User Logon - OS Test

The process of a user logging into a virtual server is fairly complex. First, the domain controller is discovered and the login credentials are authenticated. Then, the corresponding user profile is identified and loaded. Next, group policies are applied and logon scripts are processed to setup the user environment. In the meantime, additional processing may take place for a user – say, applying system profiles, creating new printers for the user, and so on. A slowdown in any of these steps can significantly delay the logon process for a user. Since logons on Windows happen sequentially, this may adversely impact the logins for other users who may be trying to access the virtual server at the same time. Hence, if a user complains that he/she is unable to access an application/desktop published on virtual server, administrators must be able to rapidly isolate exactly where the logon process is stalling and for which user. The typical process for monitoring and troubleshooting the login process on Windows is to use the user environment debugging mechanism. To enable this on Windows and to set the logging level associated with the userenv.log file, perform the following steps:

Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon registry subkey.
From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
Enter the name UserEnvDebugLevel, then press Enter.
Double-click the new value, set it to 65538 (decimal) - which corresponds to the debugger output.

Once these changes are enabled, details about the Windows login process are logged into the file %systemroot%\debug\usermode\userenv.log. The log file is written to the %Systemroot%\Debug\UserMode\Userenv.log file. If the Userenv.log file is larger than 300 KB, the file is renamed Userenv.bak, and a new Userenv.log file is created. This action occurs when a user logs on locally or by using Terminal Services, and the Winlogon process starts. However, because the size check only occurs when a user logs on, the Userenv.log file may grow beyond the 300 KB limit. The 300 KB limit cannot be modified.

The User Logon - OS test periodically checks the userenv log file on Windows to monitor the user login and profile loading process and accurately identify where the process is bottlenecked. On Windows 2012 (or above), this test takes the help of the Windows event logs to capture anomalies in the user login and profile loading process and report where the process is bottlenecked - in the authentication process? during profile loading? during GPO processing and if so, which GPO?

