR copy the vDisk and do it the old way. What a major bummer.

Resources :

• Managing Microsoft KMS Volume Licensing
• Windows Server 2008 KMS Setup Demonstration
• Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack
• Configuring Key Management System (KMS) Licensing for Windows and Office2010 in Different Scenarios

Google+ Hangout Q&A :

We’re planning for some cool Citrix Q&A hangouts on Google+ so make sure you join the xenappblog circle.

Do you remember the old days when we used the hide drives.adm template to hide specified drives along with some kind of hide drives calculator to get the proper value ? So if we wanted to hide drives for Domain Users but not the Domain Admins, we had to create another policy to lock it up again. Those days are long gone thanks to Group Policy Preferences, for me it’s the life before and after. Get rid of all your adm templates and 30+ page vbs logon scripts once for all. This will speed up the logon time and make your administration much easier.

To leverage Group Policy Preferences (GPP) you’ll need to administrate Group Policy’s from a Windows 2008 server (just member server) or Windows 7 with RSAT. On Windows XP and Windows 2003 machines you’ll need Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions to properly read GPP settings.

Map network drives :

Open Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and create a new policy. Browse to User Configuration – Preferences – Windows Settings – Drive Maps

In this example we map K: to the Accounting folder for all users member of the Accounting group. It’s possible to create many rules, if member of group A or B or and so on.

Hide Drives :

In this example we hide C: for all users except for Domain Admins. When you start playing around we GPP you’ll learn how really powerful it is. I highly recommend you start following Group Policy Center for weekly tips.

So here’s what I want you to do now :

1. I hope you dig it – and that you’ll love it so much that you’ll share it with others
2. You should become a Fan of my FaceBook page here

People new to the virtualization space could get very frustrated when they find out that their Hypervisor of choice preforms much worse than a bare-metal installation. Haven’t the vendors and independent analysis like Project Virtual Reality Check stated that there is no longer any excuses for not running Citrix XenApp on a Hypervisor. The latest numbers shows that the performance are almost the same on XenServer, VMware and Hyper-V.

That being said, to get these high performances requires that you have done your homework and implemented all the Best Practices. Unfortunately there is way to many bugs out there and I’m not even going to start…but I have almost begged Citrix to pay more attention to their own Support Forum in this post.

In this post I’m going to share some important tunings related to poor network performance on Citrix XenServer 5.x family.

Disable Task Offload :

For Windows 2003 VM’s you will need to create a registry key to DisableTaskOffload – REG_DWORD = 1 under HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTcpipParameter. The easiest way is to create a Group Policy to push this registry key.

Disable CheckSum Offload :

The second fix you should try if you still have poor network performance is to Disable Checksum on the XenServer interfaces, both the Virtual (VIF) and the Physical (PIF). Be aware that you don’t need to restart the XenServer or the VM’s. This script will do this automatically on all you network interfaces in your XenServer Pool.

echo Setting checksum off on VIFs
VIFLIST=`xe vif-list | grep "uuid ( RO) " | awk '{print $5}'`
for VIF in $VIFLIST
do
echo Setting ethtool-tx=off and ethtool-rx=off on $VIF
xe vif-param-set uuid=$VIF other-config:ethtool-tx="off"
xe vif-param-set uuid=$VIF other-config:ethtool-rx="off"
done
echo Setting checksum off on PIFs
PIFLIST=`xe pif-list | grep "uuid ( RO) " | awk '{print $5}'`
for PIF in $PIFLIST
do
echo Setting ethtool-tx=off and ethtool-rx=off on $PIF
xe pif-param-set uuid=$PIF other-config:ethtool-tx="off"
xe pif-param-set uuid=$PIF other-config:ethtool-rx="off"
done

Note :

Please note that this script is provided “as is” and that using this is at your own risk. Please feel free to leave comments below regarding bugs & suggested improvements in future releases.

5132 other Citrix Community members have already downloaded the eBook. It contains a lot of helpful information for both beginners and experts. Combined with the 7 day eCourse you will have a solid foundation to get certified as a Citrix Administrators. Check out some of these testimonials:

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“Your web site has helped me greatly as I have now developed a test Citrix farm using your guide, this proved to be a great reference to follow when setting up a new 2008 environment with XenApp 5.0, not only does it cover installing XenApp but gives an insight into XenServer. Would highly recommend this web site and eBook to anyone from beginner to expert”. Nick Rimmer – Scotland

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Citrix Provisioning Services 5.6 is out and I have finally had time to play around with it in my lab. There are a lot of bug fixes and great improvements when it comes to Simplicity. In this post I will show you some new GUI screenshots and in my next blog post about Provisioning Services I will show you how to successfully upgrade to Provisioning Services 5.6 from previous versions.

Validate Store path during configuration :

Provisioning Services Image Wizard :

Provisioning Services Auto-Add Wizard :

The new Auto-Add Wizard makes a big different compared to the old PXE Auto Add function. You are now able to define Computer name prefix and suffix according to your naming standards. The only thing I miss now is Auto Computer Account creation, because you still need to do this via the PVS Console and then reboot the new Target Devices.

The Citrix Provisioning Services 5.1 Service Pack 2 has been released and the most important fix would be Hotfix-9112: Client hangs when using XenServer 5.0 / XenServer 5.5 running a network intensive application.

Hyper-V Direct VHD Boot is my favorite when it comes to updating Citrix Provisioning Services Target Device Software. Below you’ll find the update route and a step-by-step picture guide for the update process.

