While trying to implement the citrix_farm.ps1 plugin for Citrix Delivery Controllers, I noticed it reported the correct data for the controllers, but absolutely none for the registered machines.
This is because the original plugin uses the property HostedMachineName for the cmdlet Get-BrokerSession to query the available machines.
This isn’t ideal, since this property only describes the name used by the hypervisor. To quote the Citrix docs: “The friendly name of a hosted machine running the session, as used by its hypervisor. This does not necessarily match either the DNS or AD name of the machine.” If you have a Citrix environment that is not connected to a hypervisor (aka your machine catalogs are not power-managed), this property will always be empty - therefore, the plugin will not find any registered machines.
To fix this, I replaced every instance of the property HostedMachineName with DNSName and added a line to cut off the domain part at the end (the same trick is used with the controller name).
The changed parts of the script then look like this:
$XASessions = Get-BrokerSession -Property DNSName,Sessionstate -MaxrecordCount $maxusers | Group-Object DNSName, Sessionstate | Sort-Object Name | select-object Name,Count
$XAmachines = Get-BrokerMachine -MaxRecordCount $maxmachines
$Controllers = Get-BrokerController
foreach ($Controller in $Controllers) {
--- unchanged ---
}
foreach ($XAmachine in $XAmachines) {
# Column Name of Machine / Gets machines with the specific machine name known to the hypervisor.
$DNSName = $XAmachine | %{ $_.DNSName }
if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($DNSName)) {
continue;
}
$DNSName = $DNSName.Replace($DNSdomain,$null)
"<<<<$DNSName>>>>"
"<<<citrix_state>>>"
# Column CatalogNameName / Gets machines from the catalog with the specific name.
$CatalogName = $XAmachine | %{ $_.CatalogName }
"Catalog $CatalogName"
# Column Controller / Gets machines with a specific DNS name of the controller they are registered with.
$Controller = $XAmachine | %{ $_.ControllerDNSName }
"Controller $Controller"
# Column DesktopGroupName / Gets machines from a desktop group with the specified name.
$DesktopGroupName = $XAmachine | %{ $_.DesktopGroupName }
"DesktopGroupName $DesktopGroupName"
# Column FaultState / Gets machines currently in the specified fault state.
$FaultState = $XAmachine | %{ $_.FaultState }
"FaultState $FaultState"
# Column HostingServerName / Gets machines by the name of the hosting hypervisor server.
$HostingServerName = $XAmachine | %{ $_.HostingServerName }
"HostingServer $HostingServerName"
# Column MaintenanceMode / Gets machines by whether they are in maintenance mode or not.
$MaintenanceMode = $XAmachine | %{ $_.InMaintenanceMode }
"MaintenanceMode $MaintenanceMode"
# Column PowerState / Gets machines with a specific power state. Valid values are Unmanaged, Unknown, Unavailable, Off, On, Suspended, TurningOn, TurningOff, Suspending, and Resuming.
$PowerState = $XAmachine | %{ $_.PowerState }
"PowerState $PowerState"
# Column RegistrationState / Gets machines in a specific registration state. Valid values are Unregistered, Initializing, Registered, and AgentError.
$RegistrationState = $XAmachine | %{ $_.RegistrationState }
"RegistrationState $RegistrationState"
# Column VMToolsState / Gets machines with a specific VM tools state. Valid values are NotPresent, Unknown, NotStarted, and Running.
$VMToolsState = $XAmachine | %{ $_.VMToolsState }
"VMToolsState $VMToolsState"
# Column AgentVersion / Gets machines with a specific Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent version.
$AgentVersion = $XAmachine | %{ $_.AgentVersion }
"AgentVersion $AgentVersion"
# Column Serverload / Gets machines by their current load index.
$Serverload = $XAmachine | %{ $_.LoadIndex }
if(-NOT ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Serverload))) {
"<<<citrix_serverload>>>"
"$Serverload"
}
# Column SessionCount / Count of number of active / inactive sessions on the machine.
$Sessions = $XAmachine | %{ $_.SessionCount }
"<<<citrix_sessions>>>"
if ($XASessions -match $DNSName) {
"sessions $Sessions"
$active_sessions = $XASessions | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "$DNSName, Active"} | %{ $_.Count }
if (!$active_sessions) {$active_sessions = 0}
"active_sessions $active_sessions"
$inactive_sessions = $XASessions | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "$DNSName, Disconnected"} | %{ $_.Count }
if (!$inactive_sessions) {$inactive_sessions = 0}
"inactive_sessions $inactive_sessions"
}
else {
"sessions $Sessions"
"active_sessions 0"
"inactive_sessions 0"
}
"<<<<>>>>"
if ($HostingServerName) {
$HostingServerName = $HostingServerName.Replace($DNSdomain,$null)
"<<<<$HostingServerName>>>>"
"<<<citrix_hostsystem>>>"
"VMName $DNSName"
# Column HypervisorConnectionName / Gets machines with a specific Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent version.
$HypervisorConnectionName = $XAmachine | %{ $_.HypervisorConnectionName }
"CitrixPoolName $HypervisorConnectionName"
"<<<<>>>>"
}
}
"<<<<>>>>"
A few other things I learned while tinkering with the script:
- You should configure the rule “Run plug-ins and local checks using non-system account” to run the plugin with a dedicated Citrix user - however keep in mind this will store the user password in plain text.
- To reduce the security risk, the user for the plugin doesn’t need to be local admin on the delivery controller, he just needs the right “Allow log on locally”.
- Contrary to the comment in the script, this user also doesn’t need to be a Citrix admin, the Read-Only permission is enough.
- Make sure to replace the $DNSdomain variable in the script with your actual domain - keep in mind that it’s case-sensitive.
I hope this will help someone out there - feel free to comment your thoughts! 