Provisioning vGPU-enabled Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop machines
Requirements
Tip
Sometimes, other NVIDIA cards function properly (for example, NVIDIA Tesla M60) as long as the Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer)/ESX hypervisor supports it. The underlying vGPU card in the Citrix Hypervisor host is unknown to Citrix Provisioning. Citrix Provisioning only uses the vGPU setting in the template and propagates it to the VMs provisioned by the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard.
- A server capable of hosting Citrix Hypervisor and NVIDIA vGPU.
- Supported hypervisors: Nutanix AHV, Citrix XenServer 6.2 or newer, or vSphere 6.0 or newer.
- The NVIDIA GRID vGPU package for your hypervisor.
- NVIDIA drivers.
- The Citrix Provisioning release that corresponds to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops release you are using. This Wizard only supports the corresponding Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops controller.
- To provision machines using the Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard, you must use Citrix Provisioning 7.7 or newer and XenDesktop 7.7 or newer. If you use earlier product versions, you can only provision machines manually or by using the Citrix Provisioning Streamed Virtual Machine Setup Wizard.
Note:
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops supports power management for virtual machine (VM) catalogs, but not for physical machine catalogs.
Provisioning procedures
Prepare the master VM
- Prepare the master VM with vGPU enabled.
- Install the NVIDIA drivers.
- Join the machine operating system to Active Directory.
- Install the Citrix Provisioning target device software.
- Using the Citrix Provisioning Imaging Wizard, create a master virtual disk image. If you plan to use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard to provision machines, select the Target Device Optimizer option, otherwise the VM fails to boot.
Prepare the template VM
Use the information in this section to set up a template VM for provisioned targets. Citrix recommends using a template VM to verify the success of the provisioning process. Without this verification, applying an incorrectly configured template to a VM can lead to VMs failing on a global level. When preparing the template VM, consider:
- the template uses an attached write cache. This cache is small, approximately 8–16 MB, and can be used for environments requiring a workaround for the SAN policy method.
- the write cache can also be used in environments applying the
UseTemplateCachemethod. - the attached disk ensures that the provisioned target device recognizes the storage controller.
- booting a VM is a verification process ensuring that the VM used as a template functions with the virtual disk. If the template VM does not boot, the failure is recognized quickly without waiting to provision more VMs.
To prepare the template VM:
- Create a template VM with the same properties as the master VM. Assign a hard drive to the template VM to use for write cache.
- Create a device record in the Citrix Provisioning database with the MAC address of the template VM.
- Assign the virtual disk to the template VM, and then set the device to boot from virtual disk.
- PXE boot the VM.
- Format the write-cache disk.
Install the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Virtual Delivery Agent
- Using the Citrix Provisioning console, set the virtual disk image mode to Private Image.
- Install the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) and point the VDA to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Server during the installation. Note: Alternatively, you can install both the VDA and the target device software before creating the virtual disk image. Both install methods require the new template VM to have a formatted write-cache hard drive.
- Reboot the VM, and then shut the VM down.
- Convert the VM to a template.
Create Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VMs
- Using the Citrix Provisioning console, set the virtual disk image mode to Standard Image.
- Choose the preferred write cache method.
- Select from the following provisioning methods:
- Run the Citrix Provisioning Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard to provision VMs. This method is available only if you are using Citrix Provisioning 7.7 or later and XenDesktop 7.7 or later.
- Run the Citrix Provisioning Streamed VM Setup Wizard to provision VMs.
- Manually create VMs by creating target device records using device MAC addresses, assign the virtual disk to the VMs, and then add the target devices to Active Directory.
Create Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops machine catalogs
When choosing between creating physical or virtual/blade server machine catalogs, it is important to consider the different advantages and requirements. For example, VM machine catalogs allow for power Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops management while physical machine catalogs do not.
Virtual and blade server machine catalogs
For Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, the host record must point to the Citrix Hypervisor host or pool where the vGPU VMs existed. The VM names in your hypervisor, device record names in the Citrix Provisioning device collection, and the Active Directory record must all be the same.
To configure virtual and blade server catalogs:
- Start the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Catalog Setup Wizard. Select Windows Desktop OS on the Operating System page.
- On the Machine Management page, for This Machine Catalog uses, select Machines that are power managed.
- For Deploy machines using select Citrix Provisioning. Power management is Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
- For User Experience select Users connect to a random desktop each time they log on.
- Enter the Citrix Provisioning server’s IP address for the device collection.
- In the structure that appears, select the Citrix Provisioning device collection where all the vGPU devices are located, then click Next. Device records are stored in an exclusive device collection.
- In the structure that appears, select the Provisioning device collection where all the vGPU devices are located, then click Next. Device records are stored in an exclusive device collection.
- Enter a machine catalog name and description, then click Finish.
Physical machine catalogs
Device names must exist in Citrix Provisioning device collection and in Active Directory.
Note:
The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops host record is not required and the VM record names are not verified.
- Start the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Catalog Setup Wizard, then select Windows Desktop OS on the Operating System page. On the Machine Management page, for This Machine Catalog uses select Machines that are not power managed, for example, physical machines.
- On the Machine Management page, for This Machine Catalog uses select Machines that are not power managed, for example, physical machines.
- For Deploy machines using: select Citrix Provisioning. Power management is not provided by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
- For User Experience select Users connect to a random desktop each time they log on.
- Enter the provisioning server’s IP address for the device collection.
- Identify the domain where all device Active Directory records are stored and the VDA version level, then click Connect.
- In the structure that appears, select the Citrix Provisioning device collection where all the vGPU devices are located, and then click Next. Device records are stored in an exclusive device collection.
- Enter a machine catalog name and description, and then click Finish.
Create a Delivery Group and associate it with the machine catalog
For details on creating a Delivery Group, see the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.
Citrix Provisioning and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud considerations
Within a Cloud DDC, you create a machine catalog and deploy it to those machines using Citrix Provisioning by pointing the catalog to a provisioning collection. If you use Citrix Provisioning with a Cloud DDC, all the machines within the provisioning collection must be associated with Active Directory accounts.