Citrix Provisioning Services 7.9 User manual

New in this release

Fixed issues

Known issues

System requirements

Provisioning Services product overview

Provisioning Services product infrastructure

Provisioning Services administrator roles

Product utilities

Upgrading a Provisioning Services farm

Upgrading Provisioning Servers

Upgrading vDisks

Installing and conﬁguring Provisioning Services

Pre-installation tasks

Licensing

Upgrading a Provisioning Services target device vDisk using in-place upgrade

Configuring UEFI pre-boot environments

Installing Provisioning Services Server software

Configuring the farm

Running the Configuration Wizard silently

Installing Provisioning Services Console software

Adding additional Provisioning Servers

Preparing a master target device for imaging

Using the Imaging Wizard to create a new vDisk

Assigning vDisks to target devices

Uninstalling Provisioning Services product software

Configuring the bootstrap file from the console

Getting the bootstrap file

Provisioning Services 7.9

Jun 14 , 2016

Using the Manage Boot Devices utility

Using the Provisioning Services Console

Performing tasks in the Console

Managing farms

Farm properties

Farm tasks

Managing sites

Managing administrative roles

Managing farm administrators

Managing site administrators

Managing device administrators

Managing device operators

Managing stores

Managing Provisioning Servers

Provisioning Servers in the console

Provisioning Server properties

Overview of Provisioning Server tasks

Copying and pasting Provisioning Server properties

Deleting a Provisioning Server

Starting, stopping, or restarting Provisioning Services

Showing Provisioning Server connections

Balancing the target device load on Provisioning Servers

Checking for Provisioning Server vDisk access updates

Configuring Provisioning Servers manually

Disabling write cache to improve performance when using storage device drives

Providing Provisioning Servers with access to stores

Managing target devices

Configuring the BIOS-embedded bootstrap

Adding target devices to the database

Setting the target device as the template for this collection

Copying and pasting target device properties

Booting target devices

Checking a target device's status from the console

Sending messages to target devices

Disabling a target device

Deleting target devices

Shutting down target devices

Restarting target devices

Moving target devices between collections

Using the Status Tray on a target device

Managing target device Personality

Changing the device status to Down

Target device properties

Configuring target devices that use personal vDisks

Managing vDisks

Creating vDisks

Prerequisites for deploying vDisks

Configuring the vDisk access mode

Selecting the write cache destination for standard vDisk images

Configuring a vDisk for Microsoft Volume Licensing

Managing load balancing across servers

Support for replicated vDisk storage

Exporting and importing vDisks

Releasing vDisk locks

Copying and pasting vDisk properties

Adding existing vDisks to a vDisk pool or store

Backing up a vDisk

Viewing vDisk usage

Deleting cache on a difference disk

vDisk properties

Assigning vDisks and versions to target devices

Updating vDisks

Retiring or deleting vDisks

Managing device collections

Device collection properties

Creating a device collection

Importing target devices into a collection

Deleting a collection

Refreshing a collection in the console

Booting target devices within a collection

Restarting target devices within a collection

Shutting down target devices within a collection

Sending messages to target devices within a collection

Moving collections within a site

Managing views

View properties

Managing views in the console

Managing for highly available implementations

Offline database support

Database mirroring

SQL AlwaysOn for SQL Server 2012, 2014, and 2016

Provisioning Server failover

Configuring for high availability with shared storage

Configuring the boot file for high availability

Conﬁguring vDisks for Active Directory management

Managing domain passwords

Enabling domain management

Managing domain computer accounts

Network components

Preparing network switches

Using UNC names

Reducing network utilization

Managing Roaming User Profiles

Booting through a router

Managing multiple network interface cards

Updating NIC drivers

Managing and accessing a LUN without using a network share

Managing printers

Installing printers on a vDisk

Enabling or disabling printers on a vDisk

Methods for enabling printers on a vDisk

Enabling the Printer Management feature

Using the Streamed VM Setup Wizard

Deploying virtual desktops to VMs Using the XenDesktop Setup Wizard

Provisioning vGPU-enabled XenDesktop machines

Conﬁguring Personal vDisks

Logging

Auditing

APIs

Citrix SCOM Management Pack for Provisioning Services

New in this release

May 31, 2016

The folllowing new features are available with Provisioning Services 7.9:

Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)

BDM support for UEFI through the XenDesktop setup Wizard

Updating a BDM partition

Numerous fixes to customer-reported and internally identified issues

Note

You must use the most recent version of the Citrix License server to get the latest features. When upgrading from an existing version

of Provisioning Services to the newest version of Provisioning Services, the most recent version of the license server is usually

available with the product software. If you do not upgrade to the latest version of the license server, the product license will enter the

30 day grace period.

