1) Default ICA
Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol is a networking protocol that runs over TCP/IP using registered port 1494. However, some firewalls are not preconfigured with details of the ICA ICA ICA
2). what is Data Store?
It contains information about
The data store provides a repository of persistent information about the farm that
Each server can reference, including the following:
• Farm configuration information
• Published application configurations
• Server configurations
• MetaFrame administrator accounts
• Printer configurations
• Trust relationships
3) What is Data store?
For each server farm, you need a database called a data store. Citrix Presentation
Server uses the data store to centralize configuration information for a server
Farm in one location. The data store maintains information about the servers,
applications, and administrators in the server farm. Using a data store ensures a
scalable and flexible system for managing your servers.
4) How to check the data store is up or not/
Hklm\software\citrix\IMA\runtime
Righhand side value is there it means the connections is through
Next method ?
5) What is LHC (Local Host Cache)
A subset of data store information, the local host cache, exists on each server in the
farm, providing each member server with quick access to data store information.
The local host cache also provides redundancy of the data store information, if for
example, a server in the farm loses connectivity to the data store.
When a change is made to the farm’s data store, a notification to update the local
host cache is sent to all the servers in the farm. However, it is possible that some
servers will miss an update because of network problems. Member servers
periodically query the data store to determine if changes were made since the
server’s local host cache was last updated. If changes were made, the server
requests the changed information.
6) What is IMA? Independent Management Architecture (IMA) it’s a Service
Independent Management Architecture (IMA) provides the framework for server
Communications and is the management foundation for MetaFrame Presentation
Server. IMA is a centralized management service comprised of a collection of core
Subsystems that define and control the execution of products in a server farm. IMA
enables servers to be arbitrarily grouped into server farms that do not depend on the
physical locations of the servers or whether the servers are on different network
subnets.
IMA runs on all servers in the farm. IMA subsystems communicate through
messages passed by the IMA Service through default TCP ports 2512 and 2513.
The IMA Service starts automatically when a server is started. The IMA Service
can be manually started or stopped through the operating system Services utility.
7) Purpose of the Data Collector / Zone Data Collectors:-
Zone data collectors are communication gateways between zones in farms that have
more than one zone. Zone data collectors communicate information used by
MetaFrame Presentation Server to list available applications for users and, when
users open an application, to locate the most appropriate server on which to run the
application
When resolving a user’s application request to the least-loaded server in the farm, a
zone data collector queries the other zone data collectors for the information it
needs to identify the server with the lightest load.
8) Configuring Zones and Data Collectors
A zone data collector is a server that manages dynamic information about the servers in the zone. Each farm has at least one zone.
Zones are designed to enhance the performance of a farm by allowing
Geographically related servers to be grouped together, whether they are connected
to the same network subnet or not.
9) What is Speed Screen?
Citrix has long talked up “SpeedScreen Latency Reduction” (or “SLR” for short)
Citrix’s SpeedScreen Latency Reduction does two things. Firstly, (and most importantly), it provides something called “local text echo.” Local text echo allows characters to appear on the ICA
10) Using a RAID Environment
This section describes factors to consider if you are thinking about putting the
farm’s data store in a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) environment.
See the table below for information about cost, performance, and fault tolerance
related to four different RAID configurations.
RAID 0 RAID 0 has no redundancy. It is “striped,” which means that data is divided into
blocks spanning multiple disks. RAID 0 has multiple actuators (read/write
mechanisms) because of the multiple disk use. More actuators improve read and
write performance.
Citrix does not recommend the use of RAID 0 for critical data, such as a server
farm’s data store. The savings realized from purchasing fewer disks does not
typically make up for the costs resulting from downtime and support.
RAID 1 RAID 1 uses fully redundant disk mirroring. With disk mirroring, a complete copy of
one drive is maintained on another drive. RAID 1 provides high fault tolerance and
can improve read performance.
However, RAID 1 writes the data twice, which can degrade write performance in
single disk/controller environments. In addition, this type of redundancy requires
twice the disk space.
RAID 5 Like RAID 0, RAID 5 is striped. However, because RAID 5 adds parity to the data
striping, it includes fault tolerance. If one disk in a RAID 5 group fails, the logical disk
continues to function. The parity information is used to recreate data on a
replacement disk. The loss of two disks in a group at one time cannot be sustained.
