On May 24, 2021, I published the Building Webster’s Lab V2 article series that used vSphere/vCenter 7.0 original release and XenServer 8.2.0.

This is a follow-up on building the lab with vSphere/vCenter 7.0U3L and XenServer 8.2.1.

Why didn’t I use vSphere/vCenter 8? Neither my hardware nor Synology units support vSphere 8. There is a change I can make to an install file to bypass the hardware compatibility check, but I would rather not risk it. It took Synology a long time to add vSphere 7 support, so I have no idea how long before they add support for vSphere 8.

I need to rebuild the lab because something terrible happened after powering down the lab for an extended weekend. When I powered on the lab after returning to the lab the following Monday, the vSphere servers would not connect to local storage and NFS storage, nor connect to any switches or networking.

Read the rest in the PDF…

You can always find the most current PDF by going to https://www.carlwebster.com/where-to-get-copies-of-the-documentation-scripts/

Thanks

Webster

I updated the PDF last on 22-Sep-2021.

You can always find the most current PDF by going to https://www.carlwebster.com/where-to-get-copies-of-the-documentation-scripts/

Thanks

Webster

The next step is to create a management computer from the Windows 10 template with the additional servers built and configured. We use the VM built in this article for PowerShell scripting running consoles from Citrix, Microsoft, Parallels, and VMware. My lab’s infrastructure VMs reside in my XenServer pool, as explained in the Introduction article. I consider the management computer an infrastructure computer as it is permanent.

Note: What I call a Management Computer goes by different names.

• Jump Server
• Jump Machine
• Jump Host
• Bastion Machine
• Bastion Host
• And I am sure other locations around the world use other names

Whatever you want to call it, this is a centralized computer for managing and accessing servers, network equipment, storage devices, and other management activities. Some people use a server operating system (OS), and some use a desktop OS. It depends on the licensing restrictions of the software used on the computer.

From the introduction article, this is the VM we are building.

VMware

In vCenter, right-click the Windows 10 Template and click on New VM from This Template…, as shown in Figure 1.

Enter a Virtual machine name and click Next, as shown in Figure 2.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 3.

Select the NFS shared datastore created earlier in this series and click Next, as shown in Figure 4.

Select Power on virtual machine after creation and click Next, as shown in Figure 5.

Verify that the configuration data for the new VM is correct and click Finish, as shown in Figure 6. If any item is incorrect, click Back, correct the item(s), and continue.

It took about 2 minutes to create the VM from the template in my lab.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 7.

Since we enabled Remote Desktop in the Template, the new VM has it enabled.

In vCenter, select the new Windows 10 VM, and in the right pane, look at the IP address, as shown in Figure 8.

As shown in Figure 9, click Start, Run, and type in mstsc /v:ipaddress /admin, and press Enter [where IP Address is the IP address shown in Figure 8].

Using Remote Desktop at this point makes it easier for me to get screenshots.

Enter the credentials for the local account created during the Windows 10 template build and press Enter, as shown in Figure 10.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 11.

Select your region and click Yes, as shown in Figure 12.

Select your keyboard layout and click Yes, as shown in Figure 13.

Click Skip, as shown in Figure 14.

Click Accept, as shown in Figure 15.

Click Domain join instead, as shown in Figure 16.

Type in a local user account name and click Next, as shown in Figure 17.

Enter a password and click Next, as shown in Figure 18.

Confirm the password and click Next, as shown in Figure 19.

Select three security questions, enter the answer, and click Next, as shown in Figures 20 through 22.

Select your privacy settings and click Accept, as shown in Figure 23. I set them all to No.

Make a selection for Cortana, as shown in Figure 24. I selected Not now, plus one of the settings in my Lab Defaults Group Policy to disable the use of Cortana.

If you receive the following popup, click Yes, as shown in Figure 25. I only received this popup for VMware, not XenServer.

Right-click the network icon in the systray and click Open Network & Internet settings, as shown in Figure 26.

Click Change adapter options, as shown in Figure 27.

Right-click the adapter and click Properties, as shown in Figure 28.

Click Configure…, as shown in Figure 29.

Click the Power Management tab, deselect every option, and click OK, as shown in Figure 30.

Right-click the Adapter and click Properties, as shown in Figure 28.

Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties, as shown in Figure 31.

Select Use the following IP address, enter the IP information for your network, and click OK, as shown in Figure 32. For the DNS server addresses, use the IP addresses of your domain controllers.

How many DNS servers should you configure on the network adapter? Not as many as you think. I recommend on DCs, a total of three where the third is always 127.0.0.1. For all other computers, also no more than three. I have seen places with 15 DCs, and every computer had all 15 DCs in the list of DNS servers. If you understand Windows DNS client resolution timeouts, limit the number of DNS entries.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 33.

After clicking Close,  you lose the connection to the RDP session. Reconnect using the new static IP address.

Close Network Connections.

Click Home, then System, then About, and finally Rename this PC (Advanced), as shown in Figure 34.

Click Change, as shown in Figure 35.

Enter a Computer name, Domain, and click OK, as shown in Figure 36.

Enter the domain’s Administrator name and password and click OK, as shown in Figure 37.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 38.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 39.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 40.

Click Restart Now, as shown in Figure 41.

When the VM restarts, log in using the domain’s Administrator account.

Make any customizations you require to the VM before we start installing consoles. I upgraded my Windows 10 20H2 VM to Windows 10 21H1.

XenServer

In XenCenter, right-click the Windows 10 Template and click on New VM wizard…, as shown in Figure 42.

Select the Windows 10 Template template and click Next, as shown in Figure 43.

Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 44.

Since the operating system is installed in the template VM, Click Next, as shown in Figure 45.

Select Don’t assign this VM a home server and click Next, as shown in Figure 46.

You may change the Number of vCPUs, Topology, and Memory if you wish. I left everything the same as the template VM. Click Next, as shown in Figure 47.

As my hosts do not have a GPU card, I clicked Next, as shown in Figure 48.

Click Edit, as shown in Figure 49.

I recommend changing both the Name and Description. Doing so makes it easier later if you ever delete a VM and its attached hard disks. If all the hard disks have the same name and description, it is challenging to determine which disks go with which VM.

Enter a Name and Description and click OK, as shown in Figure 50.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 51.

If multiple Virtual network interfaces are available, select the appropriate interface and click Next, as shown in Figure 52.

Verify all the configuration options are correct and click Create Now, as shown in Figure 53. If an option is not correct, click Previous, correct the option and then continue.

I deselected the option Start the new VM automatically since it doesn’t work.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 54. It took about 2 seconds in my lab to create the VM from the template.

In XenCenter, right-click the new VM and click Start, as shown in Figure 55.

Expand the XenServer host on which you started the VM, click the VM, and click the Networking tab, as shown in Figure 56. You see the IP address assigned to the VM.

As shown in Figure 57, click Start, Run, and type in mstsc /v:ipaddress /admin, and press Enter [where IP Address is the IP address shown in Figure 56].

Using Remote Desktop at this point makes it easier for me to get screenshots.

Enter the credentials for the local account created during the Windows 10 template build and press Enter, as shown in Figure 58.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 59.

Select your region and click Yes, as shown in Figure 60.

Select your keyboard layout and click Yes, as shown in Figure 61.

Click Skip, as shown in Figure 62.

Click Accept, as shown in Figure 63.

Click Domain join instead, as shown in Figure 64.

Type in a local user account name and click Next, as shown in Figure 65.

Enter a password and click Next, as shown in Figure 66.

Confirm the password and click Next, as shown in Figure 67.

Select three security questions, enter the answer, and click Next, as shown in Figures 68 through 70.

Select your privacy settings and click Accept, as shown in Figure 71. I set them all to No.

Make a selection for Cortana, as shown in Figure 72. I selected Not now, plus one of the settings in my Lab Defaults Group Policy to disable the use of Cortana.

If you receive the following popup, click Yes, as shown in Figure 73. I only received this popup for VMware, not XenServer.

Right-click the network icon in the systray and click Open Network & Internet settings, as shown in Figure 74.

Click Change adapter options, as shown in Figure 75.

Right-click the adapter and click Properties, as shown in Figure 76.

Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties, as shown in Figure 77.

Select Use the following IP address, enter the IP information for your network, and click OK, as shown in Figure 78. For the DNS server addresses, use the IP addresses of your domain controllers.

How many DNS servers should you configure on the network adapter? Not as many as you think. I recommend on DCs, a total of three where the third is always 127.0.0.1. For all other computers, also no more than three. I have seen places with 15 DCs, and every computer had all 15 DCs in the list of DNS servers. If you understand Windows DNS client resolution timeouts, limit the number of DNS entries.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 79.

After clicking Close,  you lose the connection to the RDP session. Reconnect using the new static IP address.

Close Network Connections.

Click Home, then System, then About, and finally Rename this PC (Advanced), as shown in Figure 80.

Click Change, as shown in Figure 81.

Enter a Computer name, Domain, and click OK, as shown in Figure 82.

Enter the domain’s Administrator name and password and click OK, as shown in Figure 83.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 84.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 85.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 86.

Click Restart Now, as shown in Figure 87.

When the VM restarts, log in using the domain’s Administrator account.

Make any customizations you require to the VM before we start installing consoles. I upgraded my Windows 10 20H2 VM to Windows 10 21H1.

Install Active Directory Consoles

There are no Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops or Parallels Remote Application Server or VMware Horizon environments at this point in the lab’s building process. The only consoles to install at this point are for the Microsoft products in the lab.

Before the October 2018 update to Windows 10, a download was available for the Remote Server Administrative Tools (RSAT). The old approach to RSAT was that the Windows 10 upgrade removed the RSAT from the computer. The new approach allows the RSAT to persist between Windows 10 upgrades.

Click the Start button and click Settings, as shown in Figure 88.

Click Apps, as shown in Figure 89.

Click Optional features, as shown in Figure 90.

Click Add a feature, as shown in Figure 91.

Select the following items and click Install, as shown in Figure 92.

• RSAT: Active Directory Certificate Services Tools
• RSAT: Active Directory Domain Services and Lightweight Directory Services Tools
• RSAT: DHCP Server Tools
• RSAT: DNS Server Tools
• RSAT: Group Policy Management Tools

The tools install, as shown in Figure 93.

You can find the tools by clicking Start, scrolling down to, and expanding Windows Administrative Tools, as shown in Figure 94.

Installing RSAT installed several PowerShell modules. To ensure that we have current help text for every PowerShell module, start an elevated PowerShell session.

Click Start, scroll down to and expand Windows Powershell, right-click Windows PowerShell, click More, and click Run as administrator, as shown in Figure 95.

Type in the following in the PowerShell window, as shown in Figure 96.

update-help -force

The help text updates, as shown in Figure 96. You can safely ignore any warnings or errors.

To verify that PowerShell Remoting is enabled, type the following in the PowerShell window, as shown in Figure 97.

enable-psremoting

You can access each of the RSAT consoles from the start menu or build an MMC console containing all the snap-ins you use often.

Type mmc and press Enter in the PowerShell window and then exit PowerShell.

The mmc console opens, as shown in Figure 98.

Click File, click Add/Remove Snap-in…, or press Ctrl+M (my preference), as shown in Figure 99.

Double-click the following items, as shown in Figure 100.

• Active Directory Do…
• Active Directory Site…
• Active Directory Use…
• ADSI Edit

Double-click Certification Authority, and on the popup, type in the name of your Certification Authority server and click Finish, as shown in Figure 101.

Scroll down, double-click the following and click OK, as shown in Figure 102.

• DHCP
• DNS
• Group Policy Manag…

Click on and expand each node. Connect to the appropriate server when requested.

Figure 103 shows my console.

I always recommend using these consoles installed on a management computer to avoid logging in on a production server (i.e., domain controller or certificate authority). While our lab servers may not be “production” level servers, we learn a valuable habit: stay off production servers when possible.

Save the mmc console to the location and name of your choice, as shown in Figure 104.

Install SQL Server Management Studio

We install the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) in the management computer to avoid logging in to a production SQL Server. While our lab servers may not be “production” level servers, we learn a valuable habit: stay off production servers when possible.

In your internet browser, browse to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver15, and click the link to Download SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), as shown in Figure 105.

Note: The version number may change.

Click the link your browser provides to open the downloaded file, as shown in Figure 106.

Click Run on the popup, as shown in Figure 107.

You can exit your browser at this point.

Click Install, as shown in Figure 108.

SSMS begins installing, as shown in Figure 109. The installation takes a few minutes.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 110.

Click Start, scroll to and expand Microsoft SQL Server Tools 18, click Microsoft SQL Server Management…, as shown in Figure 111.

Enter the name of your SQL Server and click Connect, as shown in Figure 112.

As shown in Figure 113, we made a connection to the SQL Server.

If you get the error shown in Figure 114, did you remember to create the Inbound TCP Port 1433 firewall rule on the SQL Server?

Exit SSMS.

Install Microsoft Office

I only need Microsoft Excel and Word on my management PC for use with scripting. Unfortunately, if you tell the Office 365 site to install Office or select the Install option from the Office ISO, you get every Office component installed. To restrict what you download, install, and configure, you must use an XML file.

Microsoft makes the Office Customization Tool if you do not know how to create the required XML file.

Open a command prompt.

Make a folder named O365 on the C drive by typing md c:\O365 followed by cd c:\O365, as shown in Figure 115.

In your internet browser, browse to https://config.office.com/ and click Create, as shown in Figure 116.

Select the following, as shown in Figure 117:

Architecture: 64-bit

Office Suites: Microsoft 365 Apps for business

Viso: None (shows as Select Visio product)

Project: None (shows as Select Project product)

Additional products: None (shows as Select Additional product)

Select the update channel and Select the version you prefer, as shown in Figure 118.

Deselect the apps you do NOT want to be installed and click Next, as shown in Figure 119.

Select primary language and any additional languages or proofing tools required and click Next, as shown in Figure 120.

Select Office Content Delivery Network (CDN), leave the other two options at the default settings, and click Next, as shown in Figure 121.

Deselect Uninstall any MSI versions of Office, including Visio and Project, leave the other options at their default settings, and click Next, as shown in Figure 122.

Select Automatically accept the EULA and click Next, as shown in Figure 123.

Enter your organization’s name, an optional description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 124.

Microsoft offers numerous settings for configuring Office applications. If you wish, you can review the options and make any configuration changes required. After reviewing the Application preferences, click Finish, as shown in Figure 125.

Click Export, as shown in Figure 126.

Select your desired Default File Format and click OK. As shown in Figure 127, I prefer using Office Open XML formats.

Select I accept the terms in the license agreement, enter a File Name for the XML file, and click Export, as shown in Figure 128.

Using Windows File Explorer, browse to the location your internet browser save the XML file, typically your user account’s Downloads folder, as shown in Figure 129.

Right-click the XML file and click Copy, as shown in Figure 130.

In Windows File Explorer, browse to C:\O365, right-click in the empty space and click Paste, as shown in Figure 131.

Exit Windows File Explorer.

Now we need to download the Office Deployment Toolkit.

In your internet browser, browse to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117, and click Download, as shown in Figure 132.

Click the link your browser provides to open the file, as shown in Figure 133.

Click Run, as shown in Figure 134.

Select Click here to accept the Microsoft Software License Terms and click Continue, as shown in Figure 135.

Browse to C:\O365 and click OK, as shown in Figure 136.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 137.

Exit your internet browser.

In the command prompt, type in setup.exe /configure configuration.xml (use your XML file name) and press Enter, as shown in Figure 138.

Office starts installing, as shown in Figures 139 and 140.

When the installation and configuration are complete, click Close, as shown in Figure 141.

Exit the command prompt.

Click Start and verify that only the Office applications you installed are there. I installed only Microsoft Excel and Word, as shown in Figures 142 and 143.

Start any installed Office product to start the licensing and activation process, as shown in Figure 144.

After the activation process completes, click Done, as shown in Figure 145.

Additional Applications

There are many other applications you can install. Feel free to install and configure any software you require.

Here is some of the software I use.

• Citrix PVS Console (Can’t install yet)
• Citrix Studio Console (Can’t install yet)
• Google Chrome
• Notepad++
• Parallels Remote Application Server Console and PowerShell (Can’t install yet)
• PuTTY
• VMware Horizon Dynamic Environment Manager Management Console (Can’t install yet)
• WinSCP

Many management consoles are web-based—for example, vCenter, Citrix Director, VMware Horizon Connection Server, and others. I manage my Netgear switches and WiFi router and my two Synology units using a browser.

Install vCenter Root Certificate

The vCenter root certificate requires installing to manage vCenter from this computer. Citrix Studio also requires it to create a hosting connection to vCenter.

In Part 6, we downloaded the root certificate from vCenter.

Browse to the certs\win folder, as shown in Figure 146.

Double-click the file with the extension “crt”.

Click Open if you receive a file security warning, as shown in Figure 147.

Click Install Certificate…, as shown in Figure 148.

Click Local machine and Next, as shown in Figure 149.

Select Place all certificates in the following store and click Browse…, as shown in Figure 150.

Click on Trusted Root Certification Authorities and click OK, as shown in Figure 151.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 152.

Click Finish, as shown in Figure 153.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 154.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 155.

Using your browser, go to the link for the vCenter Getting Started Page. For me, that is https://vcenter.labaddomain.com, as shown in Figure 156.

Click the padlock symbol, as shown in Figure 157.

Activate Windows 10

If you have a MAPS or similar subscription service, you can activate your copy of Windows 10.

Click Start, Settings, as shown in Figure 158.

Click Windows isn’t activated. Activate Windows now., as shown in Figure 159.

Click Change product key, as shown in Figure 160.

Enter your Windows 10 Product key and click Next, as shown in Figure 161.

Click Activate, as shown in Figure 162.

If your copy of Windows 10 activated successfully, click Close, as shown in Figure 163.  If activation was not successful, resolve the issue and attempt the activation again.

Windows 10 now shows as activated.

Exit all open windows.

