Month: November 2012

Installation of Desktop Director 2.1 for XenApp 6.5

Citrix has released a nice install guide to install and configure Desktop Director 2.1 to use with XenApp 6.5.

Requirements

  • A XenApp 6.5 Farm
  • An available server to install Desktop Director, it can also be added to the XenApp 6.5 Controller
  • An install Media for XenDesktop 5.6 Feature pack 1
  • IIS 7 installed on the server that hosts the Desktop Director
  • .NET Framework 3.5 Sp1
  • Adobe Flash 10.x or above
  • Firewall exceptions for port 80, 2513 and 5985 Continue reading “Installation of Desktop Director 2.1 for XenApp 6.5”

McAfee alert on W32/autorun.worm.aaeb-h worm [updated 28/11/12 @21:35 GMT+1]

W32/Autorun.worm.aaeb-h has the ability to infect removable media devices and mounted network shares. It can also copy itself into .zip and .rar archive files.

The infection starts either with manual execution of an infected file or by navigating to a folder that contains infected files. This threat has the ability to download other malware or updates to itself as directed by a Command-and-Control (C&C) server.

Mitigation
McAfee has released an Extra.DAT to detect and clean this threat. A new version of Stinger will be available later. McAfee will send another SNS notice when the Stinger is available.

To download the Extra.DAT and Stinger (when available), see KB76807:
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB76807

For more information on McAfee product coverage and mitigation for this threat, see PD24169 – Threat Advisory: W32/Autorun.worm.aaeb:
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=PD24169

*** UPDATE 21:35 ***

Download the latest stinger tool which can detect and remove this worm here:
https://kc.mcafee.com/resources/sites/MCAFEE/content/live/CORP_KNOWLEDGEBASE/76000/KB76807/en_US/stinger.zip

How to install an extra.dat file:

To apply the ExtraDAT locally:

  1. Click Start, Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
  2. Right-click the McAfee McShield service and select Stop.
  3. Copy the ExtraDAT file to the following location:
    32-bit installations     <installation drive>Program FilesCommon FilesMcAfeeEngine     64-bit installations     <installation drive>Program Files (x86)Common FilesMcAfeeEngine
  4. In the Services window, right-click McAfee McShield and select Start.
    The new detections in ExtraDAT will take effect after the McShield service has started.

Hotfixex for Citrix Single Sign-on Plug-in 4.8 v4.8.6505.0 and v4.8.6506.0

Citrix has released 2 new hotfixes (well 4 actually if you count the 32 and 64 bit version) for the Single Sign-On plugin. The hotfixes are for versions 4.8.6505.0 and 4.8.6506.0.

What’s new in the hotfix for version 4.8.6505.0:

  1. When using the domain password sharing group for Version 6 of WebNow, the logon screen prompting users for credentials might fail to populate correctly.

    [From SSOP480WX64005][#LA1034] Continue reading “Hotfixex for Citrix Single Sign-on Plug-in 4.8 v4.8.6505.0 and v4.8.6506.0”

How to install Citrix Excalibur Tech Preview (part 5)

In the previous posts I have explained to you how to install the software and how you can create your first environment. Here’s the overview of the previous, current and yet to come posts and the Excalibur Tech Preview.

  1. What is Excalibur, prerequisites and overview of test lab setup
  2. Installation of Excalibur
  3. Configuring Excalibur (Studio)
  4. Configuration StoreFront
  5. Install Agent software on Windows 2012 machine <<Current page >>
  6. Configure Application
  7. Test published application and desktop (old XenApp)

In this post we are going to configure the Agent software for use with Excalibur on a Windows 2012 machine.

In this post I assume you already have installed a Windows 2012 server and are ready to install the Excalibur agent now.

Mount the Excalibur ISO in your VM and (if everything is correct) the auto launch will show this screen. Select the “Delivery Agent for Windows Machines” and let the installation begin. Continue reading “How to install Citrix Excalibur Tech Preview (part 5)”

Some XenApp 6.5 ZDC Replication Calculations

James Denne, a fellow Citrite, has written this great blog post I would like to share with you tonight.

With the approaching end of life date for XenApp 5, one of my customers is currently designing their XenApp 6.5 farm and asked for some assistance calculating the amount of data that would be replicated between each zone data collector.

 

Let’s detail the existing environment:

  • XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2
  • Hotfix Rollup Pack 7
  • 350 servers
  • 14 zones in 10 countries globally.
  • Core farm infrastructure (SQL publisher datastore, licence server) located in the same datacentre as the “UK 5″ zone.