RAID 5 uses multiple disk actuators that provide improved read and write
performance.
RAID 10 RAID 10 combines RAID 1 and RAID 0. It is a striped and fully mirrored set of disks.
It is the best configuration for both redundancy and performance. Because of this, it
is the most expensive storage option.
11) How to put a server into install mode, "Gui way, command line way"
12. How does Citrix load balancing work?
When a client initiates a connection to the server, a vserver terminates the client connection and initiates a new connection with the selected server, or reuses an existing connection with the server, to perform load balancing. The load balancing feature provides traffic management from Layer 4 (TCP and UDP) through Layer 7 (FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS).The NetScaler uses a number of algorithms, called load balancing methods, to determine how to distribute the load among the servers. The default load balancing method is the Least Connections method.
A typical load balancing deployment consists of the entities described in the following figure
- Vserver. An entity that is represented by an IP address, a port, and a protocol. The vserver IP address (VIP) is usually a public IP address. The client sends connection requests to this IP address. The vserver represents a bank of servers.
- Service. A logical representation of a server or an application running on a server. Identifies the server's IP address, a port, and a protocol. The services are bound to the vservers.
- Server object. An entity that is represented by an IP address. The server object is created when you create a service. The IP address of the service is taken as the name of the server object. You can also create a server object and then create services by using the server object.
- Monitor. An entity that tracks the health of the services. The NetScaler periodically probes the servers using the monitor bound to each service. If a server does not respond within a specified response timeout, and the specified number of probes fails, the service is marked DOWN. The NetScaler then performs load balancing among the remaining services.
5) Difference's between ica
The Difference between Microsoft RDP and Citrix ICA
Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services supports the native Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) as well as the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol (via the Citrix MetaFrame add-on). The following table provides an overview of the features available with each of these protocols:
Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services supports the native Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) as well as the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol (via the Citrix MetaFrame add-on). The following table provides an overview of the features available with each of these protocols:
Table: Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services supported protocols and features:
| Feature | Description | RDP | ICA |
| Clients | Windows CE-based thin client | + | + |
| | Windows XP Embedded-based thin client | + | + |
| | ActiveX® Control | + | + |
| Transport | TCP/IP | + | + |
| | SPX, IPX, NetBEUI | | + |
| | WAN connection | + | + |
| | Dial-up, VPN, xDSL | + | + |
| | Direct dial-up (non-RAS) | | + |
| Audio | System beeps | + | + |
| | Stereo Windows audio | | + |
| Local printing | Printing to a local printer attached to a thin client | + | + |
| Local drive mapping | Local drives accessible from server-based applications | + | + |
| Local port redirection | Redirection of server ports (LPT/COM) to local client ports | + | + |
| Cut and paste | Cut and paste of text and graphics between client and server | + | + |
| User-centric Session Access | Client remembers previous user's logon name for each connection | + | |
| | Connect to an active or disconnected session using a different screen resolution | + | |
| | Connect directly to an application rather than to an entire desktop | + | + |
| | Server-based applications resize and minimize similar to local applications | | + |
| Application publishing | Advertise server-based applications directly to client desktops | | + |
| Resolution | 16-bit color depth | + | + |
| Load balancing | Pooling of servers behind a single server address and for increased availability | + 1 | + |
| Remote control | Viewing and interacting with other client sessions (also called "shadowing") | + | + |
| Bitmap caching | Optionally cache display bitmaps in memory for improved performance | + | + |
| | Optionally cache display bitmaps to disk for improved performance | + | + |
| Encryption | Multiple-level encryption for security of client communications | + | + |
| | Multiple-level encryption on Windows CE thin clients | + | |
| Automatic client update | Administrative means for updating client connection software from the server | + 2 | + |
| Pre-configured client | Predefined client with published applications, IP addresses, server names, and connection options | + | + |
1 Requires Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Datacenter Server.
2 Not available on Windows CE .NET thin clients.
2 Not available on Windows CE .NET thin clients.
6) You just installed X, y, z application on a Terminal Server / citrix server and the application runs fine for the administrator but not for average Joe user. How would you go about figuring out the problem? What tools would you use?
