Powershell and Citrix:Citrix Support for PowerShell.

 

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education”.-Albert Einstein

 

In the earlier Blog Post , Our System got up and ready for Using Citrix PowerShell SDK to manage our Farms.

But before going any further it is important to know about the appropriate Citrix PowerShell SDK you would be using along with any limitations.

Now for the Older Citrix Product like XenApp 5.0 and Presentation Server 4.5, the management was done using MFCOM but Microsoft and partners are pushing PowerShell as the new console-based management and automation tool. This doesn’t came as a shock when Citrix ( M$ partner ) decided to support PowerShell.

New Citrix Products XenApp 6.0 and XenApp 6.5 are provided with a PowerShell SDK.But the XenApp 5.0 and Presentation Server 4.5 Admins needn’t to settle for less, Citrix provides the XenApp Commands CTP for these older release. Any version below Presentation Server 4.5 can’t be used with PowerShell.

Let’s delve into these one –by-one and try to explore the functionalities provided with each of them. I have used the Citrix Community Sites for this information and I may have have misunderstood few things….feel free to correct me any time.

	Targeted Platforms	Pre-Requisite
Citrix XenApp Commands CTP	This Tool Pack runs on the following platforms: · XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 x64. · XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 x32. · XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003 x64. · XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003 x32. Following platforms were not targeted for this Tool Pack, but might be functional: · Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 x64 with HRP3 installed. · Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 x32 with HRP3 installed.	· PowerShell v 1.0 or later · .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
XenApp 6 PowerShell SDK	· XenApp 6 for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. (PowerShell Remoting used)	· MSI 3.0 · PowerShell 2.0 + WMF 2.0 · .Net 3.5 SP1
XenApp 6.5 PowerShell SDK	· XenApp 6 for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. (Citrix Remoting feature used) · Any Windows Client with PowerShell v2.0 (PowerShell Remoting used)	MSI 3.0 PowerShell 2.0 .Net 3.5 SP1

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XenApp Commands Technology Preview

These commands are a PowerShell Tool Pack that allows managing most aspects related to XenApp.  They cover all of MFCOM functionality for features available in XenApp 5 and include functionality from both AMC and CMC.  The Commands target XenApp 5 for both W2K8 and W2K3.

This Tech Preview is now open to everyone with a MyCitrix account. The current tool pack is CTP3, and you can read the Release Notes at :

https://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/dlshareddocs/XenApp_Commands_CTP3_Release_Notes.htm

Note! This tool pack is provided without any warranty.

Features with CTP

This release provides the following management functionality that is provided by the Access Management Console’s Presentation Server extension e.g.  Application publishing, Farm and Server configuration etc. This release also includes features of XenApp Advanced Configuration:  Policies,  Printer Management,  Load Management

This release does not cover functionality outside the scope of those components, such as Hotfix Management, Report Center, Licensing and Diagnostic Facility features.  Features that were removed during the XenApp 5.0 release are also not supported, such as Resource Manager and Monitoring Configuration.

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XenApp 6 / XenApp 6.5 PowerShell SDK

Both of these SDKs have standard modules, these were already explained in previous post.

· Citrix XenApp Commands

· Citrix Group Policy Provider

· Citrix Common Commands

There are few more features that are shipped with XenApp 6.5 PowerShell SDK which are not available with XenApp 6.0..But I think Citrix provides free upgrade from XenApp 6.0 to XenApp 6.5 (using a PowerShell based uitilty..this was obvious right ? ) So it’s better to go with XenApp 6.5 to use all the features.

The most distinguishing feature in XenApp 6.5 SDK is

Remoting :All the cmdlets now support a -ComputerName parameter which indicates to the cmdlet to execute remotely. This means that the snap-in now can be installed anywhere and no additional configurations are needed in the client or server , so you can use any Windows Client with PowerShell 2.0 and manage the Farm.

To accomplish this feature, a new WCF service (Citrix XenApp Commands Remoting) was introduced in XenApp, which takes care of all the business.

Apart from Remoting , there is also feature to set default computername for remoting and using Object Ids , will try to cover these later.

So I am using a Lab Environment having XenApp 6.5 and the proper SDK installed , in next post will use PowerShell Remoting to perform simple tasks.

Thanks

Deepak Singh Dhami