How to remove stale Host from XenCenter

Sometime you come across situation where host has not been ejected from the pool master. This host has been shutdown and decommissioned. In such situation stale host will not get out of XenCenter .

 

 

To remove ,try following steps

This needs to be run from windows box where xencenter is installed

xe –s <Pool Master ip address > –u root –pw <password of root pool master >

This will give UUID of stale host as shown below

Now run xe 0s <IP address of pool master > –u root –pw host –forget  uuid=<stale host >

 

 

Cowley : XenServer 5.6 FP1 Release

 Citrix has released  XenServer 5.6 Feature Pack 1  to Citrix.com and MyCitrix.com.
Customers and partners can find the downloads on MyCitrix: https://www.citrix.com/English/SS/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=2306109&productId=683148 as well as through the trial download section from http://www.citrix.com/xenserver
What’s New in this release
Highlights for this release are:
•    Distributed Virtual Switching. Provides distributed, fine-grained networking configuration and control policies, which increase visibility into XenServer virtual networks. Support for the vSwitch has been added as a post-install option on XenServer hosts, as well as a Controller for administration of multiple vSwitches and cross-server internal networks.
Jumbo Frames are now supported for storage networks when the vSwitch is used.
•    VM Protection and Recovery. Configure scheduled snapshots and (optional) archive of virtual machines.
•    Web Self-Service. Provides browser-based access to selected virtual machines by delegated administrators.
•    Boot from SAN with multipathing support. Boot XenServer hosts with HBAs from a SAN, with multipathing support.
•    HA Restart Priority. Configure HA policies to restart specific VM(s) first.
•    Enhanced XenCenter. Including StorageLink configuration entirely within XenCenter, workload reporting for VM utilization and chargeback.
•    Improved MPP RDAC multipathing including path health reporting and alerting in XenCenter.
•    Snapshot improvements. Improved reclamation of space after VM snapshots are deleted, even if the VM is running.
•    Enhanced guest OS support for Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP1.
•    Generic Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.x support. RHEL / CentOS / Oracle Enterprise Linux versions 5.0 to 5.5 support with a generic .RHEL 5. template.
•    Brocade HBA drivers and command-line tools are included in XenServer.
•    Provisioning Services improvements to Windows volume license (MAK and KMS) support.
•    XenDesktop platform enhancements. Provides local host caching of VM images to reduce storage TCO for XenDesktop VDI deployments. (Note: these platform enhancements will be enabled by a future version of XenDesktop).
•    Lab Manager 3.9 Service Pack 1 which includes various updates and bugfixes
More details can be found in the Release notes on the Knowledge Base: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127362. Full documentation is accessible through the MyCitrix download page, or on the KB here: http://support.citrix.com/product/xens/v5.6/component/fp1/#tab-doc
StorageLink Version 2.4, along with XS 5.6 FP1, available from https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=2306109&productId=683148&c1=pov2301284.
The updated version of StorageLink Version 2.4 includes:
•    Site Recovery support for XenServer virtual machines on LVHD volumes
•    Support for the HP StorageWorks XP 20000 series (including Site Recovery support)
•    Support for Pillar Axiom storage systems
•    Various improvements to overall scalability
•    Various improvements to overall performance
StorageLink Version 2.4 will also be available within Essentials for Hyper-V 5.6 FP2, which is also available for immediate download at https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=1854179&c1=pov2301870
Additional information about StorageLink & Essentials for Hyper-V is available here:
The Eclipse Edoc version of the StorageLink documentation is located here:
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/index.jsp?lang=en&topic=/essentials-for-hv/storagelink-22.html
Here is a link to more information about Essentials for Hyper-V and StorageLink on Citrix.com > products
http://www.citrix.com/ehv

How to install and configure Citrix license server VPX 1.0

Follow this Citrix article to download the VPX

Citrix EdgeSight : Reporting Services Error

EdgeSight 5.3 has been implemented for XenApp 6 environment on Windows 2008 R2. While extracting XenApp summary it was throwing Reporting service error.

We looked at Reporting service on 2008 SQL server which was hosted on another windows server ,was working fine. Checked the link http://<localdb severver>/ReportServer and that also was fine. We reconfigure reporting services. We decided to enable remote errors using following steps

________________________________________
1.    Create a text file and copy the following script into the file.
Copy
Public Sub Main()
  Dim P As New [Property]()
  P.Name = "EnableRemoteErrors"
  P.Value = True
  Dim Properties(0) As [Property]
  Properties(0) = P
  Try
    rs.SetSystemProperties(Properties)
    Console.WriteLine("Remote errors enabled.")
  Catch SE As SoapException
    Console.WriteLine(SE.Detail.OuterXml)
  End Try
End Sub
2.    Save the file as EnableRemoteErrors.rss.
3.    Click Start, point to Run, type cmd, and click OK to open a command prompt window.
4.    Navigate to the directory that contains the .rss file you just created.
5.    Type the following command line, replacing servername with the actual name of your server:
Copy
rs -i EnableRemoteErrors.rss -s http://servername/ReportServer

With this I rerun the report and found following error . This gave me more elaborated error message .This help us to troubleshoot further.