7) In presentation Server 4.5 what is the name of the console where you publish applications.
8) What's the name of the .CMD file that runs every time a user logs into Citrix.
USRLOGON.CMD
Whenever a user logs on to MetaFrame, the USRLOGON.CMD file
is run. This file is located in %systemroot%/system32. It
is configured to run automatically when each user logs in.
This file has two functions:
Whenever a user logs on to MetaFrame, the USRLOGON.CMD file
is run. This file is located in %systemroot%/system32. It
is configured to run automatically when each user logs in.
This file has two functions:
- USRLOGON.CMD creates the ROOTDRIVE variable. This
variable is used by the Logon Script to identify the
user's home directory. - USRLOGON.CMD calls USRLOGN2.CMD. USRLOGN2.CMD runs the
application scripts that fix user level problems with
certain applications.
9) What is an .ICA File, What is contained inside an
File type:
Citrix file
or
Bitmap graphic (Image Object Content Architecture)
Citrix file
or
Bitmap graphic (Image Object Content Architecture)
10) What is Speed Screen
11) Difference between published applications and Published Desktops? Pros/Cons of both.
Query command in citrix?
1. What is Farm?
Citrix farm is a collection of citrix servers which provide published applications to all users. It also prevent singel of failure of all citrix servers due to load balanced capabilities.
- What is the requirement for Citrix server installation?
· Operating systems:
Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter Edition) with Service Pack 1 or 2 installed
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter Edition) with Service Pack 1 or 2 installed
Windows Server 2003 R2
· Disk space requirements:
400MB for Citrix Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition
50MB for the Presentation Server Console
25MB for the Access Management Console
35MB for the Document Center
400MB for Citrix Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition
50MB for the Presentation Server Console
25MB for the Access Management Console
35MB for the Document Center
· Terminal Services running in application mode
· Java Runtime Environment Version 1.5.0_09
o If you do not have this installed, Autorun.exe prompts to install it for you
o Alternatively, you can cancel the installation and install JRE manually from the Support\JRE1.5 folder on the server installation CD for Citrix Presentation Server
· .NET Framework Version 2.0
o If you do not have this installed, Autorun.exe prompts to install it for you
o You can also install .NET Framework Version 2.0 manually from the Support\dotNet20 folder of the Citrix Presentation Server CD or image
- What is Client Lock Down
Fire up a full PN Client and go to Tools->ICA Settings->Hotkeys Tab. CTRL+ALT+DEL hotkey is Ctrl+F1. So if you add that hotkey combo into the default.ica file in WebInt, it will give users the ability to lock their Citrix sessions by hitting Ctrl+F1 and walk away from the thin client
- What is Printer terminology in Citrix
Common Microsoft Windows and Citrix Printing Terms Defined
Citrix Printing Terms
Autoconnected Printers: Printers that are defined for users in their ICA sessions based off the list of network printers defined on the client machine, but are connected directly to the print server. During session initialization, the server attempts to map directly to the print server using the credentials of the user that initiated the ICA session. If the server is unable to establish a direct connection to the location, the printer is autocreated in the session instead of being autoconnected. When a printer is autoconnected, the print job is sent directly from the server running Presentation Server, bypassing the client device, to the specified print server outside of the ICA session.
Autocreated Printers: Client local or network printers that appear for the user within an ICA session and use the ICA protocol to send a print job. Autocreated printers use the ICA printer naming convention.
Autorestored Printers: A manually created client printer attached to a standard client printer port. This kind of printer can be created by an administrator or power user running the Add Printer wizard and manually creating a local printer that is attached to a standard client printer port. These printers are deleted when logging off and re-created when logging on.
Autoretained Printers: These are client printers that are added by the user within an ICA session through the Add Printer wizard by browsing and connecting to printers enumerated through the client network print provider. When re-creating a retained printer, all Citrix policies except the autocreation policy are respected. This means that retained client printers are created exactly as the autocreation policy would have selected them. Such printers continue to be re-created with every logon from the same client until the client printer within the session is deleted manually or the remembered printer connection is removed from the client’s properties store. On a Windows client, the properties store can be found in the user profile under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Citrix\PrinterProperties
Client Printers: Any printer available to a user before an ICA session is launched.
oClient Local Printer: Printers that are physically connected to client devices through LPT, COM, or TCP ports.
oClient Network Printer: A network printer that appears in the Printers and Faxes folder of a client device and is managed by a print server. This differs from a print device attached to a standard TCP/IP port.