Tip

Refer to the ﬁxed and known issues for additional information about this release of Provisioning Services.

Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)

The Citrix Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) gathers anonymous conﬁguration and usage data from

Provisioning Services and automatically sends the data to Citrix. This data helps Citrix improve the quality, reliability, and

performance of Provisioning Services.

Tip

You can change whether you participate in CEIP using the Provisioning Services console. You have 7 days to disable CEIP after

installation.

Note

The data collected by CEIP is not stored on disk and is transferred securely via HTTPS to Citrix weekly. Any information that would

identify a customer or user is not included in the upload process. For more information on the CEIP, see About the Citrix Customer

Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).

Changing your CEIP participation setting

You can change your participation in CEIP at anytime using the Provisioning Services console.

To enroll in CEIP, or to forego participation:

1. Select the appropriate farm in the Provisioning Services console.

2. Click Properties, then select the Options tab.

3. In the Customer Experience Improvement Program field, select (or deselect) the checkbox associated with Send

anonymous statistics and usage inf ormation.

4. Click OK.

BDM support for UEFI through the XenDesktop setup Wizard

At version 7.7, PVS introduced UEFI options for Generation II VMs. However, only PXE-based boot options were supported.

UEFI BDM support now includes integration with XenDesktop Setup Wizard, which allows you to set the BDM boot option

to target UEFI ﬁrmware. With this support, PVS supports booting from:

ISO

USB

Boot partitiions

When using this functionality, consider the following:

Can only be used by the XenDesktop Setup Wizard provisioned VM with a BDM partition.

Uses the PVS server IP address in the bootstrap of the PVS server the user is currently connected to.

BDM partition booting is a single stage BDM.

With this added BDM support, the following new templates are intoduced:

BIOS (Generation 1 VMs) use BDMTeamplate.vhd

UEFI (Generation 2 VMs) use BDMTemplate.vhdx; typically used for HDX integration with UEFI and Generation 2 VMs.

Note

This functionality does not require PXE, T FT P, or T SB.

Tip

During UEFI boot, PVS server information is displayed in verbose mode (illustrated below) without any additional conﬁguration.

Setting a target device for UEFI ﬁrmware

To use the BDM boot partition:

1. Select the Provisioning Services Console node and right click to display a context menu.

2. In the context menu, select Create a Boot Device.

Tip

You can access the options without connecting to a PVS server; BDM.exe provides a shortcut in the Start menu. See Server lookup

using DHCP to retrieve the device IP address for more information.

4. In the Boot Device Management screen, select Target device is UEFI ﬁrmware.

5. Click Next.

Tip

The BDM partition can be updated (with server information and options) and upgraded (with the bootstrap available at Provisioning

Services 7.9).

Server lookup using DHCP to retrieve the device IP address

When specifying a login server, you have the option to use either DNS to locate a server, or you can specify a static IP

address to identify a server. If the server lookup method is set to Use DNS to ﬁnd a Server, you can set additional UEFI

options, including:

UEFI network. Use this option to set the boot NIC interface index value. By default, this value is set to 0 (representing

the first NIC).

Boot Device. Select the Add an active boot partition checkbox, and use the drop down menu to select from the

following device options:

Citrix ISO Image Recorder. This default choice for UEFI networks.

USB. Used if a USB drive is connected to the PVS server.

HDD. When the boot device is a directly connected hard disk drive.

After specifying BDM configuration options, click Burn to create a BDM device.

Important

Citrix recommends that you do not use HDD as a boot option when connected to the PVS server.

Updating a BDM partition

The BDM partition was introduced in Provisioning Services 7.0, however, it was not possible to upgrade a partition. Version

7.9 introduces functionality that allows you to upgrade the BDM partition based on the servers IP address in the bootstrap

of the PVS server to which you are connected.

