Overview and Interview Questions on basics of Citrix

What is Citrix?

Citrix allows you to install, publish and manage applications from one central location. These published applications can then be securely access from anywhere in the world using any client device over any connection (ex. Web Interface, Program Neighborhood, and Citrix Program Neighborhood Agent) using the Citrix ICA client, which requires minimal bandwidth and can virtually be installed on any Operating System.

Some key Citrix Features:

•Map Local Client Drives when establishing a connection to an Application.

•Access Printers connected to the Citrix Server, Client Workstation or Network Printers when connected to an Application.

•Load Balance Applications across servers

•Published Applications or Desktop

•Leverage Resource Manager to view Statistical data pertaining to the Citrix Farm.

•Leverage Installation Manager to deploy applications or hot fixes to other Citrix Servers in the Farm.

Provide secure connection using various levels of encryption (128 bit, 128 bit login only, 56 bit,40 bit or Basic encryption) and SSL using Secure Gateway or SSL Relay.

2.What is Data store

Data store is the place where all static information are stored (i.e Farm configuration information , Published Application details, Server configurations info., Policy configuration ,Administrator accounts, and Printer configurations details etc.)

3.What is Zone Data Collector?

Data Collector stores all the dynamic information like sessions, load and published applications in the servers in their zones and communicates the zone information to the Data Collectors in other zones in the farm. Data collector is whose IMA service takes on the additional role of tracking all of the dynamic information of other Presentation Servers. This information is stored in memory and called as “dynamic store”. The data store is a database on disk. The dynamic store is information stored in memory. To look the contents of the in-memory dynamic store on the data collector, use “queryds” command. QueryDS can be found in the "support\debug" folder of your Presentation Server installation source files. To determine which server is acting as the data collector in the zone run "query farm /zone"from the command line

4.What is a Farm?

A Farm is a group of Citrix servers which provides published applications to all users that can be managed as a unit, enabling the administrator to configure features and settings for the entire farm rather than configuring each server individually. All the servers in the farm share a single data store .A server farm is a grouping of servers running Citrix Presentation Server that can be manage as a unit, similar in principle to a network domain. When designing server farms, keep in mind the goal of providing users with the fastest possible application access while achieving the degree of centralized administration and network security that you need.

5.What is LHC?

The IMA service running on each Presentation Server downloads the information it needs from the central data store into a local MDB database called the local host cache, or “LHC.” (The location of the local host cache is specified via a DSN referenced in the registry of the Presentation Server, at

HKLM \ SOFTWARE\Citrix\IMA\LHC Data source\Data Sourmce Name

.

By default this is a file called “Imalhc.dsn” and is stored in the same place as MF20.dsn.)Each Presentation Server is smart enough to only download information from the data store that is relevant to it, meaning that the local host cache is unique for every server. Citrix created the local host cache for two reasons:

1.Permits a server to function in the absence of data store connectivity.

2.Improves performance by caching information used by ICA Clients for enumeration and application resolution. The LHC is an Access database (Imalhc.mdb) stored default in the path

"<Program Files>\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture" folder. LHC contained the following information:

1. All servers in the farm, and their basic information.

2. All applications published within the farm and their properties.

3. All Windows network domain trust relationships within the farm.

4. All information specific to itself. (product code, SNMP settings, licensing information)

The LHC is critical in a CPS environment. In fact, it's the exclusive interface of the data store to the local server. The local server's IMA service only interacts with the LHC. It never contacts the central data store except when it's updating the LHC. If the server loses its connection to the central data store, there's no limit to how long it will continue to function. (In Meta Frame XP, this is limited to 48 or 96 hours, but that was because the data store also store license information.) But today, the server can run forever from the LHC and won't even skip a beat if the central connection is lost. In fact now you can even reboot the server when the central data store is down, and the IMA service will start from the LHC with out any problem. (Older versions of Meta Frame required a registry modification to start the IMA service from the LHC.) The LHC file is always in use when IMA is running, so it's not possible to delete it or anything. In theory it's possible that this file could become corrupted, and if this happens I guess all sorts of weird things could happen to your server. If you think this is the case in your environment, you can stop the IMA service and run the command "dsmaint recreatelhc" to recreate the local host cache file, although honestly I don't think this fixes anything very often. Local Host Cache is synchronized with the Data Store by the Zone Data Collector for every 30 minutes and it can also be configured through registry.

6.How to Refresh the Local Host Cache?

If the IMA service is currently running but published applications do not appear correctly in ICA Client application browsing, force a manual refresh of the local host cache by executing dsmaint refreshlhc from a command prompt on the affected server. This action forces the local host cache to read all changes immediately from the data store .

A discrepancy in the local host cache occurs only if the IMA service on a server misses a change event and is not synchronized correctly with the data store.

7.What is Zone?

Zone is subset of Farm. It is a grouping of Presentation Servers that shares the common Data Collector. Zones are very helpful in controlling traffics. It collects data from member servers and distributes changes to all servers in the farm. A zone in the Presentation Server farm elects a zone data collector for the zone and it is responsible to communicates between other ZDCs in the farm. It is used to redirect the users to least busy server. The ZDC maintains all load and session information for every server in the zone. ZDCs keep open connections to other ZDCs changes in the member servers of a zone and are immediately propagated to the other ZDCs in the farm. Zone has server members and one of them is ZDC (Zone Data Collectors) in each zone. These ZDCs communicate between zones. Zones are very help full in controlling traffic. We can move the servers among the zones and after moving the servers from one Zone to another the servers must be restarted to get settings and configurations from the Data Store.

8.Explain Citrix Load Levels?

We can get Citrix Load levels from QSERVER /APP and QFARM /APP at the command prompt .Load values can be in between 0-10000.

The following are explanations of the load levels:

9999: No load balancing installed

0 to 9998:“normal” load level

10000! : Application is disabled for this server

10000: Load is at 100%

10001: Out of licenses

10002: Indicates that no ICA connections, listener is disabled, are available on that server.

A few other conditions also cause this code to be returned:

<>If logons have been disabled on the server

<>If the server is out of swap space - check load balancing administration and change page file from 2097152 to 500 on the problem server. If the application is disabled

<>If it is an anonymous application and no logons are left for anonymous users

<>For multi-homed servers, the selection for LAN adapter is “All network adapters configured for this protocol” instead of a specific LAN adapter

<>Check the connection limit on all listener ports (ICA, and RDP) because this has been found to affect the load balancing parameters and cause the 10002 load level.