Citrix Print Manager Service (cpsvc.exe): Provides printer management for all ICA sessions including printer policy enforcement, driver installation, client printer port management, auto-creation of network and client printers, and printer/port cleanup when logging off.
Citrix Universal Print Driver (UPD): A single driver that is installed and configured on the server to which an administrator can assign to all client autocreated printers. This allows for an administrator to not have to manage, install, and duplicate a potentially large set of third-party print drivers through the server farm.
Citrix Universal Printer: A single generic printer using the Citrix Universal Print Driver. It is mapped within each session and is not bound to any printer defined on the client device. It is not enabled by default.
Legacy-style Client Printer Port: The printer ports used by printers created using the legacy naming convention. Such ports are tied to the client workstation by name.
The naming convention is as follows:
<client>\<CLIENTNAME>\<PRINTERNAME>
Where <CLIENTNAME> is the name of the client workstation and <PRINTERNAME> is the name of the printer on the client.
Standard-style Client Printer Port: The printer ports used by printers created using the standard naming convention. Such printers are tied to the client workstation by Terminal Services session ID.
The naming convention is as follows:
<client>:<ID>:<PRINTERNAME>
Where <ID> is the session ID number of an active session and <PRINTERNAME> is the name of the printer on the client.
Session Printers: Network printers shared by a print server that are discovered and attached through a session printing policy.
Unmanaged Printer: Permanent printers attached to legacy client printer ports. Both the port and printer become permanent fixtures on the server that they are created on. Whenever the specific client is not connected to the server, the port is marked offline. However, if a session is opened from the client, the port is marked online and any queued print jobs begin to print on the specific client printer.
7. How to use datastore for database
8. What is the difference between all citrix versions?
9. What are different load evaluators are available in Citrix
Citrix load evaluators
Many deployments of Citrix where I've had to do health checks have had their default Citrix load evaluators set for load balancing. The default load evaluator sets the user load as 100 users per server. This can be very dangerous as this figure has for all intents and purposes not been tested to and whilst a 100 users per server may be possible on large powerful servers, it isn't attainable across the board.
Load evaluators on each server need to be configured to just below the stress limit. So if the servers become unresponsive at a user load of 60 and the server can be rebooted successfully instead of at 61 users where a reboot does nothing. Then we can assume that 60 is the stress limit for the server and using n-1 (where n is the stress limit) would be a fair indicator for the load evaluator.
However we need to factor in transaction times to see whether they are impacted at n-1 and if they are we need to set the load evaluator for a lower user load.
When loads on servers reach certain points, the associated infrastructure will start to struggle to meet demands put on it. For example, the network components may not be able to deal effectively with network requests and as such user sessions may become unresponsive.
Not knowing your stress limits on resources before going 'live' can become a total nightmare when a system is 'live' as it may take time to locate the causes and as I've said before, 'fix it cheaply in test or pay a fortune to fix it later!'.
During one stress testing phase I found above a certain load all the servers in the farm became unresponsive. The load on the servers was just before the server stress limits and the aggregate server load on the other associated infrastructure was therefore very high.
So the first port of call was to check whether the servers could see the rest of the infrastructure they interfaced with. Which was fine, next I looked at the network and eventually found out the network card on the data store couldn't cope with the number of requests made by the Citrix servers.
This is where stress testing shows it's benefits as in most cases non functional testing is never done on a full scale environment, that is, if the plan is to deploy 1000 Citrix servers for 25,000 users, your test environment won't be the same size as the cost could be excessive. So the test environment in most cases is a scaled down version.
The only way to contemplate how thousands of users would affect the system, is to try to test at the stress limits and monitor the infrastructure components. For example, using an environment a quarter of the size of the planned primary environment and using the maximum levels of user load (n-1) per server, it's possible to get high numbers of test users using the test environment.
By running these stress tests over several days not only would the infrastructure be able to simulate months of load but also apply consistent levels of stress on infrastructure components.