Up next: Create a 10ZiG Management Server

Landing page for the article series

With the base of the Vmware infrastructure, Active Directory (AD), Certification Authority (CA), and Group Policy (GPO) built, the next step is to create additional server VMs from the Server 2019 template. We use the VMs built in this article for additional Microsoft infrastructure servers. My lab’s infrastructure VMs reside in my XenServer pool, as explained in the Introduction article. Building a server VM from the Server 2019 template was covered earlier.

From the introduction article, these are the VMs we are building.

Follow the earlier process to build the two servers above, but do not power on the servers. Before we power on the new servers, we need an additional hard drive on each server. For LabFS, that drive is for shared files and folders and LabSQL, SQL databases.

Follow these steps to add the second drive.

VMware

In vCenter, right-click a VM and click Edit Settings…, as shown in Figure 1.

Click ADD NEW DEVICE and click Hard Disk, as shown in Figure 2.

For New Hard disk*, enter 100 for the size in GB and click OK, as shown in Figure 3.

Expand VM Hardware and see both hard disks, as shown in Figure 4.

Repeat for the other server.

Power on both VMs.

XenServer

In XenCenter, select a VM in the left pane and click the Storage tab in the right pane, as shown in Figure 5.

Click Add, as shown in Figure 6.

Enter a Name, Description, type 100 for the Size, and click Add, as shown in Figure 7.

XenCenter shows both hard disks, as shown in Figure 8.

Repeat for the other server.

Power on both VMs.

File Server (LabFS)

The first thing we need to do is join our File Server to the domain.

If you remember, when we created Active Directory in Part 14, I placed all my Microsoft infrastructure servers in a specific OU.

Lab

Infrastructure

Microsoft

Open a PowerShell session and type in the following from one of the domain controllers, as shown in Figure 9.

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -filter {Name -eq "Microsoft"}

Copy the DistinguishedName property to the clipboard.

We use PowerShell to install and configure the File Server.

Use mstsc to remote into the VM that is our File Server.

Exit Server Manager and start an elevated PowerShell session, as shown in Figure 10.

Copy and paste the following into the elevated PowerShell session and press Enter. The process took less than the blink of an eye to happen, which is why there is no screenshot.

Remember to set the values you need.

Note: Lines may wrap

#Join the computer to the domain</strong>

add-computer -Credential LabADDomain\Administrator `
-DomainName "LabADDomain.com" `
-OUPath "OU=Microsoft,OU=Infrastructure,OU=Lab,DC=LabADDomain,DC=com" `
-Force `
-Restart

#server reboots

After the VM restarts, log in using the domain’s Administrator account and password.

Right-click the Start menu and click Disk Management, as shown in Figure 11.

Select MBR (Master Boot Record) and click OK, as shown in Figure 12.

Right-click the 100GB Unallocated drive and click New Simple Volume…, as shown in Figure 13.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 14.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 15.

Select the drive letter to use and click Next, as shown in Figure 16.

Type in a meaningful Volume label and click Next, as shown in Figure 17.

Click Finish, as shown in Figure 18.

In a few seconds, Disk Management shows the new drive, as shown in Figure 19.

Now to install the server certificate from the CA.

Save the following to a file name c:\CertFiles\computer-request.inf.

I want to thank Michael B. Smith for creating this INF file for me.

Use the data needed for your environment.

LabFS                     = the name of your File Server 
LabADDomain.com           = your domain name 
"LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" = the name of your CA server and the name of your CA.

;----------------- computer-request.inf -----------------
; LabFS.LabADDomain.com
;
; certreq -new computer-request.inf computer-request.req
; certreq -submit -config "LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" computer-request.req computer-request.cer
; certreq -accept -config "LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" computer-request.cer
;

[Version]
Signature = "$Windows NT$"

[NewRequest]
Subject = "CN=LabFS.LabADDomain.com" ; replace with the FQDN of the File Server
FriendlyName = "Computer (Machine) for LabFS.LabADDomain.com"
KeyLength = 2048
; Can be 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, or 16384.
; Larger key sizes are more secure but have a greater impact on performance.
KeySpec = 1                     ; AT_KEYEXCHANGE
Exportable = TRUE               ; private-key is exportable
MachineKeySet = TRUE            ; goes in machine store instead of user's personal store
SMIME = False                   ; cannot be used for signing S/MIME messages
PrivateKeyArchive = FALSE
HashAlgorithm = sha256          ; "certutil -oid 1 | findstr pwszName" -- gives a list (including sha1)
UserProtected = FALSE
UseExistingKeySet = FALSE       ; we are not renewing a key that already exists
ProviderName = "Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider"
ProviderType = 12               ; for ProviderName and ProviderType, see "certutil -csplist"
RequestType = PKCS10            ; if empty or set to "CERT" then a self-signed cert is created
KeyUsage = 0xa0                 ; 0xa0 - CERT_DIGITAL_SIGNATURE_KEY_USAGE + CERT_KEY_ENCIPHERMENT_KEY_USAGE

[EnhancedKeyUsageExtension]
OID=1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1 ; this is for Server Authentication - PKIX_KP_SERVER_AUTH

[Extensions]
; Note: 2.5.29.17 is the OID for a SAN extension.

2.5.29.17 = "{text}"
_continue_ = "dns=LabFS.LabADDomain.com"

[RequestAttributes]
CertificateTemplate = "Server Template"

;-----------------------------------------------

Open an elevated command prompt.

Type in cd c:\CertFiles and press Enter.

The three commands we need to run are at the top of the computer-request.inf file.

Type in notepad computer-request.inf and press Enter.

Copy the line certreq -new computer-request.inf computer-request.req, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Copy the line certreq -submit -config “LabCA\LabDomain CA Root” computer-request.req computer-request.cer, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Note: If you get a warning similar to the following, you can ignore the warning. The warning tells you that the certificate request validity period is past the lifetime of the CA’s root certificate lifespan.

Certificate retrieved(Issued)Issued The certificate validity period will be shorter than the Server Template Certificate Template specifies because the template validity period is longer than the maximum certificate validity period allowed by the CA.  Consider renewing the CA certificate, reducing the template validity period, or increasing the registry validity period.

Copy the line certreq -accept -config “LabCA\LabDomain CA Root” computer-request.cer, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Figure 20 shows the results of running the certificate request commands.

There is nothing else to do with the File Server VM at this point in this article series.

SQL Server (LabSQL)

Follow the same steps as the File Server to join the domain and provision the 100GB hard disk.

There are several pieces of information needed before installing Microsoft SQL Server.

1. Applications used in the lab
2. What versions of Microsoft SQL Server do the applications support?
3. Do the applications require any unique configuration in SQL Server?

In my lab, the products that use Microsoft SQL Server are Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD), Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS), and VMware Horizon. Both vendors provide documentation on the supported version of SQL Server.

Note: Parallels uses SQL Server for Parallels RAS Reporting, which I don’t use in the lab.

Supported Databases for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Provisioning Services

VMware Product Interoperability Matrix

In my lab, I run the latest version of each product.

• CVAD 2103
• PVS 2012
• VMware Horizon 8 2106

Using the links above, we can see that the current version of SQL Server supported is 2019.

Note: Starting with CVAD 2003, Citrix removed support for versions of SQL Server before SQL Server 2016. That leaves three versions of SQL Server supported: 2016, 2017, and 2019.

Figure 21 shows CVAD and PVS.

Figure 22 shows VMware Horizon 8 2106. Unfortunately, the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix does not allow you to select “Microsoft SQL Server”, nor does it allow you to sort the results. Yes, I left feedback on these shortcomings. Since I initially published this article, VMware added the capability to select a specific database version. I selected SQL Server 2019 Standard.

From both images, all the products support SQL Server 2019. Now, are there any particular configuration options required?

CVAD from https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/technical-overview/databases.html:

Windows authentication is required for connections between the Controller and the SQL Server site database.

Each database must have the following characteristics:

• Use a collation that ends with _CI_AS_KS. Citrix recommends using a collation that ends with _100_CI_AS_KS.
• For optimum performance, enable the SQL Server Read-Committed Snapshot. For details, see CTX 137161.

PVS from https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/provisioning/current-release/system-requirements.html:

When configuring databases for provisioning, consider that no preference exists for any specific SQL collation. Collation supports the standard method recommended by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops when using the configuration wizard. The administrator creates the database with a collation that ends with _CI_AS_KS. Citrix recommends using a collation that ends with _100_CI_AS_KS.

VMware Horizon from https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon/2103/horizon-installation.pdf:

Prepare an SQL Server Database for Event Reporting in Horizon Console

Before you can use Horizon Console to configure an event database on Microsoft SQL Server, you must configure the correct TCP/IP properties and verify that the server uses SQL Server Authentication.

Prerequisites

• Create an SQL Server database for event reporting. See Add a Database and Database User for VMware Horizon Events in Horizon Console.
• Verify that you have the required database privileges to configure the database.
• Verify that the database server uses the SQL Server Authentication method of authentication. Do not use Windows Authentication.

From these requirements, we know the following.

1. SQL Server must use both SQL Server and Windows Authentication
2. Enable SQL Server Read-Committed Snapshots
3. When creating a database for CVAD or PVS, make sure the database uses a collation that ends with _100_CI_AS_KS

Install Microsoft SQL Server 2019

Evaluation SQL Server 2019

You can download a 180-day evaluation copy of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 from the Microsoft Evaluation Center.

Copy the SQL2019-SSEI-Eval.exe file to the LabSQL server in C:\SQL2019.

Right-click SQL2019-SSEI-Eval.exe and click Run as administrator, as shown in Figure 23.

Click Download Media, as shown in Figure 24.

Select ISO, type in C:\SQL2019 for SELECT DOWNLOAD LOCATION, and click Download, as shown in Figure 25.

After the download completes, click Open folder, as shown in Figure 26.

Right-click the ISO file and click Mount, as shown in Figure 27.

Right-click setup.exe and click Run as administrator, as shown in Figure 28.

In the left pane, click Installation and in the right pane, click New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation, as shown in Figure 29.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 30.

Select I accept the license terms and and click Next, as shown in Figure 31.

Select Use Microsoft Update to check for updates (recommended) and click Next, as shown in Figure 32.

Ignore the Windows Firewall warning and click Next, as shown in Figure 33.

Select Database Engine Services, as shown in Figure 34.

Scroll down and select Client Tools Connectivity and click Next, as shown in Figure 35.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 36.

Click the Collation tab and click Customize…, as shown in Figure 37.

Citrix requires a particular collation. Select Windows collation designator and sort order, and scroll down to select Latin1_General_100, as shown in Figure 38.

Select Accent-sensitive and Kana-sensitive, and click OK, as shown in Figure 39.

Notice the Collation is Latin1_General_100_CI_AS_KS, as recommended by Citrix.

“Citrix recommends using a collation that ends with _100_CI_AS_KS”

Click Next, as shown in Figure 40.

Because VMware requires SQL authentication and Citrix requires Windows authentication, select Mixed Mode (SQL Server authentication and Windows authentication), enter a password for the SQL Server’s sa account, and click Add Current User, as shown in Figure 41.

Clicking the Add Current User adds the domain’s administrator account as a SQL Server administrator.

Click Add, as shown in Figure 42.

We created two service accounts earlier—one for Citrix and one for VMware. Add the two service accounts and other required accounts or groups and click OK, as shown in Figure 43.

Click the Data Directories tab, change the Data root directory to the drive letter assigned to the second hard disk on the SQL server, and click Next, as shown in Figure 44.

Verify all the information is correct and click Install, as shown in Figure 45. If any information is not correct, click Back, correct the information, and then continue.

As shown in Figure 46, the SQL Server installation begins.

Once the installation completes, click Close, as shown in Figure 47.

Close all windows.

Full SQL Server 2019

Mount the SQL Server 2019 ISO to the VM.

Change to the D drive (or the CD/DVD drive where the ISO is mounted), right-click setup.exe, and click Run as administrator, as shown in Figure 48.

In the left pane, click Installation and in the right pane, click New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation, as shown in Figure 49.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 50.

Select I accept the license terms and and click Next, as shown in Figure 51.

Follow the process as shown in Figures 32 through 47.

Now to install the server certificate from the CA.

Save the following to a file name c:\CertFiles\computer-request.inf.

I want to thank Michael B. Smith for creating this INF file for me.

Use the data needed for your environment.

LabSQL                    = the name of your SQL Server
LabADDomain.com           = your domain name
"LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" = the name of your CA server and the name of your CA.

;----------------- computer-request.inf -----------------
; LabSQL.LabADDomain.com
;
; certreq -new computer-request.inf computer-request.req
; certreq -submit -config "LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" computer-request.req computer-request.cer
; certreq -accept -config "LabCA\LabDomain CA Root" computer-request.cer
;

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"

[NewRequest]
Subject = "CN=LabSQL.LabADDomain.com" ; replace with the FQDN of the SQL Server
FriendlyName = "Computer (Machine) for LabSQL.LabADDomain.com"
KeyLength = 2048
; Can be 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, or 16384.
; Larger key sizes are more secure but have a greater impact on performance.
KeySpec = 1                     ; AT_KEYEXCHANGE
Exportable = TRUE               ; private-key is exportable
MachineKeySet = TRUE            ; goes in machine store instead of user's personal store
SMIME = False                   ; cannot be used for signing S/MIME messages
PrivateKeyArchive = FALSE
HashAlgorithm = sha256          ; "certutil -oid 1 | findstr pwszName" -- gives a list (including sha1)
UserProtected = FALSE
UseExistingKeySet = FALSE       ; we are not renewing a key that already exists
ProviderName = "Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider"
ProviderType = 12               ; for ProviderName and ProviderType, see "certutil -csplist"
RequestType = PKCS10            ; if empty or set to "CERT" then a self-signed cert is created
KeyUsage = 0xa0                 ; 0xa0 - CERT_DIGITAL_SIGNATURE_KEY_USAGE + CERT_KEY_ENCIPHERMENT_KEY_USAGE

[EnhancedKeyUsageExtension]
OID=1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1 ; this is for Server Authentication - PKIX_KP_SERVER_AUTH

[Extensions]
; Note: 2.5.29.17 is the OID for a SAN extension.

2.5.29.17 = "{text}"
_continue_ = "dns=LabSQL.LabADDomain.com"

[RequestAttributes]
CertificateTemplate = "Server Template"

;-----------------------------------------------

Open an elevated command prompt.

Type in cd c:\CertFiles and press Enter.

The three commands we need to run are at the top of the computer-request.inf file.

Type in notepad computer-request.inf and press Enter.

Copy the line certreq -new computer-request.inf computer-request.req, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Copy the line certreq -submit -config “LabCA\LabDomain CA Root” computer-request.req computer-request.cer, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Note: If you get a warning similar to the following, you can ignore the warning. The warning tells you that the certificate request validity period is past the lifetime of the CA’s root certificate lifespan.

Certificate retrieved(Issued)Issued The certificate validity period will be shorter than the Server Template Certificate Template specifies because the template validity period is longer than the maximum certificate validity period allowed by the CA.  Consider renewing the CA certificate, reducing the template validity period, or increasing the registry validity period.

Copy the line certreq -accept -config “LabCA\LabDomain CA Root” computer-request.cer, paste it in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.

Figure 52 shows the results of running the certificate request commands.

We need to configure a firewall rule to allow TCP port 1433 Inbound. If we don’t, when we create the management computer and install the SQL Server Management Studio, we can’t connect from the management computer to the SQL Server.

Please see Configure the Windows Firewall to Allow SQL Server Access.

Copy the following into the elevated command prompt and press Enter, as shown in Figure 53.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name = "SQL Server TCP Port 1433 Inbound" dir = in protocol = tcp action = allow localport = 1433 remoteip = localsubnet profile = Any

In the elevated command prompt, type in wf.msc, and press Enter to start Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security, as shown in Figure 54.

In the left pane, click Inbound Rules, and you see the new SQL Server firewall rule in the middle pane, as shown in Figure 55.

License Server

I use the second domain controller (DC), LabDC2, as my lab’s Citrix and Remote Desktop license server. Both components are lightweight and place no processing or security burden on the DC.

Remote Desktop Licensing

If you do not have a Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS) for Remote Desktop licenses, never fear as there is a 120-day grace period for clients that connect to a Remote Desktop Session Host server (RDSH).

License your RDS deployment with client access licenses (CALs)

There is a licensing grace period of 120 days, during which no license server is required. Once the grace period ends, clients must have a valid RDS CAL issued by a license server before they can log on to an RD Session Host server.

Until Citrix develops a community license program as Microsoft and VMware have, you have a 30-day grace period (provided you can find a CVAD product ISO to download).

To install Remote Desktop Licensing on LabDC2, start an elevated PowerShell session and enter the following command, as shown in Figure 56.

Install-WindowsFeature RDS-Licensing –IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools

Leave the PowerShell session open.

Click the Start Menu, expand Windows Administrative Tools, and click Remote Desktop Licensing Manager, as shown in Figure 57.

Expand All servers, right-click LabDC2, and click Activate Server, as shown in Figure 58.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 59.

Verify that the Connection method is Automatic connection and click Next, as shown in Figure 60.

Enter the required information and click Next, as shown in Figure 61.

If you wish, enter the optional information and click Next, as shown in Figure 62.

Leave Start Install License Wizard now selected and click Next, as shown in Figure 63.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 64.

For MAPS RDS CALs, verify the License program is License Pack (Retail Purchase) and click Next, as shown in Figure 65.

Enter your MAPS RDS CALs, click Add, and click Next, as shown in Figure 66.

After the license is installed, click Finish, as shown in Figure 67.

If your license did not install, either retry the installation or call the Microsoft Clearinghouse. The most frequent error I see is when someone moves RDS CALs to another server without deactivating the original server first.

Still in the RD Licensing Manager console, right-click LabDC2 and click Review Configuration, as shown in Figure 68.

Click Add to Group, as shown in Figure 69.

Click Continue, as shown in Figure 70.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 71.

We get a notice that the Remote Desktop Licensing service requires a restart, as shown in Figure 72.

In the elevated PowerShell session, type in the following commands, as shown in Figure 73.