<>If the connection limit has been changed from “unlimited” to “2,” you may not be able to connect to a published application and will get the error message: “Cannot connect to the Citrix server. The Citrix server you have selected cannot be located.”

<>You may also delete and recreate the listeners for that protocol and reorganize the pagefile. If the servers are built from a ghosted image, it may be necessary to delete the pagefile, recreate the pagefile, and reboot the server.

9. What are the default tests available in Health Monitoring & Recovery Tool?

XenApp Health Monitoring and Recovery Tool have the following default tests.

1. Citrix IMA Service test

2. Logon Monitor test

3. Terminal Service test

4. XML Service test

Health Monitoring & Recovery in the farm-wide configuration allows us to select the maximum percentage of servers that HMR can exclude from load balancing. The default value is 10% of server.

10.What is Hotfix Management and how to configure Server Restart Schedule?

Hotfix Management in Access Management Console allows us to check the Hotfixes installed in the particular server as well as compare the Hotfixes with the scope of server. But this tool will not automatically intimate or download available Hotfixes from the Citrix website. We can configure server restarting schedule for the servers in the XenApp farm. Right-Click the server and go to All Task. Go to Set restart options and Set restart schedule.

10.What is the session reliability service in Windows services?

Citrix XTE Server is the Windows service for session reliability.

11. What is Installation Manager?

Installation Manager will not be in the part of Citrix installation setup. It should be downloaded from the Citrix website and installed separately. We need to have Power Shell already installed in the server. Install the IM component in the workstation/system you want to manage from and the IM utility in the XenApp servers. After installing the we can access it through the Windows management console. We can select the shared msi file path from where the application to be deployed and the server and the time of installation. We can also schedule command-line task to install exe files or to run some commands or queries in the servers.

12. What is Configuration logging?

Administrative Configuration Logging is the new feature in XenApp 5.0 and it can be configured in farm-wide properties. We can store all the administrative changes in the farm. We can see the log from the Report Center. We can clear log from the farm properties. We can configure to have credential to clear the log.

13. How to configure Secure ICA and SSL/TSL connection in XenApp?

To configure Secure ICA, Go to Access Management Console and right click the application and go to the properties. In the Client option select the Encryption level. This should be configured both in client and server side. If we use XenApp client it will automatically select the Encryption type. If we use Program Neighbourhood we have to select the proper Encryption type in the client side. We can enforce these properties in the Group Policies or in Citrix policy in XenApp Advanced Configuration. We can Enable the Secure ICA encryption and select the Encryption Level. If we enable SSL/TSL connection, we should have installed Citrix SSL Relay and Server Certificate installed in the server. We can configure this in Citrix SSL Relay Configuration Tool in Citrix Administration.

14. How to recover Citrix License Server?

The Citrix servers can function without contacting the license server and it is 30-days fault tolerant, and in Enterprise version an alert can be set with Resource Manager to send an email in case of License Server Connection Failure. If the license server reconnects at any time in the thirty days the problem resolves itself. If the server is not going to come back up, then the license file, digitally signed with the case-sensitive hostname of the old license server, is the critical component. The license file, a *.lic file, can be backed up to a thumb drive separately, and restored to a new server with the same name of the old license server, and the Citrix License server software installed.

15.What is "Citrix Startup License" in Citrix presentation server license management console?

The Startup license does not affect the license count. It is used to allow Citrix products to communicate with the license server using a continuous open connection. Every five minutes the license server and the products send a heartbeat message to each other to verify that they are mutually communicating.

16.How to restore the data source to the new server?

To restore the data store to a different server, or just to move it to a more convenient place on the network, the procedure is as follows:

1.place the mf20.mdb that was backed up in the proper directory:C:\ProgramFiles\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture;

2.Create a file dsn to the new data store;

3.Run dsmaint config /user:user /pwd:password /dsn:path to dsn on the new data store server and restart IMA;

4.Run dsmaint failover new data store server name on all the other servers in the farm and restart IMA To create a dsn file, go to the control panel, administrative tools, of the Citrix server that holds the new data store, and go to “Data Sources (ODBC)”. On the tab marked “file dsn”, create anew file, with Access 4.0 drivers, that is in the same directory as the mdb file is, and can be named anything, but for convention should be mf20.dsn. on the final screen, the actual database that the dsn file is supposed to point to must be selected. Under the select button, highlight the proper database, (not the imalhc.mdb but the mf20.mdb) and close the utility.

17.What is CtxHide? How to solve CtxHide.exe Causing Citrix Session’s to hang on Logon?

CtxHide.exe is responsible for hiding the DOS window in which UsrLogon.cmd is running.

Workarounds

1. Remove CtxHide.exe from the appsetup key in the registry

Use the registry editor to navigate to the following value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AppSetup

Double Click on the App Setup value and remove the CtxHide.exe entry as the example shows below. Note that your App Setup value may contain more than the following example.

Windows Registry Editor Version 6.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"AppSetup"="CtxHide.exe UsrLogon.Cmd,cmstart.exe"

The result of removing CtxHide.exe is that users can see usrlogon. cmd running on logon

2. Swap CtxHide.exe for Runh.exe

Runh.exe has been used to hide usrlogon.cmd script from the user experience prior to Meta frame Presentation Server 3.0. It performs the same function as CtxHide.exe. For more information on runh and to download the executable go to:

http://thin.msterminalservices.org/runh.cfm.

Download runh.exe from the above link and place the runh.exe in the server’s system32directory. In Windows registry navigate to the AppSetup key, remove CtxHide.exe and replacewith runh. Runh will now call and hide usrlogon.cmd.

Windows Registry Editor Version 6.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]"AppSetup"="runh UsrLogon.Cmd,cmstart.exe"

To return to the original configuration navigate to the AppSetup value, remove runh and addCtxHide.exe.

18.What is ICA and what is the advantage of ICA?

 The Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) is the communication protocol by which servers and client devices exchange data in a server environment. ICA is optimized to enhance the delivery and performance of this exchange, even on low-bandwidth connections. 

                The ICA protocol transports an application’s screens from the server it is running on to the user’s client device, and returns the user’s input to the application on the server. As an application runs on a server, Meta Frame Presentation Server intercepts the application’s display data and uses the ICA protocol to send this data (on standard network protocols) to the client software running on the user’s client device.

                 When the user types on the keyboard or moves and clicks the mouse, the client software sends this data to the application on the server. ICA requires minimal client workstation capabilities and includes error detection and recovery, encryption, and data compression.