This is the stress testing approach I used on a Citrix environment where it was determined the datastore network cards were unsuitable. Testing using the expected loads didn't create any infrastructure issues and the Citrix servers coped extremely well at these loads as the transaction times remained fairly consistent.
When the higher loads were applied, the datastore started to struggle. Fortunately we were able to change the network cards during testing otherwise the higher loads would have caused a nightmare if we'd gone into production using these types of network cards.
It's important to assess the correctness of setup including whether the right thresholds have been configured for Citrix load evaluators.
With User Policies, you can apply select MetaFrame settings, including shadowing permission settings, printer autocreation settings, and client device mapping settings, to specific users or user groups. Using policies, you can tailor your environment at the user / group level.
Policy rules have three states: Rule Enabled, Rule Disabled, or Rule Not Configured.
By default, not all rules are configured. All unconfigured rules are ignored when users log on to the MetaFrame server. I highly recommend reducing the amount of rules set to Rule Not Configured to reduce to need to process the policy and to speed up the logon time.
Keep with the following when creating a new Citrix Policy:
1. Decide the purpose for the Citrix policy Why are you creating the policy and who will it affect. An example of a policy would be to assign them common settings specific to their function, connection type or geographic location.
2. Create the policy - You will need to define a name for the policy, assign user(s) / group(s) to the policy and set the rules that will be the basis of the policy.
3. Prioritize or rank your policies In order to over come user(s) / groups(s) that are members of multiple policies you will need to configure policy priority. I highly recommend creating an Administrator policy the disables all policy and gives full control to a select group of Citrix administrators to the top of the policy list to prevent from locking yourself out.
In order to view the priory of Citrix Policies you set the consoles view mode to Details. Select Details on the View menu Click the Priority section of the title bar to sort by priority.
Important! User Policy settings override all other MetaFrame XP and Terminal Services settings. However, if you disable functionality in Citrix Connection Configuration, you cannot enable the functionality by creating user policies
How to Create a New Citrix Policy
Open the Citrix Management Console, right click on the Policies section and click Create Policy
1. Enter a name for the new policy and click OK.
2. Adjust the policy priority by clicking up or down priory buttons located on the toolbar.
You have now sucessfully created a Citrix Policy and are ready to configure the rules and assign user(s) / group(s) to it.
The following details how to configure policy rules.
1. Double click on a Citrix Policy to open the policy properties.
2. Click the policies that the rules you would like to set and click OK when finished.
You have now successfully configured a Citrix Policy and are ready to assign the Policy to user(s) / group(s).
The following details how to assign a policy to user or groups.
1. Right click on the policy you would like to assign user and or group to and click Assign Users.
2. Select the User(s) / Groups(s) you would like to assign to the policy and click OK. I highly recommend sticking with group to simply policy management. However if you need to assign a user then you will need to check the Show users checkbox.
The Citrix policy will now be assigned to the designated user(s) / group(s) next time they login to the MetaFrame farm.
11. What you will check when any user is not able to launch citrix application.
1) First try to launch same application from Citrix server(on which you installed and published)
2) Try to add same application to your ID and try to launch
3) Check user permissions for that Applications
4) Verify that latest Citrix client software installed at desktop
5) Verify that user is having correct proxy settings to connect to your Citrix network (for remote users)
2) Try to add same application to your ID and try to launch
3) Check user permissions for that Applications
4) Verify that latest Citrix client software installed at desktop
5) Verify that user is having correct proxy settings to connect to your Citrix network (for remote users)
13. What is ICA and what are the advantage of ICA
14. What is Speed Screen
15. What are the query command in citrix
1)qfarm
2)querydc
3)queryds
4)queryhr
2)querydc
3)queryds
4)queryhr
16. What are the different ports use in Citrix
Some Citrix Port
1494: This port is used by any client using the TCP protocol to communicate with the Presentation Server. You will need to open this port on your firewall for inbound connections unless you are using some form of encapsulation or encryption. You can change the port using the ICAPORT command but I find it to be more trouble than it is worth.
1604: Called the ICA Browser port this is a UDP port that can be used by the Program Neighbourhood to enumerate applications. You probably won t use this though.
