Infrastructure monitoring [Preview]

Citrix Monitor now offers visibility into the operational health of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops components. This feature helps you to easily identify, troubleshoot, and resolve issues related to your infrastructure. Currently, the health of the Citrix Provisioning (PVS) and StoreFront components are monitored.

To support this feature, a new Windows executable named Citrix Infra Monitor is introduced for Citrix components. This helps with the collection and transmission of relevant health metrics from PVS or StoreFront servers to Monitor.

This feature helps you to get critical monitoring data sets and proactive alerts regarding the PVS and StoreFront server’s system metrics on a single console in Monitor. Data is collected every five minutes from the monitoring components to ensure the latest information.

This feature aims to enhance operational efficiency by offering proactive monitoring, detailed metrics, and automated alerts, ensuring your Citrix infrastructure runs smoothly and efficiently.

Key features

Real-time monitoring:

• Continuous monitoring of Citrix infrastructure components such as Citrix Provisioning (PVS) servers and StoreFront.
• Dashboard views presenting system health, resource utilization, and relevant performance metrics.

Detailed analysis:

• Provides detailed analysis on the system health metrics such as connectivity status, and service or process status for each component.
• Details on the resource utilization metrics such as CPU, memory, and disk utilization.

Automated alerts and notifications:

• Customizable alert thresholds for various metrics and states with granular scopes.
• Real-time notifications through email and webhooks.

Use-cases

Operational efficiency:

Ensures that Citrix admin teams can maintain high availability and performance of their Citrix servers and services. This feature also helps in minimizing downtime by proactively identifying and alerting admins on issues before they impact significant user groups.

Faster ticket resolution:

Monitors key metrics on server health and performance to evaluate the optimal delivery of virtual applications and desktops to users. Use these metrics to diagnose and resolve user complaints related to performance by analyzing associated components.

Prerequisites

• Configure HTTPS for Citrix Infra Monitor with Citrix Cloud. This prerequisite is optional but recommended. For more information, see Configure HTTPS for Citrix Infra Monitor.
• User accounts or permissions required to run Citrix Infra Monitor:
  • User accounts with Windows administrator permissions to install the Citrix Infra Monitor on the endpoint machines.

  • A full administrator user account or a custom role with the following Monitor permissions:

    • Create\Edit\Enable\Delete Alert Policies
    • Create\Edit\Remove Alert Email Server Configuration
    • Dismiss Alerts
    • View Alert Policies
    • View Alerts
    • View Dashboard page
    • View Infrastructure Monitor page
    • To view the Alerts page

Note:

If you don’t have permission to access the Alerts page, the Manage Alerts option is disabled on the Infrastructure Monitoring page.

Getting started with Infrastructure Monitoring

Step 1: Installation of Citrix infra Monitor

Perform the following steps to complete the installation on the target component to establish connection for secure data collection.

Step 1.1: Identify the target components

Identify the target components such as PVS or StoreFront servers which need to be monitored.

Step 1.2 Download Citrix Infra Monitor

You can download CitrixInfraMonitor.msi from the Citrix downloads page on the target server identified in Step 1.1.

Step 1.3: Run Citrix infra Monitor

Run the CitrixInfraMonitor.msi installer on the target component by following the instructions in the installation wizard.

Note:

Users with administrative privileges can install and configure Citrix infra Monitor on the target component.

Once the installation is successful, you can view the Citrix Infra Monitor Service in the Services section:

Step 1.4: Get the registration token

Get the token provided in the RegistrationToken.txt file at C:\ProgramData\Citrix\InfraMonitor\RegistrationToken.txt in the system where Citrix Infra Monitor is installed and keep it ready for use in Step 3: Register Citrix Infra Monitor.

Note:

Once you successfully install CitrixInfraMonitor.msi, the installer creates an exception for the 9595 port. If you are using any third-party firewall, you might have to allow TCP communication for this port manually for using the Citrix Infra Monitoring service.

Step 2: Configure HTTPS for Citrix Infra Monitor

Note:

Citrix Infra Monitor service works in HTTP mode as well and in this case, the following configuration isn’t required. However, we recommend you to use in https mode. Perform the following steps only if you need to configure https for Citrix Infra Monitor.

Step 2.1: Upload the certificate to the machine

1. Get a PFX certificate for your machine where Citrix Infra Monitor is installed. For more information on PFX file generation, see How to create a PFX file.

   Note:

   You can use password protected PFX files also.

2. Upload the certificate to the machine to any location.

Step 2.2: Import the certificate to computer certificates

1. Click Start > Run > type mmc, and then click OK. The Console 1 - [Console Root] window appears.

2. On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in. The Add or Remove Snap-ins window appears.

   

3. Under Snap-in, double-click Certificates. The Certificates snap-in window appears.

   

4. Select Computer account, and then click Next. The Select Computer window appears.

   

5. Select Local computer.
6. Click Finish. The Certificates (Local Computer) section appears on the list of selected snap-ins for the new console.
7. Click OK.

8. Expand Certificates, right-click Personal > All Tasks > Import. The Welcome to the Certificate Import Wizard appears.

   

9. Select Next > Browse Files. Navigate to the location where you uploaded the PFX file, change the file type to All files and then select the respective PFX certificate.

   

10. Enter the PFX Password. You can leave it blank if there is no password.
11. Click Next.

12. For the Certificate Store, make sure that the Place all certificates in the following store option is selected and the Certificate store is selected as Personal.

