When hosting multiple customers on the same Netscaler solution you can use Responder to customize Netscaler Gateway logon page.

In this article I’ll show you how you can remove the Password 2 field which gets there by default if you enable Radius.

Head over to System – Settings – Configure Advanced Features and enable Responder.

Then connect to your Netscaler via WinSCP and make a copy of index.html and login.js which are located in/netscaler/ns_gui/vpn

I’ve called mine *_custom.* in this example. Edit index_custom.html so it points to login_custom.js

Then head into Responder – Action. Add your https://FQDN/index_custom.html

Create a policy and replace example.com with your FQDN.

The final step is to bind this new Responder Policy to your Access Gateway vServer.

So as you can see this is a very easy way for you to customize Netscaler Gateway logon page for various customers and attached a policy to the proper vServers.

I believe this can also be done with REGEX and rewrite rules, but that’s not my field of expertise. Please share below if you know.

The final step is to make sure these customizations stick after reboot.

• Create a catalog \var\custom
• Create the file rc.netscaler in /flash/nsconfig with this command line : cp -R /var/custom/* /netscaler/ns_gui/

• Copy all folders from /netscaler/ns_gui to /var/custom
• Save and reboot the appliance.

Resources :

• Customize Netscaler Gateway Logon Page
• Modify secondary authentication prompt with rewrite action

In my previous post 7 Reasons Why You Need to Learn App-V 5 I listed the main reasons to go with App-V 5. What wasn’t in that list was that Citrix will no longer support Application Streaming in Windows 8/2012 on XenDesktop 7.

When doing a VDI / Hosted Desktop project the storage cost will be a huge part of your project. So what if you could reduce that with 80-95% and at the same time lower the storage impact?

With the introduction of the Share Content Store you can do this out of the box. Simply enable Share Content Store and you’re good to go.

Below is the disk usage for the applications installed (main picture). So instead of using 2,40 GB you see that all those applications only consume 78,4 MB on disk. That’s huge savings.

Please not that when doing Shared Content Store you need high availability which can easily be solved by leveraging DFS-R.

So is it just glory with App-V 5? Of course not, there’s currently a really bad bug in the current version. If you’re running VDI, refresh at login with a large number of applications targeted to Users, the Start Menu will flicker / hang for a couple of minutes.

This is normally not a problem in a Hosted Desktop scenario where you redirect the Start Menu and give access to the applications shortcuts hosted on a file share with ABE.

I’ve created a new App-V 5 Training Course to get you up to speed. This is the fastest and easiest way to learn Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.

So if you want to become an App-V 5 expert, you better get started. Microsoft App-V 5 is becoming the de facto standard and WILL be the way we handle applications in the near future.

For those who have been following my blog for some time know that I’m a big fan of PHD Virtual Backup or at least used to be. I’ve been following PHD since it’s early days. Unfortunately the company has grown to fast and the superb support has disappeared. Doesn’t matter how great the product is if support doesn’t work, especially when it comes to backup. So I reached out on Twitter and got a tip about Alike Backup for XenServer.

I’ve been running Alike Backup side by side with PHD Virtual Backup and have now decided to go with Alike. The best part, it’s FREE for single host server. That’s perfect for me since I have one XenServer and one Hyper-V server.

The setup is straight forward, the difference is that Alike Backup runs inside a OS and PHD Virtual Backup is an appliance.

First specify the Data Store Location and the credentials.

Then enter your host server settings.

You can also define email notification. This is the setup that works with Gmail.

And the report looks like this, great compression rate.

Then head into schedule jobs and create your backup jobs. A great thing with Alike is the possibility to run Q-Hybrid Backup. Q-Hybrid backups leverage only guest VSS snapshots on all Windows operating systems. Q-Hybrid backups never require any additional space in the XenServer SR to perform, so even systems that are low on space can be fully protected.

So instead of using XenServer Snapshots like PHD you’ve got another option here. If Q-Hybrid backup is not available (the VM is down) it will fall-back to normal hypervisor snapshot.

The biggest problem I see at the Citrix Support forum is this error : “Snapshot chain too long”. This is caused by PHD Virtual Backup and it’s a pain to fix. A great thing with Alike Backup is that you can run a Maintenance Job called Leaf Coalesce which fixes this and also reclaims space on the XenServer storage repositories. This job can be run as part of your normal backup or as a maintenance job.

The overall impression of this backup software and support is very good. The error messages in the System Activity below is caused by “Snapshot chain too long” and has been resolved in my lab.

I like that you can buy Alike Backup directly from their web site if you want their product with support. What I don’t like is that Alike is licensed per hypervisor and not per XenServer Pool like PHD Virtual Backup.