Stop-Service TermServLicensing
Start-Service TermServLicensing

Exit the PowerShell session.

Click OK, as shown in Figure 74.

If you compare Figure 68 to Figure 75, you see a green checkmark next to the server name.

If you follow the steps for Figures 68 and 69, you see both items have green checkmarks now, as shown in Figure 76.

Exit the RD Licensing Manager console.

Citrix Licensing

Citrix Licensing documentation

Note: NEVER browse the internet or download files from a domain controller. That is a bad habit that can have dire consequences.

There are multiple ways to get Citrix Licensing.

1) From the internet browser on LabFS, browse to https://www.citrix.com/downloads/licensing/ and download the latest License Server for Windows to E:\CitrixLicense, as shown in Figures 77 and 78.

2) Mount the latest CVAD ISO to the LabDC2 VM, browse to x:\x64\Licensing (where x is the drive letter for the CD/DVD drive), as shown in Figure 79.

Right-click CitrixLicensing.exe and click Run as administrator, as shown in Figure 80.

Select I have read, understand, and accept the terms of the license agreement and click Next, as shown in Figure 81.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 82.

Leave all options at their default settings and click Next, as shown in Figure 83.

At this time, Citrix does not have a community license program available, so I am using the license provided to me courtesy of the CTP program. I must manually renew the license file every year.

Select Manually check for Customer Success Services renewal licenses and click Install, as shown in Figure 84.

When the installation completes, click Finish, as shown in Figure 85.

Citrix license files are associated with the CaSe senSiTivE name of the server. Start a command prompt and type in hostname to verify the correct hostname, as shown in Figure 86.

When allocating Citrix licenses, you get to enjoy the painful license return and reallocate process if you get the hostname wrong. Get it right the first time.

Keep the command prompt open.

My preferred way of getting Citrix license files onto a Citrix license server is to copy the .lic files to C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles and restart the Citrix Licensing service.

Once you copy your license files to C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles, enter the following commands from the command prompt, as shown in Figure 87.

net stop "Citrix Licensing" && net start "Citrix Licensing"

You can verify that the Citrix license file is valid by looking in the Application event log for Event ID 20736 from source Citrix_Licensing, as shown in Figure 88.

Following the steps used in Citrix XenServer Host and Pool ConfigurationI applied the new license file to my two XenServer pools, as shown in Figure 89.

Up next: Create a Management Computer

Landing page for the article series

1. Update DNS server entries for each XenServer host
2. Join the XenServer Pool to the lab’s Active Directory (AD) domain
3. Create a Read-only account for use with monitoring software, like ControlUp and Goliath Technologies

The only way to create additional non-root accounts for use in XenCenter is by joining the resource pool to AD. Once the Pool is in AD, the Users tab allows us to select accounts for Role-Based Access Control.

Start and, if required, connect or log in to XenCenter.

DNS

Note: I rewrote this section on 25-Jul-2021 to work around a XenServer bug where the DNS server (nameserver) entries in /etc/resolv.conf created using the original method (and several others I tried) never survived a host reboot. This new method has survived several restarts of every host and a shutdown of the entire pool.

Before the Pool can join AD, you must reconfigure the XenServer hosts to use the AD DNS servers. There is no central way to change the DNS server information on every XenServer host at one time. You must change each host independently.

In the left pane, expand the resource pool, and in the right pane, click the Networking tab, as shown in Figure 1.

Click Configure…, as shown in Figure 2.

Verify the Network is the Management bond of Bond 0 + 1, enter the desired DNS servers for Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server 1, and click OK, as shown in Figure 3.

Right-click the host and click Reboot, as shown in Figure 4.

Click Yes, Reboot, as shown in Figure 5.

After the host reboots, click the Console tab and enter the password for the root account, as shown in Figure 6.

Type in cat /etc/resolv.conf and press Enter, as shown in Figure 7.

The two DNS servers should be there, as shown in Figure 8.

Repeat the process shown in Figures 1 through 8 for the remaining XenServer hosts.

Active Directory

In the left pane, click the resource pool and in the right pane, click the Users tab, and click Join Domain…, as shown in Figure 9.

Enter the name for the Domain and the domain’s administrator account and password, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 11 shows XenCenter enabling AD authentication.

After a few seconds, XenCenter shows the Pool is a member of the AD domain, as shown in Figure 12.

On the first domain controller, open Active Directory Users and Computers.

As shown in Figure 13, the XenServer hosts are in the Computers container.

We could use PowerShell to move the four computer accounts from CN=Computers,DC=LabADDOmain,DC=COM to OU=Citrix,OU=Infrastructure,OU=Lab,DC=LabADDomain,DC=COM, but that would require four lines of PowerShell. In my opinion, the quickest way is to expand the Lab OU, and expand the Infrastructure OU. Now select all four XenServer hosts and Drag and Drop them into the Citrix OU, as shown in Figure 14.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 15.

The XenServer hosts are now in the Citrix OU, as shown in Figure 16.

Create a Read-only Account

In my lab, I use monitoring software from vendors like ControlUp and Goliath Technologies. To provide for Least Privilege Access, use a Read-only account.

First, we need to create an AD service account to assign the XenCenter Read-only Role.

On the first DC, open an elevated PowerShell session.

Copy and paste the following into the elevated PowerShell session and press Enter, as shown in Figure 17.

Remember to set the values you need.

Note: Lines may wrap

#Create the service account svc_CitrixReadOnly for Read-only XenCenter permissions

$ADDomain = "LabADDomain"
$TLD = "com"
$Protect = $False

$UserPwd = Read-Host -AsSecureString -Prompt "Enter password"

New-ADUser -AccountPassword $UserPwd `
-CannotChangePassword $True `
-ChangePasswordAtLogon $False `
-Description "DO NOT CHANGE THE PASSWORD OR DELETE/DISABLE ACCOUNT" `
-DisplayName "svc_CitrixReadOnly" `
-Enabled $True `
-GivenName "svc_CitrixReadOnly" `
-Name "svc_CitrixReadOnly" `
-PasswordNeverExpires $True `
-PasswordNotRequired $False `
-Path "OU=Service,OU=Accounts,OU=Lab,DC=$ADDomain,DC=$TLD" `
-SamAccountName "svc_CitrixReadOnly" `
-UserPrincipalName "svc_CitrixReadOnly@LabADDomain.com"

Back in XenCenter, click Add…, as shown in Figure 18.

Enter the name of the new Citrix Read-only account and click Grant Access, as shown in Figure 19.

Click Close, as shown in Figure 20.

Select the Citrix Read-only account and click Change Role…, as shown in Figure 21.

Select Read Only and click Save, as shown in Figure 22.

The account is ready for use, as shown in Figure 23.

Next up: Create Additional Servers

Landing page for the article series

With the Server 2019 template created, the next step is to create VMs from the template. We use the VMs built in this article for the first three Microsoft infrastructure servers: two domain controllers and a certificate authority. This article covers creating the VMs from a template in both VMware vCenter and Citrix XenCenter. My lab’s infrastructure VMs reside in my XenServer pool, as explained in the Introduction article.

From the introduction article, these are the VMs we are building.

VMware

In vCenter, right-click the Server 2019 Template and click on New VM from This Template…, as shown in Figure 1.

Enter a Virtual machine name and click Next, as shown in Figure 2.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 3.

Select the NFS shared datastore created earlier in this series and click Next, as shown in Figure 4.

Select Power on virtual machine after creation and click Next, as shown in Figure 5.

Verify that the configuration data for the new VM is correct and click Finish, as shown in Figure 6. If any item is incorrect, click Back, correct the item(s), and continue.

It took about 3.5 minutes to create the VM from the template in my lab.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 7.

Since we enabled Remote Desktop in the Template, the new VM has it enabled.

In vCenter, select the new template VM, and in the right pane, look at the IP address, as shown in Figure 8.

As shown in Figure 9, click Start, Run, and type in mstsc /v:ipaddress /admin, and press Enter [where IP Address is the IP address shown in Figure 8].

Using Remote Desktop at this point makes it easier for me to get screenshots.

Enter the credentials for the local Administrator account and press Enter, as shown in Figure 10.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 11.

Click Local Server in the left pane of Server Manager, as shown in Figure 12.

I made the settings in bold to this VM.

• Computer name: LabDC1
  • Note: Some software and licensing products use the CasE sEnsiTivE name. The Citrix License Server is one of those.
• Ethernet0: As shown in Figures 13 and 14.
  • Click the link IPv4 address assigned by DHCP
  • Right-click the vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
  • Click Properties
  • Click the Configure button
  • In the Power Management tab, deselect all three items, and click OK to save the changes
  • Right-click the vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
  • Click Properties
  • Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
  • Click Properties
  • Select Use the following IP address
    • Because this is a server, assign it a static IP address
    • Enter the appropriate Subnet mask
    • Enter the appropriate Default gateway
  • Select Use the following DNS server addresses
    • Enter at least the Preferred DNS server (for most labs, this is usually the same as the Default gateway)
  • Note: Once your click OK, the Remote Desktop connection is lost. Use mstsc again to connect using the assigned static IP address.
• Product ID: I used a license key from my Microsoft Action Pack Subscription, as shown in Figure 15.

Feel free to make any other configuration changes you wish to this VM.

Repeat this process to create any additional VM required.

XenServer

In XenCenter, right-click the Server 2019 Template and click on New VM wizard…, as shown in Figure 16.

Select the Server 2019 Template template and click Next, as shown in Figure 17.

Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 18.

Since the operating system is installed in the template VM, Click Next, as shown in Figure 19.

Select Don’t assign this VM a home server and click Next, as shown in Figure 20.

You may change the Number of vCPUs, Topology, and Memory if you wish. I left everything the same as the template VM. Click Next, as shown in Figure 21.

As my hosts do not have a GPU card, I clicked Next, as shown in Figure 22.

Click Edit, as shown in Figure 23.

I recommend changing both the Name and Description. Doing so makes it easier later if you ever delete a VM and its attached hard disks. If all the hard disks have the same name and description, it is challenging to determine which disks go with which VM.

Enter a Name and Description and click OK, as shown in Figure 24.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 25.

If multiple Virtual network interfaces are available, select the appropriate interface and click Next, as shown in Figure 26.

Verify that all the configuration options are correct and click Create Now, as shown in Figure 27. If an option is not correct, click Previous, correct the option and then continue.

I deselected the option Start the new VM automatically since it doesn’t work.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 28. It took about 2 seconds in my lab to create the VM from the template.

In XenCenter, right-click the new VM, click Start on Server, select a host to start the VM, as shown in Figure 29.

Expand the XenServer host on which you started the VM, click the VM, and click the Networking tab, as shown in Figure 30. You see the IP address assigned to the VM.

As shown in Figure 31, click Start, Run, and type in mstsc /v:ipaddress /admin, and press Enter [where IP Address is the IP address shown in Figure 30].

Using Remote Desktop at this point makes it easier for me to get screenshots.

Enter the credentials for the local Administrator account and press Enter, as shown in Figure 32.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 33.

Click Local Server in the left pane of Server Manager, as shown in Figure 34.

I made the settings in bold to this VM.

• Computer name: LabDC1
  • Note: Some software and licensing products use the CasE sEnsiTivE name. The Citrix License Server is one of those.
• Ethernet0: As shown in Figure 35.
  • Click the link IPv4 address assigned by DHCP
  • Right-click the vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
  • Click Properties
  • Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
  • Click Properties
  • Select Use the following IP address
    • Because this is a server, assign it a static IP address
    • Enter the appropriate Subnet mask
    • Enter the appropriate Default gateway
  • Select Use the following DNS server addresses
    • Enter at least the Preferred DNS server (for most labs, this is usually the same as the Default gateway)
  • Note: Once your click OK, the Remote Desktop connection is lost. Use mstsc again to connect using the assigned static IP address.
• Product ID: I used a license key from my Microsoft Action Pack Subscription, as shown in Figure 36.

Feel free to make any other configuration changes you wish to this VM.

Repeat this process to create any additional VM(s) required.

Up next: Create Active Directory

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With both VMware vSphere and vCenter and Citrix XenServer and XenCenter installed and basic configuration completed, the next step is to create a Windows Server 2019 master image. After we build the Server 2019 master, we can start building the Microsoft infrastructure servers. For this article, I used Windows Server 2019 Standard Edition.

This article covers creating a template in both VMware vCenter and Citrix XenCenter.

VMware

In vCenter, right-click the cluster and click on New Virtual Machine…, as shown in Figure 1.

Select Create a new virtual machine and click Next, as shown in Figure 2.

Enter a Virtual machine name and click Next, as shown in Figure 3.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 4.

Select the NFS shared datastore created earlier in this series and click Next, as shown in Figure 5.

Keep the default Compatible with the value of ESXi 7.0 U2 and later and click Next, as shown in Figure 6.

Verify that the Guest OS Family is Windows and that the Guest OS Version is Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (64-bit) and click Next, as shown in Figure 7.

For CPU and Memory, use what works for your environment. For me, as shown in Figure 8, I used the following values:

• CPU: 4
• Memory: 8 GB
• New Hard disk: 90GB with Disk Provisioning type Thin Provision
• New SCSI controller: LSI Logic SAS
• New Network: VM Traffic vDS 10Gb (or whatever VM traffic vDS you created) and Adapter Type must be vmxnet3
• New CD/DVD Drive: Select the Windows Server 2019 ISO file from the ISO Datastore. Make sure to also select Connect At Power On

Use default values for the remaining options and click Next, as shown in Figure 8.

Verify that the configuration data for the new VM is correct and click Finish, as shown in Figure 9. If any item is incorrect, click Back, correct the item(s), and continue.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 10.

In vCenter, select the new template VM, and in the right pane, click LAUNCH REMOTE CONSOLE, as shown in Figure 11.

Note: From Abdullah Abdullah. You can use the Web Console instead of the Remote Console, but the VM must be powered on first to make the option available.

If you receive a popup stating You’ll need a new app to open this vrmc link, as shown in Figure 12, press Esc.

In vCenter, click the circled lower case I, as shown in Figure 13.

In the popup that appears, click Download Remote Console, as shown in Figure 14.

Follow the steps to install the VMware Remote Console, as shown in Figure 15.

Once you install the console, in vCenter, select the new template VM, and in the right pane, click LAUNCH REMOTE CONSOLE, as shown in Figure 11.

Depending on the speed of your ESXi hosts, you need to be quick in the following steps.

1. Click the Green start button, as shown in Figure 16,
2. Click inside the console window,
3. Press a key, for example, the spacebar when prompted, as shown in Figure 17.

The installation of Windows Server 2019 begins.

Select the options appropriate for you and click Next, as shown in Figure 18.

Click Install now, as shown in Figure 19.

The Microsoft Action Pack Subscription has licenses for Windows Server 2019 Standard. I selected Windows Server 2019 Standard (Desktop Experience). Select either Standard or Datacenter, depending on the license you have.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 20.

Select I accept the license terms and click Next, as shown in Figure 21.

Select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced), as shown in Figure 22.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 23.

The Server 2019 installation begins, as shown in Figure 24.

After the VM restarts, enter a password for the local Administrator account and click Finish, as shown in Figure 25.

Press Ctrl-Alt-Insert, enter the password for the Administrator account, and press Enter, as shown in Figures 26 and 27.

Note: If you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, your local computer processes that key combination. Ctrl-Alt-Insert is what most virtualization and remote consoles accept as Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Close the popup shown in Figure 28 for Windows Admin Center. If you don’t want to see this popup again, select Don’t show this message again.

We need to install the VMware tools. Please see Overview of VMware Tools for a complete description.

Overview of VMware Tools

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system and improves the management of the virtual machine. Without VMware Tools installed in your guest operating system, guest performance lacks important functionality. Installing VMware Tools eliminates or improves these issues:

• Low video resolution
• Inadequate color depth
• Incorrect display of network speed
• Restricted movement of the mouse
• Inability to copy and paste and drag-and-drop files
• Missing sound
• Provides the ability to take quiesced snapshots of the guest OS
• Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host

In vCenter, click Install VMware Tools, as shown in Figure 29.

Click Mount, as shown in Figure 30.

In the VM, you see a popup in the lower right corner, as shown in Figure 31.

Click that popup and then click Run setup64.exe in the popup in the upper right corner, as shown in Figure 32.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 33.

Select Typical and click Next, as shown in Figure 34.

Click Install, as shown in Figure 35.

You may receive a Networks popup message. Decide whether you want this VM discoverable on your network and click either Yes or No, as shown in Figure 36.

Click Finish, as shown in Figure 37.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 38.

After the VM restarts, log back in and click Local Server in the left pane of Server Manager, as shown in Figure 39.

We use a template to create additional VMs. These additional VMs, when first powered on, go through what Microsoft calls the Out of Box Experience or OOBE.

When customers turn on their Windows PCs for the first time, they see the Windows Out of Box Experience (OOBE). OOBE consists of a series of screens that require customers to accept the license agreement, connect to the internet, log in with or sign up for a Microsoft Account, and share information with the OEM.

The following items are available to customize. Some make no sense to customize as the OOBE resets them to default values.

Note: I made the settings in bold to my template VM.

• Computer name: Don’t change
• Workgroup: Changeable
• Windows Defender Firewall: Changeable
• Remote management: Changeable
• Remote Desktop: Changeable
  • Allow remote connections to this computer
• NIC Teaming: No need to change as there is only one network card at this time
• Ethernet0: Don’t change
• Last installed updates: Keeps date from Template VM
• Windows Update: Changeable
• Last checked for updates: Keeps date from Template VM
• Windows Defender Antivirus: Changeable
• Feedback & Diagnostics: Changeable
  • Diagnostic data: Full
  • Improve inking and typing: Off
  • Feedback frequency: Never
• IE Enhanced Security Configuration: Changeable
  • Admin: Off
  • User: Off
• Time zone: Changeable
  • Change time zone: Central Time
  • Deselect Notify me when the clock changes
• Product ID: Don’t change

If you wish, you can install all Windows Updates, as I always do.

After you install all Windows Updates, reboot the server to clear any pending restart required flags.

After the VM restarts, log back in.