A BDM partition can be upgraded in one of three ways:

by collection

by a group of highlighted devices

by a single device

Note

The BDM boot partition upgrade does not require PXE, T FT P, or T SB; it's considered a single stage bootloader, at boot time it

automatically ﬁnds all relevant PVS server information and does not need external services provided by PXE, T FTP, or T SB.

When using a BDM partition, consider the following:

the functionality is designed in similar fashion to actions such as waking on a LAN or shutdown on a PVS client; long

running processes can be stopped or closed at any time. If you close (or otherwise halt) a process, it continues to run in

the background.

this functionality is considered a single state partition, as a result, BDM boot times are fast (or faster) than conventional

PXE-based boot times.

To update BDM paritions:

1. In the Provisioning Services Console, expand Device Collections.

2. Select the approprate BDM update. Right click to expose a context muenu.

3. In the context menu, select Target Device, then select Update BDM Partitions.

In the Target Device Update BDM screen:

Click Update Devices. Once selected, PVS begins updating all target devices with the BDM update.

Click Stop to immediately halt the update process.

Click Close to dimiss the T arget Device Update BDM screen; the process continues to run in the background.

Tip

Prior to Provisioning Services 7.9, a BDM partition could not be updated/upgraded. This made it inﬂexible to changes in the

Provisioning Services environment, like adding or retiring PVS servers. Improvements or hotﬁx changes to the bootstrap as well as

changes to the PVS environment make it necessary to delete all BDM VMs and to provision new VMs to pickup up changes.

Fixed issues

May 31, 2016

Compared to: Provisioning Services 7.8

Provisioning Services 7.9 contains all ﬁxes that were included in Provisioning Services 7, 7.1, 7.6, and 7.7, plus the following,

new ﬁxes:

Release 7.8 of Provisioning Services provided support for Hyper-V Generation II VMs. At this release, the following issues

were resolved related to Hyper-V Gen II VMs:

The PVS XenDesktop Setup Wizard only supported single NIC templates. In addition, the setup Wizard did not provide

support for propagating the virtual DVD drive contents.

BDM did not support UEFI booting.

Console

Server

Target Device

Console Issues

This is an enhancement to facilitate NIC teaming with the latest Mellanox NICs and ﬁrmware used in HP Moonshot

systems.

[#LC4646]

If the template created in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) has NICs on two different networks - for

example, NIC1 on network

xxx

and NIC2 on network

yyy

- the XenDesktop Setup wizard default behavior is to change

both NICs to the network of the host record (network

zzz

). For the NIC2 network to remain unchanged, after installing

this ﬁx, set the registry value "RequireMatchingNetworks" under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ProvisioningServices\PlatformScvmm to "1."

[#LC4650]

When expanding Sites, the PVS console occasionally times out.

[#LC4737]

Pressing "Ctrl+C" without any items selected, the Provisioning Services Console might exit unexpectedly with the

following error message:

"MMC has detected an error in a snap-in and will unload it."

Additionally, the issue can occur if the "Ctrl+C" key combination is automatically injected by certain third-party software.

[#LC4909]

Server Issues

When exporting a vDisk by running the PowerShell command "Mcli-Run ExportDisk -p DiskLocatorName="DISK_NAME",

StoreName="STORE_NAME", SiteName="SITE_NAME,"" a manifest ﬁle with multiple entries for each version of the

vDisk might be created. The issue occurs when a vDisk with the same name is present in multiple Sites. The number of

duplicate entries per version corresponds to the number of sites that have the vDisk.

[#LC4225]

The DHCP Discover request sent by the Boot Device Manager occasionally sets the "Seconds Elapsed" value to 0 on

Cisco systems. The request is then dropped by IP Helper.

[#LC4369]

If you change the MTU size to less than 1,500 byte, the bootstrap ﬁle fails to download and target devices fail to start

using the Boot Device Manager (BDM). This enhancement allows you to lower the MTU size to less than 1,500 byte by

setting the following registry key. The enhancement is disabled by default:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\PVSTSB\Parameters

Name: AllowMTUAdjust

Type: DWORD

Value: 1

[#LC4531]

This is an enhancement to facilitate NIC teaming with the latest Mellanox NICs and ﬁrmware used in HP Moonshot

systems.