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 Nutanix AHV server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every user to the Nutanix AHV server to be monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL
Prism Element IP	If the eG manager had discovered the target Nutanix AHV server by connecting to the Nutanix Prism Element, then the IP address of the Nutanix Prism Element server used for discovering this Nutanix AHV server would be automatically displayed against the Prism Element IP parameter; similarly, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password text boxes will be automatically populated with the Prism Element user credentials, using which Nutanix AHV discovery was performed. If this Nutanix AHV server has not been discovered using the Nutanix Prism Element, but you still want to monitor the Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element, then select the IP address of the Prism Element server that you wish to use for monitoring the Nutanix AHV server from the Prism Element IP list. By default, this list is populated with the IP address of all Nutanix Prism Element hosts that were added to the eG Enterprise system at the time of discovery. Upon selection, the Prism Element user and Prism Element Password that were pre-configured for that Nutanix Prism Element will be automatically displayed against the respective text boxes. On the other hand, if the IP address of the Prism Element server of interest to you is not available in the list, then, you can add the details of the Prism Element server on-the-fly, by selecting the Other option from the Prism Element IP list. This will invoke the MANAGER DISCOVERY - VIRTUAL PLATFORM SETTINGS page. Refer to the Configuring eG Enterprise to Monitor Nutanix AHV topic for details on how to use this page.
Prism Element User, Prism Element Password and Confirm Password	If the eG manager had discovered the target Nutanix AHV server by connecting to the Nutanix Prism Element, then the IP address of the Nutanix Prism Element server used for discovering this Nutanix AHV server would be automatically displayed against thePrism Element IP parameter; similarly, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password text boxes will be automatically populated with the Prism Element user credentials, using which Nutanix AHV discovery was performed. If this Nutanix AHV server has not been discovered using the Nutanix Prism Element, but you still want to monitor the Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element, then select the IP address of the Prism Element server that you wish to use for monitoring the Nutanix AHV server from the Prism Element IP list. By default, this list is populated with the IP address of all Nutanix Prism Element hosts that were added to the eG Enterprise system at the time of discovery. Upon selection, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password that were pre-configured for that Prism Element server will be automatically displayed against the respective text boxes. On the other hand, if the IP address of the Prism Element server of interest to you is not available in the list, then, you can add the details of the Prism Element server on-the-fly, by selecting the Other option from the Prism Element IP list. This will invoke the MANAGER DISCOVERY - VIRTUAL PLATFORM SETTINGS page. Refer to the Configuring eG Enterprise to Monitor Nutanix AHV topic for details on how to use this page.
SSL	By default, the Nutanix Prism Element server is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the Prism Element server via HTTPS by default.
WebPort	By default, the Nutanix Prism Element server listens on port 9440. This implies that while monitoring a Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element server, the eG agent connects to port 9440.
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.
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.
Ignore WINNT	By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.
Inside View Using	By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent.
Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password	By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs.
Report By User	While monitoring a Nutanix AHV server, the Report By Userflag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the AHV server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, while monitoring AHV desktop environments, 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.
Report Powered OS	This flag becomes relevant only if thereport by user flagis 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.
Report For Each User	By default, this flag is set to Yes. This implies that, by default, the test will report metrics for each user to the virtual machine. If you set this flag to No, then metrics will be reported for VMs.
Report by Domain Name	By default, this flag is set to No. This means that, by default, the test will report metrics for each username only. You can set this flag to Yes, to ensure that the test reports metrics for each domainname\username.
Report Unknown	By default, this flag is set to No. Accordingly, the test, by default, disregards user sessions that have remained active on the server for a duration lesser than the test period. If you want the test to report metrics for such users as well, then set this flag to Yes. In this case, the test will additionally support an Unknown descriptor – the metrics reported by this descriptor will be aggregated across all such user sessions that have been active on the server only for a limited duration.
DD Frequency	Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. 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.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise 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
Logon duration:	Indicates the average time taken by this user for logging in during the last measurement period.	Msecs	If this value is abnormally high for any user, then, you can compare the User account discovery time, LDAP bind time to Active Directory, Client side extension processed time, DC discovery time, Total group policy object file access time, Avg system policy processing time and User profile load time measures to know exactly where that user’s login process experienced a bottleneck - is it when loading the profile? is it when processing system policies? is it when processing group policies? is it when interacting with AD for authenticating the user login?
User account discovery:	Indicates the amount of time taken by the system call to get account information for this user during the last measurement period.	Msecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon process spent maximum time in retrieving account information.
LDAP bind time to Active Directory:	Indicates the amount of time taken by the LDAP call for this user to connect and bind to Active Directory during the last measurement period.	MSecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon process spent maximum time in connecting to Active Directory. Besides impacting authentication time, high LDAP bind time may also affect group policy processing.
