Category: XenApp

XenApp/XenDesktop/Netscaler Gateway Communication Workflow

December 31, 2019 / Ram Prasad

SSL Connection

This is the first step when user type the NetScaler Gateway vServer’s address into browser. We need to focus on the SSL handshake between client and server if any issue happens.

Authentication

Commonly, customer uses LDAP domain authentication. In this article, I will use dual factor authentication as an example (LDAP+Radius).

ClienLaunch App/Desktop

Ref: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX227054

XenApp- Applications are unable to launch from DR Web Interface server’s

July 6, 2016 / Ram Prasad

Issue:

Applications are unable to launch from DR Web Interface server’s.

Troubleshooting:

Troubleshooting started with notepad application by mapping to different Xenapp Servers,Web Interface and Zone Data collectors from Pune & Delhi.
Issue observed at DR Zone data collector’s(ZDC) as Qfarm /load does not returning any value when we run from both ZDC’s
As there is no value returned from ZDC, suspected that ZDC is not contacting database for loading dynamic information.
Observed that DR ZDC MF20.dsn(Database connection file) is pointing to the Pune SQL Database – This is incorrect as it is single FARM & FARM database is active in Delhi SQL.

Solution:

Reconfigured Pune ZDC02 server to Delhi SQL database by running the dsmaint config command with new username/password
After reconfiguring MF20.dsn file, Zone data collector returning load values when executing qfarm /load and launching applications without any issues

Observations & Recommendation’s :

As FARM will connect to only one database , we need to restore the latest backup copy of production database if there is no synch between primary & DR sql servers and reconfigure MF20.dsn during DR Drill -> This is significant step during DR drill
SQL mirroring can configure from production to DR SQL Servers to avoid above step.
No Hotfixes are installed, need to install hotfix Rollup pack similar to production or latest -> This is critical to avoid known issues

Users are unable to launch the applications, license errors were seen during launching of application

June 26, 2016 / Ram Prasad

Observation:

Citrix License errors were seen while logging to the server through RDP (screenshot 1)
Citrix Licensing was in stopped state, but there was established ICA session for the both Citrix Servers.
Tried to start the service manually, it thrown error with error code 1067. (screenshot 2)
Found application error with code 1000, for lmadmin(screenshot 3)
SA license expired

Work Around Solution:

Renamed concurrent_state.xml and the activation_state.xml files.
Restarted Citrix License service to recreate the concurrent_state.xml and the activation_state.xml files

Cause:

The concurrent_state.xml and/or the activation_state.xml files become unusable and the Citrix Licensing Service, lmadmin.exe, does not properly handle the unusable file and crashes – This may be due to corruption of XML Files
Office scan exclusion were not configured so there may be high chance of file(XML) corruption due to scanning blocks and XML files are easily corruptible .
Above file corruptions are Known issues – Please check articles (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX129747 & http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX200151)

Recommended Action:

Plan for upgrade from citrix licensing server from 11.90 to high version (>11.10) to arrest all known issues– Makes sure to have valid SA else upgrade not possible.
Make sure to follow antivirus exclusions for xenapp folders.

Screenshots

Hotfix Name Changes for XenApp/XenDesktop 7.5

June 25, 2016 / Ram Prasad

Information

This article explains the changes for Citrix hotfix naming conventions in XenDesktop 7.1/7.5 with the introduction of XenApp 7.5.

Hotfix Name Changes

With the reintroduction of XenApp in version 7.5, the same underlying components are used for XenApp and XenDesktop. As a result, the ‘XA’ and ‘XD’ designation will not appear in the hotfix name. Instead, the component name is prepended to the hotfix name.

Example 1

A hotfix previously named XD750DStudioWX86001 will now be DStudio750WX86001.

Hotfix Version Number Association

The following components did not change between version 7.1 and 7.5. From now on, updates to these components will only contain the 7.5 association in the name. The hotfixes will be available and compatible with both the 7.1 and 7.5 component versions.

Broker Agent
Desktop OS VDA
Director VDA Plugin
Enhanced Desktop Experience
Personalization AppV – Studio
Personalization AppV – VDA
Server OS VDA
StoreFront Privilege Service
Universal Print Client
Universal Print Server
WMI Proxy Plugin

Example 2

A hotfix previously named XD710ICAWSWX86006 will now be ICAWS750WX86006.

VDA Core Services Hotfixes and Machine Type Association

For the VDA core services hotfixes, the OS type is designated in the hotfix name. ‘TS’ for Terminal Server, the hotfix would apply to a Windows Server operating system. ‘WS’ for workstation, the hotfix would apply to a desktop Windows operating system. There is no correlation between the hotfix numbering for the Server OS (TS) and Desktop OS (WS) hotfixes. The ICATS hotfix ending in 007 might not have the same fixed issues as the ICAWS hotfix ending in 007.

Example 3

A hotfix named ICAWS750WX86007 is a VDA core services hotfix for a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 operating system (32-bit).

A hotfix named ICATS750WX64007 is a VDA core services hotfix for a Windows Server 2008R2 , 2012, or 2012R2 operating system (64-bit).

Note: The previously released version 7.1 hotfixes will not be rebuilt with the new version identification, but the hotfix readme documents will reflect their support for versions 7.1 and 7.5.

Ref: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX200156