Sunday 3 July 2011

Installing XenApp 6.5 Tech Preview - Part 3 – Establishing the Farm

Building on our production of a license server (here) and web interface box (here) which can support XenApp 6.5 Tech preview, we’re now going to establish a new farm with the installation of the server which will become the Data Collector and the server hosting the management tools.

Please note this cannot be installed over a remote desktop.  If its a VM, use the console (through XenCenter for instance), if its a physical machine, use ILO or a monitor, keyboard and mouse plugged into the box, at least until the main install is complete installed.

First, build your server – Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with a static IP (not DHCP).

Run Autorun.exe from the root of the installer share you created from the downloaded ISO of XenApp 6.5 Tech Preview.

Click Install XenApp Server

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Click Add Server Roles

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Choose your server edition (I’m personally installing Enterprise, so this will not cover Platinum only features)

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Accept the EULA and click Next, then select just the XenApp role

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You can now select the components.  You might choose different options to me so its worth a look.  First, take a look at the options:

 

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Personally, I’m not using Single Sign-On, so I don’t select that (though it will STILL install the admin console anyway).  I don’t use Power and Capacity Management either, so I don’t use install the Agent.

I do use Edgesight on production systems, but this being a test system I’ll skip the Edgesight Agent too.  I’ll take a look at the new version of Edgesight separately.

The XML Service IIS Integration is automatically checked if you have IIS installed, where XenApp and IIS share a local port (80 by default).  If you check it, IIS will be installed and configured in this way.  But if you don’t have or need IIS on your XenApp servers (why would you?) and don’t need the extra features IIS has over the Citrix XML Service (like encrypting web traffic), don’t select the Integration checkbox.  There’s a useful discussion of this feature on this Citrix Forums thread:

http://forums.citrix.com/message.jspa?messageID=1542227

Leave the default components selected (we want the Management Tools on this server and we’re going to have a look at the new Windows Desktop Experience Integration feature.

Click Next, Next and Install to begin the installation. 

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You may get this popup to install device software, it might be more simple if you click “Always trust software from ‘Citrix Systems Inc’”

Because this install has been launched from Autorun rather than a script, all the pre-requisites and server roles will be installed for you.  Note you’ve not been asked for Farm details yet – like XenApp 6.5 you install XenApp first into an unconfigured state and then choose whether to join or create a Farm.

Click finish at the end of the wizard and click Specify Licensing, then enter the name of the license server you created in Part 1

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Click Test Connection and it should be successful, then choose the licensing model.  Since this is not a XenDesktop trial, choose XenApp, which should be listed as Recommended.

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Click Apply and you should have a nice green tick by Licensing.  Now select Configure.

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You can now choose whether to join an existing farm or create a new one.  Click Create

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Then enter your farm name and your own domain account to be the administrator.

At the next section you can choose to have a local SQL Express database (just for test farms or companies who don’t even have a SQL Server), or connect to an existing Database which you should precreate on a SQL Server box.  See this link for Citrix’s recommendations regarding the database server.  For this test I’m going to use the New Database option to install SQL Express 2008 on this server.

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Choose the shadowing model you want.  Make sure you get this right as it can override what you might choose later on.  Personally I am hoping that shadowing will work properly in XenApp 6.5 and not require you to mess about with Remote Assistance instead.

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On the next screen we can choose more options for this installation.  Note the first options, to have a Controller or Session Only server – this is a new feature, where servers can be installed without the components to be a Data Collector (both types of server are capable of hosting published applications).  They’re greyed out because this server needs to be a Controller because its the first one.

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Click the XML Service and you can change the default XML port.  Unless you have a reason to change it (maybe you’re hosting websites on your XenApp server?!), leave it as port 80.

Click the Receiver tab and you can specify the Web Interface URL that you set up in Part 2 of this guide.

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Click Remote Desktop Users and you can change the default user groups who can log onto the server in remote sessions.  I always untick Add Anonymous Users, which unless you actually want to allow unauthenticated use of Published Applications you should too.  Authenticated Users are anyone with a domain logon, though if the Users group contains Domain Users, they’re already going to be allowed in most environments.

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Click Next and Apply to set up the Farm…

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Then click Reboot at the end…

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After the reboot, log in as the account you specified as the administrator (your own account maybe?) and launch the new Management Console – the AppCenter.  Citrix have done their level best to hide it by giving it a new name and putting it in the Administrative Tools folder!

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When you launch it and attempt to discover the farm, you might get a message about the Single Sign-On Console – if you are not using this, go to Control Panel, Programs and Features and select the Citrix Single Sign-On Console, right click and Change, Remove, Next, Next and Finish.  If you ARE going to use Single Sign-On, don’t do this!

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Launch the AppCenter and you should see the Discovery Wizard automatically appear.  Choose Add Local Computer and you should finally see your new farm.

In the next part we’ll look at configuring the Web Interface and publishing our first apps.

2 comments:

Ecommerce Templates said...

Thanks for the info!!!

Maclean said...

Any chance of a part 4 soon?

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