                Citrix ICA protocol is used for remote application sessions between users and Presentation servers. The ICA protocol supports TCP/IP, NetBIOS, or IPX/SPX. Citrix ICA protocol is responsible for transmitting background information between the ICA clients and the Presentation servers, including the port mappings, drive mappings, print jobs, and sound. Only Sends Screen Updates & Mouse/Key Board Strokes. Only 30 – 35 kb/sec (Printing and File Transfer increase this) Fat Apps VS Thin Apps Ports used by ICA:

1494: ICA Protocol on TCP (TCP + HTTP) & 1604: ICA Protocol on UDP

 .

19.Describe ZDC Election Process in detail?

Incase ZDC is not be available, another server in the zone can take over that role. The process of taking the role is called ZDC election. Server Administrators should choose the Zone Data Collector strategy carefully during the farm design itself. When an election needs to occur in a zone, the winner of the election is determined by

1. Highest version of Presentation Server first

2. Highest rank (as configured in the Management Console)

3. Highest Host ID number (Every server has a unique ID called Host ID).

When the existing data collector for Zone failed unexpectedly or the communication between a member server and the Zone Data Collector for its zone failed or the communication between data collectors failed, then the election process begins in the Zone. If the server is shutdown properly, it triggers the election process before it goes down. The servers in the zone recognize the data collector has gone down and starts the election process. Then the ZDC is elected and the member servers send all of their information to the new ZDC for the zone. In turn the new data collector replicates this information to all other data collectors in the farm.

Note: The data collector election process is not dependent on the data store. If the datacollector goes down, sessions connected to other servers in the farm are unaffected .The datacollector election process is triggered automatically without administrative interference .Existing as well as incoming users are not affected by the election process, as a new datacollector is elected almost instantaneously.

C:\ QueryHR.exe

------ Showing Hosts for "10.22.44.0" ------

Host 1:----------------------------

Zone Name: 10.22.44.0

Host Name: TEDDYCTX02

Admin Port: 2513

IMA Port: 2512

Host ID: 4022

Master Ranking: 1Master Version: 1

--------------------------------------- Show Host Records Completed ------- ------------------------

To see the Host ID number and its version, run queryhr.exe utility (with no parameters).

Each server in the zone has a rank assigned to it. The administrator can configure such that the servers in a zone can be ranked to make the server as the most desired to serve as the zone master or ZDC. The ties between servers with the same administrative ranking are broken by using the HOST IDs assigned to the servers.

When a Presentation Server starts or when the IMA service starts, the IMA service starts trying to contact other servers via the IMA protocol on port 2512 until it finds one that’s online. When it finds, it queries it to find out which server is acting as the data collector. The winner of this Zone Data Collector election is determined by the newest version of the IMA service. We can control which server will act as data collector by keeping that server the most up-to-date.

Data Collection Election Priority

Whichever server has the most recent version of the IMA Service running. (This may include hotfixes) and the server with the highest preference set in the data store Basically data collectors and data store are not really related. The data store holds permanent farm configuration information in a database, and the data collector tracks dynamic session information in its RAM.

In addition to their primary role to provide dynamic farm information for admin consoles or for incoming connection requests, data collectors also take part in the distribution of configuration changes to Presentation Servers in the farm. When we make a changes in a presentation server that change is written to the local host cache of whichever server we connected to, and then immediately replicated to the data store. Presentation Server only looks for changes in the central data store every 30 minutes. Whenever a change is made to the data store, that change is sent to the data collector for the zone. 

The data collector then distributes that change (via IMA port 2512) to all of the servers in its zone, allowing each server to update its own local host cache accordingly. Furthermore, if we have more than one zone, the initial data collector contacts the data collectors in the other zones. It sends its change to them, and in turn those data collectors forward the change to all of the servers in their zones.

Coolest part is if the change is larger than 64k, the data collectors don't send the actual change out to its zone. Instead they send out a notification which causes the servers in the zone to perform an "on demand" sync with the central data store. However it's rare for a single change to be more than 64k in size. The data collector election priority settings in the management console

Presentation Server Java Management Console > Right-click on farm name>Properties > Zones > highlight server > “Set Election Preference”

 We can totally control which server is our data collector by manually setting the preferences in the Java console. We can manually configure four levels of Zone's Data Collector election preference options

Most Preferred,

Preferred ,

Default Preferred

Not Preferred 

The important thing to remember is that these preferences will be ignored if a newer server is up for election.

20.How Load Evaluator works?

QFARM /LOAD command executed in a Presentation Server farm will display all servers in the farm along with each server’s respective load value. Each and every Presentation Server generates its own “score” and sends this information to the data collector in the respective zone. This score will be a decimal number between 0 and 10,000, with zero representing a “no load” situation, and 10,000 indicating the particular server is fully loaded and is not accepting any more connections. Citrix Load Management is handled by load evaluator and its simply a set of rules that determine a particular server’s “score”, or current load value. It is the “score” that determine the decisions that distribute loads within the server farm. Load evaluators can be applied to servers and/or published applications. If any servers in the Zone go down then Load Evaluators are used to overcome the situation. In default XenApp installation there are Advanced and Default Load Evaluators are there.D

Default Load Evaluator includes only two rules, Load Throttling and Server User Load. Advanced Load Evaluator includes four rules, CPU Utilization, Load Throttling, Memory Usual and Page Swaps.

21.How Zone Preference and failover configured?

Zone preference and failover can be configured from Policies. It is located in User Workspace >Connections in Citrix Policy. You can select the server group in which order the connections are preferred. This is useful when an entire zone goes down.

22.What is Preferred Load Balancing?

 Preferred Load balancing is the feature in XenApp Platinum edition

, which allows you to configure preference for the particular users to access the applications in the XenApp farm. We can see this in Server properties in Advanced Management Console. In Memory/CPU>CPU Utilization Management, there will be the third option called "CPU sharing based on Resource Allotments" 

To give more resources to particular application in the server, we can configure in

Application properties>Advanced>Limits and Application important

in Access Management Console. So if you set the Application importance to High, then when those application is used by the users will get more CPU cycles than the users accessing other applications 

To give more resources to the users, we can configure it in Citrix Policies in XenApp Advanced Configuration. To enable it go to the  policy properties>Service Level>Session Importance>enable, and assign preferred Importance Level (High, Medium, Low).

Application Importance + Session Importance = Resource Allotmment.

23.What are the different Types of Citrix Load Evaluators?

1. CPU Utilization

2. Memory Utilization

3. Page Swap

4. Application User Load

5. Context Switches

6. Disk Data I/O

7. Disk Operations

8. IP Range

9. Page Faults

10. Scheduling

11. Server User Load.

24.How to recover from IMA failing?