[#LC4646]

If the template created in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) has NICs on two different networks - for

example, NIC1 on network

xxx

and NIC2 on network

yyy

- the XenDesktop Setup wizard default behavior is to change

both NICs to the network of the host record (network

zzz

). For the NIC2 network to remain unchanged, after installing

this ﬁx, set the registry value "RequireMatchingNetworks" under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ProvisioningServices\PlatformScvmm to "1."

[#LC4650]

When using a BDM partition, target devices running on VMware do not attempt to log on to all servers in the list if the

top-most server is unreachable.

[#LC4736]

When attempting to import a new vDisk version of a VHDX ﬁle, the import fails and an error message appears that says

the Manifest ﬁle is invalid.

[#LC4985]

Target Device Issues

Provisioning Services Target device installation on systems with ESX VMXNET3 Nics requires Microsoft hotﬁx

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2550978 or a superseding hotﬁx to be installed. With this ﬁx, rather than

requiring KB2550978 explicitly, a warning message appears, advising administrators to make sure KB2550978 or a

superseding hotﬁx is installed.

[#LC3016]

Provisioned target devices have a 96 hour license grace period after which they shut down if no valid licenses are

available. With this enhancement, the licensing grace period for target devices is extended to 30 days (720 hours).

[#LC4645]

Known issues

May 31, 2016

When using a streamed VM Wizard, provisioning fails if it used immediately after provisioning a Gen 2 VM with XDSW (XenDesktop Setup

Wizard). To resolve this issue, restart the PVS console. [#639235]

A UEFI device erroneously displays the login server as the first IP address in the BDM even when the server does not exist. This occurs

during the UEFI bootstrap phase and does not affect the target boot phase.[#632823]

UEFI (Gen 2) virtual machines provisioned by XenDesktop receive a Windows file entry added by UEFI as the first item in the boot list. This

issue results in a VM displaying a message indicating a failed boot before booting from BDM or PXE. [#635768]

When booting a system in private or maintenance vDisk mode, you cannot use the imaging Wizard or P2PVS to revert to the previously

installed image. [#620711]

A server provisioned using the PVS imaging wizard version 7.7 cannot connect to a PVS 7.8 server. [#620466]

The PVS imaging wizard and P2PVS cannot reverse an image in a UEFI system. [#620711]

The PVS imaging wizard version 7.7 cannot connect to a server running the latest version of PVS 7.8. [#620466]

This release of Provisioning Services provides support for Hyper-V Generation II VMs with the following known issue:

The PVS VM Streaming Wizard does not support Hyper-V Generation II VMs.

System requirements

Feb 0 2, 2017

Database requirements

The following databases are supported: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3 through 2014 (x86, x84, and Express editions).

Database clustering is supported.

SQL Server 2012 supports always on tracing, but does not support multi-subnet failover.

Licensing requirements

The Citrix Licensing Server download for this release is included with the XenApp/XenDesktop installation media. Refer to

Citrix License Server documentation for licensing details and requirements. You should always use the most recent Citrix

License server to get the latest features.

Important

Provisioning Services servers must be connected to the license server to operate successfully. You must use the most recent

version of the Citrix License server to get the latest features. Citrix recommends that you upgrade the License

Server before upgrading PVS to avoid any licensing conﬂicts related to grace periods. For more information, see Licensing.

Provisioning Server requirements

Operating systems

Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2; Standard, Essential, and Datacenter editions

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1; Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions

Provisioning Services English on English, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Simpliﬁed Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean,

and Russian versions are supported.

Processors

Intel or AMD x64 compatible; 2 GHz minimum; 3 GHz preferred; 3.5 GHz Dual Core/HT or similar for loads greater than 250

target devices.

Memory

Minimum of 2 GB RAM; 4 GB preferred; 4 GB is required for a larger number of vDisks (greater than 250).

Hard disk and storage

Disk storage management is important because a Provisioning Server can have many vDisks stored on it, and each disk can

be several gigabytes in size. Your streaming performance can be improved using a RAID array, SAN, or NAS.

There must be enough space on the hard disk to store the vDisks. For example, if you have a 15 GB hard drive, you can only

create a 14 GB vDisk.

