Installing VMware View 5 – Composer Server 2.7

To follow up on one of my previous posts:

Installing VMware View 4.6 – Composer Server 2.6 and Connection & Transfer Server 4.5
http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2011/09/installing-vmware-view-46-composer.html

… I recently had to deploy a new View environment replacing a VMware View 4.5 POC for company and noticed that as with VMware View 4.5 and 4.6 the VMware View 5 installation isn’t a whole lot different than the previous versions.

Note that the changes to the installation are minimal so I’ve omitted the detail information I included in my previous blog post for VMware 4.5 and 4.6 such as what needs to be prepared before installing the roles onto the prepped virtual machines.  For more details about what needs to be done ahead of time (servers, databases, DSNs), see the following post:

Installing VMware View 4.5 – Composer Server 2.5 and Connection & Transfer Server 4.5
http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2010/10/installing-vmware-view-45-composer.html

Setting up the View Composer 2.7 database and ODBC connection

Creating the VMware View Composer 2.7 database was a lot easier than the vCenter database as shown in one of my previous posts (http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-vcenter-41-sql-database-and.html). All you really have to do is the following:

Fire up Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the SQL database server you’ll be using to host the View Composer database, right click on Databases, choose New Database, fill in the appropriate fields modifying any settings you would like and click OK:

Once you’ve created the database, you’ll need to create a SQL Authentication service account for your View Composer to connect over to the database so navigate to Security –> Logins then right click on the Logins node and select New Login…:

With the General node selected, select SQL Server authentication under Login Name and fill in the appropriate fields:

Before clicking the OK button to exit out of the login creation window, select the User Mapping node and map the service account to your View Composer database and give it db_owner database role membership:

Once the View Composer database has been set up, log onto the server you’ll be installing View Composer (in this case, it’ll be your vCenter) and proceed to creating a 64-bit System DSN for the database making sure you choose the SQL Server Native Client 10.0 and not the SQL Server driver:

Note that I have entered localhost as the server because the SQL instance I’m using is installed on vCenter:

Make sure you test the DSN:

Installing VMware View Composer 2.7

Begin by logging onto your vCenter and make sure you execute (VMware-viewcomposer-2.7.0-481620.exe)

the VMware View Composer 2.7 installation binary by right clicking and choosing Run as administrator:

Proceed through the initial screens of the wizard:

As I indicated in my View 4.5 and 4.6 installation post, the View installation is different than what the vCenter installation because you are not offered a drop down list to select an existing DSN connection but will need to type in the DSN name and credentials manually:

Unless there is a need to change the SOAP port, I would suggest to leave it as the default so you know it’s the standard VMware View Composer port:

Proceeding with the wizard will begin the installation:

Installing VMware View Connection Server 5

Log on to the newly created Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit virtual machine you have created for the View Connection server and navigate to the View Connection 5 server’s binaries:

Proceed through the initial screens of the wizard:

I won’t go into the details of the listed options as they can be found in the deployment guide so proceed with choosing the View Standard Server:

Unless you have reasons to not allow the installation wizard to automatically configure the firewall of the Windows 2008 R2 64-bit server, continue with the defaults:

I’m always interested in looking at the installation status and try to spot what’s being installed.  Note that the AD LDS server role is automatically installed:

… and the set up of VMwareVDMDS Directory Services instance:

… and a vdiSchema.ldf is loaded:

Once the installation wizard is complete, click Finish.

As indicated in my previous 4.5 and 4.6 install post, it’s always good practice to have a look at the services console to ensure that the connection server’s services have been installed and running.

Installing VMware Transfer Server 5

I haven’t had the chance to document the Transfer Server 4.6 install but it’s more or less the same as the previous versions.  So please refer to my previous posts to prepare and install the server.

Enter VMware View Licenses

One of the first items to do once all the roles have been installed is to add the licenses so open up VMware View Administrator on the connection server and log in:

Once you’re in the administration console, proceed with navigating to View Configuration –> Product Licensing and Usage and enter the licenses:

Add vCenter 5 to View Connection Server 5

If you’re not already in VMware View Administrator on the connection server, log in:

Navigate to View Configuration –> Servers and click on the Add… button under vCenter Servers:

A window will now pop up so proceed with entering the proper credentials to connect to the vCenter that will be managing your View environment:

Add VMware View Transfer Server 5 to Connection Server

Please see my previous post for instructions: http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2011/09/installing-vmware-view-46-composer.html

Add a Database and Database User for View Events

Please see my previous post for instructions: http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2011/09/installing-vmware-view-46-composer.html

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… and this is it.  The initial installation and configuration of your VMware View Composer, Connection Server, Transfer Server is now complete.  Sorry about skipping out on certain sections as I’ve been working 13 hour days for the past 2 months and have been behind on a lot of posts.

For more in depth details on the preparation required to install all these roles, please refer to my:

Installing VMware View 4.5 – Composer Server 2.5 and Connection & Transfer Server 4.5
http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2010/10/installing-vmware-view-45-composer.html

Installing VMware View 4.6 – Composer Server 2.6 and Connection & Transfer Server 4.5
http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2011/09/installing-vmware-view-46-composer.html

... post.

The following VMware KB was particularily useful for me as I was deploying the new VMware View 5.0 in a hosted infrastructure with multiple VLANs:

TCP and UDP Ports required to access vCenter Server, ESX hosts, and other network components
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1012382

Launching a virtual desktop via Citrix Web Interface 5.4 using Citrix pass-through authentication throws the error: “An error occurred while making the requested connection.” With event ID 2100 logged on the DDC and event ID 30105 logged on the Web Interface server

Problem

You have just configured pass-through authentication for your Citrix Web Interface 5.4 servers with the instructions demonstrated in the following video:

How To: Configure Pass-Through Authentication with Web Interface 5.2
http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/1405

… but noticed that when you try to launch a virtual desktop via the Web Interface, you receive the following error:

An error occurred while making the requested connection.