1. Download and extract Citrix Provisioning Services 5.1 SP2
2. Download and install Free ISO Creator
3. Create a ISO image of the extracted PVS51SP2 folder and copy to external hard drive
4. Copy production vDisk to external hard drive
5. Connect external hard drive to your Microsoft Hyper-V Server
6. Create new Hyper-V VM, add Legacy Network Adapter and attach the PVS51SP2 ISO image
7. Start the virtual machine and uninstall Citrix Provisioning Services Target Device software
8. Install new Citrix Provisioning Services Target Device software from the mounted ISO image
9. Bind to your network card and shutdown
10. Copy the updated vDisk back to your PVS Server and follow normal procedures

I would also recommend you taking a look at previous post Citrix Provisioning Services for Citrix XenApp Best Practice and Prepare a Provisioning Services Private vDisk for Shared vDisk

Installation of Citrix XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack 2 have a lot of prerequisites and they all have to be installed in the right order. The easiest way is to download the XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack 2 ISO from Citrix and run the wizard. This will install all the other prerequisites like Sun Java, MS Visual C++ 2005, FP2 enabler e.g. Actually you will have to download the ISO because the HDX MediaStream for Flash and the Group Policy adm templates are not avaiable as seperate downloads.

Upgrade Citrix License Server :

• Citrix License Server 11.6.1 Build 9020 (The old 11.6.1 Build 9019 does work)
• Reallocate licenses from mycitrix.com

Prerequisites prior to upgrade or clean installation of Citrix XenApp 5.0 FP2 :

• Microsoft .NET FrameWork 3.5 SP1
• Microsoft Hotfix KB961118

I have successfully upgraded both bare metal servers and XenApp hosted on XenServer 5.5 streamed with Provisioning Services. Remember to upgrade your XenApp Data Collector first.

The Provisioning Services 5.1 SP1 is available for download and I would like to share my upgrade experience. If you read the install documentation you will see many upgrade scenarios. I first tried upgrading the Target Device software using Hyper V, but this resulted in blue screen x7B (Works perfect with PVS 5.1). I also tried using vhdconverter.exe on a PVS 5.o SP2 vDisk image, but then servers would not boot. So after back and forth I ended up with this upgrade path :

Note : If you have done all your updates to the Golden Image vDisk you would first have to Image Back to Master Target Devices Hard Drive, see DocsInstall.pdf page 88.

Upgrading the Provisioning Services Server :

• Shutdown all running VM’s
• Uninstall previous version of Citrix Provisioning Services
• Install PVS 5.1 SP1 & join existing farm

Upgrade Target Device Software :

• Disable the Master Target Device (Golden Image server)
• Boot Master Target from Locale Hard Disk
• Uninstall existing version and reboot
• Run DevicePVS_Device.exe from the PVS 5.1 SP1 media (XenConvert is automatically updated to version 2.02)
• Enable the Master Target Device, set vDisk to Private Mode and reboot
• Create a new vDisk with XenConvert.

Your Target Device Software should now look like this :

Licensing issues with Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Provisioning Services has now been solved in SP1. Please note that this did work before I updated the Target Device Software. Just in case you have this issue, but don’t have time / problems updating the Target Device software.

Many of the Best Practices modification are included in Provisioning Services Optimization Tool. One of these settings are disabling the Automatic Updates Service. To run Windows Update on your vDisk you will need to set the service startup to Automatically, start the service and run Windows Update. One of my recently added Must Have tools are WUinstall which automatically download and install Windows Updates from Microsoft or your internal Windows Updates Services with one command. I have added this to my build script, take a look at my previous blog post “Prepare a Provisioning Services Private vDisk for Shared vDisk“.

@echo off
cls
echo ************************************************************
echo ***** This will prepare the machine for Standard Image *****
echo ************************************************************
echo.

choice /c yn /m "Do you want to Download and Install Windows Updates"
set DRIVENUM=%ERRORLEVEL%
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 1 goto wsus
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 2 goto cont

:wsus
echo.
echo Enable and Start Windows Update Service
sc config wuauserv start= auto
net start wuauserv

echo.
echo Applying Windows Updates
wuinstall /install
goto cont

:cont
echo.
ipconfig /flushdns
echo.
defrag C:

echo.
echo Running Provisioning Services Optimization Tool
call "c:Program FilesCitrixProvisioning ServicesTargetOSOptimizer.exe"

echo.
echo Running XenApp Cloning Tool
call "c:Program FilesCitrix ToolsXenApp Cloning ToolXenApp Cloning Tool.exe"
shutdown /S

This post will try to list some of the Best Practices I’m using when preparing a Provisioning Services Private vDisk for Shared vDisk usage. First of all I always use XenApp Cloning Tool from CitrixTools.net. This tool are not supported by Citrix, but it’s much more powerful and will save you a lot of troubleshooting. Recently the latest version of the tool fixed a issue with slow ICA performance which I been haunting for quite a while. The reason is because Pierre adds registry tweaks to the application when new ones appear. BUT you have to decide, install XenAppPrep from Citrix or XenApp Cloning Tool.

Note : I have been experiencing problems with both tools installed at the same time.

There is a lot of Best Practice documents out there, but no complete guide, so I have made a little script so I don’t forget them all. This way the same procedures is run every time, independent of whom is doing the vDisk updates. Please feel free to leave comments on your Best Practices.

@echo off
cls
echo ************************************************************
echo ***** This will prepare the machine for Standard Image *****
echo ************************************************************
pause
ipconfig /flushdns
echo.
defrag C: /v
echo.
echo Running Provisioning Services Optimization Tool
call "c:Program FilesCitrixProvisioning ServicesTargetOSOptimizer.exe"
echo.
echo Running XenApp Cloning Tool
call "c:Program FilesCitrix ToolsXenApp Cloning ToolXenApp Cloning Tool.exe"
shutdown /S