80: This is the default port used by the XML service and is used by clients who enumerate applications with the TCP+HTTP or XML protocol. You will thus need to open this port on your firewall for inbound connections if clients will be using it to locate servers. You can change the port easily enough using the CTXXMLSS command.
443: This is the default SSL. The SSL Relay will use it to secure communications between the Web Interface and the server farm. You could also use it to secure client communication to the web Interface or use it for client connections to the Presentation Server.
5000: The Presentation Server uses this port to communicate with the IBM Db2 server hosting the data store.
1521: This port is used to communicate with the Oracle data store.
1433: The port used to communicate with a Microsoft SQL data store.
2512: This port is used for server to server communication such as when load information is communicated. The port used to access the data store is saved in the HKLMSOFTWARECITRIXIMAIMAPORT key on the server containing the data store. All other servers use the port number saved in HKLMSOFTWARECITRIXIMAPSSERVERPORT key in the registry to access the data store. Have a look at IMAPORT to see how to change it.
2513: This port is used by the Presentation Server Console when connection to a server. Have a look at IMAPORT to see how to change it.
2598: This is the session reliability port number and needs to be opened on your firewall if the ICA Clients will be using session reliability when communication with the server.
27000 and a random port number: This is the port used for communication between the Citrix License server and the Presentation Servers. Remember that the Citrix vendor daemon running on the license server uses a random port. It tracks license usage.
17. How the licensing works in Citrix and difference in Citrix Licensing version wise
18. What are the console available to manage citrix server.
Access Management Console
Presentation management console
Citrix web console
19. What is WebInterface or Nfuse
(Nfuse is the web interface of the citrix server).
20. What is citrix secure / access gateway and how its work
Citrix Access Gateway™ is a universal SSL VPN appliance
that combines the best features of IPSec and typical SSL
VPNs — without the costly and cumbersome implementation
and management — to make access easy for users, secure
for the company, and low-cost for the IT department. The
Access Gateway provides a secure, always-on, single point
of access to any information resource. It works through any
firewall; supports all applications and protocols, including IP
telephony; is fast, simple and cost-effective to deploy and
maintain via its Web-deployed, auto-updating client; and
ensures that devices meet company security standards with
a worm-blocking client and integrated end-point scanning.
The Access Gateway automatically and seamlessly reconnects
users to their applications when they change locations and
devices, and gives them the same access experience they
have at the desktop.
Citrix Access Gateway provides secure access to any
application hosted on Citrix Presentation Server™, as well as
distributed Windows® and UNIX® applications, direct-access
Web applications, network file shares, data and collaboration
services, and even telephony services using VoIP softphones.
With the addition of the Advanced Access Control option, the
IT organization can utilize sense and response capabilities to
not only provide or deny access to appropriate applications,
but also control the level of user action rights for each
application or resource accessed.
21. What are the difference between Win2K and 2K3 Terminal server.
22. What is the difference between 2k & 2k3 terminal server licensing
23. What is SBC
24. What is Printer driver replicationa and mapping
25. How to recover when Datastore failing
data store can be recreated by the *.mdb file which is located at program files/Citrix/Indipendent Architectute Management
this file can be moved to another server and a data base connectivity and be created using ODBC and creating a *.dsn file.
26. How to recover when IMA failing
There can be a number of reasons why the IMA Service appears not to have started including the following:
IMA Service load time
IMA Service subsystem
Missing Temp directory
Print spooler service
ODBC configuration
Roaming Profile
IMA Service subsystem
Missing Temp directory
Print spooler service
ODBC configuration
Roaming Profile
Examine the following Windows Registry setting:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECitrixIMARuntimeCurrentlyLoadingPlugin
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECitrixIMARuntimeCurrentlyLoadingPlugin
If there is no value specified in the CurrentlyLoadingPlugin portion of the above Windows Registry entry then either the IMA Service could not connect to the data store or the local host cache is missing or corrupt.
If a CurrentlyLoadingPlugin value is specified the IMA Service made a connection to the data store and the value displayed is the name of the IMA Service subsystem that failed to load.
Missing Temp Directory
If administrators see an “IMA Service Failed†error message with an error code of 2147483649 when starting the MetaFrame XP Presentation Server the local system account might be missing a Temp directory which is required for the IMA Service to run.