 There are many reasons that the IMA Service doesn't start

1. IMA Service load time

2. IMA Service subsystem

3. Missing Temp directory

4. Print spooler service

5. ODBC configuration

6. Roaming Profile Check the Windows Registry setting:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECitrixIMARuntimeCurrentlyLoadingPluginIf there is no value specified in the

Currently Loading Plugin portion of the above Windows Registry entry then the IMA Service could not connect to the data store or the local host cache is missing or corrupt.

If a Currently Loading Plugin value is specified the IMA Service made a connection to the datastore and the value displayed is the name of the IMA Service subsystem that failed to load .

If administrators see an "IMA Service Failed" error message with an error code of 2147483649 when starting the Presentation Server the local system account might be missing a Temp directory which is required for the IMA Service to run.

Change the IMA Service startup account to the local administrator and restart the server. If the IMA Service is successful in starting under the local administrator account then it is likely that a missing Temp directory for the local system account is causing the problem.

If the Temp directory is not present then manually create one as >Temp.

For example:C:\Windows\Temp

Also verify that the TMP and TEMP system environment variables point to the temporary directory. Restart the server to restart the IMA Service.

25.What is Special Folder Redirection?

Special Folder Redirection (SFR) allows for the automatic redirection of server-side Special Folders to their client-side equivalents. When a user clicks on the Documents folder in theirXenApp 5 sessions, the folder that opens will actually be the local Documents folder. When SFRis used, all file operations will take place in the client-side folder. SFR is only available when XenApp 5 is installed on Windows Server 2008 and also requires XenApp Plugin version 11(client).

26.What is Citrix Resource Manager?

Citrix Resource Manager (RM) is a tool that is used to manage resources on single or multiple Meta Frame servers. RM enables the ability to collect, display, store, and analyze data about system performance, application or process use, and user activity. RM provides real-time system monitoring, reporting of system activity, and billing reports to charge users for use of resources using a summary database.

 In XenApp5 Resource Manager is moved to Edge Sight. We cannot connect to RMSummaryreport database from XenApp5. But still we can see some of the reports fromReport Center in Access Management Console. One of the important reports is Policy Report.

27.What is Printer terminology in Citrix?

An administrator can configure the following types of printers for use in an ICA session:

Client local printer

Network printer

Server Local printer

Client Printers: The definition of a client printer depends on the ICA Client platform. On DOS-based and WinCE client devices, a client printer is physically connected by a cable to a port on the client device. On 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 9x, Windows NT, and Windows 2000),any printer that is set up in Windows (these printers appear in the Printers folder on the client device) is a client printer.

Network Printers: Printers that are connected to print servers and shared on a Windows network are referred to as network printers. In Windows network environments, users can setup a network printer on their computers if they have permission to connect to the print server. When a network printer is set up for use on an individual Windows computer, the printer is a client printer on the client device.

Local Printers: Printers that are connected directly to Citrix servers are local printers within a particular server farm. This definition includes a printer that is connected to the Citrix server that hosts a user’s ICA session, as well as printers that are connected to other Citrix servers in the same server farm. If a printer is connected to a Citrix server outside of a server farm(either the server is not a member of a server farm or is a member of a different server farm),the server farm considers the printer a network printer, not a local printer.

28.HOw to implement Policies in Citrix?

Presentation Server policies are created by adding policy rules. Policy rules are broken down into the following categories:

                Bandwidth

                        Client Devices

                Printing Security

                User Workspace

An administrator can apply policies by filtering:

                Client IP address

                Users and user groups

                Client names Servers 

                Access Control

Once a policy is created it has to be prioritized for effective functioning. Following options are available for prioritizing a policy

                 Make Highest priority

                 Increase Priority

                Decrease Priority

                Make Lowest Priority

Citrix Policies can be configured from XenApp Advanced Configuration Console If there are any policies which conflicts to each other, the resultant applied policies are the one with higher priority Policies Override

1. Citrix Policy

2. Group Policy

3. ICA Session Setting

4. User Object Setting.

29.What is IMA?

Independent Management Architecture (IMA) provides the framework for server communications and is the management foundation for Meta Frame Presentation Server. IMA is a centralized management service comprised of a collection of core subsystems that define and control the execution of products in a server farm. IMA enables servers to be arbitrarily grouped into server farms that do not depend on the physical locations of the servers or whether the servers are on different network subnets.

IMA runs on all servers in the farm. IMA subsystems communicate through messages passed by the IMA Service through default TCP ports 2512 and 2513. The IMA Service starts automatically when a server is started. The IMA Service can be manually started or stopped through the operating system Services utility.

IMA can be defined as a SERVICE, PROTOCAL and as a DATASTORE.

IMA Service: IMA Service is the central nervous system of Presentation Servers. This service is responsible for just about everything server-related, including tracking users, sessions, applications, licenses, and server load.

 IMA Data store: Which stores Presentation server configuration information, such as published applications, total licenses, load balancing configuration, security rights, Administrator Accounts, Printer configuration, etc?

 IMA Protocol: Which is used for transferring the ever-changing background information between Presentation servers, including server load, current users and connections, and licenses in use.

Ports used by IMA:

2512: Used for Server to Server Communication

2513: Used for CMC to Data store Communication

“ Independent Management Architecture” is a term Citrix uses to describe the various back-end components that make up a CPS environment. In the real world, IMA consists of three components that we actually care about.

It is a database (called the “IMA Data Store”) used for storing Citrix Presentation server configuration information, such as published applications, load balancing configuration, security rights, policies, printer configuration, etc.

A Windows service (called the “IMA Service”) that runs on every Presentation Server that handles things like server-to-server communication.

A protocol (called the “IMA Protocol”) for transferring the ever-changing background information between Presentation Servers, including server load, current users and connections, licenses in use, etc.

In Presentation Server, the IMA protocol does not replace the ICA protocol. The ICA protocol is still used for client-to-server user sessions. The IMA protocol is used for server-to-server communication in performing functions such as licensing and server load updates, all of which occur “behind the scenes.”

If we open IMA data store database with SQL Enterprise Manager, we'll see it has four tables:

DATATABLE

DELETETRACKER

INDEXTABLE

KEYTABLE

IMA data store is not a real relational database. It’s actually an LDAP database. IMA Data Store Size 1MB per server.

We can’t access the IMA data store directly through SQL Enterprise Manager. (technically you can, but if you run a query you’ll get meaningless hex results.) If we try to edit any of the contents of the data store directly in the database, it will be definitely corrupt. 