Client side extension processed time:	Indicates the amount of time that client side extensions took for processing group policies for this user during the last measurement period.	MSecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon process spent maximum time in group policy processing. If this measure reports an unusually high value for any user, then, you may want to check the value of the LDAP bind time to Active Directory measure for that user to figure out if a delay in connecting to AD is affecting group policy processing. This is because, group policies are built on top of AD, and hence rely on the directory service’s infrastructure for their operation. As a consequence, DNS and AD issues may affect Group Policies severely. One could say that if an AD issue does not interfere with authentication, at the very least it will hamper group policy processing. You can also use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know which client side extension was used to process which group policy for a particular user.
DC discovery time:	Indicates the time taken to discover the domain controller to be used for processing group policies for this user during the last measurement period.	MSecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon process spent maximum time in domain controller discovery.
Total group policy object file accessed time:	Indicates the amount of time the logon process took to access group policy object files for this user during the last measurement period.	MSecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon process spent maximum time in accessing the group policy object file.
User profile load time:	Indicates the amount of time it took to load this user’s profile successfully in the last measurement period.	MSecs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s profile took the longest time to load. One of the common reasons for long profile load times is large profile size. In such circumstances, you can use the User Profile test to determine the current size of this user’s profile. If the profile size is found to be large, you can conclude that it is indeed the size of the profile which is affecting the profile load time. Another reason would be the absence of a profile. If the user does not already have a profile a new one is created. This slows down the initial logon quite a bit compared to subsequent logons. The main reason is that Active Setup runs the IE/Mail/Theme initialization routines. Moreover, this measure reports the average time taken for loading a user’s profile across all the sessions of that user. To know the profile load time per user session, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure. This will accurately pinpoint the session in which the profile took the longest to load.
Group policy starts:	Indicates the number of group policy applications started for this user in the last measurement period.	Number	Logon performance improves when fewer Group Policies are applied. Merge GPOs when possible instead of having multiple GPOs.
Group policy completes:	Indicates the number of group policy applications completed for this user in the last measurement period.	Number
Client side extensions applied:	Indicates the number of client side extensions used for processing group policies for this user during the last measurement period.	Number
Max group policy time:	Indicates the maximum time taken for applying group policies for this user in the last measurement period.	Msecs
Profile load starts:	Indicates the number of profile loads started for this user in the last measurement period.	Number	Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know the details of the user sessions in which profile loads were started.
Profile load successes:	Indicates the number of successful profile loads for this user in the last measurement period.	Number
Profile loading failures:	Indicates the number of profile load failures for this user in the last measurement period.	Number	An unusual increase in number of profile loading failures is a cause for concern. The userenv.log/event logs file will have details of what profile loads failed and why.
Profile load failures percent:	Indicates the percentage of profile loads that failed for this user in the last measurement period.	Percent	A low value is desired for this measure. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s profile failed to load most often.
Avg user profile load time:	Indicates the average time it took to load this user’s profile successfully in the last measurement period.	Msecs	Ideally, profile load time should be low for any user. A high value or a consistent rise in this value is a cause for concern, as it indicates a delay in profile loading. This in turn will have a negative impact on user experience. One of the common reasons for long profile load times is large profile size. Compare the value of this measure across users to identify that user whose profile took the longest to load. Then, use the User Profile test to determine the current size of this user’s profile. If the profile size is found to be large, you can conclude that it is indeed the size of the profile which is affecting the profile load time.
Max profile load time:	Indicates the maximum time it took to load a profile during the last measurement period.	Msecs
Profile unload starts:	Indicates the number of profile unloads started for this user during the last measurement period.	Number	Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know when a user’s session was initiated and how long each session remained active on the virtual server. From this, you can infer how many sessions were active for a user on the server and the duration of each session, and thus identify long-running sessions for the user.
Profile unload successes:	Indicates the number of successful profile unloads for this user during the last measurement period.	Number
Profile unload failures:	Indicates the number of unsuccessful profile unloads during the last measurement period.	Number
Profile unload failures percent:	Indicates the profile unload failures as a percentage of the total profile unloads.	Percent
Avg user profile unload time:	Indicates the average time for unloading a profile during the last measurement period.	Msecs
Max profile unload time:	Indicates the maximum time for unloading a profile during the last measurement period.	Msecs
System policy starts:	Indicates the number of system policy processes that were started for this user in the last measurement period.	Number
System policy completes:	Indicates the number of system policy completions for this user in the last measurement period.	Number	Compare the total number of starts to completions. if there is a significant discrepancy, this denotes a bottleneck in system policy application. Check the userenv.log file for more details.
Avg system policy processing time:	Indicates the average time taken for applying system policies in the last measurement period for this user.	Msecs	If the system policy times are long, check the detailed diagnosis to view if the policy handling is taking time for all users. Analyze the userenv.log to determine the reason for any slowdown.
Max system policy time:	Indicates the maximum time for applying system policies for this user in the last measurement period.	Msecs