Category: Provisioning Services

How to Enable Continuous CDF Tracing in Provisioning Services 7.0

This article describes how to enable continuous CDF tracing in Provisioning Services 7.0.

Requirements

CDFMonitor

Background

With the introduction of Provisioning Services 7.0, the Provisioning Services logging mechanism has changed from persistent log files to CDF tracing. Provisioning Services no longer logs streaming event to a log file. You must configure CDF tracing to capture persistent logging for determining the root cause of a problem.

Procedure

To enable continuous CDF tracing in Provisioning Services 7.0, complete the following procedure:

  • Download the Provisioning Services specific configuration file from this article.
  • Extract the files to the C:cdfmonitor folder.
  • Replace the CDFMonitor.exe.config that comes with CDFMonitor with the one downloaded from this article.
  • Open a command line interface and open the C:cdfmonitor folder.
  • Run the following command:
    cdfmonitor.exe /installservice

    CDFMonitor runs as a service that persists even after the server restarts. Continuous CDF trace is then captured on all modules. The trace file will grow to 100 MB in size and will rotate between five files. The moment the CDFMonitor service is restarted, a new CDF trace file is created.

Download

You can read more instructions and download the special CDFMonitor.exe here.

Stopping PVS Stream Service can Render Target Devices Unresponsive

We as Citrites (Citrix employees) are encouraged to write KB articles for the Citrix knowledgebase (support.citrix.com). The following article I’ve written when I came across the issue and saw it wasn’t documented.

When stopping the Stream Service on a given Provisioning Server it can render some (but not all) target devices connected to that particular server unresponsive since the failover to other servers does not occur.

If you look at the stream process log (which can be found on the PVS server in C:ProgramdataCitrixProvisioning Serverlogs), you may find these entries: Continue reading “Stopping PVS Stream Service can Render Target Devices Unresponsive”

Hotfix CPVS56SP3002 for Citrix Provisioning Services 5.6 SP3

Citrix has released a new hotfix for Provisioning Services 5.6 SP3 today.

Hotfix CPVS56SP3002 has the same fixes as hotfix CPVS60019 also released today.

Console Issues

  1. Attempts by device administrators to add a disk to a device fail and the following error message appears: “The user does not have sufficient privileges to perform the operation.”

    To address this issue in its entirety, you must install both a Server and a Console hotfix that contains Fix #LA2756.

    <cat_pvs_console>[#LA2756] Continue reading “Hotfix CPVS56SP3002 for Citrix Provisioning Services 5.6 SP3”

Hotfix CPVS60019 for Citrix Provisioning Services 6.0

Citrix has released hotfix #19 for Provisioning Services 6.0.

Here are the fixes in this release:

Server Issues

  1. When a NAS controller fails or a (temporary) network interruption occurs, target devices can take up to 20 minutes to recover. During that time, the target devices remain unresponsive.

    <cat_pvs_server>[#LA2360] Continue reading “Hotfix CPVS60019 for Citrix Provisioning Services 6.0”

New Citrix Provisioning Services tool: PVSDataTools

PVSDataTools is a set of tools used to collect and parse data from a Provisioning Services (PVS) Server to assist in troubleshooting an issue. PVSDataTools contains two tools: PVSDataCollector and PVSDataParser.

PVSDataCollector v1.2.2

The PVSDataCollector collects the following information from the PVS Server:

  • System Information
  • Windows Event Logs
  • TCP and UDP Port Information

How to enable advanced logging in Provisioning Services 6.1 including Target Devices

Provisioning Services has the ability to run a Target Device from a vDisk in Standard Image Mode, meaning that the vDisk is in a read-only state.

Changes to the vDisk are stored in one of three locations:

  • RAM cache
  • Target Device hard drive (Local hard drive which rules out Thin Clients)
  • Server side cache, using disk space on the Provisioning Services Server

Changes to the disk are not persistent and are lost if the Target Device is rebooted.

Q: So if a Target Device is accessing a vDisk in Standard image mode, where is the “debug” or “trace” log written to? Indeed, can one take a trace from a PVS Target Device? Continue reading “How to enable advanced logging in Provisioning Services 6.1 including Target Devices”

Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 hotfix packaging policy

Previously hotfixes for all Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 components were delivered as loose binaries and that resulted in overhead for customers and required many manual steps to track and deploy the hotfixes correctly. To improve the customer experience, the Server and Console hotfixes will now be provided as an installation package only. The advantages of having an installer include:

  • Reducing manual tasks for deploying hotfix
  • Tracking what hotfixes are installed on the local machine

For the Target device, based on the customer feedback we will continue to only provide loose binaries as a flexible deployment option.

Packaging Policy Continue reading “Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 hotfix packaging policy”

Hotfix CPVS61017 for Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1

Citrix has released a new hotfix for Provisioning Services 6.1 Hotfix 17 is the latest one and here’s the small fix list:

  • When streaming multiple guests to a XS 6.1 host, Provisioning Services consumes one PVS target license per virtual machine instead of checking for available XenServer licensing options.

    Note: To enable this fix in its entirety, you must also install XenServer Hotfix XS61E010 or its replacement hotfix.

    [From PVS610TargetDeviceWX86017, PVS610TargetDeviceWX64017]<cat_pvs_targetdevice>[#LA3362]

You can download the hotfix here.

Error: vDisk Error Message in Provisioning Server ” Error Partial Error “

When trying to add a new vDisk image in the Provisioning Server, it finds the image, but cannot add the image.
The Console becomes unresponsive for over a minute and then displays the following vDisk error message: “Error Partial Error”

Continue reading “Error: vDisk Error Message in Provisioning Server ” Error Partial Error “”