Citrix VDA Status - VM Test

Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) is installed on a virtual machine that runs the applications or virtual desktops for the user. The VDA enables connections between the applications/desktops and the users only when the connections are brokered by Citrix. The VDA enables the virtual machines to register with Delivery Controllers and manage the High Definition experience (HDX) connection to a user device. If the VDA failed to register with a delivery controller, it would not be possible for the delivery controller to broker a connection to the target virtual machine. The target virtual machine would therefore become an unusable resource. The VDA issues with respect to registration are logged in the event log of the target virtual server. Some of the most common issues that are logged into the event log are the virtual desktop not added to the correct desktop farm, the virtual desktop firewall not configured properly, DNS configuration failure, Time synchronization failure, WCF failure etc. The eG agent integrates with the XDPing to collect the metrics that details on what exactly was the reason behind the registration issues i.e., what was the service that failed. The Citrix VDA Status - VM test helps administrators to figure out which service has failed leading to VDA registration issues!

This test monitors the VDA installed on the target virtual machine and reports whether the services such as user authentication, active directory authentication, DNS lookup, WCF endpoints etc are successful or not. This test also reports the errors and warnings available in the event log when registration failure occurs.

Note:

This test reports metrics only if the connections to the applications and desktops are brokered via Citrix XenDesktop 7.x.

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 : A Hyper-V server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the virtual machine monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. Test period - How often should the test be executed. By default, this is set to 15 minutes.
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured.
  3. port - The port at which the host listens. By default, this is NULL.

  4. inside view using - By default, this test communicates with every VM remotely and extracts “inside view” metrics. Therefore, by default, the inside view using flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows).

    Typically, to establish this remote connection, eG Enterprise requires that the eG agent be configured with domain administrator privileges. In high-security environments, where the IT staff might have reservations about exposing the credentials of their domain administrators, this approach to extracting “inside view” metrics might not be preferred. In such environments therefore, eG Enterprise provides administrators the option to deploy a piece of software called the eG VM Agent on every Windows VM; this VM agent allows the eG agent to collect “inside view” metrics from the Windows VMs without domain administrator rights. Refer to Configuring Windows Virtual Machines to Support theInside View Using the eG VM Agent for more details on the eG VM Agent. To ensure that the “inside view” of Windows VMs is obtained using the eG VM Agent, set the inside view using flag to eG VM Agent (Windows). Once this is done, you can set the domain, admin user, and admin password parameters to none.

  5. domain, admin user, admin password, and confirm password – By default, this test connects to each virtual guest remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. Accordingly, the inside view using flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows) by default. To obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with the privileges of an administrative user to the domain within which the guests reside. The first step towards this is to specify the DOMAIN within which the virtual guests reside. The admin user and admin password will change according to the domain specification. Discussed below are the different values that the domain parameter can take, and how they impact the admin user and admin password specifications:

    • If the VMs belong to a single domain:  If the guests belong to a specific domain, then specify the name of that domain against the domain parameter. In this case, any administrative user in that domain will have remote access to all the virtual guests. Therefore, an administrator account in the given domain can be provided in the ADMIN USER field and the corresponding password in the ADMIN PASSWORD field. Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.
    • If the VMs belong to different domains:In this case, you might want to provide multiple domain names. If this is done, then, to access the guests in every configured domain, the test should be configured with the required user privileges; this implies that along with multiple DOMAIN names, multiple ADMIN USER names and ADMIN PASSWORDs would also have to be provided. To help administrators provide these user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page. To access this page, simply click on the Click here hyperlink that appears just above the parameters of this test in the test configuration page. To know how to use the special page, refer to Configuring Users for VM Monitoring.
    • If the INSIDE VIEW USING flag is set to ‘eG VM Agent (Windows)’: On the other hand, if the inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent (Windows), then it implies that the inside view can be obtained without domain administrator privileges. Therefore, set the domain, admin user, and admin password parameters to none.
  6. REPORT BY USER – For the Microsoft Hyper-V monitoring model, the REPORT BY USER flag is set to NO by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the Hyper-V server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, for the Microsoft Hyper-V VDI model, this flag is set to YES by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS. In other words, in VDI environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename.

  7. REPORT POWERED OS - This flag becomes relevant only if the report by user flag is set to ‘Yes’.

    If the report powered os flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the report powered os flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently.   

  1. REPORT POWERED ON - You can set the REPORT POWERED ON status to Yes, so that the test reports an additional measure, Is VM powered on?, revealing whether a guest OS is currently running or not. The default status of this flag is set to Yes for a Hyper-V server. For a Hyper-V VDI server on the other hand, the default status of this flag is No. This is because, in such environments, the virtual desktops will be in the powered-off state most of the time.

  2. ignore vms inside view - Administrators of some high security Hyper-V environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the ignore vms inside view parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your ignore vms inside view specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on a Hyper-V host by default.

    Note:

    While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the ignore vms inside view text box.

  3. exclude vms - Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the exclude vms text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your exclude vms specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the exclude vms text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs.
  4. ignore winnt – By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the ignore winnt flag is set to Yes by default.

  5. DD FREQUENCY - Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 6:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD FREQUENCY.

  6.  DETAILED DIAGNOSIS - To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG suite embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

    The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

    • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
    • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Machine account status

Indicates the current status of the account of the machine on which the VDA was installed.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the account of the machine. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

User authentication status

Indicates the current status of the User authentication service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the user authentication service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Domain controller time sync status

Indicates the current status of the Domain controller time sync service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the Domain controller time sync service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

WCF endpoint status

Indicates the current status of the WCF endpoint service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the WCF endpoint service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

VDA windows service status

Indicates the current status of the VDA Windows service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the VDA Windows service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

DNS lookup status

Indicates the current status of the DNS lookup service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the DNS lookup service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Windows firewall status

Indicates the current status of the Windows firewall service.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Failed 0
Success 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of the Windows firewall service. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Registration status

Indicates the registration status of the VDA.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
AgentError 0
Unregistered 1
Registered 2

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the registration status of the VDA. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Has valid license?

Indicates whether the VDA license is valid or not.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
No 0
Yes 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether the license is valid or not. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Errors in event log in last one hour

Indicates the number of errors detected in the event log for the server during the last 1 hour.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0.

Warnings in event log in last one hour

Indicates the number of warning messages that were logged in the event log for the server during the last 1 hour.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0.