Installing Citrix ADM agent on Microsoft Azure cloud

The agent works as an intermediary between the Citrix Application Delivery Management (Citrix ADM) and the managed instances in the enterprise data center, or on the cloud.

To install the Citrix ADM agent on Microsoft Azure cloud, you have to create an instance of the agent in the virtual network. Obtain the Citrix ADM agent image from the Azure marketplace, and then use the Azure Resource Manager portal to create the agent.

Before you begin creating the Citrix ADM agent instance, make sure that you have created a virtual network with required subnets where the instance will reside. You can create virtual networks during VM provisioning, but without the flexibility to create different subnets. For information about creating virtual networks, see http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/create-virtual-network.

Configure DNS server and VPN connectivity that allows a virtual machine to access Internet resources.

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have the following:

• A Microsoft Azure user account
• Access to Microsoft Azure Resource Manager

Note

• Citrix recommends that you create resource group, network security group, virtual network, and other entities before you provision the Citrix ADM agent virtual machine, so that the network information is available during provisioning.
• For Citrix ADM agent to communicate with Citrix ADM and the Citrix ADC instances, ensure that the recommended ports are open. For complete details about the port requirements for Citrix ADM agent, see Ports.

To install the Citrix ADM agent on Microsoft Azure Cloud:

1. Log on to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com) by using your Microsoft Azure credentials.

2. Click +New.

3. Click See All and in the Networking pane,  type Citrix Citrix ADM Agent 12.0 in the Azure Marketplace search box and press Enter.

   

4. On the Citrix ADM Agent page, from the drop-down list, select Resource Manager and click Create.

   

5. In the Create virtual machine pane, specify the required values in each section to create a virtual machine. Click OK in each section to save your configuration.

   

   Basics:

   • Name – Specify a name for the Citrix ADM agent instance.
   • VM disk type - Select the virtual disk type.
   • User name and Password – Specify a user name and password to access the resources in the resource group that you have created.

     Note: You must use the username as nsrecover for all the agents that you install in Microsoft Azure.

   • Authentication Type – Select Password.
   • Resource group – Select the resource group you have created from the drop-down list.

     Note: You can create a resource group at this point, but Citrix recommends that you create a resource group from Resource groups in Azure Resource Manager and then select the group from the drop-down list.

   Size:

   In the Size menu, you can choose the type and size of the virtual disk for deploying your Citrix ADM agent.

   

   To select the virtual disk size:

   1. From the Supported disk type drop-down, select the type (HDD or SSD) of the virtual disk.

   2. Select one of the available sizes for deploying Citrix ADM agent.

   3. Click Select.

   Settings:

   In the Settings menu, most of the options are set by default. You can make changes to the default configuration as required.

   

   • Virtual network – Select the virtual network.
   • Subnet – Set the subnet address.
   • Public IP address – Select the IP address.
   • Network security group – Select the security group that you have created. Ensure that inbound and outbound rules are configured in the security group.
     For more details, see Prerequsites.
   • Availability Set – Select the availability set from the drop-down box.

   Summary:

   The configuration settings are validated and the Summary page displays the result of the validation.

   • If the validation fails, the Summary page displays the reason for the failure. Go back to the particular section and make changes as required.
   • If the validation passes, click OK.

   

   Buy:

   Review the offer details and legal terms on the Purchase page, and click Purchase.

   

   Once the purchase is confirmed, Microsoft Azure will deploy the agent. The deployment process might take approximately 10-15 minutes. Once the deployment is successfully completed, you can view your Citrix ADM agent virtual machine in your Microsoft Azure account.

   

6. Once the agent is up and running, using an SSH client, log on to your Citrix ADM agent using the Public IP address.

   Note

   • Use the default Citrix ADM agent credentials (nsrecover/nsroot) to log on to the virtual machine.
   • Citrix recommends that you change your default password after the first logon. To change the password, at shell type: passwd nsroot.

7. Enter the following command to change the password of the Citrix ADM agent after provisioning and follow the directions:

   change_agent_system_password.py
   

   Note: Ensure that the password is not empty. You cannot use the “nsroot” user name to log on to the virtual machine before or after changing the password. But, you can still use the “nsrecover” user name with the new password.

8. Enter the following command to invoke the deployment screen: deployment_type.py

9. Enter the Service-URL and the Activation code that you had copied and saved from the Set Up Agents page in Citrix ADM as instructed in Getting Started. The agent uses the service URL to locate the service and the activation code to register with the service.

   

After agent registration is successful, the agent restarts to complete the installation process.

After the agent has restarted, access Citrix ADM and on the Set Up Agent page, under Discovered Agents, verify the status of the agent.