Additional requirements depend on several factors such as:

Hard disk capacity – the requirements of the operating system and applications running on a target device. Citrix

recommends adding 20% to the base size of the final installed image.

Private Image Mode – the number of target devices using a vDisk in Private Image mode (vDisks in Private Image mode

should be backed up daily).

Standard Image Mode – the number of target devices using a vDisk in Standard Image mode. Best practice is to include

making a copy of every vDisk created.

Minimum common storage sizes

250 MB for the database

5 GB on a clean Windows system

15 GB per vDisk for Vista Class images (estimated)

Network adapter

Static IP

Minimum 100 MB Ethernet, 1 GB Ethernet preferred; Dual 1 GB Ethernet for more than 250 target devices. Two NICs

often perform better than a single dual-ported NIC.

Provisioning Server software

The Provisioning Server install program requires Microsoft NET 4.5.2 and Windows PowerShell 3.0

Network requirements

UDP and TCP port requirements

Provisioning Server to Provisioning Server communication

Each Provisioning Server must be configured to use the same ports (UDP) in order to communicate with each other using

the Messaging Manager. At least five ports must exist in the port range selected. The port range is configured on the

Stream Services dialog when the Configuration wizard is run.

Note: If you are configuring for high availability (HA), all Provisioning Servers selected as failover servers must reside within

the same site. HA is not intended to cross between sites.

The first port in the default range is UDP 6890 and the last port is 6909.

Provisioning Servers to target device communication

Each Provisioning Server must be configured to use the same ports (UDP) in order to communicate with target devices

using the StreamProcess.

The port range is configured using the Console’s Network tab on the Server Properties dialog.

The default ports include: UDP 6910, 6911, 6912, 6913, 6914, 6915, 6916, 6917, 6918, 6919, 6920, 6921, 6922, 6923, 6924,

6925, 6926, 6927, 6928, 6929 and 6930. However, the first 3 ports (6910, 6911, 6912) are reserved for Provisioning

Services.

Target device to Provisioning Services communication

Target devices communicate with Provisioning Services using UDP 6901, 6902, 6905 ports. Unlike Provisioning Servers to

target device port numbers, target device to Provisioning Services communication cannot be conﬁgured.

Login server communication

Each Provisioning Server used as a login server must be configured on the Stream Servers Boot List dialog when the

Configuration wizard is run.

The default port for login servers to use is UDP 6910.

Console communication

The SOAP Server is used when accessing the Console. The ports (TCP) are conﬁgured on the Stream Services dialog when

the Conﬁguration wizard is run. For Powershell: MCLI-Run SetupConnection. For MCLI: MCLI Run SetupConnection.

TFTP communication

The TFTP port value is stored in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BNTFTP\Parameters Port

The TFTP port defaults to UDP 69

TSB communication

The TSB port value is stored in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PVSTSB\Parameters Port

The TSB port defaults to UDP 6969

Port Fast

Port Fast must be enabled

Network card

PXE 0.99j, PXE 2.1 or later

Network addressing

DHCP

Target device requirements

In most implementations, there is a single vDisk providing a standard image for multiple target devices. To simplify vDisk and

target device maintenance, create and maintain fewer vDisks and assign more target devices to each vDisk.

In order to have a single vDisk, all target devices must have certain similarities to ensure that the OS has all of the drivers it

requires to run properly. The three key components that should be consistent are the motherboard, network card, or video

card.

The Microsoft NIC teaming driver or OEM NIC teaming software should be installed and conﬁgured before you install the

Target Device software.

The Uniﬁed Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is supported, but note that:

The Boot Device Manager (BDM) and Boot menu are not available for UEFI environments.

The Provisioning Services Network Boot Program (NBP) supports UEFI SecureBoot. Citrix recommends that you turn on

SecureBoot when firmware supports it. The exception is Hyper-V Generation 2 VMs. Hyper-V does not contain

Microsoft Windows Production CA 2011 and Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011 root certificates. UEFI- certified

Provisioning Services NBP is not authenticated correctly by Hyper-V, therefore you must disable Hyper-V SecureBoot.

Target device operating systems

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Citrix Provisioning Services 7.9 User manual

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