There’s a tool on the Presentation Server installation CD called “dsview.” There is another tool called “dsedit” a “write-enabled” version of dsview.

 30.What is USRLOGON.cmd?

Whenever a user logs on to the Citrix server, the USRLOGON.CMD file runs. This file is located in %systemroot%/system32. It is configured to run automatically when each user logs in. 

This file has two functions:

1.USRLOGON.CMD creates the ROOTDRIVE variable. This variable is used by the Logon Script to identify the user's home directory.

2.USRLOGON.CMD calls USRLOGN2.CMD. USRLOGN2.CMD runs the application scripts that fix user level problems with certain applications.

31.How to identify Citrix License been consumed by a Device?

LMSTAT command shows a Client Hardware ID, a license has been assigned to that device. Lmstat is the license administration command shows what licenses are assigned to which client or server. This utility is run on a license server from a command prompt by browsing  to \Program files\Citrix\Licensing\LS. The *.lic must be present in the \ProgramFiles\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles directory that excludes the built-in citrix_startup.lic file. Lmstat prints information that it receives from the license server but does not contact the product server.

Syntax

lmstat [-a] [-A] [-c “license_file”]

Open the command prompt and change the directory to \Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\LS Type: lmstat –a

Example output of an lmstat -a  command indicating two user machines accessing the farm and consuming two user license assignments.

A Client with Hardware ID that consumed a Citrix license is shown in hexadecimal number like below

Hardware ID for Session 1                         6f78c1bd

Hardware ID for Session 2                         3a7379f6.

32.What are the commonly used Citrix commands ?

dsmaint

dsmaint config [/user:username] [/pwd:password] [/dsn:filename]

dsmaint backup destination_path

dsmaint failover direct_server

dsmaint compactdb [/ds] [/lhc]

dsmaint migrate [{ /srcdsn:dsn1 /srcuser:user1 /srcpwd:pwd1}]

[{/dstdsn:dsn2 /dstuser:user2 /dstpwd:pwd2}]

dsmaint publishsqlds {/user: username /pwd:password}

dsmaint recover

dsmaint recreatelhc

dsmaint verifylhc

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driveremap

driveremap /drive:M

driveremap /u

driveremap /noreboot

driveremap /IME

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dscheck 

dscheck [Options] [ /full | /clean]              

[ Servers | Apps | Printers | Groups | MSLicense | Folders | Licenses ]

dscheck /full Servers [Options]

Verify/Clean or Delete the server. May be left blank.

Defaults to all servers.

/Clean - Modify the data store to correct the errors.

/DeleteAll - Delete the server entries from the data store.

/DeleteMF - Delete the Meta Frame Server entry from the data store.

/DeleteComSrv - Delete the Common Server entry from the data store.

dscheck /full Apps [Options]

 < AppName> - Verify/Clean or Delete the application. May be left blank. Defaults to all applications.

/Clean - Modify the data store to correct the errors.

/ServerCheck - Verify that all applications are hosted by valid servers.

/DeleteMF - Delete the Meta Frame Application entry from the data store.

/DeleteComApp - Delete the Common Application entry from the data store.

dscheck /full Printers [Options]

/purge_replications - Removes all printer replications from the data store.

/purge_client_printers - Removes all Client Auto-Create printers pending deletion from the data store.

/purge_drivers - Removes all drivers that are not associated with any servers from the data store.

dscheck /full Groups [Options]

 /Clean - Removes the group object. Group Name is the relative DN from the Context.

/Clean -Removes the group from the parent group.

Use the output of DSCHECK.exe GROUPS /verify" for both Parent Group Name and Group Name.

dscheck /full MSLicense [Options]

/purge_licenses - Removes all Microsoft Licenses from the data store.

/list - Lists all Microsoft Licenses in the data store.

dscheck /full Folders

/clean - Collapse orphaned folders in the data store.

dscheck /full Licenses

/clean - Removes all corrupt licenses from the data store.

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altaddr

altaddr [/server:servername] [/set alternateaddress ] [/v]

altaddr [/server:servername] [/set adapteraddress alternateaddress] [/v]

altaddr [/server:servername] [/delete] [/v]

altaddr [/server:servername] [/delete adapteraddress] [/v]

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query

query view information about server farms, processes, servers, ICA sessions and users

query farm

shows the server name, protocol and ip address

query farm /app

shows the published applications

query farm /disc

shows the disconnected session data for the server farm

query farm /load

displays server load information

query user

displays the current connections

queryhr

is used to display info about the member servers in the farm. Executing queryhr withno parameters lists all servers in the farm.

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chfarm

is used to change the farm membership of a Citrix server

icaport

is used to query or change the TCP/IP port number used by the ICA protocol

imaport

is used to change the IMA port used by the server

ctxxmlss

is used to change the XML service port

enablelb

is used to re-enable the server back to load balancing after it fails

twconfig

confgure ICA display settings

auditlog

is used to view the report of users logoff and logon activity. With auditlog /time wecan get time the users spent in the servers.

33.How to Recreate the Local Host Cache?

If the IMA service does not start, the cause may be a corrupt LHC. Verify the data store isavailable before beginning this procedure. If the data store is not available, the IMA servicefails to start until the data store is available.

Recreating the Local Host Cache after a minimum of SP1 has been installed

1. Stop the IMA service. This can be done via the command line,net stop imaservice or fromservices.

2. From the command line run:dsmaint recreatelhc

which renames the existing LHCdatabase, creates a new database and modifies the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\IMA\Runtime\PSRequired

key to

1. Settingthe value PSRequired to 1 forces the server to establish communication with the datastore inorder to populate the Local Host Cache database. When the IMA service is restarted, the LHC isrecreated with the current data from the data store.

3. Restart the IMA service. This can be done via the command line, net start imaservice, orfrom services.

Recreating the LHC database on servers that do not have a minimum of SP1installed

1. Stop the IMA service, if it is started. This can be done via the command line,

net stop ima service, or from services.

2. Go to %Program Files%\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture

and rename the imalhc.mdb to imlhc.mdb.bak

3 Launch the ODBC Data Source Administrator:• On Windows Server, choose Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC).

4. Select the File DSN tab and browse to.ProgramFiles%\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture.

5. Select theimalhc.dsn file and click Configure.

6. In the Database area, click Create. The New Database dialog box appears.

7. In the Database Name box, type the name imalhc.mdb for the new local host cache database.

8. Click OK to create the database, and then click OK to close the ODBC Data Source Administrator

9. Open regedt32 and navigate to the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\IMA\RUNTIME

and modify the value of PSRequired (REG_DWORD): 0x1

10. Restart the IMA service. This can be done via the command line,

net start ima service , or from services.

