Citrix XML Tickets Test

Once a user logs in to the Citrix web interface, he/she receives a list of applications to which they have access. When the user chooses one of the applications to open, the request is received by the web interface and forwarded to the local XML service. The XML service then asks the IMA service for the IP address of the least busy server that has the requested application published on it. The IMA service may have to contact the data collector for this information. In turn, the IMA service on the least loaded server contacts the terminal services on this system to obtain a ticket which provides the user with the permission to access the requested application.

The CitrixXmlTicket test is used to validate that the XML to IMA service interaction and the interaction between the IMA service and the terminal service on each system are working as expected. This testconnects to the web interface (specified by the xmlHost and xmlPort parameters) and issues an XML request asking the XML service for permission to login and access the application.

This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence : Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick the desired Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose the test from the disabled tests list, and click on the < button to move the test to the ENABLED TESTS list. Finally, click the Update button.

Target of the test : Any Citrix server

Agent deploying the test :An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every Citrix server monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
TEST PERIOD – How often should the test be executed Host – The host for which the test is to be configured Port – Refers to the port used by the Citrix server user - This test connects to the web interface and issues an XML request asking the XML service for permission to login and access the application. Therefore, in the USER text box, provide a valid user name which the test should use for connecting to the web interface. password - Provide the PASSWORD of the specified USER. confirm password - Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD box. ssl - The web interface through which these tests are executing may be configured for HTTP or HTTPS access. If HTTPS access is configured, then this parameter should be set to yes. domain - Provide the domain to which the user logs in. domaintype - A Citrix web interface can be set up to authenticate users by connecting to a Windows domain, or a Unix domain, or a Novell domain. The domainType value represents the type of domain being used to validate the user. The default value is "NT". For Unix, use "UNIX" and for Novell, use "NDS" in the domainType setting. xmlhost - Provide the IP/hostname of the web interface to which this test will attempt to connect. xmlport - Provide the port number (respectively) of the web interface to which this test will attempt to connect.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Connection availability:	Tracks if the Citrix Nfuse service is available to handle any requests.	Percent	If the TCP connection to the XML service port fails, this metric has a value of 0. Otherwise, it has a value of 100.
Authentication status:	Indicates if the user authentication succeeded.	Percent	It has a value of 100 if the user was authenticated, and a value of 0 if the authentication failed. If the user login is valid, yet authentication fails, the problem then lies with the Citrix IMA service's communication with the domain controller/active directory server.
Ticket status:	Indicates if the Citrix Virtual Apps server (actually the IMA service) was able to communicate with the terminal service and retrieve a ticket approving the user's access to the application of interest.	Percent	A value of 0 indicates that a valid ticket was not received.
TCP connection time:	Indicates the time taken to establish a TCP connection to the Citrix XML service port.	Secs	If this value is significantly high, it could probably be because the network latency is high or the Citrix web interface host is overloaded.
Response time for Citrix ticket generation:	Represents the total time taken for a user to login to the Citrix web interface and request to access an application.	Secs	The value of this metric indicates the responsiveness of the Citrix IMA service.