To gain further insight into the situation change the IMA Service startup account to the local administrator and restart the server. If the IMA Service is successful in starting under the local administrator’s account then it is likely that a missing Temp directory for the local system account is causing the situation.
If the Temp directory is not present then manually create one as >Temp. For example:
C:WinntTemp
C:WinntTemp
Also verify that the TMP and TEMP system environment variables point to the temporary directory. Restart the server to restart the IMA Service
27. What is the requirement of Installation Manager and wht kind of extension its support.
28. What are the parameters of Resource Manager?
In your day-to-day management of your MetaFrame XPe environment, Citrix Resource Manager will be one of your most valuable tools. Resource Manager (RM) serves three purposes:
- Real time monitoring of MetaFrame XPe servers.
- Historic reports containing information about MetaFrame XPe servers.
- A central repository of usage information and statistics across all servers in your farm.
Real time monitoring allows you to view the status of different components of the MetaFrame XP server. Each component (known to Resource Manager as a "metric") is viewed via the CMC, and has a green icon next to it if everything is okay. If there are problems, the icon will turn a different color, depending on what the problem is. You can configure the system to send alerts to SNMP traps, email addresses, or short message service pagers if problems occur. You can completely customize the types, behaviors and thresholds of each metric in your environment.
In addition to displaying the live status of MetaFrame XPe servers, Resource Manager can also be used to collect and store detailed data about individual servers. A system snapshot is taken every 15 seconds, and a report can be generated on any timeframe in the past 96 hours, allowing you to see exactly what the condition of the server was at a specific time.
Finally, if you are using Feature Release 2, MetaFrame XPe servers running Resource Manager can periodically send statistics and data to a centralized database. From there you can generate reports about overall farm usage. You can even set up pricing information and generate invoices based on which users accessed the systems.
The newest version of Citrix Resource Manager has evolved quite a bit in the past few years, even since MetaFrame XP was first released. For that reason, this section addresses the Resource Manager component of MetaFrame XPe with Service Pack 2 applied. Since Service Pack 2 is free, you can use it even if you don't plan on using Feature Release 2.
Technical Overview
Even though Citrix Resource Manager is fairly straightforward, there are several components required to make it work. These components include:
- Citrix Resource Manager software.
- Metrics.
- Farm metric server.
- IMA data store.
- Local resource manager database.
- Summary database.
- Database connection server.
Resource Manager Software. In order to use Resource Manager, you need to ensure that the Resource Manager components are enabled when you install MetaFrame XPe. If not, you can install them at any time by running the SP-2/FR-2 installation program. The Resource Manager software must be locally installed on each MetaFrame XPe server that you want to monitor. This software extends the functionality of the IMA service, allowing it to collect metrics on various server components.
Metrics. A metric is a component (and its associated parameters) that is monitored, including the thresholds for changing the status of the metric and sending alerts. Each metric has an icon that changes colors to indicate its current status. Metrics are configured in the server farm and applied to specific servers or published applications. Examples of the hundreds of metrics available include current user load, CPU utilization, and number of published applications in use.
Farm Metric Server. The Farm Metric Server (FMS) is responsible for monitoring the status of the metrics of all servers and published applications in the entire server farm. This server actually controls the metric icons, changing their status as conditions warrant. The FMS gets its information from the zone data collector, which is updated every 15 seconds by each MetaFrame XPe server.
IMA Data Store. All Resource Manager configuration information is stored in the IMA data store. This includes the metrics and their associated configurations and thresholds, as well as alert parameters and which metrics are applied to which servers and published applications. Just like the other information in the IMA data store, each MetaFrame XPe server's local host cache contains its local subset of the Resource Manager information from the IMA data store.
Local Resource Manager Database. While the Resource Manager configuration information is stored in the IMA data store, each MetaFrame XPe server is responsible for locally maintaining its own Resource Manager data. This data, stored in \Program Files\Citrix\Citrix Resource Manager\LocalDB\RMLocalDatabase.mdb on each server, is maintained for the previous 96 hours, with new data overwriting the oldest data.
Summary Database. In Feature Release 2 environments, the summary database is a SQL or Oracle database that stores long term information about server usage. You can configure this data to be whatever you want, but most people store only a small subset of the local resource manager data in the summary database. The difference is that the summary database is used to store the data for weeks or months.