34.How to disable print drivers from automatically updating the DataStore?

 When a new printer or printer driver was installed on a Meta Frame server, a substantial amount of traffic (in the order of 8 to 10MB per second) occurred between the IMA Service and the data store the IMA Service was using. This occurred because the IMA Service needed to update the Management Console for Meta Frame XP with the information about the new printer or printer driver, which caused the huge amount of network traffic. To resolve this problem, navigate to the following registry key and change the value off Disable Printer Worker Thread to 1:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\IMAPrinter

 Type: REG_DWORD

Value: fDisablePrinterWorkerThread = 1

After making this change to the registry, restart the IMA Service for the change to take effect. When the registry switch is set to 1, the IMA Service does not automatically update printer or printer driver information to the Management Console. You need to update this information manually. To do this, click Printer Management in the left panel of the Management Console and then double-click Update Printer and Driver.

 Note: Ensure the latest MfPrintSs.dll is installed on the server.

35.How do I disable the Citrix Management Console splash screen?

 There are two ways to disable the Citrix Management Console splash screen:

• Add -nologo to the Ctxload.exe command line. For example, if you publish ctx load as a published application, edit the published application and add -nologo to the end of the command line.

• If you run the Citrix Management Console from the toolbar, open the ProgramFiles\Citrix\Administration folder. Create a shortcut to ctxload. Open the properties of that shortcut and add -nologo to the end of the target box. Click OK. Add the shortcut to the toolbar.

36.What is licenses auto-activation 

License auto-activation is a benefit offered to customers purchasing meta FrameXP product through an electronic licensing program with Citrix. License auto-activation removes theneed to activate MetaFrame product licenses via the Citrix Activation System. With license auto-activation, Meta Frame XP product licenses purchased through an electronic licensing program are automatically activated when they are installed on the MetaFrame XP server.

37.How to install XenApp client in command prompt and apply policies?

Run the XenAppHosted.msi in command prompt

"c:\>msiexec /a xenapphosted.msi"

                 This will launch "Client Packager Installation". We can create a pre-configured client package with the answer file for the questions asked by the installer, so that we can have silent installation of the client in various systems in the environment.

There is another way to create client installation package.

Type the command "msiexec.exe /I path/XenAppHosted.msi [Options]" 

To add Group Policy to manage the client we need to add the .ADM by Citrix to the existing Administrative Template of the Group Policy Management. This is available where Citrix Clients have been already installed. It is located in "c:\program files\Citrix\ICAClient\Configuration\icaclient.adm"

We can manage Citrix Client connectivity by the Windows Group Policy.

38.How to change the Citrix XML Service Port on Meta frame Servers ?

Un-registering the XML Service

1. Open a Command Prompt window and run ‘ctxxmlss /u’ (This command will un-register the Citrix XML service and mark it for deletion)

2. Reboot the server

Registering the XML on a port other than sharing with IIS

1. Un-register the service using the instructions above.

2. Open a ‘Command Prompt’ window and run ctxxmlss /r[Port Number]

(Notice that there is no space between the switch “/r” and the port number.

3. Reboot the server or open the service control manager and manually start the Citrix XML Service

Registering the XML Service to share the port with IIS on Windows Server 2003running IIS 6.0

By default when installing IIS 6.0, the virtual Scripts Folder is not created

1. Un-register the service using the instructions above.

2. Navigate to the ‘\Inetpub’ folder and create a new folder with the name of ‘Scripts’

3. Open the IIS Manager MMC Snap-in

4. Right click on the ‘Default Web Site’ and select New | Virtual Directory…

5. Click Next

6. Under Alias: type the name ‘Scripts’ and click Next

7. Under Path: type C:\Inetpub\Scripts and click Next

8. Under Allow the following permissions: make sure that the following are selected

                a. Read

                b. Run Scripts (such as ASP)

                c. Execute (such as ISAPI applications or CGI)

9. Click Next and click Finish

10. Right click on the Scripts virtual directory and go to Properties

11. Under the Virtual Directory tab make sure that the Execute Permissions: field is set to Scripts and Executables

12. Under the Directory Security tab click on Edit… under Authentication and Access Control and make sure that the Enable anonymous access check box is checked

13. Now copy the files ctxxmlss.txt, clm.dll, wpnbr.dll to the newly create Scripts folder under the Inetpub folder.

Note: The file ‘ctxxmlss.txt’ is located in the ‘Program Files\Citrix\System32’ folder and the files‘clm.dll’ and 'wpnbr.dll' are located in the ‘%SYSTEMROOT%\System32’ folder

If Microsoft IIS is installed, the administrator of the MetaFrame XP installation is given the option to install the Citrix XML Service and share a port with IIS.

In fact, no separate XML service is running. IIS serves the XML data using an ISAPI filter namedWpnbr.dll located in the \Inetpub\Scripts folder. To remove the Citrix XML Service functionality from your Meta Frame server, simply rename or delete the Wpnbr.dll file.

Once the XML Service port is changed on the Metaframe Servers you will need to change NFuse or WI to point to the new port.

39.Access Gateway vs. Secure Gateway ?

Citrix Secure Gateway provides secure access to Citrix Presentation Server from the untrusted domain. Citrix Secure Gateway has evolved into the Citrix Access Gateway solutions. The best thing about Citrix Access Gateway appliance is it is not a Windows based. CAG is a hardened Linux appliance whereas CSG is installed over a Windows server. CSG can only proxy ICA traffic, but including that CAG in the DMZ to provide full SSL VPN access or more tailored filtering of access to applications and services. CAG Enterprise edition provides High Availability, native end point scans and load balance between several WI servers. TS Gateway from Microsoft is same as Citrix Secure Gateway that it allows access to internal Terminal Servers from external non trusted devices through SSL

Licensing

CSG comes as a part of Presentation Server and does not require any additional licensing. The CAG uses concurrent user licenses that are purchased separately to your Presentation Server licenses. We need to purchase the CAG hardware as it prohibits us from running the CAG software on any devices which are not purchased from Citrix.

Presentation Server Integration

Presentation Server is not integrated into CAG as well as CSG, though they both provide an SSL relay function to Presentation Server. User interface access to published applications is provided via Web Interface (WI) or Advanced Access Control (AAC, a component of Access Gateway Advanced Edition). What the CAG has over the CSG is integration with AAC. AAC makes it simple to control what users can do in their ICA sessions and what applications are available externally. In this sense, it’s easier to manage application access via AAC than it is via CAG and WI or CSG and WI alone.