Resource :

• Alike Backup

I’m just back from Citrix Synergy 2013 in LA Anaheim. It was awesome to connect with friends, customers and blog readers. There was a lot of exciting announcements, but in this blog post I will focus on XenDesktop 7 and the integration with App-V 5.

During the keynote Citrix didn’t announce that its Application Streaming feature is dead and won’t be supported in Windows 2012. Read this article from TechTarget for more information Citrix kills its Application Streaming feature, directs users to App-V.

Inside the Citrix Studio console you’ll be able to configure your App-V 5 Management and Publishing server.

Another new feature is the possibility to publish multiple installed and App-V 5 applications on the fly. This is a feature we’ve been awaiting for years.

So inside the console you’ll be able to see if the application is installed in the master image or if its an App-V 5 application. On the seminar I was also talking to the SmartX people and I recommended them to include a similar column in their ControlUp software.

Just to clear the water. XenDesktop 7 is also XenApp 7. Citrix have just decided to go ahead with the XenDesktop name which makes sense since they only sell XenDesktop license these days. So basically you just install the VDA agent on either XenDesktop or XenApp and you’re good to go.

There don’t exist any migration path from Application Streaming to App-V 5 so those applications needs to be sequenced with App-V 5. Since Application Streaming is not supported on Windows 8/2012, you could create a Delivery Group with Windows 2008 R2 servers to support those until they’re migrated to App-V 5. Some of the new features in XenDesktop 7 will also be available for XenApp 6.5 in Feature Pack 2 when its released in June 2013.

My recent blog post 7 Reasons Why You Need to Learn App-V 5 nailed it. I cannot say this enough; Microsoft App-V license is included in the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Client Access License.

If you need more information I’ve created this App-V 5 Training Course to get you up to speed. This is the fastest and easiest way to learn Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.

In my last blog 7 Reasons Why You Need to Learn App-V 5 I talked about how important it is for you to start playing around with App-V 5.

Since all Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop and RDS should be running App-V 5 with Shared Content Store it’s important to leverage Windows 2012 and SMB 3.0 as I wrote about in this post Make your network 10x faster.

With App-V 5 you can easily publish all packages from a folder. This is the PowerShell script I’m running at startup for my XenApp 6.5 VM’s streamed with Provisioning Services.

It first removes all the packages and then it grabs and publishes all those App-V packages and App Connection Groups from a DFS-R share hosted on Windows 2012.

Import-Module AppvClient
Remove-AppvClientPackage -Name *
Get-ChildItem "\\ctxlab\appv5\packages\WS2008\" -recurse -force -include *.appv | Add-AppvClientPackage | Publish-AppvClientPackage –global
Add-AppvClientConnectionGroup -Path '\\ctxlab\appv5\packages\PG\JDK Netbeans.xml' | Enable-AppvClientConnectionGroup –Global

On Windows 2008 you needed to choose between Windows Server Full or Windows Server Core during the installation. With Windows Server 2012 you can simply install the GUI, configure your software and then remove the GUI with PowerShell.

Remove-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra
Restart-Computer

I would recommend you locking down most of your Windows 2012 Servers this way, you can always enable it later if needed.

So my Citrix Provisioning Services 6.2 is running on Windows 2012, but I have used the App-V 5 Sequencer to virtualize the Provisioning Services Console and run it from my XenApp Desktop.

So what do you need to get started?

RDS CALs (2008 R2) include an App-V CAL so you really just need to install the App-V 5 RDS client on your servers, an App-V 5 Sequenzer machine and a share to put the packages.

If you need more information I’ve created this App-V 5 Training Course to get you up to speed. This is the fastest and easiest way to learn Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.

We’ve been doing server virtualization for years and hopefully most businesses run the majority of their servers on a hypervisor from Citrix, VMware or Microsoft by now.

With the release of Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.0 the same is going to happen to the application space. I remember back in the days when VMware took off, those consultants got some pretty amazing projects at their hands.

The same is happening now, so you better learn App-V 5 today.

At Citrix Synergy next month the learning lab “Implementing Excalibur on Microsoft Hyper-V” is running every day. Attendees will learn about next-generation delivery architecture of Excalibur with Microsoft’s newest operating system and System Center 2012 SP1. This is not a coincidence!

There are many reasons why App-V 5 will be part of your XenApp or RDS environment, either you want it or not. Below is the main reasons :

• Microsoft App-V 5 is FREE of use on Citrix XenApp / Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
• App-V 5 Shared Content Store is perfect for non persistent desktops
• Citrix XenApp 6.5 integration with Microsoft Configuration Manager 2012
• Deploy App-V 5 apps with SCCM 2012, PowerShell, GPO or as stand alone
• Run multiple versions of the same application on the same server. No more need for silos
• Run the same App-V 5 package on various platforms
• App-V 5 Sequencer Ease of use. Let the Application Managers be responsible for their software

There are many more reasons, but seeing is believing. I’ve created a new App-V 5 Training Course to get you up to speed. This is the fastest and easiest way to learn Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.