Database Connection Server. This server is responsible for receiving summary data from all MetaFrame XPe servers and writing it to the summary database. This is the only server that directly connects to the summary database.
Figure 16.2 (next page) shows how the various Resource Manager components work together in the MetaFrame XPe environment.
Figure 16.2: The components of Citrix Resource Manager
Monitoring Servers and Applications
Everything in Resource Manager is monitored via the metrics that you configure. After installation, default server metrics are in place so you can begin monitoring a server immediately without any additional configuration.
How you view the current status of the metrics depends on which type of metric you are interested in viewing. There are essentially two types of metrics: published application metrics and server metrics. Obviously, the published application metrics show information relating to each specific published application. They can be viewed in the published application's area in the CMC (CMC | Published Applications | Your Application | Resource Manager Tab). The server metrics, which contain server-specific status and information, can also be viewed via the CMC (CMC | Servers | Your Server | Resource Manager Tab).
Metric Status
When viewing metrics, each specific metric has an icon whose color corresponds to the state of the metric. Each metric type, both for published applications and servers, has six possible states, as outlined below:
Green. The metric is operating within its acceptable limits as configured in its properties.
Yellow. The metric has exceeded the limits of the green state and switched to yellow, having exceeded the time and value limit threshold you configured.
Red. The metric has exceeded the time and limit thresholds of the yellow state and switched to red. Any configured SNMP, SMS or email alerts have been sent.
Blue. The metric has been added, but it has not yet been configured, so it can't change color. This blue status will not change until you edit the properties of the metric and configure it for use.
Gray (Paused). The metric has entered a "snooze" state, manually invoked by an administrator. During this snooze period the metric will not activate any red alarms, and yellow and red conditions will not cause the metric to appear in the watcher window. However, during this snooze state, the metric is still active and it is still collecting data. The metric will exit the snooze state and become green, yellow, or red, after a preconfigured amount of snooze time has passed, as configured in the metric's properties.
Black (Stopped). The metric has entered a "sleep" state, manually invoked by an administrator. During this sleep period, the metric will not activate any red alarms. Also, yellow or red conditions will not cause the metric to appear in the watcher window. However, during this sleep state, the metric is still active, and it is still collecting data. The metric will not exit the sleep state until it is manually "woken up" by an administrator.
SMA Service => sweet monitoring and alerting service
While there is no finite answer to this, there is a registry setting that limits the Host Resolver to keeping only 512 open connections to hosts. This is very important in large farm design, and it can be manipulated.
The connections to hosts in a zone by a ZDC do not last forever, and can be torn down and re-established. It is important to farm performance that steps are taken in the zone to limit this teardown/setup process from occurring, and bumping up the registry setting alleviates this in zones with more than 512 hosts. The registry setting is:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Citrix\IMA\Runtime\ MaxHostAddressCacheEntries
When Miami Inc designs their global farm, the ZDC setup is of the utmost importance as the number of servers in each zone will grow over time to very high levels. A thorough understanding of this setting and the following information is critical.
Zone Setup and Information
What is the function of a zone?
Zones perform two functions:
• Collecting data from member servers in the zone
• Distributing changes in the zone to other servers in the farm
What is a Zone Data Collector (ZDC)? Each zone in a Presentation Server farm has its own “traffic cop” or ZDC. A ZDC may also at times be referred to as the Zone Manager. The ZDC maintains all load and session information for every server in the zone. ZDCs keep open connections to other farm ZDCs for zone communication needs. Changes to/from member servers of a ZDCs zone are immediately propagated to the other ZDCs in the farm.
How does the ZDC keep track of all of the hosts in the farm to make sure they are live?
If ZDC does not receive an update within the configured amount of time from a member server (default 1 minute) in its zone, it sends a ping (IMAPing) to the member server in question. This timeframe can be configured in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Citrix\IMA\Runtime\KeepAliveInterval
If ZDC does not receive an update within the configured amount of time from a peer ZDC server, it does not continually ping the “lost” ZDC. It waits a default of 5 minutes, which is configurable in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Citrix\IMA\Runtime\GatewayValidationInterval