Other Features

Secure Gateway does not offer any of the below advanced features of the Access Gate way such as:

SSL: this is essentially a Winsock redirector client that’s improves on an L2TP/IPSec or PPTPVPN by not relying on routes and using SSL only;

Web Application Access:

users can access internal web applications including integration with SharePoint Server;

Web-based File Share Access:

users are able to access internal file shares via a web browser with access to features such as uploading files control. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and PDF files can also be viewed directly in the browser without the requirement for local applications;

Web-based E-mail:

provide users integrated access to Outlook Web Access or iNotes. Citrix also provides a custom interface which allows the administrator to define what users can do in their session such as downloading attachments.

40.How to modify the Citrix License Port Number and Vendor Deamon Port Number ?

By default in License Server Version 11.5 Citrix License Manager Deamon communicates over port 27000 and the Citrix Vendor Daemon runs in 7279. You should not change this port number unless you have a firewall that uses another port number, or if this number is already in use.

Note:

In previous versions of Citrix Licensing, the port on which the Citrix vendor daemon communicated changed dynamically. The Citrix Licensing service chose a new port every time it restarted. This can be changed. If you need to change the port number, you must specify the new number in all license files on the server and in the firewall. By default, no port number is listed in the license file. When the License Manager daemon does not find a port number listed in the license file, it uses port 27000.

Citrix recommends that you back up your license files (files end with the .lic extension) before you change any port numbers. License files are stored in "C:\ProgramFiles\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles". Citrix License Server Version 11.5 or later provides the LS Port

Updater service that monitors the MyFiles directory and replicates the port numbers in the license files for you automatically.

To set a static number for Citrix License Vendor Daemon port 

1. From the Windows Services panel, stop the Citrix License Management Console service.

2. Open the license file in notepad.exe and locate the line VENDOR CITRIX.

4. Modify the line by appending the following:

VENDOR CITRIX options=<path to the options

 file> port=<port number>

Example: 

VENDOR CITRIX options="C:\Program Files

\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles\CITRIX.opt" port=7950

5. Save the license file with a .lic extension.            

6. Repeat Steps 2 through 5 for each license file on the license server.

7. From the Windows Services panel, restart the Citrix License Management Console service and the Citrix Licensing service to make your Citrix vendor daemon port number changes take effect. If a TCP/IP port number is specified on the VENDOR line, the Citrix vendor daemon may not restart until all the clients close their connections to the vendor daemon.

8. Verify that the new Citrix vendor daemon port number is being used by looking for the lines that use the new port number in the debug log (By default, this file is in C:\ProgramFiles\Citrix\Licensing\LS). The lines will be similar to the following:

3:13:48 (lmgrd) Starting vendor daemon at port 27950

3:13:51 (lmgrd) Using vendor daemon port 27950 specified in license file

To change the License Manager Daemon Port Number

1. From the Windows Services panel, stop the Citrix License Management Console service.

2. Using notepad.exe, modify the SERVER line of the license file by adding a port number afterthe hostname.

For example :SERVER this_host HOSTNAME=server1 27900 or SERVER this_host ANY 27900

3. Save the file with a .lic extension.

4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for each license file on the license server.

5. From the Windows Services panel, restart the Citrix License Management Console service and the Citrix Licensing service to make your Citrix license manager daemon port number changes take effect.

6. Verify that the new Citrix license manager daemon port number is being used by looking for the line that uses the new port number in the debug log. The line will be similar to the following:

3:13:48 (lmgrd) lmgrd  tcp-port 27900

Note: Do not restart the services until all license files on the license server have the same port number. If the License Manager daemon encounters different port numbers in the license files, the license server stops running. The text shown above many vary slightly depending on which version of Citrix Licensing you are running

From the Citrix License server version 11.5, Citrix provides an LS Port utility

that you can use to change the port numbers in your files. If you need to change the License Server port or Vendor Daemon port numbers, run the License Server Port utility to enter the new numbers and update the license files.

1.At the license server, open a command window and navigate to "C:\ProgramFiles\Citrix\Licensing\LS".

2.Type:lsportutil /set /lsport num /vendor num

where num is the new port number. For example, if you want to change the vendor daemon number to 24000, type: lsportutil /set/lsport 27000 /vendor 24000

3.Restart the Citrix Licensing service.

Note: Even if you change only one port number, you must specify both of the numbers in the command. To find out which port numbers are currently defined, type:

lsportutil /query.

41.How to clone the XenApp server?

One of the many enhancements Citrix made in XenApp v6 is that cloning a server is now much easier that it was in previous versions. Here’s a step-by-step guide, with lots of screen caps:

1. Install the updated XenApp Server Configuration Tool.

2. Run the XenApp Server Role Manager (Start – All Programs – Citrix – XenApp Server Role Manager – XenApp Server Role Manager)

3. Select “Edit Configuration”

4. Select “Prepare this server for imaging and provisioning:”

5. On the next screen, check “Remove this current server instance from the farm,” and then click “Next”. As the pop-up tip indicates, this will save us from having to do it manually later. The server will automatically join the farm when you bring it back on-line.

6. On the next screen, click “Apply:”

7. The server runs through the items that are needed to prepare XenApp for cloning. This means that once the new server comes on-line, it will automatically join the farm that the original server was in.

8. Back at the XenApp Server Role Manager screen, we can choose to reboot the server (which you probably don’t want to do just yet), or simply close the window and proceed with any additional tasks we may need to perform before cloning, such as Sysprep.

9. After we have finished any additional tasks, we can shut the server down, and clone it content. When your clones come back on-line, if they have a network connection on the correct IP subnet, they will automatically join the farm. However (“gotcha” alert), if you didn’t Sysprep them, they will all try to join the farm under the same machine name – the one your original server had. So if you didn’t change the name of the server, it’s best to disconnect it from the network, change the name and IP address, reconnect to the network, join it to the AD Domain, and then reboot it so it can join the XenApp farm using the correct name.