Here are the zone names and the average number of user logons per day.

Read his entire post here.

Enumeration Worker Groups in AppCenter Console is slow

Today an article I wrote a while ago came online at the Citrix knowledgebase.

When trying to add a Worker Group to a policy, it may take a long time to display the list of available Worker Groups.

Background

When editing a user policy and trying to add a worker group as a filter the AppCenter console, it may take a long time (>1 min) to enumerate the list of available worker groups in the farm. The server running the AppCenter console is running Windows Server 2008 R2 with XenApp 6.5 and hotfix rollup pack 01 installed.

To add a Worker Group filter to an existing policy through the AppCenter console it can take a while for the list of available Worker Groups to appear. Complete the following steps to reproduce this issue:

  • Launch AppCenter.
  • Go to your farm and select Policies.
  • Select the Filters tab.
  • Select All Filters and search for Worker Groups.
  • Select Add to add a Worker Group to this filter.
  • Click Add.
  • Choose browse in the New Filter Element screen.

It takes up to 6 minutes to enumerate the list of Worker Groups.

Resolution

Apply the correct Group Policy Management Console hotfix on the computer(s) running the AppCenter console.

CTX135403 – LIMITED RELEASE – Hotfix GPMx170WX64002 – For Group Policy Management Console for Windows x64 – English

CTX135402 – LIMITED RELEASE – Hotfix GPMx170WX86002- For Group Policy Management Console for Windows x86 – English

After applying the hotfix and restarting your machine, Worker Group enumeration takes lesser time than before.

Read it here at the knowledgebase.

How to check if Citrix UPS is installed and enabled on XenApp 6.5

Citrix has released a new KB article which clearly describes how to check whether Citrix Universal Print Server has been installed and enabled correclty on your XenApp 6.5 HRP01 environment.

  • The Universal Print Server feature comprises a client component – Universal Print Client (UPClient) that needs to be installed on the XenApp server along with Hotfix Rollup Pack 1 (HRP01) that provides the necessary updates implementing support for the UPS. When installed, the two items will appear in the installed programs list in the server Control Panel->Programs->Programs and Features Continue reading “How to check if Citrix UPS is installed and enabled on XenApp 6.5”

Overview of the new Microsoft certification tracks

Microsoft has released a nice overview of the new certification tracks and which exams to take to achieve this certification status.

They have described 5 major tracks on which you can certify yourself.

  • The Business track: Microsoft Office Specialist certification demonstrates that an individual is proficient in the Microsoft Office suite and has the most up-to-date skills. Becoming a Microsoft Office Specialist helps increase everyday productivity while providing the tools to succeed in a technology-driven world. Continue reading “Overview of the new Microsoft certification tracks”

What’s new with Provisioning in Excalibur

Patrick Carey wrote a nice blog on the Citrix blogs about the new features in provisioning that comes with the Excalibur Tech Preview available at this time.

One of the benefits of the updated FlexCast Management Architecture is that XenApp farms can now be deployed and managed from within Studio.  This also means they can be provisioned using the Machine Creation Services linked-clone delivery model that has been available within XenDesktop for a few releases now.  One of the primary benefits of MCS is the ease in which new catalogs of machines (virtual desktops and now virtual XenApp servers) can be created.  Updates to the catalog creation wizards in Studio guide you though the initial roll-out of a virtual XenApp farm.  The MCS model provides many of the same single image management benefits of Provisioning Services, but works directly on the storage managed by your hypervisor, so there is no need to deal with PXE or build-out a Provisioning Services deployment.  However, this capability is limited to the new Excalibur version of XenApp.

PVS streaming for XenApp farms and desktop catalogs is still an option in Excalibur, providing the enhanced image management capabilities and storage IO optimizations beneficial in larger, more complex environments, though management of the Provisioning Services infrastructure remains in a separate management console. Provisioning Services will continue to provide a centralized image library for mixed environments where multiple “sites” or “farms” of XenDesktop and XenApp are used.

Read more here.

Citrix Diagnostics Toolkit

The Citrix Diagnostic Toolkit is a collection of applications and utilities used for troubleshooting commonly reported problems. C.D.T. includes execution scripts created specifically to automate tasks that a support engineer would have a customer perform to generate data files used to determine root cause of a problem report.

A key benefit is reducing the diagnostic time by expediting delivery of diagnostic data to Citrix Support for analysis.

What is included? Continue reading “Citrix Diagnostics Toolkit”