Right-click the Start button, click Run, as shown in Figure 40.

Type in c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 41.

Select Generalize, select Shutdown from the Shutdown Options dropdown list, and click OK, as shown in Figure 42.

When the server is at the login screen, shut down the server.

In vCenter, in the left pane, right-click the VM, click Power, and click Shut Down Guest OS, as shown in Figure 43.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 44.

After the VM completes the shutdown process, right-click the VM, click Edit Settings…, as shown in Figure 45.

Change CD/DVD drive 1 to Client Device and click OK, as shown in Figure 46.

Right-click the VM, click Template, and click Convert to Template, as shown in Figure 47.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 48.

The VM is now a template.

XenServer

In XenCenter, right-click the pool and click on New VM…, as shown in Figure 49.

Select the Windows Server 2019 (64-bit) template and click Next, as shown in Figure 50.

Enter a Virtual machine name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 51.

Select the Windows Server 2019 ISO, select your preferred Boot Mode, and click Next, as shown in Figure 52.

Select Don’t assign this VM a home server and click Next, as shown in Figure 53.

I selected 4 for the Number of vCPUs and 8 for Memory. I left the Topology at the value selected by XenCenter. Feel free to change the selection. Click Next, as shown in Figure 54.

As my hosts do not have a GPU card, I clicked Next, as shown in Figure 55.

Click Edit, as shown in Figure 56.

I prefer the hard disk Size of 90 GB used by VMware. I also recommend changing both the Name and Description. Doing so makes it easier later if you ever delete a VM and its attached hard disks. If all the hard disks have the same name and description, it is challenging to determine which disks go with which VM.

Enter a Name, Description, a hard disk Size, and select the shared storage repository created earlier. Click OK, as shown in Figure 57.

If multiple Virtual network interfaces are available, select the appropriate interface and click Next, as shown in Figure 58.

Verify all the configuration options are correct and click Create Now, as shown in Figure 59. If an option is not correct, click Previous, correct the option and then continue.

I deselected the option Start the new VM automatically since it doesn’t work.

Wait for the creation of the VM to complete, as shown in Figure 60.

In XenCenter, right-click the new template VM, click Start on Server, select a host to start the VM, as shown in Figure 61.

Note: I started on a specific server to make getting screenshots easier.

Click on the Console tab in the right pane, as shown in Figure 62.

Depending on the speed of your XenServer hosts, you need to be quick in the following steps.

1. Click the Green start button, as shown in Figure 63,
2. Click inside the console window,
3. Press a key, for example, the spacebar when prompted, as shown in Figure 64.

The installation of Windows Server 2019 begins.

The installation and initial configuration processes are the same, as shown in Figures 18 through 28.

After the initial login to the server, we need to install the Citrix VM Tools.

Citrix VM Tools for Windows provides high-performance I/O services without the overhead of traditional device emulation. Citrix VM Tools for Windows consists of I/O drivers (also known as paravirtualized drivers or PV drivers) and the Management Agent. Citrix VM Tools for Windows must be installed on each Windows VM for the VM to have a fully supported configuration. A VM functions without them, but performance is significantly hampered.

From the new Server 2019 VM, browse to the Citrix VM Tools downloaded earlier and double-click managementagentx64.msi.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 65.

Select I accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Next, as shown in Figure 66.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 67.

Decide whether to Send anonymous usage information to Citrix and click Next, as shown in Figure 68.

Click Install, as shown in Figure 69.

You may receive a Networks popup message. Decide whether you want this VM discoverable on your network and click either Yes or No, as shown in Figure 70.

Click Finish, as shown in Figure 71.

Click Yes, as shown in Figure 72.

After the VM restarts, log back in and click OK, as shown in Figure 73.

Click Local Server in the left pane of Server Manager, as shown in Figure 74.

Eject the Windows Server 2019 ISO file, as shown in Figure 75.

We use a template to create additional VMs. These additional VMs, when first powered on, go through what Microsoft calls the Out of Box Experience or OOBE.

When customers turn on their Windows PCs for the first time, they see the Windows Out of Box Experience (OOBE). OOBE consists of a series of screens that require customers to accept the license agreement, connect to the internet, log in with or sign up for a Microsoft Account, and share information with the OEM.

The following items are available to customize. Some make no sense to customize as the OOBE resets them to default values.

Note: I made the settings in bold to my template VM.

• Computer name: Don’t change
• Workgroup: Changeable
• Windows Defender Firewall: Changeable
• Remote management: Changeable
• Remote Desktop: Changeable
  • Allow remote connections to this computer
• NIC Teaming: No need to change as there is only one network card at this time
• Ethernet0: Don’t change
• Last installed updates: Keeps date from Template VM
• Windows Update: Changeable
• Last checked for updates: Keeps date from Template VM
• Windows Defender Antivirus: Changeable
• Feedback & Diagnostics: Changeable
  • Diagnostic data: Full
  • Improve inking and typing: Off
  • Feedback frequency: Never
• IE Enhanced Security Configuration: Changeable
  • Admin: Off
  • User: Off
• Time zone: Changeable
  • Change time zone: Central Time
  • Deselect Notify me when the clock changes
• Product ID: Don’t change

If you wish, you can install all Windows Updates, as I always do. I never install any Preview updates.

After you install all Windows Updates, reboot the server to clear any pending restart required flags.

After the VM restarts, log back in.

Right-click the Start button, click Run, as shown in Figure 76.

Type in c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 77.

Select Generalize, select Shutdown from the Shutdown Options dropdown list, and click OK, as shown in Figure 78.

After the VM completes the shutdown process, right-click the VM, and click Convert to Template, as shown in Figure 79.

Click Convert, as shown in Figure 80.

The VM is now a template.

You can follow the same general process to create a Windows 10 template. I created one based on Windows 10 20H2, as shown in Figures 81 and 82.

Notes:

• Don’t forget to enable Remote Desktop access, as shown in Figure 83.
  • Settings, System, Remote Desktop, Enable Remote Desktop
• Don’t make many changes to VM or the configuration options, as the OOBE resets most changes when creating a VM from the template.
• I don’t install any Preview updates offered by Windows Updates.

We use the Server 2019 Template to build two domain controllers and a Microsoft Certificate Authority server in the next Part.

Up next: Create VMs from the Server 2019 Template.

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Now that you have installed the XenServer host, the host’s configuration can begin.

As stated in the Introduction article, Citrix uses XenCenter to manage one or more XenServer hosts.

The first thing needed is to download XenCenter from Citrix or browse the XenServer host’s IP address and download either the XenCenter CD image (ISO) or the XenCenter installer (MSI).

Note: The XenCenter version should be the same or newer, not older, than the XenServer version. For example, don’t use XenCenter 7.1 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) to configure a XenServer 8.2 host, but you can use XenCenter 8.2 to configure a XenServer 7.1 LTSR host.

From Tobias:

“Note that on a single PC host, you can only install one version of XenCenter. Be wary of differences in versions which may show options for different versions that are not compatible or no longer exist.”

XenCenter is very easy to install. Double-click the CitrixHypervisor-8.2.0-XenCenter.msi file to start the XenCenter installation. The install is a quick and easy Next, Install, Finish routine, as shown in Figures 1 through 4.

Note: Citrix could have updated XenCenter since I wrote this chapter. Use the XenCenter installation file you downloaded.

I decided not to install the two additional language packs.

Launch XenCenter either searching for “XenCenter” or from the Start Menu, as shown in Figure 5.

Click Add a Server, as shown in Figure 6.

Enter the XenServer host’s IP address, log in using the root credentials created during the initial XenServer installation, and click Add, as shown in Figure 7.

Click Accept on the Security Certificate warning as shown in Figure 8.

Decide whether to Save and restore server connection state on startup and click OK as shown in Figure 9.

If you save the connection state and a master password is wanted, select Require a master password and enter the password when prompted.

Decide whether to enroll in Health Checks or not. If no, Click Close, as shown in Figure 10, and continue to Figure 13.

If yes, click Enroll now, as shown in Figure 11.

Enter the required information and click OK, as illustrated in Figure 12.

After entering valid MyCitrix credentials, click Close, as shown in Figure 13.

The host is added to XenCenter, as shown in Figure 14.

The host is Unlicensed. Why? Licensing XenServer requires a Citrix license server and license file. As a CTP, I have the license file, but so far, in this lab building process, there is no VM to install the Citrix License Server component on. Later in the lab building process, the XenServer hosts are licensed.

Repeat the steps in Figures 6 through 14 for the additional hosts, as shown in Figure 15.

Managing individual hosts isn’t very productive. The answer is to create a Resource Pool. First, there are rules to play by. Let’s let Citrix explain in XenServer resource pools.

A resource pool is a homogeneous (or heterogeneous with restrictions) aggregate of one or more XenServer hosts, up to a maximum of 64. The definition of homogeneous is:

• CPUs on the server joining the pool are the same (in terms of the vendor, model, and features) as the CPUs on servers already in the pool.
• The server joining the pool runs the same version of XenServer software, at the same patch level, as servers already in the pool.

The software enforces extra constraints when joining a server to a pool. In particular, XenServer checks that the following conditions are valid for the server joining the pool:

• The server is not a member of an existing resource pool.
• The server has no shared storage configured.
• The server is not hosting any running or suspended VMs.
• No active operations are in progress on the VMs on the server, such as a VM shutting down.
• The clock on the server synchronizes to the same time as the pool master (for example, by using NTP).
• There is no bond on the management interface of the server. You can configure the management interface when the server successfully joins the pool.
• The management IP address is static, either configured on the server or using an appropriate configuration on your DHCP server.

My hosts meet all the criteria:

• Have the same CPU
• Running the same version of XenServer
• Not a member of an existing pool
• There is no shared storage configured
• There are no VMs, running or otherwise
• Hosts use the same NTP server
• The management interface is not in a bond
• The management IP address is static

From Tobias:

“Note that to join servers into a pool, all servers must also be at the same hotfix level. Also, as you point out, the server must not have the primary management interface bonded, or it can lead to major confusion. Another important point is that the number, type, and order of NICs on all servers must match exactly (such as 4 x 1, Gb, followed by 2x 10 Gb, followed by 2 x 1Gb) as eth0-eth9. The brand is not so important, but the capacity and number, and order most are. Even if unused, additional NICs on servers can lead to problems (at least from my experience).”

To create the resource pool, either right-click the top XenCenter node in XenCenter and select New Pool (Figure 16) or Click Pool, New Pool from the menu (Figure 17).

Enter a Name, optional Description, select the Master, select the Additional members and click Create Pool as shown in Figure 18.

After a few minutes, the pool successfully creates, as shown in Figure 19.

Now on to the fun stuff: Networking.

My TinkerTry server has two 1Gb NICs and two 10Gb NICs. The Management Interface uses the 1Gb NICs, and VMs use the 10Gb NICs.

In the XenCenter console, click on the pool, and then, in the right frame, click on the Networking tab, as shown in Figure 20.

First, select Network 2 (one of the 10G NICs) and click Properties, shown in Figure 21.

Click on Network Settings, enter an MTU of 9000 (to enable Jumbo Frame support), select Automatically add this network to new virtual machines and click OK as shown in Figure 22.

Note: If a XenServer host or pool has enough NICs, you can create a storage-specific NIC or Bond. In that case, you probably would not want to add that NIC or Bond automatically to new VMs. Also, if you have VLANs for specific traffic and VLANs to segregate VM traffic, you may not want to add any NIC or Bond to VMs automatically. In that case, you would manually add a NIC or Bond to a VM when you create a VM.

After a minute, Network 2 is back Connected and showing the new MTU, as shown in Figure 23.

Repeat for Network 3. After a bit, both Network 2 and Network 3 show as Connected with an MTU of 9000, as shown in Figure 24.

Click on Network 2 and click Add Network…, as shown in Figure 25.

Select Bonded Network and click Next, as shown in Figure 26.

Select the two NICs for the bond, select the Bond mode, since these are the 10Gb NICs, change MTU to 9000, verify that Automatically add this network to new virtual machines is selected, and click Finish, as shown in Figure 27.

From Tobias:

“I take it your network doesn’t support LACP bonds? If it does, that’s what I generally recommend.”

Webster:

“Yes, it does. How to configure LACP on my switch is beyond me right now.”

From Tobias:

“For servers/pools with VMs that use different interfaces/subnets/VLANs, etc. I generally do not make any of the interfaces such that they automatically get added, as this creates unnecessary extra VIFs that serve no purpose.”

After a minute, you see the new bond, Bond 2+3, in a Connected state, as shown in Figure 28.

Click on Network 0 and click Add Network…, as shown in Figure 29.

Select Bonded Network and click Next, as shown in Figure 30.

Select the two NICs for the bond, select the Bond mode, verify that Automatically add this network to new virtual machines is NOT selected, and click Next as shown in Figure 31.

Click Create bond anyway on the warning popup, as shown in Figure 32.

After a minute, you see the new bond, Bond 0+1, in a Connected state, and the Management Interface uses the new bond, as shown in Figure 33.

Now on to storage.

Note: In the Introduction article, I stated that my permanent VMs reside in XenServer. I never move the permanent VMs between hosts. Those VMs reside in a local SR. For me, this allows for faster boot times than VMs that reside in shared storage as there is no network traffic to load the VM. The Microsoft infrastructure VMs all reside in the local SR on each XenServer host.

From Tobias:

“Note, of course, that putting a VM on a local SR prevents it from being agile (able to be moved readily to a different host within the pool).”

To create an SR for shared VM storage, right-click the pool and click New SR…, as shown in Figure 34.

Select NFS and click Next, as shown in Figure 35.

From Tobias:

“For NFS connections, make sure the NFS host is set to allow connections from all the XenServer/Citrix Hypervisor hosts and that file permissions are set accordingly. I’d also suggest looking into increasing the buffer sizes (rsize, wsize). There are many articles on optimizing NFS connectivity, beyond this scope.”

Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 36.

Enter the NFS path information for the Share Name, select NFSv4, and click Finish, as shown in Figure 37.

From Tobias:

“NFS3 vs. NFS4 is still a big subject of debate! I have seen in some cases NFS3 perform slightly better than NFS4. I would follow the storage device manufacturer’s recommendations.”

To create an SR for Microsoft-related ISOs, right-click the pool and click New SR…, shown in Figure 34.

Select NFS ISO and click Next, as shown in Figure 38.

Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 39.

Enter the NFS path information for the Share Name, select NFSv4, and click Finish, as shown in Figure 40.

The new SRs are now shown in XenCenter, as seen in Figure 40.

To add the 1TB SSD as a local SR, I followed the process I documented several years ago in Adding an SSD Storage Device to Citrix XenServer.

After following that process, the 1TB SSD local SRs show in XenCenter, as shown in Figure 42.

There is still one thing left to do, see if there are any updates for the hosts.

From Tobias:

“Again, make sure the updates are all the same on all servers before creating the pool; it may be less work to do so beforehand as I keep running into issues where CPU masks don’t match in the process of applying hotfixes and then to migrate VMs, you have to use the CLI and force them. I’ve complained to Citrix about this several times (that XenCenter doesn’t contain a “force” option), but I hear only crickets.”

In the XenCenter console, click Notifications in the bottom left pane and click Updates in the upper left pane, as shown in Figure 43. If any updates are available, click the Actions dropdown and select Download and install, shown in Figure 43.

I am fortunate that as a CTP, Citrix provides CTPs with product licenses. Instead of installing updates to each host, I license my pool and use XenCenter’s ability to automatically download and install all updates to every pool member.

To license a XenServer pool, click Tools, License Manager…, as shown in Figure 44.

Click Assign License…, as shown in Figure 45.

Enter the IP address or FQDN of the Citrix License Server, select the appropriate License type, and click OK, as shown in Figure 46.

If the Citrix license file contains license information for the license type selected, click Close, as shown in Figure 47.

If an error is displayed, correct the license type selection.

The Pool now shows as licensed, as shown in Figure 48.

Now that my pool is licensed, I can add my fourth XenServer host to the pool using the process shown in Figures 6 through 14. Figure 49 shows all four servers in the pool.

To install all XenServer updates to the pool, click Tools, Install Update…, as shown in Figure 50.

Click Next, as shown in Figure 51.

Select Automated Updates, and click Next, as shown in Figure 52.

Select the pool and click Next, as shown in Figure 53.

If all pre-checks are successful, click Next, as shown in Figure 54. If the pre-checks report any issues, correct the issues and then continue.

As shown in Figure 55, the updates are downloaded and installed.

After the installation of the updates, click Finish, as shown in Figure 56.

There is an update for XenCenter 8.2. Installing updates for XenCenter is the same as installing XenCenter.

Up next: Create a Server 2019 Template Image

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Installing Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer) 8.2 is easy as there are not many options. It is almost a “Next, Next, Install, Finish, Reboot” process. The first thing is to download the latest XenServer 8.2 ISO and the Citrix VM Tools for Windows. I saved the Citrix VM Tools for Windows to a shared location for use later. After I downloaded the XenServer ISO, I used Rufus to create a bootable 32GB thumb drive from my laptop, as shown in Figure 1.

Note 1: I am using a USB drive for this install, but you can also use TFTP and NFS, FTP, or HTTP along with installing from a CD/DVD drive.

Note 2: I cover XenCenter in the following article, but if you want to go ahead and download XenCenter now, you can.

Note 3: TinkerTry provides a 32GB thumb drive with each of their servers.

I used the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) built into the TinkerTry server to install. Before IPMI is usable, configure IPMI in the server’s BIOS. For this install, I am using the new HTML5 client.

To configure IPMI in the BIOS of a TinkerTry Server, power on the server and press Delete on the appropriate screen, as shown in Figure 2.

Using the arrow keys, navigate to IPMI, press the Down Arrow to select IPMI Extended Instruction, as shown in Figure 3, and press Enter.

Note: Initially, this setting is Disabled, but I can’t take a screenshot while it is disabled.

Select Enabled and press Enter, as shown in Figure 4.

Press Up Arrow to select BMC Network Configuration and press Enter, as shown in Figure 5.