We realize something wrong with permission . We started looking at SQL server and set following permission.

We rerun the report and we finally got the report

How to License retail Branch Repeater VPX

Branch Repeater VPX in retail environment always get installed in remote mode . You cannot install license file on VPX locally and you need to use your existing license server. This  blogs  will guide you how to find out host ID of your license server  and then download lic file.
1.    To start with you need to find out host ID of the existing license server . For that go to the following path as shown below and run lmhostid command. This will give you host ID.

2.    Once you have the host ID login to the My Citrix page . Select  following

3.    Select  Activate /Allocate from dropdown. This will bring the list of product which is allocated for the user. Highlight BR VPX and click on Filter product .

4.    Assign the quantity and supply the hostname gather from step 1.

5.    License allocation will be completed and it will prompt to download lic file.

6.    Import the LIC file under My files of license server. Restart the license server and it will reflect BR license under Dashboard of License page

7.    Login to management page of BR and select Manage license . Check the box of remote and hit apply

8.    Please wait till it configure the license server .

9.    Once it is completed it will shows as following

10.    This is fully licensed for 45M/S

XenApp6: "Unknown error occurred: error code 0x8200003e"

I tried publishing new application on XenApp 6.0 on windows 2008 R2 and started giving error that configuration database is not available . I gave permission to citrix service under DeCOM for all the local DCOM user but still I was unable to make changes to XenApp Farm. I then found this Citrix forum discussion, but this did not work either.

Finally I found Citrix IMA service was set to start with local service account . I set to start with Network account. I re-run the Citrix configuration database and was finally able to create and publish application in XenApp farm.

How to Activate TS CAL for Windows 2008 running XenApp6.0

XenApp 6: “Disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration” and “Set up Windows Internet Explorer 8 Wizard” for Windows Server 2008

When you publish IE on XenApp 6.0 on Windows 2008 R2 these two will bother you a lot . To disable these feature

Go to Start and click on “Server Manager”

Click on “Configure IE ESC” located on the right-hand section of the window.

The Internet Enhanced Security Settings page will be displayed. Disable necessary options. IE ESC is now disabled

Second setting which will bother you is

 

To disable this

Go to a GPO then pick computer or user then Policies (in Vista / 2008 and Windows 7) -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer

 

The reason for publishing this article is to make you spend less time googling :)

How to License NetScaler VPX 9.2

Login to NetScaler VPX web console and select license under system . You will find default service which get enabled when the appliance is not licensed.

Now collect the hostname which will be required on the licensing portal .  This can be collect in various way. If this XenServer then you can find hostname under network and which is nothing but the mac address without “:”

 

Or ssh into netscaler vpx using putty and type shell then run “lmutil lmhostid –ether ” which will gives you same host name

Once you login to the secure portal of license site . Select the product as netscaler VPX and filter the product. Allocate the quantity and then type the hostname which you gather from above steps. Hit allocate

 

Confirm the allocation

Download the lic file

 

Now upload the lic file to the NS and then reboot the appliance to make the changes

 

Once the appliance is rebooted and came back the license will be updated for all the service which you have purchased.

Provisioning Services setup error :Provider SQL Network Interfaces,error:26-Error Locating Server/Instance

While running PVS service configuration wizard for PVS 5.6 , it throws the error message as shown below

 

We followed all the recommendation as per googling.

We were supplying instance name  in the below box in every format as per googling.

Finally what we found that if you don’t supply instance name and then just hit next it will show up the instance which you were looking for

P2V using VMWare convert version 4.2

I was working with XenDesktop where I was suppose to import physical desktop and convert that as a gold image. I install VMWare converter on my laptop and connected to the Virtual Center Server . Once it is connected I can find that under plugin  manager the version shows as 4.2

Right click on the host and select

 

It will pop up and ask for all the relevant information

Make sure that if you are importing XP machine you should install Converter agent on it or else it will not detect it.

Coming to real cool feature which was not there with earlier version of VMWare convertor . You can edit only certain settings with earlier version but here you have lot many option .

The one which is new is “Synchronize Changes that occur to the source during cloning” . This would be very helpful when we are doing conversion for openfiles.

Now it also have feature where you can stop and start service at source and destination

 

This is other new feature which ahs been added.

Once it says finish , the jobs are submitted and rest all you can follow my previous blog for post P2V conversion

Virtual Center 4.1 on a dual homed server

When you have dual NIC and your virtual center server is dual homed . You need to make sure that IP which will be assigned to virtual center should be updated under Managed IP address

 

How to create VM from snapshot on XenServer 5.6

XenServer gives you feature to create VM from Snapshot. In order to do that right click on snapshot on snapshot window

Then it will list the snapshots under template . Select the correct snapshot and proceed

Choose the  name for the  virtual  machine

Select DVD drive and then empty because you don’t need any media to install this

Select the home server for this VM. In my case I just have one XenServer

 

This indeed gives you option to choose number of CPU and Memory

Choose location for disk to be stored. In my case it just have local drive

 

Supply network information . In my case it just have only one NIC card

 

Check the summary before you finish button

Here is your virtual machine up and running from snapshot. This looks cool to me since I did not find anywhere that you can create VM from snapshot.