    

13. Click Next.
14. Review the details and click Finish.
15. Wait for confirmation. The The import was successful message appears.
16. Navigate to Certificates > Personal and ensure that the certificate is present.
17. Delete the PFX certificate file from the machine.

Step 2.3: Provide read access to certificate

1. Right-click on the imported certificate > All Tasks > Manage Private Keys.
2. In the dialog that opens, select Add, and then search for Network Service. Click OK.
3. Select NETWORK SERVICE under Group or user names.
4. Allow Read access under Permissions for NETWORK SERVICE.
5. Click OK.

Step 2.4: Obtain the Thumbprint

1. Double-click on the imported certificate.
2. In the dialog that opens, navigate to the Details tab and scroll to the bottom.

3. Click Thumbprint.

   

4. Copy the value and keep it ready for the next step.

Step 2.5: Setting the environment variable

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Search for environment and select Edit the system environment variables.

3. Under System Variables (for all users), click New.

   

4. Specify the Variable name as DIRECTOR_AGENT_HTTPS_CERTIFICATE_THUMBPRINT.
5. Specify the thumbprint from the previous step under Variable value.
6. Click OK.

Step 2.6: Restart CitrixInfraMonitorService

1. Open PowerShell and run the following command:

   Restart-Service CitrixInfraMonitorService
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2. Ensure that the HTTPS is enabled by capturing the CitrixInfraMonitorService module and looking for the log line Start to listen on HTTPS….

   

Step 2.7: Enable HTTPs in Monitor configuration

To enable HTTPs in Monitor service, contact Citrix Technical support and request to enable the DirectorAgentEnableHttps setting under the Monitor configuration.

Step 3: Register Citrix Infra Monitor

Prerequisites:

• Ensure that the Citrix Infra Monitor is installed on the StoreFront or PVS machine.

• You need to first install the Remote PowerShell SDK on any domain-joined machine within the same resource location. For more information, see the SDK and API documentation.

Note:

The minimum required version of PoshSDK is 7.42.26154.48609 or later.

Perform the following steps and run the PowerShell commands on the device where you installed the Remote PowerShell SDK:

1. Sign in to the Citrix Cloud console with your Citrix Cloud credentials.
2. Navigate to Identity and Access Management.

3. Go to API access tab > Secure Clients > Name your Secure Client and click Create Client.

   

4. Once you’ve created the client, the ID and secret can be downloaded in a CSV file for future use.

5. To set up the connection with the Citrix Cloud environment, use the Client Secret created in the preceding step. The example command to use in PowerShell is as follows:

   Set-XDCredentials -CustomerId “<customerid>” -SecureClientFile “c:\temp\secureclient.csv” -ProfileType CloudAPI –StoreAs “default”
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6. List the PowerShell Citrix Cloud profiles stored in the computer locally using the following PowerShell commands:

   Get-XDCredentials -ListProfiles
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   The following image shows the preceding commands as entered in the PowerShell:

   

7. Run the following PowerShell command to register the Citrix Infra Monitor:

   Add-MonitorDirectorAgent -Fqdn <FQDN of component> -Component <component> -AdminAddress localhost:19097 -ResourceLocationId <resourceLocationID> -Domain <domain> -Username <username> -Password <password> -Token <token>
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Note:

The user name and password are optional parameters. However, if you don’t provide these parameters, some of the metrics won’t be available for you.

The parameters of the preceding command are as follows:

Note:

• The token text present at the RegistrationToken.txt file is regenerated when you restart the Citrix Infra Monitor service. After the registration is successful, the token file is deleted from the machine. If you need to re-register, restart the Citrix Infra Monitor service.

• For security reasons, the token file is removed after three failed registration attempts with an invalid token.

Once you successfully register the PVS or StoreFront machine, the machine name details appear on the Monitor > Infrastructure tab.

A sample command to register for the Citrix Infra Monitor is as follows:

Deregister a component

In the event you need to deregister a given component, run the following PowerShell command on the device where PoshSDK is installed:

Remove-MonitorDirectorAgent -Fqdn <FQDN of component> -Component <component> -AdminAddress localhost:19097 -ResourceLocationId <resourceLocationID> -Domain <domain> -Username <username> -Password <password> -Token <token>
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A sample command to remove registration of the Citrix Infra Monitor is as follows:

Note:

Deregistering a component only stops the data flow from the specific component to Monitor. If you need to uninstall Citrix Infra Monitor, uninstall it from the Control panel.

Infrastructure Dashboard

You can see the health values for your components in the Infrastructure Monitoring page. These results help to analyze and troubleshoot issues proactively regarding your infrastructure.

You can filter the Infrastructure Monitoring page by:

• Host name - Select the host name
• Reachability - Select Up (server is reachable) or Down (Server isn’t reachable) checkbox
• Errors - Select Show rows with errors only checkbox.

Use the Manage columns option to choose the data to be seen in your dashboard.

PVS health metrics

The following details are monitored for PVS servers:

StoreFront health metrics

The following details are monitored for StoreFront servers:

Create and manage alerts

You can set up alerts for proactively monitoring conditions and scopes of interest to you and reduce alert fatigue. Alerts can be configured with severity, re-alert intervals, notification mediums, and follow the alert lifecycle supported in the product.

For more information, see the Alerts page.