Linux Virtual Delivery Agent

Session recording (experimental)

As an experimental feature, you can record and replay sessions hosted on a Linux VDA.

Enable or disable session recording

To enable or disable session recording for a Linux VDA, set SmAudAllowed to 1 or 0, respectively. You can use the following commands:

sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\SmartAuditor" -t "REG_DWORD" -v "SmAudAllowed" -d "0x00000001" --force
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sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\SmartAuditor" -t "REG_DWORD" -v "SmAudAllowed" -d "0x00000000" --force
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Note:

After you enable session recording on a Linux VDA, users are notified about their sessions being recorded when they log on to their sessions.

Specify file size for recordings

As recordings grow in size, recording files take longer to download and respond more slowly when you use the seek slider to navigate during playback. To control file size, specify a threshold limit for a file. When the recording reaches this limit, the current file is closed, and an extra file is created to continue recording. This action is called a rollover.

Using the following commands, you can specify two thresholds for a rollover:

sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\SmartAuditor" -t "REG_DWORD" -v "RolloverFileSizeInMB" -d "0x00000032" --force

sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\SmartAuditor" -t "REG_DWORD" -v "RolloverTimeInHours" -d "0x0000000c" --force
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  • RolloverFileSizeInMB. The current file closes when it reaches the size, and a new file opens. By default, the rollover occurs when the size exceeds 50 MB. Supported values: 10–300.
  • RolloverTimeInHours. When the duration is reached, the current file closes and a new file opens. By default, the rollover occurs when the session records for 12 hours. Supported values: 1–24.

Rollovers occur when the first of the two conditions above is met. For example, you specify 17 MB for the file size and 6 hours for the duration. When your recording reaches 17 MB in 3 hours, session recording closes the file and opens a new one.

To prevent the creation of many small files, rollover doesn’t happen until at least one hour elapses regardless of the value specified for the file size. The exception to this rule is if the file size surpasses 300 MB.

Specify where recordings are stored

Recording files are stored under /var/xdl/session_recordings by default. To specify a different path, run the following command:

sudo /opt/Citrix/VDA/bin/ctxreg create -k "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\SmartAuditor" -t "REG_SZ" -v "Path" -d "<your custom storage path>" --force
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You can store recordings on a local drive or a mount point that points to a network path. Configure proper access permissions to the storage path that you set and grant the user ctxsrvr the write permission to the path.

View recordings

To view recordings, complete the following steps to install the Session Recording player or the Session Recording web player:

  1. Use your Citrix account credentials to access the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops download page and download the product file. Unzip the file.
  2. Double-click SessionRecordingPlayer.msi and SessionRecordingWebPlayer.msi and follow the instructions to complete the installation.

Tip:

To use the Session Recording web player, install it on the Session Recording server only and ensure that recordings are available on the Session Recording server. For more information, see the Citrix Session Recording documentation.

Limitations

  • For virtual app sessions, recording notifications might not be centered.
Session recording (experimental)