Hiding Citrix XenDesktop 7.x applications from PNAgent published Apps and Desktops

Problem

You’ve successfully configured a zero client to connect to your XenDesktop 7.x infrastructure via the URL:

https://yourStoreFrontFQDN.com/Citrix/StoreName/PNAgent/config.xml


… but would like to hide all of the published applications because the zero client will only be used for desktop access.

Solution

One of the ways to hide Applications or Desktops is to use the PowerShell cmdlet Set-DSResourceFilterType on the StoreFront server.

Begin by setting the execution policy to remote signed then importing the necessary Citrix PowerShell modules with the following cmdlets:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
$dsInstallProp = Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Citrix\DeliveryServicesManagement -Name InstallDir
$dsInstallDir = $dsInstallProp.InstallDir
& $dsInstallDir\..\Scripts\ImportModules.ps1

Next, determine the Site ID of the IIS site hosting the StoreFront website:

With the Site ID determined, execute the following cmdlet to list what is being displayed for the store:

Get-DSResourceFilterType -SiteId 1 -VirtualPath "/Citrix/"

For example:

Get-DSResourceFilterType -SiteId 1 -VirtualPath "/Citrix/Desktop"

Notice the output above shows that Applications, Desktops and Documents are displayed meaning nothing is filtered out.

Next, execute the following cmdlet to filter out Applications and Documents thereby leaving only Desktops displayed:

Set-DSResourceFilterType -SiteId 1 -VirtualPath "/Citrix/Desktop" -IncludeTypes @("Desktops")

Executing the:

Get-DSResourceFilterType -SiteId 1 -VirtualPath "/Citrix/Desktop"

… will now show that only Desktops are included.

Logging into the zero client will now hide the applications that were displayed in the earlier screenshot:

Attempting to connect to Citrix XenDesktop 7 from an HP t410 Smart Zero Client throws the error: “This client could not connect to a Citrix server at the address ‘https://yourStoreFrontFQDN.com/Citrix/StoreNameWeb”

Problem

You’ve configured a new HP t410 Smart Zero Client to connect to your Citrix XenDesktop 7.x StoreFront site but receive the following error message when you attempt to log in:

No Citrix Server


This client could not connect to a Citrix server at the address ‘https://yourStoreFrontFQDN.com/Citrix/StoreNameWeb

Solution

The reason why this error is thrown is because you have configured the connection’s Server URL with the Receiver for Web URL.  To correct the issue, simply change the URL to:

https://yourStoreFrontFQDN.com/Citrix/StoreName/PNAgent/config.xml

You should be able to log in after the URL is changed:

Attempting to connect to a Citrix XenDesktop 7 store secured with internal CA throws the error: “CA certificate required to connect to this server is not installed or found…”

Problem

You’re in the process of configuring a new HP t410 Smart Zero Client with a XenDesktop 7.x infrastructure.  You proceed to configure the zero client to connect to StoreFront 3.0.1 but quickly notice the following error message:

Certificate error

CA certificate required to connect to this server is not installed or found. Please use Certificate Manager to add the CA certificate or contact your system administrator.

Solution

The reason why this error is thrown is because the certificate presented by the StoreFront to secure the traffic between itself and the zero client is issued by an internal Microsoft CA which the zero client does not trust.  To correct this issue, simply export the root certificate as Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) format:

Then navigate into the Certificate Manager of the zero client and import it into the Local Root Certification Authorities:

You should now be able to log into the site without receiving the certificate error message.

Unable to power on virtual machines on ESXi host with the error: "Invalid or unsupported virtual machine configuration."

Problem

You’ve noticed that the Recent Tasks in your vCenter’s task list is displaying the following error when attempting to perform a Power On virtual machine task:

Invalid or unsupported virtual machine configuration.

Reviewing the detail of the task displays the following Task Details:

Name: Power On virtual machine

Status: Invalid or unsupported virtual machine configuration.

Error Stack:

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM <vmName>.

Transport (VMDB) error -45: Failed to connect to peer process.

Failed to power on’/vmfs/volumes/<GUID>/<vmName>/<vmName>.vmx’.

The problem appears to be host specific because you are able to power on the virtual machine if you move it to a different host.

Establishing an SSH session to the host and reviewing the logs show the following message constantly logged:

Cannot create file /tmp/.SwapInfoSysSwap.lock.LOCK for process hostd-worker because the inode table of its ramdisk (tmp) is full.

Solution

The environment where I encountered this issue was running HP ProLiant BL660c Gen8 blades which the VMware support engineer told me apparently had a bug that constantly wrote logs to the /tmp/vmware-root folder that eventually filled up the partition. To verify this, navigate to the /tmp/vmware-root folder and use the ls command to list the contents:

Note the amount of vmware-vmx-xxxxxxx.log files in the directory in the screenshot above. To correct the issue, either move the files out of the directory to an external storage device or simply delete them. In this example, I will use the rm vmware-vmx-xxx* command to delete the files. The reason why I am required to narrow down the file to a 3 digit + wildcard is because there are simply too many files in the directory to use vmware-vmx-* (if you try using that, you will get a Argument list too long message).

The problem should go away once the files are removed.