Update IPMI LAN Configuration is selected. Press Enter, down arrow to select Yes, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 6.

If you want to continue using DHCP, press F4 to Save & Exit, shown in Figure 7.

Select Yes to the Save & Exit Setup dialog, as shown in Figure 8.

If, like me, you prefer to use a static IP address, press Enter, use the arrow keys to select Static, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 9.

Use the arrow keys to navigate to and configure the Station IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Gateway IP Address, then press F4 to Save & Exit as shown in Figure 10.

Select Yes to the Save & Exit Setup dialog, as shown in Figure 11.

Now that you have configured IPMI, IPMI is used to do the install.

As the server restarts, press F11 on the appropriate screen to start the Boot Menu, shown in Figure 12.

The Rufus utility that created the bootable thumb drive for XenServer 8.2 created a drive usable with either a legacy BIOS or UEFI.

Note: See this article for an explanation of UEFI. What Is UEFI, and How Is It Different from BIOS?

As part of the “trials-and-errors” mentioned in the Introduction article, the system required the boot configuration set to UEFI to get XenServer to boot from the NVMe disk, not Legacy or Dual.

Note: If your host does not support UEFI, XenServer still supports legacy BIOS.

Select UEFI: SanDisk, as shown in Figure 13. Installing XenServer using the EUFI option gives a better visual experience than installing using the legacy BIOS option.

Note: SanDisk is the brand of thumb drive TinkerTry provided with their server.

After selecting to boot from the UEFI: SanDisk thumb drive, the XenServer installer begins. After a few minutes, the first installation popup appears. An initial Install screen appears, but it goes by so fast that I could not get a screenshot.

Note: Using the UEFI installer, the screen resolution is so detailed and extensive, it made sense only to include the input area for the following Figures. Otherwise, you would need a magnifying glass to read the text.

Use the arrow keys to select the correct keymap and press Enter, as shown in Figure 14.

Press Enter on the Welcome to Citrix Hypervisor Setup screen, as shown in Figure 15.

Press Tab until you get to the Accept EULA button and press Enter as shown in Figure 16.

Select the drive to install XenServer 8.2 using the Up and Down arrow keys and press Enter, as illustrated in Figure 17. My hosts have two drives. I install XenServer on the 500GB NVMe drive, and the 1TB drive is for a local Storage Repository (SR).

Note: 500GB and 1TB are the advertised sizes. Usable capacity, as shown in Figure 17, is different.

Note: I had to change my server to boot using UEFI to get XenServer to boot from the NVMe disk.

Select which disk to use as an SR, press Tab, then press Spacebar if you wish to enable thin provisioning, and then press Enter as shown in Figure 18.

Note: If you plan to use IntelliCache, you must enable thin provisioning.

What is IntelliCache?

IntelliCache is a XenServer feature used in a XenDesktop (Virtual Desktops) deployment to cache temporary and non-persistent operating-system data on the local XenServer host. IntelliCache is available for Machine Creation Services (MCS)-based desktop workloads that use NFS storage.

Selecting thin provisioning creates an SR with an EXT3 file system versus LVM (Logical Volume Management).

Note: XenServer treats all disks selected in this screen as a single SR. I am not selecting my 1TB SSD as I want that as a separate SR.

This installation source is the SanDisk thumb drive, so press Enter as shown in Figure 19.

Decide whether to verify the installation media and press Enter, as shown in Figure 20.

Note: Citrix prefers you verify the installation source. 99 times out of 100, neither Tobias nor I verify the installation source.

Type in your Root Password, Confirm the password, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 21.

Note: If you plan to build, like me, multiple XenServer hosts to join into a Pool, all the hosts must have the same password for the root user account. Fellow CTP and XenServer expert Tobias Kreidl recommends that after the install is complete, going to the shell to verify the root password works.

Use the arrow keys to select which network interface to use for managing the XenServer host and press Enter, as illustrated in Figure 22.

Decide whether to use DHCP or a static IP address to configure networking for the management network interface and press Enter as shown in Figure 23.

Note: A VLAN for the primary network interface is supported.

Enter a Hostname and DNS Server information and press Enter, as shown in Figure 24.

For DNS, note that an IP address pointing to a virtual interface containing multiple IP addresses is possible.

Use the arrow keys to select your geographical area for your Time Zone and press Enter, as shown in Figure 25.

Use the arrow keys to select a city or area to refine further your Time Zone and press Enter, as shown in Figure 26.

Press Enter to use NTP for System Time, as illustrated in Figure 27.

I prefer to use servers from pool.ntp.org for NTP configuration. Enter the server or servers or device to use for the NTP Configuration, and press Enter three times, as shown in Figure 28.

Note: Tobias disagrees with me on using the top-level NTP pool servers.

“As to NTP configuration choices, we could discuss this ’til the cows come home, but I’m a strong proponent for local NTP servers as well as using NTP peers; see discussions.citrix.com/topic/326639-tips-for-setting-up-ntp-on-xenserver-hosts/

I have intended to re-write this as a single, updated blog article someday and never got around to it.” [Webster: The link to the discussion thread Tobias referenced is no longer valid, and I can’t find it.]

Press Tab to select Install XenServer and press Enter as illustrated in Figure 29.

The installation of XenServer 8.2 begins, as shown in Figure 30.

I have no Supplemental Packs to install, so press Enter as shown in Figure 31.

When the installation completes, physically remove the installation media (SanDisk thumb drive) from the server and press Enter to reboot the new XenServer 8.2 virtualization host, as shown in Figure 32.

Once the server reboots, you have done the easy part. You now have a XenServer 8.2 host ready for the initial configuration, as shown in Figure 33.

From Tobias:

“Note that sometimes the network won’t show up on the XS console screen. This is a weird thing that has been happening over various XS/CH releases. Sometimes if you wait long enough, it eventually shows up. In most cases, the network is there. It’s just not visible through this interface. Conversely, occasionally, the whole network has been lost, and I’ve had to re-configure it all using an emergency network reset and going through the whole process. This is particularly painful if you have things like multiple networks, VLAN, and/or iSCSI address that all need to be redefined.”

Note: I followed the same process for the other hosts.

Up next: Citrix XenServer Host and Pool Configuration.

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In the “Introduction” article, I made the following statements:

I decided to go with Network File System (NFS) instead of Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) for storage. Gregory Thompson was the first to tell me to use NFS instead of iSCSI. If you Google “VMware NFS iSCSI”, you find many articles that explain why NFS is better than iSCSI for VMware environments. For me, NFS is easier to configure on an ESXi host than iSCSI. I also found out that my Synology 1817+ storage unit supported NFS.

For home labs, there are two vendors whose names I see referenced frequently: QNAP and Synology.

Webster’s Lab has two Synology devices: a DS1817 and a DS1817+ (both are already deprecated devices). The DS1817 uses SSDs, and I use it for backups and ISO storage. The DS1817+ uses SSDs, and I use it for temporary VMs. I store permanent VMs on local SSD storage on the Citrix XenServer hosts.

Synology uses DiskStation Manager (DSM) to manage its storage devices. DSM is a web-based operating system designed to help manage all aspects of the storage device.

This article shows how I configured my Synology 1817+ to use NFS and install the VMware vSphere Storage APIs Array Integration (VAAI) plugin.

Note: Chapters 2 and 3 of the Synology NAS User’s Guide cover the installation and initial configuration of the Synology NAS with DSM.

First, log in to the NAS by opening an internet browser, browsing to the Synology device’s IP address, entering the username and password for the device, and then clicking Sign In. For me, that is https://192.168.1.253:5001, as shown in Figure 1.

Next, on the main page, click the Control Panel, as shown in Figure 2.

Click on File Services, as shown in Figure 3.

On the SMB/AFP/NFS tab, select Enable NFS, and Enable NFSv4.1 support, as shown in Figure 4.

Note: VMware has an article to show the differences in the capabilities of NFS 3 and NFS 4.1. Please see NFS Protocols and ESXi.

Click Apply to save the changes, as shown in Figure 5.

Click Shared Folder, as shown in Figure 6.

Click Create, as shown in Figure 7.

Do the following steps, as shown in Figure 8:

Enter a Name and Description.

If you have more than one Volume configured, select the appropriate Volume for the Location.

Select Hide this shared folder in “My Network Places” and Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions.

Deselect Enable Recycle Bin

Click Next

Verify that nothing is selected and click Next, as shown in Figure 9.

Verify that nothing is selected and click Next, as shown in Figure 10.

Verify that all the information is correct, as seen in Figure 11. If it is, click Apply. If the information is not correct, click Back, correct the information, and then continue.

Select Read/Write for the admin accounts and No Access for the guest account on the Permissions tab, as shown in Figure 12. Do not click OK yet.

Click the NFS Permissions tab and then click Create, as shown in Figure 13.

Enter the Hostname or IP address of the ESXi host and click OK, as shown in Figure 14. Because I have six ESXi hosts and later add them to VMware vCenter, I entered an * for the IP address to allow all IP addresses in Webster’s Lab access.

Note: Synology Diskstation Manager grants NFS permissions on a per-host basis instead of a per-user basis because virtualization hosts access the NFS shares, not users.

Note: Save the Mount path information shown in Figure 15. It would help if you had it when creating datastores on the ESXi host and setting up the vCenter Service Appliance (VCSA) backup. If you need the Mount path information later, click the Edit tab displayed in Figure 15, and go to the NFS Permissions tab as shown previously in Figure 13.

Repeats the steps for Figures 7 through 15 for additional NFS Shared Folders needed, as shown in Figure 16.

For example, for Webster’s Lab, I created NFS Shared folders for ISOs and VMware VMs, XenServer VMs, and the VCSA backup, as you can see in Figure 16. Each NFS share has a unique mount path. I have four NFS shares, so I have four NFS mount paths.

Now, you need to install the VAAI Plug-in for NFS. Go to https://global.download.synology.com/download/Tools/NFSVAAIPlugin/1.2-1008/VMware_ESXi/synology-nfs-vaai-plugin-1.2-1008.vib and download the VIB NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI for your Synology NAS model.

Note: If the download link has changed, go to https://www.synology.com and search for “nfs vaai plugin”. A user account on synology.com is not required to download the VIB file.

Note: VIB stands for vSphere Installation Bundle. At a conceptual level, a VIB is somewhat similar to a ZIP archive in that it is a collection of files packaged into a single archive to facilitate distribution.

Using your favorite secure upload utility, I used WinSCP, upload the VAAI plug-in to the /tmp directory on the ESXi host.

First, connect to the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 17.

If this is the first time connecting to the host, a key exchange is required. If you want to add the server’s host key to the secure upload utility’s cache, click Yes, as shown in Figure 15.

You can connect without added the server’s host key to the secure upload utility’s cache. Click No if you do not wish to save the server’s host key in the cache.

In WinSCP, there are three ways to upload the VIB file to the ESXi host.

1. Drag and Drop the VIB file from the left pane to the right pane, as shown in Figure 18.
2. Select the VIB file in the left pane, press F5, and click OK, as shown in Figure 16.
3. Select the VIB file in the left pane, right-click, select Upload, as shown in Figure 17, and click OK, as shown in Figure 16.

Using your preferred upload method, copy the VIB file to the /tmp directory on the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 21.

Exit your favorite secure upload utility.

Note: The following two steps (the final two steps) are part of the ESXi host configuration. I just wanted to sneak them in here to get all the Synology NFS information in one article.

Using your favorite SSH client, I used PuTTY, connect to the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 22.

Note: I only tested PuTTY. I did not try using the SSH client from Windows 10.

If this is the first time connecting to the host, a key exchange is required. If you want to add the host’s key to the SSH client’s cache, click Yes, as shown in Figure 23.

You can connect without adding the host’s key to the SSH client’s cache. Click No if you do not wish to save the host’s key in the cache.

Log in to the host using your configured credentials. If you just installed ESXi, log in as root and the password used during the ESXi install, as shown in Figure 24.

Run the following command, as shown in Figure 25.

esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/synology-nfs-vaai-plugin-1.2-1008.vib –no-sig-check

Reboot the ESXi host by typing reboot and pressing Enter, as shown in Figure 26.

Once the host is up, use your SSH client to verify the VAAI plug-in installation. Run the following command, as shown in Figure 27.

esxcli software vib list | grep nfs

Up next, Install VMware ESXi 7.0.

Landing page for the article series

On September 9, 2019, I published the Building Webster’s Lab V1 article series that used vSphere/vCenter 6.7 U3 and XenServer 8.0. This is a follow-up series on building the lab with vSphere/vCenter 7.0 and XenServer 8.2. I want to rebuild the lab as I’m not too fond of upgrades. Building new allows for learning new stuff and a chance to start clean. There are more details about the lab building process in this series. We cover the hypervisor details and create an Active Directory, a Microsoft Certificate Authority, Group Policies, and some basic server builds. Once I complete the lab build, I start the article series Learning the Basics of VMware Horizon 8 2106.

One of the significant issues I had with the original build process with all versions of vSphere 6.x was that I could not get NFS V4.1 to work between my Synology NAS and vSphere/vCenter 6.x. I tried for months to get it working and threw in the towel. Finally, someone on Twitter recommended using NFS V3, and everything worked. I was hopeful that NFS V4.1 would work between my Synology NAS and vSphere/vCenter 7.x. I let out a big YAHOO when it did work. WHEW!

Synology support told me back in 2019 that they thought the issue was on the VMware side. I was skeptical of their conclusion, but it appears they were correct. Nothing changed on the Synology side. The Synology NFS plug-in for VMware VAAI hadn’t changed since 25-Jun-2019 when it was updated to support ESXi 6.7. The same plug-in installed in ESXi 7 works with no issues.

VMware has an article to show the differences in the capabilities of NFS 3 and NFS 4.1. Please see NFS Protocols and ESXi.

Before continuing this introduction article, let me explain the products and technology that I list below. Not everyone has years of virtualization experience and virtualization knowledge. I spend many hours answering questions that come to me in emails and answering questions on Experts Exchange. Many people are new to the world of Citrix, Microsoft, Parallels, VMware, hypervisors, and application, desktop, and server virtualization.

There are two types of hypervisors: Type 1 and Type 2.

Type 1 hypervisors run directly on or take complete control of the system hardware (bare metal hardware). These include, but are not limited to:

Citrix Hypervisor (Formerly Citrix XenServer, which is the name I still use)

Microsoft Hyper-V

VMware ESXi

VMware vSphere

Xen Project

Type 2 hypervisors run under a host operating system. These include, but are not limited to:

Oracle VirtualBox

Parallels Desktop for Mac

VMware Fusion for Mac

VMware Workstation for Windows

Other terminology and abbreviations:

Virtualization Host: a physical computer that runs the Type 1 hypervisor.

Virtual Machine (VM): an operating system environment composed entirely of software that runs its operating system and applications like a physical computer. A VM behaves like a physical computer and contains its virtual processors (CPU), memory (RAM), hard disk, and networking (NIC).

Cluster or Pool: a single managed entity that binds together multiple physical hosts running the same Type 1 hypervisor and the VMs of those hosts.

Datastore or Storage Repository (SR): a storage container that stores one or more virtual hard disks.

Virtual Hard Disk: A virtual hard disk is a disk drive with similar functionalities as a typical hard drive but is accessed, managed, and installed on a virtual machine infrastructure.

Server Virtualization: Server virtualization is the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users.

Application Virtualization: Application virtualization is the separation of an application from the client computer accessing the application.

Desktop Virtualization: Desktop virtualization is the concept of isolating a logical operating system (OS) instance from the client used to access it.

There are several products mentioned and used in this article series:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD, formerly XenApp and XenDesktop).

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS)

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

VMware Horizon (Horizon)

Citrix uses XenCenter to manage XenServer resources, and VMware uses vCenter to manage vSphere resources. Both XenCenter and vCenter are centralized graphical consoles for managing, automating, and delivering virtual infrastructures.

In Webster’s Lab, I always try to use the latest Citrix XenServer, VMware Workstation, and VMware vSphere. This article series records the adventures of a networking amateur building a vSphere 7.0 cluster from start to finish.

Like most Citrix and Active Directory (AD) consultants, I can work with the various vSphere and vCenter clients. I can work with virtual machines (VMs), snapshots, templates, cloning, and customization templates. Most consultants don’t regularly install and configure new ESXi hosts, vCenter, networking, and storage, which can be confusing, at least the first few times.

I found much misinformation on the Internet as well as many helpful blogs on this journey. I ran into so much grief along the way that I thought that sharing this learning experience with the community was a good idea.

Have I got this all figured out? I seriously doubt it. Have I built the VMware part of the lab in the best way possible? Again, I doubt it. To figure this out, I experienced trials and errors (mainly errors!) in many scenarios. I found many videos and articles that used a single “server” with a single NIC. That meant there was essentially no network configuration to do once the installation of ESXi was complete. Many people used VMware Workstation and nested ESXi VMs. I never saw a video or article where the author used a real server with multiple NICs and configured networking and storage.

If you want to offer advice on my lab build, please email me at webster@carlwebster.com.

I watched many videos on this journey — some useless and rife with editing errors, some very useful and highly polished. The three most helpful video series came from Pluralsight. Disclaimer: As a Citrix Technology Professional (CTP), I receive a complimentary subscription to Pluralsight as a CTP Perk.

These are the videos I watched for the original article series.

VMware vSphere 6 Data Center Virtualization (VCP6-DCV) by Greg Shields

https://www.pluralsight.com/paths/vsphere-6-dcv

What’s New in vSphere 6.5 by Josh Coen

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/whats-new-vsphere-6-5

VMware vSphere 6.5 Foundations by David Davis

I did not watch any Pluralsight videos on vSphere 7, but David Davis has several new courses in his Implementing and Managing VMware vSphere Learning Path.

The physical servers I use as my VMware and XenServer hosts are from TinkerTry and Wired Zone.

https://tinkertry.com/

Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 Bundle 2 – US Version

Paul Braren at TinkerTry takes great pride in the servers he recommends and has a very informative blog.