So if you want to become an App-V 5 expert, you better get started. Microsoft App-V 5 is becoming the de facto standard and WILL be the way we handle applications in the near future.

In this blog post I will show you my Prepare for PVS script that contains Best Practices obtained after years of experience with Provisioning Services.

Let’s say you’re going to run Windows Updates. Well since you’ve already launched the Target Optimizer tool, that services is disabled and you need to head into services, enable and start it. Run Windows update and all good. When the update is finished you shutdown the machine and switch from Private to Standard Mode.

What you didn’t remember was to reboot the server for Windows Update to complete it’s updates. What happens now, is that every time your servers reboot, Windows Update will kick in and finish it’s things.

So being only one administrator doing all the procedures is one thing, but when you hand over the solution to your customer or maintenance team, everybody would probably do this differently, forgetting to flush DNS and so on.

So this script will do all these thing for you. Just teach your staff to always run the script after maintenance.

Prerequisites :

• Download Wuinstall
• Download and Install XenAppCloning Tools (Now free of use).
• Download Citrix XenApp 6.x Update Script

Copy Wuinstall to C:\Windows. Run XenAppCloning tool, add your free license and then configure your settings and save the settings to the configuration file.

Extract the XAUpdate script to C:\XA65Update, rename the script to XA65Update.cmd and configure the settings required inside that script.

Copy the content below into C:\Program Files\Citrix\Prepare for PVS.cmd

@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 ctx
:wsus
echo.
echo Enable and Start Windows Update Service
sc config wuauserv start= auto
net start wuauserv
echo.
echo Applying Windows Updates
wuinstall /install
shutdown /r /t 0
goto ctx
:ctx
echo.
choice /c yn /m "Do you want to Download and Install Citrix Hotfixes"
set DRIVENUM=%ERRORLEVEL%
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 1 goto 65update
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 2 goto cont
:65update
call C:\XA65Update\XA65Update.cmd
:cont
echo.
choice /c yn /m "Do you want Defrag the Disk"
set DRIVENUM=%ERRORLEVEL%
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 1 goto defrag
if %DRIVENUM% EQU 2 goto cont1
:defrag
echo.
defrag C:
:cont1
echo.
ipconfig /flushdns
echo.
echo Deleting Windows Update Download Folder
rmdir /s /q "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download"
echo.
echo Deleteing Downloaded Citrix Hotfixes
del C:\XA65Update\*.msp /q /s
echo.
echo Start AntiVirus Prescan
net start MsMpSvc
call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MpCmdRun.exe" -Scan -Scantype 1
net stop MsMpSvc
echo.
echo Running Provisioning Services Optimization Tool
call "c:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services\TargetOSOptimizer.exe"
echo.
echo Running XenApp Cloning Tool
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\VirtuAll Solutions\XenApp Cloning Tool\XenAppCloningCmd.exe" -Mode:PVS -ConfigFile:"C:\Program Files (x86)\VirtuAll Solutions\XenApp Cloning Tool\SilentCloningConfig.ini"
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 > nul
shutdown /s /t 30 /c "The System will Shut Down in 30 seconds - Type shutdown /a to Abort"

To get ride of this annoying boot screen

you just added HKLM\Software\Citrix\ProvisioningServices\SkipBootMenu to your PVS servers. Now your maintenance / test machine will automatically boot to the newest version of the vDisk.

Please be aware that this doesn’t work on Provisioning Services 6.2 hosted on Windows 2012. The good news though, the KMS bug has finally been fixed in Provisioning Services 6.2 (part of Project Excalibur Tech Preview).

So when you e.g. want to patch your Provisioning Services image with the latest Citrix Hotfixes, you just select that option and off you go. The server is rebooted automatically and when it comes back online you just run through the script another time and this time the server will be shutdown ready for you switching from private to standard mode.

If you have any other Best Practices for Provisioning Services, please leave a comment below and share with the community.

When putting most of your workloads on a Hypervisor you should not take for granted that you automatically get the maximum performance out of the box. You as the administrator need to perform additional tests to verify that the network performance are at it’s best.

Last week I upgraded my Citrix XenServer Home Lab and gained 10x faster network performance. In this blog post I’ll show you how you can run some simple tests to accomplish the same.

So I started testing Network Throughput Using Iperf. The Virtual Machines where 2 vanilla Windows 2008 R2 hosted on Citrix XenServer 5.6 SP2 with all hotfixes applied.

As you can see from the image above the bandwidth is around 31 Mbytes/sec.

When running the same Virtual Machines on Citrix XenServer 6.1 with all hotfixes applied I got 60 Mbytes/sec on average. This makes sense as described in this article regarding the importance of keeping the network drivers up to date.

