New documentation for Citrix Licensing 11.10 and Desktop Director 2.1

Citrix has released new documentation on License Server 11.10 and Desktop Director 2.1.

New documentation for Citrix Licensing version 11.10 can be found here.

New documentation for Citrix Desktop Director version 2.1 can be found here.

What’s new in Citrix Licensing version 11.10:

What’s New

License Server VPX. A self-contained Linux-based virtual appliance that allows you to easily deploy licensing in your Citrix environment. You can bring the appliance online by:

•Importing the appliance to your host or pool of hosts.

•Configuring basic networking – specifying IP address, hostname, and other network information.
•Using the License Administration Console to upload licenses for your hosts.
Microsoft Active Directory support for Windows license servers – The License Administration Console supports Active Directory Users and Groups. During installation, the license server detects Active Directory membership. If you are in a domain, the license server adds the installing user (domainuser) as a default License Administration Console administrator. In a workgroup or VPX installation, the license server prompts for the default admin user password.

Fixed Issues

•The Citrix License Server might crash immediately after startup. Workaround: Delete the following files, and then start the license server. These files are automatically regenerated when the license server starts. [#253576]

C:Program FilesCitrixLicensinglsconfactivation_state.xml and concurrent_state.xml on a 32-bit server

C:Program Files(x86)Citrixlsconfactivation_state.xml and concurrent_state.xml on a 64-bit server

/opt/citrix/licensing/LS/conf/activation_state.xml and concurrent_state.xml for License Server VPX

•If you select Use default port when configuring the Vendor Daemon Port, critical alerts might appear on the Dashboard when you close the console and restart the license service. If this occurs, you cannot use a random port. Workaround: Specify a new installation path that does not include parentheses in the pathname. Windows only [#0266589]

Known Issues

Installation Issues – Windows Only

•Windows Firewall exception rules for Licensing components are not automatically created on Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit), as expected. If Windows Firewall is enabled when you install Citrix Licensing 11.10, you cannot connect remotely to the License Administration Console and licenses cannot be checked out. If you enable Windows Firewall, create exceptions for Licensing components on the Exceptions tab of the Windows Firewall panel. Create an exception for each of the following: CITRIX.exe and lmadmin.exe. This issue occurs with Windows Server 2003. [#232674]
•If Citrix Licensing is installed in a clustered environment and Windows Firewall is enabled (the default configuration for Windows 2008), connections can fail. Connecting remotely to the console or checking out licenses works until failover occurs in the cluster. Exception rules for CITRIX.exe and lmadmin.exe are created during installation of Licensing, but do not work after a cluster failover. To work around this issue, create exceptions for Licensing components on the Exceptions tab of the Windows Firewall panel. Create an exception for each of the following ports: Console Web Server port (default port is 8082); License Server Manager port (default port is 27000); and Vendor Daemon port (default port is 7279). This issue occurs with Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2. For more information, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2568645[#232365]
•At the end of installation, the "License Server Configuration" tool is presented. If you choose to cancel on this page, the license server does not start. You must reopen the License Server Configuration tool and finish the settings before the license server can start. You can open the tool from: C:Program FilesCitrixLicensingLSresourceLSPostConfigTool.exe.
•During installation, localized characters in the installation path can cause the installation to fail. Accept the default installation path or enter only ASCII alphabetic letter characters for the installation directory. [#229456]
•When configuring the product-side setting for the license server name, do not use localhost. Use the host name, IP address, or FQDN instead. [#165986]
•The Citrix License Server might stop during installation on Windows 2003 x86 and x64. Workaround: Install all the Microsoft Service Packs and updates. [#32050]

Other Known Issues – Windows Only

•If you include a backslash in a locally managed user name (for example, test), you cannot delete the user. [#0270349]
•Changing the licensing port after licenses are installed might cause the No such product or vendor exists: CITRIX message to appear on the Dashboard instead of the installed licenses. [#0269423]
•When a locally managed user having an administrator role does not exist, a domain administrator can only add domain users or groups as administrators to the license server. To edit and delete domain administrators or groups on the User Configuration page in the License Administration Console, a Locally Managed User having the Administrator role must exist. [#0263016 and #0269719]