For the ESXi hosts, I have six of the 8-core servers with the following specifications:

• Mini tower case
• Intel Xeon D-1541 processor
• 64GB DDR4 RAM
• Two 1Gb NIC
• Two 10Gb NIC
• Crucial BX300 120GB SSD (ESXi install)
• Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (Local datastore)
• Crucial MX500 250GB SSD (Host cache)

For the XenServer hosts, I have four of the 12-core servers with the following specifications:

• Mini tower case
• Intel Xeon D-1567 processor
• 64GB DDR4 RAM
• Two 1Gb NIC
• Two 10Gb NIC
• Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (XenServer install and local SR)
• Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (Local SR for VMs)

NOTE: I would never buy or recommend the 12-core servers as I have had nothing but problems with the 10Gb NICs on the servers.

For VMware product licenses, I used VMUG Advantage and the EVALExperience. If you would like to try EVALExperience, Paul Braren has a 10% discount code on his site.

I am fortunate that Citrix supplies CTPs with licenses that work with most on-premises products.

Now that Citrix and other vendors support vSphere/vCenter 7, it is time to rebuild the lab with the latest version of both.

For XenServer, I went with XenServer 8.2, the latest version.

I decided to go with the Network File System (NFS) instead of the Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) for storage. Gregory Thompson was the first to tell me to use NFS instead of iSCSI for VMware. If you Google “VMware NFS iSCSI”, you find many articles that explain why NFS is better than iSCSI for VMware environments. For me, NFS is easier to configure on an ESXi host than iSCSI. I also found out my Synology 1817+ storage unit supported NFS. Synology 1817 and 1817+ support NFS 4.1, and Synology has provided a VAAI plug-in for NFS since 2014.

For XenServer, NFS is also simple to configure and use and requires no additional drivers or software.

The following is a noncomprehensive list of some of the activities this article series covers:

• Configuring a Synology 1817+ NAS for NFS, ESXi 7.0, and XenServer 8.2
• Install VMware ESXi 7.0
• Initial VMware ESXi Host Configuration
• VMware ESXi Host Configuration
• Install the VMware vCenter Server Appliance
• Create vSphere Networking and Network Storage
• Backup the vCenter Server Appliance using NFS
• Updating the vCenter Server Appliance
• Install Citrix XenServer 8.2
• Citrix XenServer Host and Pool Configuration
• Create a Server 2019 Template Image
• Create VMs from the Server 2019 Template
• Create Active Directory
• Create a Microsoft Certificate Authority
• Create Initial Group Policy Objects
• Additional vCenter Configuration
• Additional XenCenter Configuration
• Create Additional Servers
• Create a Management Computer
• Create a 10ZiG Management Server
• Create a Goliath Technologies Management Server
• Create an IGEL Management Server
• Create a ControlUp Management Server
• Update ESXi Hosts using VMware Lifecycle Manager
• Advice, Conclusions, and Lessons Learned

There are two classes of VMs in my lab: permanent and temporary. The permanent VMs are, for example, the domain controllers, CA, file server, SQL server, utility server, management PC, and others. The permanent VMs reside in Citrix XenServer, and I use the vSphere cluster for the virtual desktops and servers created by the various virtualization products. All the Microsoft-related infrastructure servers reside in XenServer.

Since I have built and rebuilt my hosts several times in this learning experience, below is the lab configuration.

Table 1 Lab Configuration

Servers and appliances that exist in the lab after I complete this article series.

I temporarily have DHCP running in my temporary AD, so when DHCP assigns an IP address, DHCP appends the AD domain name to the device’s hostname. For example, when I built the host ESXiHost1, it was given an IP address of 192.168.1.107.  I then give the host a static IP address of 192.168.1.53. When I connect to that host using Google Chrome, the hostname is ESXiHost1.LabADDomain.com, even though the host is not a member of the LabADDomain.com domain.

To work around the initial self-signed certificate issues when connecting to a host using a browser, add the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the various hosts to your AD’s DNS. If your computer, like mine, is not domain joined, you should also consider adding the IP address and FQDN to your computer’s hosts file (located in c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc).

Figures 1 through 3 show my DNS Forward and Reverse Lookup Zones and my computer’s hosts file.

Since I have a 10Gb switch and my Synology 1817+ NAS supports 10Gb I use Jumbo Frames. After much research, asking NETGEAR support, and talking with friends who know networking, I configured the following Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) sizes:

• 10G Switch: 9000 as shown in Figure 4
• Synology 1817+: 9000 as shown in Figure 5
• (When created) 10G related Virtual Switch: 9000
• (When created) VMkernel NICs that connect to the 10G Virtual Switch: 9000

Fellow CTP, Leee Jeffries, provided Figure 6 after reviewing several of the articles in this series. Figure 6 is an overview of the networking in the lab.

This foray into installing and configuring the VMware Lab has been a painful but rewarding learning experience. I hope that through all my pain and errors, you can also gain from my experiences.

Along the way, several community members helped provide information, answered questions, and even did remote sessions with me when I ran into stumbling blocks.

• Abdullah Abdullah
• Greg Shields
• Gregory Thompson
• Leee Jeffries
• Tobias Kreidl

This article series is better because of the grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and technical input from Michael B. Smith, Leee Jeffries (darn that British English), Tobias Kreidl, and Greg Thompson.

Up next: Configuring a Synology 1817+ NAS for NFS, ESXi 7.0, and XenServer 8.2.

Landing page for the article series

“Is there any way to enable PVS Accelerator on all target devices in a large collection? So far, I find no script or PowerShell to do this.”

I had a little bit a time between conference calls, so I thought this would be an easy problem to solve. Five hours later, I figured it out and had a working PoC script.

I asked for information on the PVS, target device VDA, target device Windows, and hypervisor versions. I then built a matching environment as best I could.

To understand what PVS-Accelerator is, its requirements, and how it works, please read this from the product documentation.

Since this is not an article on installing, configuring, and using PVS-Accelerator, here are the items I completed in my lab.

1. Installed and configured PVS 1912 LTSR CU2
2. Installed and configured PVS-Accelerator in my Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer) 8.2 pool
3. Installed a CVAD 1912 LTSR CU2 Delivery Controller
4. Built a Windows 10 VM and installed the CVAD 1912 LTSR CU2 VDA
5. Captured the Windows 10 VM into PVS
6. Created a template of the VM
7. Used the Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard (VDSW) to create three target devices

I noticed that my three target devices had PVS-Accelerator disabled, as shown in Figure 1.

I found out I had a typo between the Site name between PVS and what I entered when configuring the PVS-Accelerator in XenServer. Once I had that typo corrected, I used the VDSW to create a fourth target device. That target device has PVS-Accelerator enabled, as shown in Figure 2.

Now I was faced with the same issue as the person who asked the question; How do I automate enabling PVS-Accelerator on the other three target devices?

Time to head to the Citrix developer documentation and search the Citrix Provisioning Services PowerShell page. I changed the Versions, Figure 3, to 1912.

As shown in Figure 4, I searched for “Accelerator”, which seemed obvious to me.

I guess that isn’t as obvious as I thought it would be. I do not see search results for setting PVS-Accelerator for a device.

I can see in Figures 5 and 6 the PVS-Accelerator Enabled option on one of the first three devices and the fourth device.

OK, this “PVS-Accelerator Enabled” property must exist in the device.

After running Get-PVSDevice -Name BaseName004, I get what you see in Figure 7.

I don’t see a property that has “pvs” or “accelerator” in its name. Maybe it is the other device cmdlet, Get-PvsDeviceInfo, as shown in Figure 8.

Nope, nothing there either.

Finding this information is getting frustrating. Looking back at the PVS-Accelerator documentation, in the section How does PVS-Accelerator work, it stated, “PVS-Accelerator employs a Proxy mechanism that resides in the Control Domain (dom0) of Citrix Hypervisor”. OK, how about looking for the word “proxy”. In the results from Get-PvsDevice and Get-PvsDeviceInfo, the only property with “proxy” in the name is XsPvsProxyUuid.

I know I want to set a value for a property for a device. How about looking in the help text for Set-PvsDevice. I did a Get-Help Set-PvsDevice -Full, and then a Find for “proxy”, as shown in Figure 9.

Maybe this “EnableXsProxy” is what I need? Searching for “EnableXsProxy” yields the result shown in Figure 10.

Maybe the parameter “-EnableXsProxy” is what I need.

I will try it on the target device, BaseName001.

Figures 2 and 5 show the “Before”.

Figure 11 shows running the Set-PvsDevice cmdlet.

Note: I used -PassThru to get the PVS Device object returned.

There was no error returned from running the cmdlet, but I do not see either an XsProxy or EnableXsProxy property.

What do the PVS Console and XenCenter show? Figures 12 and 13 show that the option PVS-Accelerator Enabled is now enabled.

For the target device BaseName001, the PVS-Accelerator status shows as Stopped because it is off. After powering on the device from the PVS Console, the status changes, as shown in Figure 14.

For BaseName002, I will try the example from the help text:

EXAMPLE 1: Set PvsDevice for Individual Fields

$o = Get-PvsDevice -Name theDevice -Fields LocalWriteCacheDiskSize

$o.LocalWriteCacheDiskSize = 1024

Set-PvsDevice $o

Get the PvsDevice into a $o variable. Change the $o field values and then Set the PvsDevice with the result.

The -Fields parameter with only the needed fields specified makes the Get work faster because only those fields are retrieved.

Figure 15 shows the results of running: $o = Get-PvsDevice -Name “BaseName002” -Fields EnableXsProxy.

OOPS! It looks like the EnableXsProxy property is not stored with the device. It would be nice to know where this property is stored. Using the PowerShell cmdlets, there is no way to retrieve the setting for PVS-Accelerator Enabled.

It appears that using Set-PvsDevice is the only way to process multiple target devices.

Here is the PoC script I came up with to automate enabling PVS-Accelerator for all target devices in a collection.

Import-Module "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services Console\Citrix.PVS.SnapIn.dll"
$Devices = Get-PvsDevice -CollectionName <CollectionName> -siteName <SiteName>
ForEach($Device in $Devices)
{
    Write-Host "Processing target device $($Device.name)"
    $DevGuid = $Device.Guid.Guid
    $null = Set-PvsDevice -EnableXsProxy 1 -Guid $DevGuid
}

The first thing I did was to manually disable PVS-Acceleration for all the target devices, as shown in Figure 16.

Figure 17 shows the script running.

With all four target devices powered on, Figure 18 shows the PVS-Accelerator status.

Now that I enabled PVS-Acceleration for all the target devices, I have more questions than answers.

1. Why was this so hard to figure out?
2. Why does the property name have nothing obvious to do with PVS-Accelerator?
3. Why is the EnableXsProxy property not stored with the device?
4. Why is there no way to determine the status of PVS-Accelerator for a target device outside of using XenCenter or the PVS Console and manually checking each target device?

I learned four lessons from creating this PoC script.

4. Since the state of PVS-Accelerator is unknown and undeterminable for a target device, there is no way to know the state and skip target devices with the state enabled. For a device collection that contains hundreds or thousands of devices, you must process every device, whether needed or not.
5. In my testing, using Measure-Command, it takes between 500 and 600 milliseconds to process a device with the Default setting of EnableXsProxy of “” and 6 milliseconds to process one with EnableXsProxy set to 1.
6. There is no return status given, so there is no way to know if attempting to set EnableXsProxy to 1 succeeded or failed.
7. Since the state of PVS-Accelerator is unknown and undeterminable, there is no way to filter only those devices that need the state changed.

If this were a script I would release to the community, here are some changes I would make.

• Add full help text
• Add parameters for the PVS Site and Device Collection
• Verify the data entered for the parameters
• Use an environment variable for “C:\Program Files” when importing the PVS module

I always create a transaction log file that shows what the script did with the computers processed, but that would not be possible with this script because of the four lessons listed above.

As stated in the Introduction article, Citrix uses XenCenter to manage one or more XenServer hosts.

The first thing needed is to download XenCenter from Citrix, or browse to the IP address of the XenServer host and download either the XenCenter CD image (ISO) or the XenCenter installer (MSI).

Note: The XenCenter version should be the same version or newer, not older, than the XenServer version. For example, don’t use XenCenter 7.1 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) to configure a XenServer 8.0 host but you can use XenCenter 8.0 to configure a XenServer 7.1 LTSR host.

From Tobias:

“Note that on a single PC host you can only install one version of XenCenter. Be wary of difference is versions which may show options for different versions that are not compatible or no longer exist.”

XenCenter is very easy to install. Double-click the CitrixHypervisor-8.0.0-XenCenter.msi file to start the XenCenter installation. The install is a quick and easy Next, Next, Install, Finish routine as shown in Figures 1 through 4.

Launch XenCenter by either searching for “XenCenter” or from the Start Menu, as shown in Figure 5.

Click Add a Server as shown in Figure 6.

Enter the IP address of a XenServer host, and log in using the root credentials created during the initial XenServer installation and click Add as shown in Figure 7.

Click Accept on the Security Certificate warning as shown in Figure 8.

Decide whether to Save and restore server connection state on startup and click OK as shown in Figure 9.

If you save the connection state and a master password is wanted, select Require a master password and enter the password when prompted.

Decide whether to enroll in Health Checks or not. If no, Click Close as shown in Figure 10.

If yes, click Enroll now as shown in Figure 11.

Enter the required information and click OK as illustrated in Figure 12.

The host is added to XenCenter, as shown in Figure 13.

The host is Unlicensed. Why? Licensing XenServer requires a Citrix license server and license file. As a CTP, I have the license file but, so far, in this lab building process, there is no VM to install the Citrix License Server component on. Later in the lab building process, the XenServer hosts will get licensed.

Repeat the steps in Figures 6 through 13 for the additional host as shown in Figure 14.

Managing individual hosts isn’t very productive. The answer is to create a Resource Pool. First, there are rules to play by. Let’s let Citrix explain in XenServer resource pools.

A resource pool is a homogeneous (or heterogeneous with restrictions) aggregate of one or more XenServer hosts, up to a maximum of 64. The definition of homogeneous is:

• CPUs on the server joining the pool are the same (in terms of the vendor, model, and features) as the CPUs on servers already in the pool.
• The server joining the pool is running the same version of XenServer software, at the same patch level, as servers already in the pool.

The software enforces extra constraints when joining a server to a pool. In particular, XenServer checks that the following conditions are true for the server joining the pool:

• The server is not a member of an existing resource pool.
• The server has no shared storage configured.
• The server is not hosting any running or suspended VMs.
• No active operations are in progress on the VMs on the server, such as a VM shutting down.
• The clock on the server is synchronized to the same time as the pool master (for example, by using NTP).
• The management interface of the server is not bonded. You can configure the management interface when the server successfully joins the pool.
• The management IP address is static, either configured on the server itself or by using an appropriate configuration on your DHCP server.

My three hosts meet all the criteria:

• Have the same CPU
• Running the same version of XenServer
• Not a member of an existing pool
• There is no shared storage configured
• There are no VMs, running or otherwise
• Hosts use the same NTP server
• The management interface is not in a bond
• The management IP address is static

From Tobias:

“Note that to join servers into a pool, all servers must also be at the same hotfix level. Also, as you point out, the server must not have the primary management interface bonded or it can lead to major confusion. Another important point is the number, type, and order of NICs on all servers must match exactly (such as 4 x 1, Gb, followed by 2x 10 Gb, followed by 2 x 1Gb) as eth0-eth9. The brand is not so important, but the capacity and number, and order are. Even if unused, additional NICs on servers can lead to problems (at least from my experience).”

To create the resource pool, either right-click the top XenCenter node in XenCenter and select New Pool (Figure 15) or Click Pool, New Pool from the menu (Figure 16).

Enter a Name, optional Description, select the Master, select the Additional members and click Create Pool as shown in Figure 17.

After a few minutes, the pool successfully creates, as shown in Figure 18.

Now on to the fun stuff: Networking.

My TinkerTry server has two 1Gb NICs and two 10Gb NICs. I want to use all four NICs but can only use three because of a lack of 10G switch ports. The Management Interface uses the 1Gb NICs, and VMs use the 10Gb NIC.

In the XenCenter console, click on the pool and then, in the right frame, click on the Networking tab, as shown in Figure 19.

First, select Network 2 (the 10G NIC) and click Properties, as shown in Figure 20.

Click on Network Settings, enter an MTU of 9000 (to enable Jumbo Frame support), select Automatically add this network to new virtual machines and click OK as shown in Figure 21.

Note: If a XenServer host or pool has enough NICs, you can create a storage-specific NIC or Bond. In that case, you probably would not want to add that NIC or Bond automatically to new VMs. Also, if you have VLANs for specific types of traffic and VLANs to segregate VM traffic, you may not want to add any NIC or Bond to VMs automatically. In that case, you would manually add a NIC or Bond to a VM when you create a VM.

After a minute, you will see Network 2 back in a Connected state and showing the new MTU, as shown in Figure 22.

Repeat for Network 3. After a little while both Network 2 and Network 3 show as Connected with an MTU of 9000, as shown in Figure 23.

Click on Network 2 and click Add Network… as shown in Figure 24.

Select Bonded Network and click Next, as shown in Figure 25.

Select the two NICs for the bond, select the Bond mode, since these are the 10Gb NICs, change MTU to 9000, verify that Automatically add this network to new virtual machines is selected, and click Finish as shown in Figure 26.

From Tobias:

“I take it your network doesn’t support LACP bonds? If it does, that’s what I generally recommend.”

Webster:

“Yes, it does. How to configure LACP on my switch is beyond me right now.”

From Tobias:

“For servers/pools with VMs that use different interfaces/subnets/VLANs, etc. I generally do not make any of the interfaces such that they automatically get added, as this creates unnecessary extra VIFs that serve no purpose.”

Figure 26

After a minute, you will see the new bond, Bond 2+3, in a Connected state, as shown in Figure 27.

Click on Network 0 and click Add Network… as shown in Figure 28.

Select Bonded Network and click Next, as shown in Figure 29.

Select the two NICs for the bond, select the Bond mode, verify that Automatically add this network to new virtual machines is NOT selected, and click Next as shown in Figure 30.