42.What are different load evaluators are available in Citrix

1. Default Load Evaluators

2. Advance Load evaluators.

3. Custom load evaluators.

43. What you will check when any user is not able to launch citrix application.

a) First try to launch same application from Citrix server(on which you installed and published)

b) Try to add same application to your ID and try to launch

c) Check user permissions for that Applications

d) Verify that latest Citrix client software installed at desktop

e) Verify that user is having correct proxy settings to connect to your Citrix network (for remote users)

44.What are the different ports used in Citrix

Citrix ICA traffic uses - 1494 , client to server

Citrix XML service runs on 8080

LDAP Directory- TCP 389

Independent Management Architecture Services - TCP 2512, 2513

Licensing Service - TCP 27000, 27009 (configurable)

Management Console (Using IMA) - TCP 2512, 2513

Application requests - TCP XML 80, 8080 or 443 (configurable)

Client connections - TCP 80/443 (configurable)

Server-to-server - TCP XML 80/8080, 443 (using SSL Relay).

45.What is the difference between 2k & 2k3 terminal server licensing

Windows 2000 having 90 days Windows 2003 having 120 days.

46.What is SBC

Server-based computing (SBC) is finally achieving an accepted status as the preferred method for managed access and delivery of applications and desktops. This is due in part, to advances in networking infrastructure, as well as in the Microsoft Windows® operating system itself.

47.What are the different ports use in Citrix

1494: This port is used by any client using the TCP protocol to communicate with the Presentation Server. You will need to open this port on your firewall for inbound connections unless you are using some form of encapsulation or encryption. You can change the port using the ICAPORT command but I find it to be more trouble than it is worth.

1604: Called the ICA Browser port this is a UDP port that can be used by the Program Neighbourhood to enumerate applications. You probably won t use this though.

80: This is the default port used by the XML service and is used by clients who enumerate applications with the TCP+HTTP or XML protocol. You will thus need to open this port on your firewall for inbound connections if clients will be using it to locate servers. You can change the port easily enough using the CTXXMLSS command.

443: This is the default SSL. The SSL Relay will use it to secure communications between the Web Interface and the server farm. You could also use it to secure client communication to the web Interface or use it for client connections to the Presentation Server.

5000: The Presentation Server uses this port to communicate with the IBM Db2 server hosting the data store.

1521: This port is used to communicate with the Oracle data store.

1433: The port used to communicate with a Microsoft SQL data store.

2512: This port is used for server to server communication such as when load information is communicated. The port used to access the data store is saved in the HKLMSOFTWARECITRIXIMAIMAPORT key on the server containing the data store.

 All other servers use the port number saved in HKLMSOFTWARECITRIXIMAPSSERVERPORT key in the registry to access the data store. Have a look at IMAPORT to see how to change it

2513: This port is used by the Presentation Server Console when connection to a server. Have a look at IMAPORT to see how to change it.

2598: This is the session reliability port number and needs to be opened on your firewall if the ICA Clients will be using session reliability when communication with the server.

27000 and a random port number: This is the port used for communication between the Citrix License server and the Presentation Servers. Remember that the Citrix vendor daemon running on the license server uses a random port. It tracks license usage.

Port 1494. The server will respond to the client on 1494 and assign it a port number in the "high port" range (1023-65534)443 or 80 for Https or http.

48.What you will check when any user is not able to launch Citrix application?

1) First try to launch same application from Citrix server(on which you installed and published)

2) Try to add same application to your ID and try to launch

3) Check user permissions for that Applications

4) Verify that latest Citrix client software installed at desktop 5) Verify that user is having correct proxy settings to connect to your Citrix network (for remote users).

49.Citrix Installation Manager - What is the requirement of Installation Manager and what kind of extension its support

Installation Manager is a powerfull feature in Metaframe XPe that facilitates the rapid installation of applications and other software components.

Installation manager let you install applications other software components to any or all available servers in your farm-attended or unattended-using any metaframe XP server on the network regardless of physical location network connection type or hardware set up. It supports extensions like ADF MSI and MSP.

               

============================================================

1. How do you repair the IMA local host cache?

dsmaint recreatelhc from cmd promt.

               

2. Why are Session Printers not recommended for slow WAN connections? 

The print job is spooled across the WAN to the Citrix server and back again. It will cause an already slow link to become slower.

3. What group policy file would you edit to add custom drive letters for the purpose of hiding them from users when they login to a XenApp server?

User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Explorer | "Hide these specified drives in My Computer "

and "Prevent access to drives from My Computer"

4. Client Package MSI File - How do you create a custom ICA client package using the MSI file from the Citrix download site?

msiexec /a ica32pkg.msi This Will run the client packaging tool.

5. Java Client - A customer has a single Citrix XenApp 4.5 server with WI installed on this Citrix server. They are not running CSG and they do not have a CAG. The Java client has been installed successfully and WI works 

The XML Port is most probebly not open. Port 80 or 8080.

6. GP Processing Mode - What group policy processing mode is usually configured on group policies that are applied to XenApp servers?

Loop back processing

7. Citrix Licensing - How the licensing works in Citrix and difference in Citrix Licensing version wise

a) First there would be product licences such as Standard/Advanced/Enterprise/Platinum edition.

b) Then you have to purchase the concurrent licensees depending on the no of users this can be downloaded from the website .LIC file depending on the hostname of the server which is case sensitive.

8. PVS - What is PVS and why would you use it?

9. What is a ZDC and why is it recommended to have a dedicated one when there are more than 5 XenApp servers?

10. What are the console available to manage Citrix server?

Citrix Management Console Access Suite 

11. What is ICA and what are the advantage of ICA

ICA - Independent Computing architecture.

it provides better compression 

Transmits High-level windows display information

12. ICA vs RDP

 Why is ICA that much faster than RDP ? What is the technological differences between thetwo? 

RDP works only under TCP/IP while ICA works on many protocols.

ICA is a protocol developed by Citrix.RDP is developed by Microsoft.

Each performs the same virtualization channels to the end user clients.

13. Citrix Load Evaluators what are different load evaluators are available in Citrix?

1. Default Load Evaluators

2. Advanced Load evaluators

3. Custom load evaluators

14. How to implement Policies in Citrix the Citrix policy can be applied through Console Management in 3 levels

1. Farm Level

2. Citrix Server Level

3. Policy

15. What is Printer terminology in Citrix?

Citrix Printing can be configured 3 ways (types)

1. Local Printing.

2. Network Printing

3. Client Printing

Client Printer: The printer connected to the Workstation & the drivers are installed on the citrix server for printing.

Network Printer: The Printer connected to the print server & the drivers should be available on the citrix server.

Local Printer: The printer connected to locally to the citrix server & the drivers are installed for the print operation.

16. Citrix Server Installation

What is the requirement for Citrix server installation?

Windows 2003 Server

Terminal Services

Terminal Services Licenses.

.NET

IIS

www

Citrix P.S 4.0 4.5

Citrix Licenses server