Reverting back to Prompt for authentication launches the desktop properly.  Reviewing the application event logs for the DDC shows the warning with event ID 2100 from the source Citrix Broker Service logged:

The Citrix Broker Service failed to validate a user's credentials on an XML service.

Verify the trust relationships between your domains.

Error details:

User: ''

Error: 'AccessDenied'

Message: 'ID only credentials received but TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort=false'

Stack Trace: ''

Reviewing the application event logs for the Web Interface shows the warning with event ID 30105 from the source Citrix Web Interface logged:

Site path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\DesktopWeb.

The Citrix servers do not trust the server. This message was reported from the XML Service at address http://ddc01.domain.com/scripts/wpnbr.dll [com.citrix.xml.NFuseProtocol.RequestAddress].  [Unique Log ID: 488a8296]

For specific information about this message, see the Web Interface documentation at http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/web-interface-impington/wi-log-messages-event-ids-hardwick.html.

Solution

The solution to this problem in my situation was actually quite simple.  As per the following Citrix article:

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/access-gateway-50/ag-50-integrate-wi-client-xd5-xml-trust-tsk.html

… all I needed to do was set the variable TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort from False to True.

Log onto your DDC and launch Citrix Desktop Studio:

Select the Desktop Studio node from the left window and select the Powershell tab in the right window:

At the bottom right hand corner of the Powershell window, click on the Launch Powershell button:

Once the Powershell window opens, type the following cmdlet:

Get-BrokerSite

… and look for the value (True or False) for the variable TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort.  The output would look similar to the following:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-BrokerSite

AppLicenseEdition                        : ENT
ApplicationIconUid                       : 2
ApplicationLicenseGraceSessionsRemaining : 10
ApplicationLicenseModel                  :
ApplicationLicensedSessionsActive        : 0
BaseOU                                   :
BrokerServiceGroupUid                    : 6a1c9ad6-3601-4ca2-97dc-220ede30bea5
ColorDepth                               : TwentyFourBit
ConfigurationServiceGroupUid             : f46f0aab-df58-45ae-9a73-84434cd5e0bf
DesktopGroupIconUid                      : 1
DesktopLicenseEdition                    : EXP
DesktopLicenseGraceSessionsRemaining     : 10
DesktopLicenseModel                      : UserDevice
DesktopLicensedSessionsActive            : 0
DnsResolutionEnabled                     : False
LicenseServerName                        : webinterface01
LicenseServerPort                        : 27000
LicensingGraceHoursLeft                  : 207
LicensingGracePeriodActive               : True
LicensingOutOfBoxGracePeriodActive       : False
Name                                     : Contoso
SecureIcaRequired                        : False
TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort     : False

As shown in the output and screenshot above, the value for the variable is set to false so proceed by setting it to True with the following cmdlet:

Set-BrokerSite -TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort $true

Once the command executes execute the command:

Get-BrokerSite

… again and ensure that the variable TrustRequestsSentToTheXmlServicePort is now set to True:

Once this variable was set to True, the warning and error on the DDC and Web Interface server went away and the virtual desktop window now launches.

Windows XP Pro SP3 virtual machine on VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 1 unable to obtain a DHCP lease

I’ve been busy with 2 concurrent Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop projects over the past month and ran into an interesting problem today when I was told that one of the Citrix XenDesktop pool’s master Windows XP Pro SP3 image was unable to obtain a DHCP lease upon boot up. 

After performing the following checks that I had off the top of my head:

1. Remove NIC, remove hidden devices from Windows, readd NIC.
2. Verify DHCP server was working.
3. Verify port group was correct.
4. Uninstall and reinstall the VMware tools.

… without any luck, I started fiddling around with the NIC in the guest OS (Windows XP Pro SP3) and the network connectivity check boxes in the settings of the actual VM.  What I noticed is the following:

1. If I disable and re-enable the NIC within Windows XP, the virtual machine is able to obtain a lease.
2. If I uncheck, apply, check, apply, the Connected boxes in the settings of the virtual machine via the vSphere Client, the virtual machine would be able to get a DHCP lease.

Since we had tight deadlines, I went ahead and started building a new Windows XP SP3 virtual machine while also made a call into VMware support.  The support engineer didn’t really understand why this was happening, so he asked me if I could change the network adapter from Flexible to E1000.  My first response was that the Flexible adapter was the default for Windows XP installations and whether the E1000 adapter was even supported.  He did a few checks, said yes and pointed me to the following KB:

On a Windows XP Professional 32-bit guest, the e1000 NIC driver is not automatically available even though the e1000 vNIC is supported
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016456

I went ahead and downloaded the drivers (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/18717/eng/PROWin32.exe&lang=eng&Dwnldid=18717), installed it onto the XP virtual machine unchecking the extra Intel applications and noticed that the virtual machine now obtains a DHCP lease properly upon a reboot.  I asked the VMware engineer to provide me with some best practice guides but was only able to find the following:

Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001805

… and was unable to find any and suggested that we leave it at this state.

As a test, I proceeded to test the new Windows XP Pro SP3 virtual machine I built and noticed that it had the same problem.  I haven’t tested this on vSphere 5 but since we don’t have a lot of time to troubleshoot this and VMware does support the E1000 adapter for Windows XP Pro virtual machines, we’ve decided to continue with the configuration.

I also did a bit more research at night and managed to find the following post:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1363924

… where another professional experienced the same problem.