Click Create bond anyway on the warning popup, as shown in Figure 31.

After a minute, you will see the new bond, Bond 0+1, in a Connected state and the Management Interface is using the new bond, as shown in Figure 32.

Now on to storage.

Note: In the Introduction article, I stated my permanent VMs reside in XenServer. I never move the permanent VMs between hosts. For those VMs, they reside in a local SR. For me, this allows for faster boot times than VMs that reside in shared storage as there is no network traffic to load the VM. The Microsoft infrastructure VMs all reside in the local SR on each XenServer host. I use the shared storage SR for Citrix App Layering and the VMs created for the various layers.

From Tobias:

“Note of course that putting a VM on a local SR will prevent it from being agile (able to be moved readily to a different host within the pool).”

To create an SR for shared VM storage, right-click the pool and click New SR…, as shown in Figure 33.

Select NFS and click Next as shown in Figure 34.

From Tobias:

“For NFS connections, make sure the NFS host is set to allow connections from all the XenServer/Citrix Hypervisor hosts and that file permissions are set accordingly. I’d also suggest looking into increasing the buffer sizes (rsize, wsize). There are a number of articles on optimizing NFS connectivity, beyond this scope.”

Figure 34Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next, as shown in Figure 35.

Enter the NFS path information for the Share Name, select NFSv3, and click Finish, as shown in Figure 36.

Note: I am selecting NFSv3 because of the issues with vCenter and NFSv4 on the Synology NAS. Even though XenServer had no issues with NFSv4, I went with the lowest common denominator of NFSv3.

From Tobias:

“NFS3 vs NFS4 is still a big subject of debate! I have seen in some cases NFS3 perform slightly better than NFS4. I would follow the storage device manufacturer’s recommendations.”

To create an SR for Microsoft-related ISOs, right-click the pool and click New SR…, as was shown in Figure 33.

Select NFS ISO and click Next, as shown in Figure 37.

Enter a Name, an optional Description, and click Next as shown in Figure 38.

Enter the NFS path information for the Share Name, select NFSv4, and click Finish, as shown in Figure 39.

Note: Why NFSv4 here? These Visual Studio ISOs are on a different Synology NAS that is not used by VMware. Therefore, NFSv4 is used.

The new SRs are now shown in XenCenter as seen in Figure 40.

To add the 1TB SSD as a local SR, I followed the process I documented several years ago in the article Adding an SSD Storage Device to Citrix XenServer.

After following that process, the 1TB SSD local SRs show in XenCenter, as shown in Figure 41.

There is still one thing left to do, see if there are any updates for the hosts.

From Tobias:

“Again, make sure the updates are all the same on all servers before creating the pool; it may actually be less work to do so beforehand as I keep running into issues where CPU masks don’t match in the process of applying hotfixes and then to migrate VMs, you have to use the CLI and force them. I’ve complained to Citrix about this several times (that XenCenter doesn’t contain a “force” option), but I hear only crickets.”

In the XenCenter console, first, click Notifications in the bottom left pane and then click Updates in the upper left pane, as shown in Figure 42. If there are any updates available, click the Actions dropdown and select Download and install, also shown in Figure 42.

Note 1: I am using a USB drive for this install, but you can also use TFTP and NFS, FTP, or HTTP along with installing from a CD/DVD drive.

Note 2: I cover XenCenter in the next article, but if you want to go ahead and download XenCenter now, you can.

Note 3: TinkerTry provides a 32GB thumb drive with each of their servers.

I used the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) built into the TinkerTry server to do the install. Before IPMI is usable, configure IPMI in the server’s BIOS. For this install, I am using the new HTML5 client.

To configure IPMI in the BIOS of a TinkerTry Server, power on the server and press Delete on the appropriate screen, as shown in Figure 2.

Using the arrow keys, navigate to IPMI, press the Down Arrow to select IPMI Extended Instruction, as shown in Figure 3, and press Enter.

Note: Initially this setting is Disabled, but I can’t take a screenshot while it is disabled.

Select Enabled and press Enter, as shown in Figure 4.

Press Up Arrow to select BMC Network Configuration and press Enter, as shown in Figure 5.

Update IPMI LAN Configuration is selected. Press Enter, down arrow to select Yes and press Enter, as shown in Figure 6.

If you want to continue using DHCP, press F4 to Save & Exit, as shown in Figure 7.

Select Yes to the Save & Exit Setup dialog, as shown in Figure 8.

If, like me, you prefer to use a static IP address, press Enter, use the arrow keys to select Static, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 9.

Use the arrow keys to navigate to and configure the Station IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Gateway IP Address, then press F4 to Save & Exit as shown in Figure 10.

Select Yes to the Save & Exit Setup dialog, as shown in Figure11.

Now that you have configured IPMI, IPMI is used to do the install.

As the server restarts, press F11 on the appropriate screen, as shown in Figure 12, to start the Boot Menu.

The Rufus utility used to create the bootable thumb drive for XenServer 8.0, created a drive usable with either a legacy BIOS or UEFI.

Note: See this article for an explanation of UEFI. What Is UEFI, and How Is It Different from BIOS?

As part of the “trials-and-errors” mentioned in the Introduction article, I found to get XenServer to boot from the NVMe disk; the system required the boot configuration set to UEFI, not Legacy or Dual.

Note: If your host does not support UEFI, XenServer still supports legacy BIOS.

Select UEFI: SanDisk, as shown in Figure 13. Installing XenServer using the EUFI option gives a better visual experience than install using the legacy BIOS option.

Note: SanDisk is the brand of thumb drive TinkerTry provided with their server.

After selecting to boot from the UEFI: SanDisk thumb drive, the XenServer installer begins. After a few minutes, the first installation popup appears. There is an initial Install screen that appears, but it goes by so fast I could not get a screenshot of it.

Note: Using the UEFI installer, the screen resolution is so detailed and large, it made sense only to include the input area for the following Figures. Otherwise, you would need a large magnifying glass to read the text.

Use the arrow keys to select the correct keymap and press Enter as shown in Figure 14.

Press Enter on the Welcome to XenServer Setup screen as shown in Figure 15.

Press Tab until you get to the Accept EULA button and press Enter as shown in Figure 16.

Select the drive on which to install XenServer 7.6 on by using the Up and Down arrow keys and press Enter, as illustrated in Figure 17. My hosts have two drives. I will install XenServer on the 500GB NVMe drive, and the 1TB drive is for a local Storage Repository (SR).

Note: 500GB and 1TB are the advertised sizes. Usable capacity, as shown in Figure 17, is different.

Note: I did have to change my server to boot using UEFI only to get XenServer to boot from the NVMe disk.

Select which disk to use as an SR, press Tab, then press Spacebar if you wish to enable thin provisioning, and then press Enter as shown in Figure 18.

Note: If you plan to use IntelliCache, you must enable thin provisioning.

What is IntelliCache?

IntelliCache is a XenServer feature that can be used in a XenDesktop deployment to cache temporary and non-persistent operating-system data on the local XenServer host. IntelliCache is available for Machine Creation Services (MCS)-based desktop workloads that use NFS storage.

Selecting thin provisioning creates an SR with an EXT3 file system versus LVM (Logical Volume Management).

Note: XenServer treats all disks selected in this screen as a single SR. I am not selecting my 1TB SSD as I want that as a separate SR.

This installation source is the SanDisk thumb drive, so press Enter as shown in Figure 19.

Decide whether to verify the installation media and press Enter as shown in Figure 20.

Note: Citrix always wants you to verify the installation source. 99 times out of 100, neither Tobias nor I verify the installation source.

Type in your Root Password, Confirm the password, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 21.

Note: If you plan to build, like me, multiple XenServer hosts to join into a Pool, all the hosts must have the same password for the root user account. Fellow CTP and XenServer expert Tobias Kreidl recommends that after the install is complete, going to the shell to verify the root password works.

Use the arrow keys to select which network interface to use for managing the XenServer host and press Enter as illustrated in Figure 22.

Decide whether to use DHCP or a static IP address to configure networking for the management network interface and press Enter as shown in Figure 23.

Note: Starting at some point in 7.X, a VLAN for the primary network interface is supported.

Figure 23Enter a Hostname, and DNS Server information and press Enter as shown in Figure 24.

For DNS, note also that an IP address pointing to a virtual interface that contains multiple IP addresses is possible.

Use the arrow keys to select your geographical area for your Time Zone and press Enter as shown in Figure 25.

Use the arrow keys to select a city or area to refine further your Time Zone and press Enter as shown in Figure 26.

Press Enter to use NTP for System Time as illustrated in Figure 27.

I prefer to use servers from pool.ntp.org for NTP configuration. Enter the server or servers or device to use for the NTP Configuration, and press Enter three times as shown in Figure 28.

Note: Tobias disagrees with me on using the top-level NTP pool servers.

“As to NTP configuration choices, we could discuss this ’til the cows come home but I’m a strong proponent for local NTP servers as well as using NTP peers; see https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/375644-configure-time-on-xenserver/ [Webster: As of the last week of February 2021, this discussion topic no longer exists.]

I have intended to re-write this as a single, updated blog article someday and never got around to it.”

Press Tab to select Install XenServer and press Enter as illustrated in Figure 29.

The installation of XenServer 8.0 begins, as shown in Figure 30.

I have no Supplemental Packs to install, so press Enter as shown in Figure 31.

When the installation completes, physically remove the installation media (SanDisk thumb drive) from the server and press Enter to reboot the new XenServer 8.0 virtualization host, as shown in Figure 32.

Once the server reboots, you have done the easy part. You now have a XenServer 8.0 host ready for the initial configuration, as shown in Figure 33.

From Tobias:

“Note that sometimes the network won’t show up on the XS console screen. This is a weird thing that has been happening over various XS/CH releases. Sometimes if you wait long enough, it will eventually show up. In most cases the network is there, it’s just not visible through this interface. Conversely, occasionally, the whole network has been lost and I’ve had to re-configure it all using an emergency network reset and going through the whole process. This is particularly painful if you have things like multiple networks, VLAN, and/or iSCSI address that all need to be redefined.”

Figure 33

Note: I followed the same process for the other two hosts.

Up next: Citrix XenServer Host and Pool Configuration.

In the “Introduction” article, I made the following statements:

For storage, I decided to go with Network File System (NFS) instead of Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI). Gregory Thompson was the first to tell me to use NFS instead of iSCSI. If you Google “VMware NFS iSCSI”, you find many articles that explain why NFS is better than iSCSI for VMware environments. For me, NFS is easier to configure on an ESXi host than iSCSI. I also found out my Synology 1817+ storage unit supported NFS.

For home labs, there are two vendors whose names I see referenced frequently: QNAP and Synology.

Webster’s Lab has two Synology devices: a DS1817 and a DS1817+ (both are already deprecated devices). The DS1817 uses SSDs and used for backups and ISO storage. The DS1817+ uses SSDs and used for temporary VMs. I store permanent VMs on local SSD storage on the Citrix XenServer hosts.

Synology uses DiskStation Manager (DSM) to manage their storage devices. DSM is a web-based operating system designed to help manage all aspects of the storage device.

This article shows you how I configured my Synology 1817+ to use NFS and install the VMware vSphere Storage APIs Array Integration (VAAI) plugin.

In the Introductory article, I mentioned I had a major issue with VMware vSphere 6.x and NFS 4.1. I did, but XenServer had no issues with NFS 4.1. I decided for the sake of my hair and sanity to use only NFS 3 for both vSphere and XenServer.

Note: Chapters 2 and 3 of the Synology NAS User’s Guide cover the installation and initial configuration of the Synology NAS with DSM.

First, log in to the NAS by opening an internet browser, browsing to the IP address of the Synology device, enter the username and password for the device, then click Sign In. For me, that is https://192.168.1.253:5001, as shown in Figure 1.

Next, on the main page, click the Control Panel, as shown in Figure 2.

Click on File Services, as shown in Figure 3.

On the SMB/AFP/NFS tab, select Enable NFS as shown in Figure 4.

Click Apply to save the changes, as shown in Figure 5.

Click Shared Folder, as shown in Figure 6.

Click Create, as shown in Figure 7.

Do the following steps, as shown in Figure 8:

Enter a Name and Description.

If you have more than one Volume configured, select the appropriate Volume for the Location.

Select both Hide this shared folder in “My Network Places” and Hide sub-folders and files from users without permissions.

Deselect Enable Recycle Bin

Click Next

Verify nothing is selected and click Next as shown in Figure 9.

Verify nothing is selected and click Next as shown in Figure 10.

Verify all the information is correct, as seen in Figure 11. If it is, click Apply. If the information is not correct, click Back, correct the information, and then continue.

On the Permissions tab, select Read/Write for the admin accounts and No Access for the guest account, as shown in Figure 12. Do not click OK yet.

Click the NFS Permissions tab and then click Create, as shown in Figure 13.

Enter the Hostname or IP address of the ESXi host and click OK, as shown in Figure 14. Because I have six ESXi hosts and later add them to VMware vCenter, I entered an * for the IP address to allow all IP addresses in Webster’s Lab access.

Note: Synology Diskstation Manager grants NFS permissions on a per-host basis instead of a per-user basis because virtualization hosts access the NFS shares, not users.

Note: Save the Mount path information shown in Figure 15. You need it when creating datastores on the ESXi host and when setting up the backup for the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). If you need the Mount path information later, click the Edit tab displayed in Figure 15, and go to the NFS Permissions tab as shown previously in Figure 13.

Repeats the steps for Figures 7 through 15 for additional NFS Shared Folders needed, as shown in Figure 16.

For example, for Webster’s Lab, I created NFS Shared folders for not only ISOs but VMware VMs,  XenServer VMs, and the VCSA backup as you can see in Figure 16. Each NFS share has a unique mount path. I have four NFS shares, so I have four NFS mount paths.

Now, you need to install the VAAI Plug-in for NFS. Go to https://global.download.synology.com/download/Tools/NFSVAAIPlugin/1.2-1008/VMware_ESXi/synology-nfs-vaai-plugin-1.2-1008.vib and download the VIB NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI for your Synology NAS model.

Note: If the download link has changed, go to https://www.synology.com and search for “nfs vaai plugin”. A user account on synology.com is not required to download the VIB file.

Note: VIB stands for vSphere Installation Bundle. At a conceptual level, a VIB is somewhat similar to a ZIP archive, in that it is a collection of files packaged into a single archive to facilitate distribution.

Using your favorite secure upload utility, I used WinSCP, upload the VAAI plug-in to the /tmp directory on the ESXi host.

First, connect to the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 17.

If this is the first time connecting to the host, a key-exchange is required. If you want to add the server’s host key to the secure upload utility’s cache, click Yes, as shown in Figure 15.

You can connect without added the server’s host key to the secure upload utility’s cache. Click No if you do not wish to save the server’s host key in the cache.

In WinSCP, there are three ways to upload the VIB file to the ESXi host.

1. Drag and Drop the VIB file from the left pane to the right pane, as shown in Figure 18.
2. Select the VIB file in the left pane, press F5, and click OK, as shown in Figure 16.
3. Select the VIB file in the left pane, right-click, select Upload, as shown in Figure 17, and click OK, as shown in Figure 16.

Using your preferred upload method, copy the VIB file to the /tmp directory on the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 21.

Exit your favorite secure upload utility.

Note: The following two steps (the final two steps) are part of the ESXi host configuration. I just wanted to sneak them in here, so I could get all the Synology NFS information in one article.

Using your favorite SSH client, I used PuTTY, connect to the ESXi host, as shown in Figure 22.

Note: I only tested PuTTY. I did not try using the SSH client from Windows 10 1809.

If this is the first time connecting to the host, a key-exchange is required. If you want to add the host’s key to the SSH client’s cache, click Yes, as shown in Figure 23.

You can connect without adding the host’s key to the SSH client’s cache. Click No if you do not wish to save the host’s key in the cache.

Log in to the host using your configured credentials. If you just installed ESXi, then log in as root and the password used during the ESXi install, as shown in Figure 24.

Run the following command, as shown in Figure 25.

esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/synology-nfs-vaai-plugin-1.2-1008.vib –no-sig-check

Reboot the ESXi host by typing reboot and pressing Enter, as shown in Figure 26.

Once the host is up, use your SSH client to verify the VAAI plug-in installation. Run the following command, as shown in Figure 27.

esxcli software vib list | grep nfs

Up next: Install VMware ESXi 6.7.

I started work on rebuilding my lab in June 2018, and then life happened. During the 2019 New Year’s holiday break, I finally got back to working on the lab rebuild, but still ran into issues. Finally, in August 2019, someone on Twitter gave me a possible solution for my lab issues. His suggestion worked, and now 15 months after beginning, I can finish my lab rebuilding.

Before going on with this introduction article, let me explain the products and technology that I list below. Not everyone has years of virtualization experience and virtualization knowledge. I spend many hours answering questions that come to me in emails, and I also answer questions asked on Experts Exchange. There are many people new to the world of Citrix, Microsoft, Parallels, VMware, hypervisors and application, desktop and server virtualization.

There are two types of hypervisors: Type 1 and Type 2.

Type 1 hypervisors run directly on or take complete control of the system hardware (aka bare metal hardware). These include, but are not limited to:

Citrix Hypervisor (Formerly Citrix XenServer, which is the name I still use)

Microsoft Hyper-V

VMware ESXi

VMware vSphere

Xen Project

Type 2 hypervisors run under a host operating system. These include, but are not limited to:

Oracle VirtualBox

Parallels Desktop for Mac

VMware Fusion for Mac

VMware Workstation for Windows

Other terminology and abbreviations:

Virtualization Host: a physical computer that runs the Type 1 hypervisor.

Virtual Machine (VM): an operating system environment composed entirely of software which runs its operating system and applications just as if it were a physical computer. A VM behaves like a physical computer and contains its virtual processors (CPU), memory (RAM), hard disk, and networking (NIC).

Cluster or Pool: a single managed entity that binds together multiple physical hosts running the same Type 1 hypervisor and the VMs of those hosts.

Datastore or Storage Repository (SR): a storage container that stores one or more virtual hard disks.

