Citrix @ Home – Part 2 (App/Desktop Server)

Last week I posted part 1 of my citrix @ home series. My intention is to create a small Citrix XenApp 6.5 installation allowing me to connect into my virtual lab from outside my home, in addition to allowing me access to a windows application server from my iMac; at present I’m running windows 8 from bootcamp to manage my vmware cluster, not an ideal scenario.

This week I’ll be taking you through the installation of XenApp 6.5 on a windows 2008R2 host. Keep in mind I’ve already done some prep work by installing the RDP and Citrix licensing services in part 1 . Additionally my home network is already hosting a few core infrastructure components including a WIndows 2012 AD domain controller and a SQL Server 2012 DB server. Both of those will be required but aren’t detailed in this series.

I won’t be starting at the beginning either as I’m going to assume that you know how to install a windows 2008R2 server, I’ll not bore you , or waste time detailing that here. It probably is worth mentioning a few resourcing decisions though. My citrix farm will be used by myself and possibly my partner so I don’t need to go crazy with the resource allocation. I’ve decided upon 3 vCPU, 8 GB of RAM and start with 70GB of tier 1 disk space (I may decide to migrate this to non SSD in the future – depends on a few factors outside the scope of this article). Finally, as with all my VM’s ill be using the vmxnet3 NIC type to provide superior inter-vm communications (~10GBPS)

This walkthrough will start with an standard VM, fully patched with the dreaded IE ESC switched off, if for no other reason than it ruins my day. Next we need to install the RDP session host role on the machine, do this through server manager, roles & add role.

From the roles screen, select ‘Remote Desktop Services’, click ‘Next’ followed by ‘Next’ again. Select the ‘remote desktop session host’ from the list of available ‘Role Services’

Click Next followed by ‘Next’ again. On the authentication selection dialogue select ‘Do not require network level authentication’ and click ‘Next’. On the licensing mode screen select ‘Configure Later’ and click ‘Next’

On the ‘User Groups’ page, click Next and leave the ‘Administrators’ group selected. On the ‘client Experience’ screen select all 3 checkboxes and click next. Finally click ‘Install’ to complete the installation.

Once the server restarts, login and you should receive a balloon notification that the server is unlicensed. Start server manager, expand Roles & Remote Desktop Services. In the next level down select ‘RD Session Host Configuration’. In the middle pane, locate the ‘edit settings’ section and double click ‘License Servers’

In the resultant window, select “per user’ or ‘per device’ (as appropriate for your license type) and click ‘Add’, click the server in the ‘known license servers’ window and click Add, followed by ‘OK’

Click OK again, to return to server manage and apply the license server relationship, at this point you may need a server restart to fix any error notifications from the TS licensing.

Start the Xenapp 6.5 Installation and select ‘Install XenApp Server’, it will prompt you to install .NET 3.5SP1 if you haven’t already done so, Click OK to begin the install.

Once finished, you should be able to select ‘Add Server Roles’ from the role manager dialogue. On the following screen, select Platinum, Enterprise or Advanced as appropriate for your licensing. Accept the license terms and click ‘Next’

Select the ‘XenApp’ role from the common role section and click ‘Next’ and Next again (if you aren’t installing the WI on the same server) – n.b you could add other roles to save on resources but i’ll be adding a citrix web interface and Secure Gateway on the same DMZ server in a separate article.

You will be shown any missing prerequisites, click ‘Next’ again , followed by ‘Install’ to install the required components, the server may be restarted one or more times during this process – it’s nothing to worry about.

Once finished, you may see a dialogue below asking you to specify licensing for your new farm, click the link to do so.

Enter your server details (configured in part 1 of this series) and select ‘Test Connection’

Ensure the ‘Xenapp’ licensing model is selected and Click ‘Apply’, return to the Xenapp Role Manager dialogue and you will notice a change, click the configure link to setup the Xenapp Farm

On the initial screen, click ‘Create a new server farm’ or ‘add this server to an existing server farm’ as appropriate, in my case, since this is the first server, ill do the former. Pick a suitable name for the farm (CAN-CTX01) and pick a account with initial admin rights.

Click ‘Next’ and you will be asked to select a DB for the farm. The wording is confusing unless you’re careful, picking a new DB will install SQL Express only recommended for smaller production, or test situations. For anything ranging from SMB to enterprise the second option ‘existing Microsoft SQL server database’ should be selected – obviously you’ll need to have precreated a DB.

Click ‘Next’ enter the authentication information for the domain and click ‘Test Connection on the next dialogue.

Assuming it completes ok, Click ‘Next’ to continue. Select the shadowing policy as appropriate, for my installation i’ll allow it without restrictions. Click ‘Next’ to proceed to the advanced server settings dialogue. The only thing i’d suggest is changed at this stage is the ‘Add anonymous users’ within the Remote Desktop Users section. Click Next and Apply to create the farm.

Once completed the Role manager will display a ‘Reboot’ link, click it to finalize the installation and reboot the server. The last stage of the installation is to start ‘AppCenter’ open the Xenapp Node, then the farm node, go into the Administrators tree item and add appropriate users or groups to the Farm administrators.