Application Delivery Management

Audit configuration changes across instances

You want to make sure that certain configurations are running on specific instances for optimal performance of your network. You also want to monitor configuration changes across managed Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) instances, troubleshoot configuration errors, and recover unsaved configurations after a sudden system shutdown. You can create audit templates with specific configurations you want running on certain instances. The Citrix Application Delivery Management (Citrix ADM) compares these instances with the audit template and reports if there is a mismatch in configuration. This enables you to troubleshoot and rectify the errors.

You can automate the running of the audit template by scheduling the time at which the template should be run. You can also set the frequency at which Citrix ADM should run the template. You can run the template daily, on a specific day in a week, or on a specific date in a month. You also have the option to send the diff report generated by Citrix ADM to specified email addresses that you can configure. By this option, your user receives the report as a mail attachment and there is no need for the user to log on to Citrix ADM to check the reports manually.

To create audit templates:

  1. Navigate to Networks > Configuration Audit > Audit Templates, and click Add.

  2. On the Create Template page, and in the Audit Commands tab, specify the template name and its description.

  3. In the Configuration Editor, type in your commands and save the commands as a configuration template. You can also drag and drop an existing template from the left pane on the editor.

  4. Select the values that you want to convert to a variable, and then click Convert to Variable. For example, select the IP address of the load balancing server ”ipaddress,” and click Convert to Variable as shown in the image below.

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    Click the Advanced option if you want to further specify a default value for your variable.

    You can also save the commands as a configuration template.

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  5. Click Save and then, click Next.

  6. In the Select Instances tab, select the instances you want to run the configuration audit on.

  7. In the Specify Variable Values tab, you have two options:

    1. Download the input file to enter the values for the variables that you have defined in your commands, and then upload the file to the Citrix ADM server

    2. Enter common values for the variables that you have defined for all instances

  8. Click Next.

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  9. In the Template Preview tab, you can evaluate and verify the commands to be run on each instance or instance group. Click Next.

  10. In the Schedule Template tab, you have three options to automate the running of the template and the mail address to send the diff report.

    • Use global polling interval. Select this option to run the template on the instances at a time configured globally on Citrix ADM

    • Customize template schedule. Use this option to configure the time and the frequency at which the templates need to be run

    • Send report through email. use this option to configure the mail profile to which the diff report should be sent as a mail attachment.

  11. Click Finish.

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The audit template appears in the Audit Templates list and is run at the scheduled time against the configurations in the specified instances.

Viewing Details of Configuration Changes

You can also use the Configuration Audit dashboard to view high-level details about configuration changes such as the top ten instances by configuration change or the number of saved and unsaved configurations.

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Citrix ADM also allows you to poll configuration audits manually and adds all the configuration audits of the instances immediately to the Citrix ADM. To do so, navigate to Networks > Configuration Audit, click Poll Now, the pop-up page Poll Now provides you an option to poll all Citrix ADC instances in the network, or poll the selected instances.

You can also force an audit on an instance. To do so, click the NetScaler Config Saved Status chart or NetScaler Config Drift chart. On the Audit Reports page, select the instance and, in the Action list, select Poll Now.

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To set configuration audit notifications:

  1. Navigate to Networks > Configuration Audit.

  2. On the Configuration Audit page, click Settings.

  3. On the Notification Settings page, click the Edit icon, to enable the notification settings.

  4. Select the Enabled check box and then, choose an email distribution list from the drop-down list. You can also create an email distribution list by clicking the + icon and specifying email server details.

Audit configuration changes across instances