Citrix XenApp Monitoring

Global Community
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I am not quite certain where to put this eventually but maybe starting in the global section and working my way maybe to feature ideas.

Here is my situation: I want to monitor a Citrix XenApp 7 environment. I am no Citrix expert so bear with me if I am not using the correct terms. It took some time to figure out the specifics, but I am closing in on an acceptable state. I did my research and found the following post, which contained a lot of information to point me in the right direction: [Check_mk (english)] Problems with citrix plugins Check MK 1.4.0p15.

The following problem still bugs me anyway:

When using the rule set Citrix XenApp (Windows) to deploy the appropriate monitoring plugin to the delivery controller I end up with the citrix_xenapp.ps1 script instead of citrix_farm.ps1. I figure this alright for XenApp 6 and might have never been updated, but this feels like a bug to me. It should at the very least be possible to Choose which file is used.

The whole user and permission part on the delivery controller is alright and I understand the situation. A solution would be nice, but I understand that would be a new feature. Although having the ability to run certain scripts as specific users would solve that part already.

I also realized, that the citrix_farm.ps1 script does not work in case the delivery controller lost the connection to the vCenter. This can be fixed by using a different key from the output of the Citrix cmdlet.

As a last remark the documentation could be better from my point of view, as there is still some research and testing necessary to get this to work.

I appreciate any input on this, because I feel like I am missing something.
Thanks in advance for any constructive input!

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I think your findings are correct. The citrix_farm.ps1 is not deploy able with the agent bakery because it needs it’s own user to run correctly.
On the delivery controllers i monitor the agent is manually deployed (used the baked MSI file without agent updater registration) and only copied the needed plugins manually to the plugins folder.
And changed the service user to a user with appropriate rights.

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Alright after fiddling around way to long with this I feel like I lost at least a year of my life due to the frustration. After I wrote this post I had to tackle the same setup on Windows Server 2016 (or 2019 or whatever they call their excuse for an OS nowadays). That’s when it went sideways. I thought I had it figured out mostly on Windows Server 2012 but that basically went to hell.

So much for the ranting. On to constructive topics:
Does anyone have instructions on a working setup?
Mine were:

  1. Do not use agent auto update
  2. Install the appropriate MSI
  3. Copy the citrix_farm.ps1 plugin to the plugins folder
  4. Run the agent service as a Citrix Administrator (or at least appropriate permissions)
  5. Add that user to the Windows group “Performance Monitoring Users” (or so)
  6. Give the user full access to C:\ProgramData\checkmk (not so sure about this anymore)
  7. Restart Windows service and discover services

Those went to hell with Windows Server 2016.

You can read my frustration, but eventually I just want a working Citrix monitoring and share the proper instructions with the community. If the tribe does that themselves that would be even better.

1 Like
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Thanks for sharing this!

I had the same issues to set it up for a customer. The post really helped me to resolve my problems.

A proper HOW TO Article would be awesome to have. :sweat_smile:

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Awesome! Great to know I could relieve some pain considering how much I endured myself. :slight_smile:

But a proper How-To or even better a supported solution from the tribe would be great, I 100% agree.

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