Since Windows 2008 R2 is using SMB 2.0 I wanted to test Windows 2012 which leverages SMB 3.0

Check that out, the network is 10x faster on the latest version of Citrix XenServer and Windows 2012. So needless to say, all my servers have now been upgraded to Windows 2012.

I also wanted to try out the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 on my old hardware to see if there where any performance difference between XenServer and Hyper-V. With 2 vanilla Windows 2008 R2 I got 205 MBytes/sec.

This is just an example to demonstrate the importance of doing proper testing. My lab hardware is not on the Citrix XenServer HCL and the RealTek network adapter has caused problems on many XenServer builds.

When you’re on it, make sure you get good performance between 2 VM’s hosted on different hypervisors since the traffic goes through your switches and not internally.

With the introduction of my new App-V 5 Training Course I teach you how to leverage Share Content Store in VDI / SBC. Since the App-V 5 applications are streamed directly 10x faster network means everything for the end user experience.

My favorite IT management console is just released in version 2.0 with a great bunch of new features and enhancements. This is a sponsored review, but I love this product and have been using it at all my customer since the first release.

In this blog post I’ll cover what’s new in this release. I’m also going to host a webinar with the CTO of ControlUp Tuesday, February 26, 2013 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM IST with live demo and Q&A. Make sure to reserve your spot HERE.

Central Configuration:

In earlier versions of ControlUp you needed to create the configuration on each and every management computer. Now the configuration can be stored in the cloud secured by your own encryption key. This way all the users of ControlUp can share the organizations computer tree, delegate administrative task and permissions (similar to AppCenter) and receive alerts on performance bottlenecks. The alerts is at the moment just sent to the event viewer, but I was told that an SMS / SMTP solution will be available in the next release.

If you decide to use the standalone mode you’ll lose the awesome features mentioned above.

Stress Level Customization:

When a performance counter threshold is crossed for a configured period of time, it will trigger a customizable increase in the Stress Level value. You can adjust these settings independently for each resource, thus ensuring that red alerts are always meaningful and informative.

Controllers Pane:

This is the coolest new feature. You can now select e.g all you Terminal Services and quickly compare installed software on multiple machines. There’s some red, green and yellow icons to illustrate this, but since I’m using Provisioning Services this is not shown in the image above.

New Management Actions and Data Columns:

My main reason for using ControlUp in the first place was the ability to do refresh of Group Policy. Now the smart folks of SmartX have added Flush DNS and also added all the objects, counters and thresholds that Citrix recommends to monitor for environments running XenDesktop and XenAppp based upon CTX133540. So for all of you who are missing Resource Manager and thinks EdgeSight is overkill, well ControlUp is for you.

Licensing:

The trial license is able to monitor 50 user sessions concurrently. After that you’ll need to purchase an license.

I’m going to host a webinar with the CTO of ControlUp Tuesday, February 26, 2013 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM IST with live demo and Q&A. Make sure to reserve your spot HERE.

Resources:

• ControlUp

Last week I was troubleshooting extremely slow network performance on Citrix XenServer 6.02 installed on HP Proliant BL460C G7. The solution was based upon Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 and Citrix XenApp 6.5 with all hotfixes.

You might ask why not run XenServer 6.1? The customer did a Citrix XenServer Rolling Upgrade to 6.1 and a Provisioning Services Target Device software upgrade.

After the upgrade was completed they where experiencing problems and who would even think that Citrix XenServer 6.1 does NOT support Provisioning Services or XenDesktop. The XenServer Tools Workaround for XenServer 6.1.0 did not work in this environment.

Today Citrix acknowledges that some customers are experiencing intermittent Windows issues with XenTools in the XenServer 6.1 release. Hotfix (XS61E005) for all XenServer 6.1 installations will be released in early January 2013 and support PVS 6.1 (but what about XenDesktop?).

So since no automatic downgrade path exists we decided to re-install with Citrix XenServer 6.02 and do reverse imaging ones more!

Now things started to work normally on the HP Proliant BL460C G6, but it was impossible to connect to the XenApp 6.5 VM’s hosted on XenServer 6.02 running on HP Proliant BL460C G7.

So I started testing Network Throughput Using Iperf. The VM’s running on G6 had >100 mb/s but the ones on G7 had 0 mb/s. Something strange going on here…

I contacted Citrix support and after a while we discovered that one pool where running Emulex BE2NET driver and the other Broadcom BNX2X. The G7 XenServer’s where running Emulex 3.102.517.701 and HP SPP 2012.10.0. After upgrading to 4.1.450.7 using described method from CTX134052 the iPerf showed around 40 mb/s. Not the same performance as the G6 blades, but now the system started working normally.