Other Known Issues and Considerations – License Server VPX Only

•You cannot import licenses containing a parentheses in the pathname. [#0264908]
•Though XenDesktop 5 Service Pack 1 through XenDesktop 5.6 are compatible with License Server VPX, you cannot use the Desktop Studio to view or manage licenses. Use the License Administration Console.
•If you do use Desktop Studio to initially point XenDesktop to the License Server VPX, the following condition might occur – CtxLSPortSvc is consuming 100% CPU on VPX. If this happens, restart the licensing support service by logging onto the License Server VPX console as root. Within the shell, execute /etc/init.d/citrixlicensingsupportservice restart.
•Clustered license servers are not supported for VPX. You can use the High Availability (HA) feature on XenServer 5.6 – 6.0.
•Though /opt/citrix/licensing/LS/conf contains a self-signed SSL certificate and .key file, you can generate and use your own.
•Ports 1-1024 are reserved by the operating system. When configuring the VPX ports, use ports above 1024. If you use SSL, use port 10443, which is open in the firewall. If you choose a different port for SSL, reconfigure the firewall in the iptables.
•Upgrades are not supported for License Server VPX.
Other Known Issues – Windows and VPX
•In the License Administration console, localized characters in user names and passwords can display with unexpected results. To avoid this issue, use US-ASCII alphabetic letter characters for user names and passwords in the License Administration Console. [#0272738, #0273089, #0156833, #0156839, #0156969, #223870, #242767]

License Files

•Certain license types are not covered by Subscription Advantage and therefore appear in alerts in the Dashboard of the License Administration Console indicating that the Subscription Advantage date is expired. You can ignore such alerts for any license not covered by Subscription Advantage. This includes Evaluation licenses, Not for Resale licenses, Early Release licenses and Technology Preview licenses. These types of licenses do not need Subscription Advantage and your Citrix products do not stop working when the Subscription Advantage date is expired. You can verify the status of any license for which you receive an alert by clicking the license on the Dashboard. The license information expands to show the license type (such as Technology Preview), the license expiration date, and the Subscription Advantage date. [#231847]
•License Files with multiple lines referencing HOSTNAME= are ignored by the license server. Licenses in these files cannot be checked out. This issue is caused when you download licenses associated to different license server hostnames into the same license file. Any of the following error messages might appear in the Event Log Viewer: •Event ID: 724 Description: (2196) Invalid license key.
•Event ID: 764 (2196) Wrong hostid on SERVER line in license file.
In addition, the License Administration Console displays the following error message: "…Error List Returned…Unknown Host."

To resolve this issue, re-download separate license files for each Citrix product tied to different license server names. See article CTX110909 in the Citrix Knowledge Center for additional information.

•After you replace evaluation license files on the license server with new license files, the Citrix product might continue to display the following license expiration message when users log on: "Warning: The following Citrix Product is using an Evaluation license. This license will expire in…"
To resolve this issue:

1.Remove the old evaluation license files from the license server. (See the eDocs licensing documentation).
2.At the license server, restart the Citrix Licensing service.
3.At the Citrix product server, point to a fictional license server and then point the product back to the actual license server. (See your product’s administrator’s guide for information about changing these settings.)
4.If the problem persists, restart the product server.

Event Log Viewer Messages

•The following message appears in the Event Log Viewer: (1224) Client/server comm version mismatch. The client and server programs are running potentially incompatible versions of FLEXnet comm software.
This is an informational message indicating that a Citrix product licensing client is communicating with a different version of the Citrix License Server. Ignore this message.

