Carl Stalhood

Saturday, 30 July 2011

interview questions3

What is Printer terminology in Citrix?
An administrator can configure the following types of printers for use in an ICA session:
Client local printer
Network printer
Server Local printer
Client Printers: The definition of a client printer depends on the ICA Client platform. On DOS-based and WinCE client devices, a client printer is physically connected by a cable to a port on the client device. On 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 9x, Windows NT, and Windows 2000), any printer that is set up in Windows (these printers appear in the Printers folder on the client device) is a client printer.
Network Printers: Printers that are connected to print servers and shared on a Windows network are referred to as network printers. In Windows network environments, users can set up a network printer on their computers if they have permission to connect to the print server. When a network printer is set up for use on an individual Windows computer, the printer is a client printer on the client device.
Local Printers: Printers that are connected directly to Citrix servers are local printers within a particular server farm. This definition includes a printer that is connected to the Citrix server that hosts a user’s ICA session, as well as printers that are connected to other Citrix servers in the same server farm. If a printer is connected to a Citrix server outside of a server farm (either the server is not a member of a server farm or is a member of a different server farm), the server farm considers the printer a network printer, not a local printer.

How to implement Policies in Citrix?
Presentation Server policies are created by adding policy rules. Policy rules are broken down into the following categories:
Bandwidth
Client Devices
Printing
Security
User Workspace
An administrator can apply policies by filtering:
Client IP address
Users and user groups
Client names
Servers
Access Control
Once a policy is created it has to be prioritized for effective functioning. Following options are available for prioritizing a policy
Make Highest priority
Increase Priority
Decrease Priority
Make Lowest Priority

Citrix Policies can be configured from XenApp Advanced Configuration Console
If there are any policies which conflicts to each other,the resultant applied policies are the one with higher priority
Policies Override
1. Citrix Policy
2. Group Policy
3. ICA Session Setting
4. User Object Setting

What is IMA?
Independent Management Architecture (IMA) provides the framework for server communications and is the management foundation for MetaFrame Presentation Server. IMA is a centralized management service comprised of a collection of core subsystems that define and control the execution of products in a server farm. IMA enables servers to be arbitrarily grouped into server farms that do not depend on the physical locations of the servers or whether the servers are on different network subnets.
IMA runs on all servers in the farm. IMA subsystems communicate through messages passed by the IMA Service through default TCP ports 2512 and 2513. The IMA Service starts automatically when a server is started. The IMA Service can be manually started or stopped through the operating system Services utility.
IMA can be defined as a SERVICE, PROTOCAL and as a DATASTORE.
IMA Service: IMA Service is the central nervous system of Presentation Servers. This service is responsible for just about everything server-related, including tracking users, sessions, applications, licenses, and server load.
IMA Data store: Which stores Presentation server configuration information, such as published applications, total licenses, load balancing configuration, security rights, Administrator Accounts, Printer configuration, etc?
IMA Protocol: Which is used for transferring the ever-changing background information between Presentation servers, including server load, current users and connections, and licenses in use.
Ports used by IMA:
2512: Used for Server to Server Communication
2513: Used for CMC to Data store Communication

“Independent Management Architecture” is a term Citrix uses to describe the various back-end components that make up a CPS environment. In the real world, IMA consists of three components that we actually care about.
It is a database (called the “IMA Data Store”) used for storing Citrix Presentation server configuration information, such as published applications, load balancing configuration, security rights, policies, printer configuration, etc.
A Windows service (called the “IMA Service”) that runs on every Presentation Server that handles things like server-to-server communication.
A protocol (called the “IMA Protocol”) for transferring the ever-changing background information between Presentation Servers, including server load, current users and connections, licenses in use, etc.
In Presentation Server, the IMA protocol does not replace the ICA protocol. The ICA protocol is still used for client-to-server user sessions. The IMA protocol is used for server-to-server communication in performing functions such as licensing and server load updates, all of which occur “behind the scenes.”
If we open IMA data store database with SQL Enterprise Manager, we'll see it has four tables:
DATATABLE
DELETETRACKER
INDEXTABLE
KEYTABLE
IMA data store is not a real relational database. It’s actually an LDAP database. IMA Data Store Size 1MB per server.
We can’t access the IMA data store directly through SQL Enterprise Manager. (technically you can, but if you run a query you’ll get meaningless hex results.) If we try to edit any of the contents of the data store directly in the database, it will be definitely corrupt.
There’s a tool on the Presentation Server installation CD called “dsview.” There is another tool called “dsedit” a “write-enabled” version of dsview.

What is USRLOGON.cmd?
Whenever a user logs on to the Citrix server, the USRLOGON.CMD file runs. This file is located in %systemroot%/system32. It is configured to run automatically when each user logs in.
This file has two functions:
1. USRLOGON.CMD creates the ROOTDRIVE variable. This variable is used by the Logon Script to identify the user's home directory.
2. USRLOGON.CMD calls USRLOGN2.CMD. USRLOGN2.CMD runs the application scripts that fix user level problems with certain applications

How to identify Citrix License been consumed by a Device?
LMSTAT command shows a Client Hardware ID, a license has been assigned to that device.
Lmstat is the license administration command shows what licenses are assigned to which client or server. This utility is run on a license server from a command prompt by browsing to \Program files\Citrix\Licensing\LS. The *.lic must be present in the \Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles directory that excludes the built-in citrix_startup.lic file. Lmstat prints information that it receives from the license server but does not contact the product server.
Syntax
lmstat [-a] [-A] [-c “license_file”]
Open the command prompt and change the directory to \Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\LS
Type: lmstat –a
Example output of an lmstat -a command indicating two user machines accessing the farm and consuming two user license assignments.
A Client with Hardware ID that consumed a Citrix license is shown in hexadecimal number like below
Hardware ID for Session 1 6f78c1bd
Hardware ID for Session 2 3a7379f6

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