Reviewed by me: Getting Started with Citrix® Provisioning Services 7.0

I had been approached by Packt  Publishing to review the book  “Getting Started with Citrix® Provisioning Services 7.0” . The book explain each and every feature of PVS 7.0 which is most exciting product from Citrix. Author Puthiyavan Udayakumar has done justice to the interesting product from Citrix .

 

About me mention in this box by publisher

So what all you are going to learn from the book :

• Install Citrix Provisioning Services
• Configure Citrix Provisioning Services
• Create and manage Vdisks
• Prepare a Master Target device
• Manage farms, stores, sites, and the Provisioning server
• Upgrade farms and Vdisks

You can download the book in various format including PDF and kindle

Post reading please do provide your review at Amazon.

Thanks for reading

DHCP failover scope : Please delete the scope from the relationship

I was trying to remove scope and it was throwing error “Scope is part of failover relationship . Please delete the scope from the relationship”

I tried removing from the scope but there were no option to do so.

If one has to remove the failover scope, it has to be done from IPV4 properties and Failover

After removing the relationship , I also have to do the same from secondary server as well. Post which I was able to remove the scope without any issue.

Build high availability PVS 7.1 server using windows 2012R2 & NetScaler

While we had been creating HA for PVS for a while. Here I am going to discuss HA for PVS 7.1 at every level. For that I have consider new feature of DHCP 2012 called scope level fail over . I am also explaining new inbuilt feature of NetScaler to load balance TFTP. For  PVS data store  we have used CIFS share directly from storage.  When we have two DHCP server ensure that both the IP address is added as an IP helper in the targets VLAN or else target won’t get IP address. I have created multi-homed PVS , one dedicated for TFTP and other for DHCP traffic. PVS is virtual with 16GB of memory.

To start with we have used two PVS server and install TFTP/DHCP role on it. After creation of scope we configure it for failover. Right click on DHCP scope and then you will get an option to configure failover.

This will bring info about scope

This will prompt for other DHCP server we need to create scope level fail over. Do remind you scope is created on first server and its get replicated to second server. While adding it will list all the authorized DHCP server. In our case we will choose second PVS server.

Once partner is selected

It will prompt for using existing relationship. In my case I wanted to configure DHCP in  “Load Balance ”  mode rather than “Hot Standby “ mode. This way I want to direct traffic to both the DHCP (PVS ) server.

Once this done it will present summary of what its going to configure

Post finishing config it will congratulate you  

Make changes on one DHCP scope its get replicated by itself or you have an option to replicate the change manually

Now take a route to load balance NetScaler . There are ton’s of method exist and has been documented like this or CTX116337 or wonderful blog from Nick . But with version 10.1 TFTP load balancing had became damn easy. Few click and all done. How about  Citrix  providing  some wizard for this as well…you lazy guys.

To start with create server under  Traffic management . Here give IP address of  PVS server. Incase PVS is multi homed then we need to supply IP of streaming network. Both the PVS server has been added and green shows SNIP is able to communicate with PVS server.

Now configure service for those PVS server and here don’t forget to choose protocol as TFTP . Under server both the PVS server will be listed which has been created in previous step. Rest all are default. Here green shows all well with service.

Now create vServer and map both the services which we have created in previous step. IP address mention here will be used in DHCP option 66. Rest all setting will be default. I love Round Robin so I have chosen that. That’s it , IP will be ready to be configured under DHCP scope.

Modify the 66 option  under scope and you will be ready to test TFTP HA 

In the last part I will show how we configure CIFS share to be used as datastore for PVS. On a storage create CIFS share and then create folder as per store create folder. I have create folder by name CTX_ADMIN and mapped it store with same name. Once this is mapped to both the PVS end to end HA can be tested.

When I boot my target its boot fine.