•After upgrading the license server, messages such as the following examples might appear in the Event Log Viewer (product and component numbers may vary from these examples):•Detection of product ‘{8AAA9207-A30A-4158-9640-8886AA9BD86F}’, feature ‘CTX_LS’, component ‘{F826569F-BFB0-4D4F-9B01-341070F968D5}’ failed. The resource ‘C:binCfgEngineConfiguration.xml’ does not exist.
•Detection of product ‘{B91F5D65-61AD-48C6-B595-71F58844529C}’, feature ‘CTX_LS’ failed during request for component ‘{FB1869D6-3FE1-446B-AF01-3858F849CDA5}’
•Detection of product ‘{B91F5D65-61AD-48C6-B595-71F58844529C}’, feature ‘Complete’, component ‘{303994BA-6487-47AE-AF1D-7AF6088EEBDB}’ failed. The resource ” does not exist.
•A provider, MgmtEventProv, has been registered in the Windows Management Instrumentation namespace RootCitrixManagement to use the LocalSystem account. This account is privileged and the provider may cause a security violation if it does not correctly impersonate user requests.
•Failed to connect to server. Error: 0x80070005.
Ignore these messages. The upgrade is successful. [#207927, #183919]

Product-Specific Issues

Access Essentials / XenApp Fundamentals

•After installing Licensing 11.10 and starting the Quick Start tool, a .NET Framework error message indicates that “The service object for the service “CitrixLicensing” could not be acquired. Probably not installed or there is a permission problem.” This issue occurs in Access Essentials 2.0 or XenApp Fundamentals 3.0. To resolve the issue, uninstall Licensing 11.6.1 Build 10007 and install Licensing 11.6.1 Build 9020, available from the the License Server Downloads page. [#232048]
•Before installing the license server version 11.10 on systems running Access Essentials 2.0, you must install Hotfixes AEE200W2K3001 and AEE200W2K3002. Failure to do so might render Access Essentials inoperable.

Citrix Branch Repeater with Windows Server

•If you install the same license twice, the second time may trigger a change in the Send Bandwidth Limit, which will be set to the maximum licensed speed. To solve this issue, do not install the same license twice. If you must do so, verify that the Send Bandwidth Limit is set correctly. [#53894]

Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0

•Upgrading licensing from Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0 to a newer version of licensing. During the upgrade process of the license server, the licensing components are detected as installed but there is a prompt to remove them. You cannot upgrade licensing in a Citrix product that has licensing 1.0.0 installed as it is incompatible with the licensing that is used in Citrix products today. Uninstall the licensing components and reinstall the latest version. [#217704]

Citrix XenApp Management Pack

•Details about the Citrix License Server are always blank on the Monitoring tab of the System Center Operations Manager for Citrix Managed Servers. There is no workaround for this issue. [#192159]

What’s new in Citrix Desktop Director version 2.1:

•Support for personal vDisks, which allow user-related changes to pooled desktops to be maintained across sessions. Using Desktop Director, you can view the personal vDisk status for a machine and, if necessary, reset it so that the applications for all users assigned to the machine are returned to factory settings.
For more information on personal vDisks, see XenDesktop 5.6.

•Enhanced user interface for the HDX panel. The top two properties, in order of priority, for each channel are now displayed.
•See "Fixed Issues," later in this topic, for other changes.

Features

Important: Depending on how your administrator configures Desktop Director, you might not have access to some tasks or portions of the user interface.
•A dashboard that crisply summarizes real-time machine issues, usage metrics, and host and controller health information for your XenDesktop environment. Note: Machine refers to desktops and virtual machines delivered by XenDesktop.
•Support for troubleshooting XenApp sessions through the display of session information on the User Details page.
•Comprehensive HDX monitoring. HDX information appears on the User Details and Machine Details pages for XenDesktop and XenApp sessions and is available as a downloadable report from those pages.
•Support for multiple XenDesktop sites:
•Deploy a single Desktop Director web site to manage multiple XenDesktop sites and to support user troubleshooting across multiple XenDesktop and XenApp sites.
•The Dashboard, Desktop Groups, and Machine List pages are available when Desktop Director is configured with multiple XenDesktop sites.
•Global search for users, desktops, and desktop groups across all XenDesktop sites.
•All relevant information aggregated from multiple sources (XenDesktop and XenApp controllers, Citrix Profile management, Windows Management Instrumentation, and Active Directory) so you can manage from one centralized tool.
•Different views of the Desktop Director interface to support:
•Site management: Search for desktops and desktop groups and view the full Desktop Director interface.
•User troubleshooting: Search for users and view the User Details page.
User permissions for XenDesktop sites and XenApp farms determine the content displayed and the available commands.