Virtual Hard Disk: A virtual hard disk is a type of disk drive that has similar functionalities as a typical hard drive but is accessed, managed, and installed on a virtual machine infrastructure.

Server Virtualization: Server virtualization is the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users.

Application Virtualization: Application virtualization is the separation of an installation of an application from the client computer accessing the application.

Desktop Virtualization: Desktop virtualization is the concept of isolating a logical operating system (OS) instance from the client that is used to access it.

There are several products mentioned and used in this article series:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD, formerly XenApp and XenDesktop).

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS)

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

VMware Horizon (Horizon)

Citrix uses XenCenter to manage XenServer resources, and VMware uses vCenter to manage vSphere resources. Both XenCenter and vCenter are centralized, graphical consoles for managing, automating, and delivering virtual infrastructures.

In Webster’s Lab, I try to always use the latest versions of Citrix XenServer, VMware Workstation, and VMware vSphere. Last year, because of some issues not related to vSphere, I rebuilt my vSphere 6.0 cluster with XenServer. Michael Bates had helped me build my original vSphere 6.0 cluster. Unfortunately, I didn’t record the GoToMeeting where Michael did all the networking and storage configuration. When it came time to build a vSphere 6.7 cluster, I was clueless and lost when it came to configuring networking. I am not a networking guru. Building a vSphere cluster from scratch is something I have never previously done. This article series records the adventures of a networking amateur building a vSphere 6.7 cluster from start to finish.

Like most Citrix and Active Directory (AD) consultants, I can work with the various vSphere and vCenter clients. I can create and work with virtual machines (VMs), snapshots, templates, cloning, customization templates, etc. It is the installation and configuring of new ESXi hosts, vCenter, networking, and storage that most of us consultants don’t regularly do which can be confusing, at least the first few times.

I found much misinformation on the Internet as well as many helpful blogs on this journey. I ran into so much grief along the way that I thought that sharing this learning experience with the community was a good idea.

Have I got this all figured out? I seriously doubt it. Have I built the VMware part of the lab the best way possible? Again, I doubt it. To figure this out, I experienced trials-and-errors (mainly errors!) in many scenarios. What I found were many videos and articles that used a single “server” with a single NIC. That meant there was essentially no network configuration to do once the installation of ESXi is complete. Many people used VMware Workstation and nested ESXi VMs. I never saw a video or article where the author used a real server with multiple NICs and went through the configuration of networking and storage.

If you want to offer advice on my lab build, please email me at webster@carlwebster.com.

On this journey, I watched many videos — some useless and rife with editing errors, some very useful and extremely polished. The three most helpful video series came from Pluralsight. Disclaimer: As a Citrix Technology Professional (CTP), I receive a free subscription to Pluralsight as a CTP Perk.

VMware vSphere 6 Data Center Virtualization (VCP6-DCV) by Greg Shields

https://www.pluralsight.com/paths/vsphere-6-dcv

What’s New in vSphere 6.5 by Josh Coen

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/whats-new-vsphere-6-5

VMware vSphere 6.5 Foundations by David Davis

The physical servers I use as my VMware and XenServer hosts are from TinkerTry and Wired Zone.

https://tinkertry.com/

Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 Bundle 2 – US Version

Paul Braren at TinkerTry takes great pride in the servers he recommends and has a very informative blog.

For the ESXi hosts, I have six four of the 8-core servers with the following specifications:

• Mini tower case
• Intel Xeon D-1541 processor
• 64GB DDR4 RAM
• Two 1Gb NIC
• Two 10Gb NIC
• Crucial BX300 120GB SSD (ESXi install)
• Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (Local datastore)
• Crucial MX500 250GB SSD (Host cache)

For the XenServer hosts, I have four three of the 12-core servers with the following specifications:

• Mini tower case
• Intel Xeon D-1541 processor
• 64GB DDR4 RAM
• Two 1Gb NIC
• Two 10Gb NIC (Not used because of a firmware bug that causes random dropped connections)
• Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (XenServer install and local SR)
• Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (Local SR for VMs)

For VMware product licenses, I used VMUG Advantage and the EVALExperience. If you would like to try EVALExperience, Paul Braren has a 10% discount code on his site.

For Citrix product licenses, I am fortunate in that Citrix supplies CTPs with basically an unrestricted license file that works with most on-premises products.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

After all my trials and errors, I decided to go with ESXi 6.7 Update 3 and vCenter 6.7 Update 3. CVAD 7.15 Long-Term Service Release (LTSR) CU3 added support for  6.7. I used to maintain CVAD versions 7.0 through the most recent Current Release (CR) version in the lab for the documentation scripts. That was very cumbersome and time-consuming. Now I maintain 7.15 LTSR and the two most recent CR versions.

For XenServer, I went with XenServer 8.0, the CR version, because nothing was restricting or limiting me to use the XenServer LTSR version.

For storage, I decided to go with Network File System (NFS) instead of the Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI). Gregory Thompson was the first to tell me to use NFS instead of iSCSI for VMware. If you Google “VMware NFS iSCSI”, you find many articles that explain why NFS is better than iSCSI for VMware environments. For me, NFS is easier to configure on an ESXi host than iSCSI. I also found out my Synology 1817+ storage unit supported NFS. I wasted three days discovering that fact because of a blatantly incorrect blog article on configuring my specific Synology device for NFS and ESXi 6.5. I do not provide a link to that article because the article is just wrong, and I don’t want to embarrass the author. After three days of emails with Synology support (I believe they only answer one email a day!), I found out the author was incorrect. The author stated Synology does not support NFS 4.1 and if you use NFS, you forgo VMware vSphere Storage APIs Array Integration (VAAI) support. What the author got wrong was that the Synology 1817+ does support NFS 4.1 and Synology has provided a VAAI plug-in for NFS since 2014.

The issue I ran into was that I kept trying to use NFS 4.1 only to find it just didn’t work once I installed vCenter. The solution @faherne offered on Twitter was simple; I can’t believe I never thought of it. Use NFS 3, not NFS 4.1. DOH! Once I tried that, I had no issues once I installed vCenter. So, for this article series, I decided to use only NFS 3 for both vSphere and XenServer.

For XenServer, NFS is also simple to configure and use and requires no additional drivers or software.

After watching the excellent video series by Greg Shields on Pluralsight, the following is a noncomprehensive list of some of the activities my article series covers as I have the time to do them:

• Install and configure the first ESXi host
• Install and configure the vCenter appliance
• Create a Datacenter, Cluster, Networking, Storage
• Join vCenter to an AD domain
• Add an AD domain as a Single Sign-On source
• and much more

There are two classes of VMs in my lab. Those which are permanent VMs and those which are temporary VMs. The permanent VMs are, for example, the domain controllers, CA, file server, SQL server, utility server, management PC, and others. The permanent VMs reside in Citrix XenServer and VMware Workstation, and I use the vSphere cluster for the virtual desktops and servers created by the various virtualization products. All the Microsoft related infrastructure servers reside in XenServer.

Since I have built and rebuilt my hosts several times in this learning experience, below is the lab configuration.

Table 1 Lab Configuration

Note: You may notice my lab uses flat networking where all traffic is on the same network, and there are no VLANs. Why? I know what VLANs are and why I should use them, but with my limited networking knowledge, I don’t know how to create or configure VLANs. Both of my switches support VLANs, so the capability is there. If you want to help improve the lab setup but helping me implement VLANs, email me at webster@carlwebster.com.

I have DHCP running in my AD, so when DHCP assigns an IP address, DHCP appends the AD domain name to the device’s hostname. For example, when I built the host ESXiHost1, it was given an IP address of 192.168.1.107.  I then give the host a static IP address of 192.168.1.53. When I connect to that host using Google Chrome, the hostname is shown as ESXiHost1.LabADDomain.com even though the host is not a member of the LabADDomain.com domain.

Something you may want to consider to work around the initial self-signed certificate issues when connecting to a host using a browser is adding the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the various hosts to your AD’s DNS (if you are using AD, DNS, and DHCP). If your computer, like mine, is not domain joined, you should also consider adding the IP address and FQDN to your computer’s hosts file (located in c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc).

Figures 1 through 3 show my DNS Forward and Reverse Lookup Zones and my computer’s hosts file.

Once I complete the lab build and find the time, I add CVAD, Horizon, RDS, and RAS to the lab.

Since I have a 10Gb switch and my Synology 1817+ NAS supports 10Gb; I use Jumbo Frames. After much research, asking NETGEAR support, and talking with friends who know networking, I configured the following Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) sizes:

• 10G Switch: 9000 as shown in Figure 4
• Synology 1817+: 9000 as shown in Figure 5
• (When created) 10G related Virtual Switch: 9000
• (When created) VMkernel NICs that connect to the 10G Virtual Switch: 9000

This foray into installing and configuring the VMware Lab has been a painful but rewarding learning experience. I hope that through all my pain and errors, you can also gain from my experiences.

Along the way, several community members helped provide information, answered questions, and even did remote sessions with me when I ran into stumbling blocks.

• Abdullah Abdullah
• Geert Braakhekke
• Greg Shields
• Gregory Thompson
• Jarian Gibson
• Paul Braren
• Tobias Kreidl

This article series is better because of the grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and technical input from Michael B. Smith, Tobias Kreidl, and Abdullah Abdullah.

Up next: Configuring a Synology 1817+ NAS for NFS, ESXi 6.7, and XenServer 8.0.

Anyone that has done some XenServer updates/upgrades surely has come across the “ghosted nics” issue before. I’m certainly not alone since CTP Alexander Ervik Johnsen also wrote a little something on his blog the other day. You can read about his solution here.

As you might have guessed, Ghost or Phantom NICs are a bad thing. The solution sounds simple enough: get rid of them. From a technical perspective, it’s not a difficult thing to do. As Alexander Ervik Johnsen mentioned, it’s a matter of following these steps:

1. Log in as a local admin account (TIP: make sure you know this one BEFORE you start upgrading)
2. Open a command prompt
3. Issue the command “set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1”
4. Launch Device Manager by typing devmgmt.msc in the same command prompt session (so the device manager session “sees” the environment variable)
5. In Device Manager, select View -> Show hidden devices
6. Now the Ghosted NIC’s should be visible, and you should be able to uninstall them just by right-clicking them and selecting uninstall

It’s a quite straightforward procedure to follow, but it can become a very tedious job if you need to go through these for a high number of VM’s.

And there’s more to it. From time to time, Device Manager does not seem to respond to the uninstall command. You click uninstall, you do a refresh, and the device is still there. Issuing multiple uninstall commands won’t help you either.

So then there is the option to dive into the Registry and carve out the Ghost device by hand. It can be done, but it will take time and is not without any risk.

The solution? Enter a marvelous tool I (re)discovered recently: GhostBuster (by wvd_vegt, https://bitbucket.org/wvd-vegt/ghostbuster/src/master/). It scans for ghosted devices, shows them in a nice GUI, so you can select the Ghosted NIC by selecting “Add Device”.

When selected, you hit the Remove Ghosts button

And you’re done.

Ghostbuster even comes in a portable format, so there’s no need to install it every time.

So, to make my life a bit easier, I created a small ISO file that I can mount on a VM. That ISO contains a couple of things:

• start.cmd -> sets the devmgr environment variable and starts Device manager with “View Hidden” already enabled
• the MMC used by start.cmd, which is good old Device Manager with “View Hidden” enabled.
• the portable version of Ghostbuster

I’ve thought about automating it some more, like using GhostBuster to clean stuff automatically. The biggest issue is that in my environment, the number of ghosted nics is not always the same, and it’s not always the “Realtek” either, I’ve seen cases where I have the Realtek nic, and 3 ghosted Xenserver NICs together. In that type of situation, I’d like to control things myself because this usually means something else is also very much messed up with that VM.

Maybe I’ll do the automation part in the future, but I use the ISO as-is for now. If you like it too, you can find it in the Downloads section.

You can always find the most current files by going to https://www.carlwebster.com/where-to-get-copies-of-the-documentation-scripts/ and looking in the Bart Jacobs’ Toolbox section.

Thanks

Bart Jacobs

But sometimes, even in a virtual world, physical problems can be a real pain.

Recently I was involved in upgrading/migrating an outdated XenServer 6.0 setup, running on HP BL460c Gen7 and Gen8.

The Gen8 boxes went fine, and the customer was really impressed with the performance of XenServer 6.5 SP1.

The Gen7 boxes were quite a different story. Yes, I’m ware they are not on the official HCL First of all, as any good admin should do, I was upgrading firmware and BIOS when the server was off duty anyway.

The first server I updated, XenServer didn’t detect the Emulex 10Gb ports anymore. But on the second one, it did… The third one was a failure again.

Then I noticed something wrong on the boot screen:

I used the HP Firmware CD to update everything, and although the version v10.5.155.0 is the correct one, it did’nt quite seem to work. Also on ILO, the config looked very wrong.

So… why? Well it seems HP has had a long history of firmware misbehavior on the G7 series, and somewhere along the line people suggested to reflash the firmware again with the same version.

That’s not possible with the HP Firmware CD, so I downloaded the Emulex firmware CD from the HP site. That did come labeled as v10.5.160.0… but installed v10.5.155.0 anyway.

After that “update”, no more strange screen at boot and… XenServer recognized the NIC’s just fine once again.

So I know they are becoming old, those G7’s, but maybe this will help someone facing the same or similar issues.

Thanks

Bart Jacobs

Note: This still works for XenServer 8.2

In the process of creating Virtual Machines (VMs) for labs for a customer, I needed to have 10VMs running at the same time.  My XenServer host uses a 1.5TB local SATA drive for VM storage and an iSCSI storage server.  I can’t use the storage server for these VMs as I will be taking my lab XenServer to the customer site and I don’t want to take two very heavy full tower servers.  After getting the eighth VM running, my XenServer host was begging for mercy.  The local SATA bus was being saturated with disk traffic.  Since I need to have 10 VMs running I needed a solution fast.  I ordered a Solid State Device (SSD) storage drive to put in the XenServer host.  Since I am not a Linux geek, I decided to document what I had to do to make the SSD drive available for exclusive use by XenServer 5.6 SP2.

From XenCenter, click on the Console tab and press Enter (Figure 1).

Note:  Thanks to Denis Gundarev for his help with the following Linux commands.

From the console prompt, type fdisk –l (that is a lower case letter “L”).  This will list all the drives and partitions that XenServer sees (Figure 2).

Figure 2

My new SSD drive is shown as Disk /dev/sdb.  The original drive where XenServer is installed shows as Disk /dev/sda.  The external USB drive is 2TB and shows as Disk /dev/sdc .  The following commands will use my drive’s /dev/sdb designation.  The commands to type are in bold and comments about those commands are in square brackets [] following the commands.  You should not type the comments.

[root@XenServer1 ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table nor Sun, SGI, or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won’t be recoverable.

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 36481.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n [new partition]
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p [make the partition a primary partition]
Partition number (1-4): 1 [partition number 1]
First cylinder (1-36481, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-36481, default 36481):
Using default value 36481

Command (m for help): t [change file system type]
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83 [83 is the Linux file system]

Command (m for help): w [write partition table]
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
[root@XenServer1 ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1 [format partition]
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
36634624 inodes, 73258400 blocks
3662920 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
2236 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 25 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@XenServer1 ~]# xe sr-create type=ext shared=false device-config:device=/dev/sdb1 name-label=SSD [create Storage Repository]

[Update 26Mar2019: In later versions of XenServer (I am using 7.6), there is an additional required parameter.

xe sr-create type=ext shared=false device-config:device=/dev/sdb1 name-label=SSD host-uuid=f87f5b5f-a079-444f-849a-1de9513a60e9 

The host’s UUID is found on the General tab. You can right-click the UUID value and copy it to the clipboard.]

Once the Storage Repository (SR) is created, it is available in XenCenter in the Storage tab (Figure 3).  Creating the new SR on the SSD drive took about 30 seconds.

Select the SSD SR in the Server View and click Add… (Figure 4).

Enter a Name, Description, Size, select SSD and click Add (Figure 5).

The new Virtual Disk appears in XenCenter with no VM assigned (Figure 6).

To verify the new storage repository and its new virtual disk are available to a VM, select any VM, click the Storage tab and click Add… (Figure 7).

The SSD SR shows as available to add a new virtual disk to the selected VM (Figure 8).

Click Cancel.  The new SSD-based storage repository and its new virtual disk are ready for use.

After adding the SSD drive, I was able to create the other two VMs needed for the labs (Figure 9).  Now to test how much better performance for VM startup time is.  I started the Domain Controller, waited until the log-in screen (87 seconds), started the SQL server, waited until the log-in screen (37 seconds), selected all eight remaining VMs, and clicked Start on the menu bar.  53-seconds later the last VM was at the login screen.

• XenApp (2008)
• Presentation Server (2005)
• MetaFrame XP Presentation Server (2003)
• MetaFrame XP (2001)
• MetaFrame (1998)
• MultiWin (1997)
• WinFrame (1995)
• WinView (1993)
• Citrix Multi-User (1991)
• Citrix MULTIUSER OS/2 (1990)

Citrix, the company, was founded in 1989 and I started working with MULTIUSER OS/2 in late 1989 or early 1990.  There were still vertical market application vendors using that product as late as the summer of 2003.  Citrix has primarily been known for their Application Virtualization product Citrix Virtual Apps but there are 15 distinct product families listed on the Citrix.com web page:

• Citrix Workspace
• Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops
• Citrix Content Collaboration
• Citrix Endpoint Management
• Citrix Managed Desktops
• Citrix Hypervisor
• ShareFile
• Citrix ADC
• Citrix Application Delivery Management
• Citrix Gateway
• Citrix Intelligent Traffic Management
• Citrix SD-WAN
• Citrix Web App Firewall
• Citrix Analytics for Security
• Citrix Analytics for Performance

What is Citrix?  Citrix is a company that offers a wide range of products to serve almost any application delivery needs a business may have.  From the smallest business to the largest global spanning corporations, Citrix has products to help deliver your applications to your users in the most cost-efficient manner possible.