Set default website for StoreFront

With webinterface you can set default website while creating website

But with StoreFront you either have to follow CTX133903 or just set it using IIS

StoreFront error : No certificate associated with this site

I was adding second server in the server group but it was throwing error while replicating configuration

Log Name:      Citrix Delivery Services
Source:        Citrix Configuration Replication Service
Date:          2/17/2014 6:13:06 PM
Event ID:      31
Task Category: (2801)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      XXXX
Description:
An error has occured during the all server configuration update process.
Citrix.DeliveryServices.ConfigurationReplication.Exceptions.ServerUpdateConfigurationException, Citrix.DeliveryServices.ConfigurationReplication, Version=2.4.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=e8b77d454fa2a856
An error occured running the command: 'Add-DSFeatureInstances'
RemoteEndpoint: net.tcp://XXX/Citrix/ConfigurationReplication

Then we also saw following  message “No certificate associated with this site” though site was https. I tried several thing like renaming url but looks like it something else

Finally found that certificate was saved under “Web hosting   Certificate ” whereas it must be under “Personal – Certificate “

Once it was placed and binding were configured

All the sites were green

After we fixed this error replication went successfully

Autoconfiguration IPv4 on Hyper V VM

I configured on hyperV VM on SCVMM2012R2 and it was not able to communicate over the LAN. When I checked network property it had Autoconfiguration IPv4 enabled with APIPA ( Automatic Private Internet Protocol Addressing ) .

Not sure what was causing it, tried googling but couldn’t find anything relevant. Checked for hidden nic but couldn’t find any. Finally changed IP address and that worked. Looks like above IP was somewhere on the network and this is enabling Autoconfiguration IPv4

Adding second node to the virtual SQL cluster 2012 on Windows 2012R2 using VMM–Part 3

In my previous  blog I explained how to install  the first node in this blog I will explain how to add the second node to the existing cluster.   Run the SQL setup and choose “Add node to a SQL Serverfailover cluster ”

This will run the check for prerequisite and validate it

 

Don’t run the check for updates and then exist the steps. It will run again SQL cluster install rule

Next it will check for product key and then license term. Post which it will identify SQL cluster node and will populate the info

Then it will validate the network for fail over cluster

Next it will pick  account for which you must retype the password

Then it will prompt for error reporting which you can choose as per wish. Click next and proceed further where it will check for node rules

It will give beautiful summary to add the node.

Finally installation of SQL second node will be done

Finally node has been added and here is the summary

Thanks for reading my blog, today I configured DDC on fail over cluster

How to setup virtual SQL 2012 cluster on windows 2012R2 VM using SCVMM2012R2 Part-2

Post windows cluster validation describe in part1, prerequisite like  .Net3.5 feature must be installed on all the SQL server. Other than it will be normal windows fail over cluster and then start SQL setup as follows.

 

It will check for necessary support files and then validated it by running test

Next it will check for the latest update , uncheck it and click next

This will check install file post which it will run the validation for setup support rules

Setup rules will finish with some warning which can be ignored

Now this will ask for product key and if this has already downloaded with key then it will appear

For my Citrix XenDesktop deployment I just need following feature

Feature rules will test for cluster support

Here I am using  network name as CitrixSQL. It does not accept special character

Next it will check validate the space

Don’t worry about qualified as red . I spend lots of time figuring that out but next will explain why it was . So hit next here

Once hit next make sure select both the cluster disk. If you recall in my previous post, I did mention why labeling of disk is mandatory. This was the reason. Update the message with correct reference.

This cluster IP is for SQL cluster node name.

I usually run SQL service using specific account

Next we have server config  where I specify SA password

On the same option Data Directories tab is important. This will insure that database and logs stored separately. After changing click on next.

I don’t want to do error reporting to MS so I hit next where it check for cluster installation rules.

With this we are ready to install and keep our finger crossed

For me SQL installation finish with the following error message

I followed article and manually created  the cluster resource under AD and then gave full control to windows cluster name. Post which all the resource came online.