•User session and machine management features such as:
•Log off or disconnect user desktop or application sessions.
•Start, stop, suspend, and resume machines.
•Enable or disable maintenance mode.
•Assign machines to users.
•Start a Microsoft Remote Assistance session for a XenDesktop user.
•Send messages to multiple XenDesktop virtual machines.
•Intuitive and informative interface to optimize user support and troubleshooting:
•Drill down through simple searches and follow links from aggregate to detailed information.
•Search for a user by name to quickly access all user information and commands for common tasks.
•For XenDesktop sessions, search for users, machines, and desktop groups across all sites in a single step from the same location. For XenApp sessions, search for users and view all of a user’s XenApp sessions across all farms.
•Search for and sort machines by their properties.
•Quickly determine machine state (which machines a user can access and whether a user is assigned or connected to a machine) in real-time to ensure high availability for users.
•Create customized machine list views and save them for one-click access from any Desktop Director page.
•Monitor machine metrics across the entire XenDesktop site to maintain a healthy and stable environment for your end users.
•Troubleshoot HDX features for XenDesktop and XenApp sessions.

Known Issues

If a user is logged on to the Desktop Director service when you start the hotfix installation, the installation wizard prompts you twice to restart the Desktop Director server after the upgrade is complete. To avoid this issue, stop IIS before performing the upgrade. [46805]

When the VMWare tools are not installed on an ESX Virtual Desktop, Desktop Director power actions (such as shutdown or restart) do not work. Desktop Director does not provide an alert about a failed power action and does not display transitioning power states, so the user will not know when a power action fails. [12856]

The upgrade installer sets Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses to "localhost" in web.config if you do not set a value for the XenDesktop controller in the installation wizard. This results in silent logon errors if there is no controller on the localhost, such as in a XenApp-only installation scenario. To avoid logging the errors, remove the XenDesktop discovery key from IIS. For more information, see Advanced Configuration. [35677]

A XenApp server can take longer than 10 seconds to acknowledge a Session Control > Terminate command, causing the Desktop Director interface to time out with error code 105 ("Server unresponsive"). The XenApp session is logged off successfully and is shown as terminated the next time Desktop Director refreshes. [32790]

When a session is connected using XenCenter (that is, it is a non-brokered session), the Desktop Director Machine Details page displays the session Connection type as "RDP" instead of "Console". [34071]

Changing the sessionState timeout to "0" in the Desktop Director configuration file prevents Desktop Director from starting. [35960]

If Desktop Director is open in multiple browser windows or tabs, the user may be automatically logged off if a window or tab remains inactive for an extended time. [14403]

If Desktop Director is configured to monitor multiple XenDesktop sites, the list of sites on the Site Selection page may not be in alphabetical order. [35940]

If the name of a virtual desktop contains "MBCS", Desktop Director cannot display data collected from that desktop. [267462]

When monitoring a XenApp server running UAC, Desktop Director cannot collect certain data if the user is not a member of the Windows Administrators group. For further details, refer to XenApp documentation. [270418]

You cannot launch a shadowing session for virtual desktops running Windows XP 64-bit. [272106]

If the browser window is less than 768 pixels high, the Search box does not work. [25171]

The Reset personal vDisk button is dimmed when you are monitoring Windows XP virtual desktops running WinRM 2.0. To enable the button, change the WinRM port listening order by changing the Connector.WinRM.Ports setting to ‘5985,80’. Refer to Advanced Configuration for details of how to do this. [273609]

Fixed Issues

When a single XenApp server has a large number of ICA sessions, HDX data for any ICA session on that XenApp server may not appear. [48469]

The ConfigRemoteMgmt tool cannot be used to configure permissions for a user security group. [252766]

Users may unexpectedly receive an insufficient permissions error when attempting to perform a power control action. This affects users who are assigned the help desk role on some, but not all, desktop groups. [33988, 256755 ]

When viewing a XenDesktop session for a pooled desktop, if the HDX or mapped client drive data is not current, log off from Desktop Director and then back on to refresh the data. [48172, 48245]

Shadowing Windows XP (32-bit Edition) systems does not work. [LA0695]

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