System Configuration – Citrix ADC 13

June 10, 2019, 11:27 am

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💡 = Recently Updated

Change Log

Updated screenshots for ADC 13
Edited all sections
Firmware upgrade – Migrate instead of Force Failover

VPX Virtual Hardware

Magnus Andersson Deploy Citrix ADC VPX On Nutanix AHV

VMware Compatibility (source = Support matrix for ADC 13 at Citrix Docs)

Citrix ADC 13 is supported on ESXi 6.7.
Citrix ADC 13 supports vMotion with either E1000 or VMXNET3 NICs.

Download and import VPX:

Download Citrix ADC VPX Release 13.0.
Download one of the VPX Packages for New Installation.
Extract the downloaded .zip file.
In vSphere Client, Deploy OVF template.

Citrix ADC VPX supports changing the NIC Adapter type to VMXNET3 or SR-IOV.

Citrix CTX224576 NetScaler VPX Loses Network Connectivity Intermittently on VMware ESXi After Upgrading to Version 12.0 recommends VMXNET3 as a workaround to network connectivity issues in recent Citrix ADC VPX builds.
If you choose to use VMXNET3 instead of E1000, make sure all of the NICs are VMXNET3. You cannot mix NIC types.
If you already licensed your appliance, jot down the E1000 MAC address, and configure the new VMXNET3 NIC with the same MAC address as the E1000 NIC so you don’t have to redo your license file.
To change the NIC Adapter Type, remove the existing NIC, click OK to close Edit Settings, then go back into Edit Settings and Add New Device.

Auto-Provision IP Address

When importing VPX into a hypervisor, you can use VM advanced configuration parameters to set the NSIP. See CTX128250 How to Auto-Provision NetScaler VPX Appliance on a VMware ESX or ESXi Host, and CTX128236 How To Auto-Provision NetScaler VPX on XenServer.

Power On VPX and configure NSIP

After importing the VPX OVF file and changing the NICs to VMXNET3, power on the Citrix ADC VPX appliance.
Configure the management IP from the VM’s console.
Then point your browser to the management IP using either http or https and login as nsroot with password nsroot.

Customer User Experience Improvement Program

You might be prompted to enable the Customer User Experience Improvement Program. Either click Enable, or click Skip.
You can also enable or disable the Customer Experience Improvement Program by going to System > Settings.
On the right is Change CUXIP Settings.
Make your selection and click OK.
See https://www.carlstalhood.com/delivery-controller-1903-and-licensing/#ceip for additional places where CEIP is enabled.

set system parameter -doppler ENABLED

Welcome Wizard

Citrix ADC has a Welcome! Wizard that lets you set the NSIP, hostname, DNS, licensing, etc. It appears automatically the first time you login.

Click the Subnet IP Address box.
You can either enter a SNIP for one of your production interfaces, or you can click Do it later and add SNIPs later after you configure Port Channels and VLANs.
Note: If you have a dedicated management network, to prevent the management network from being used for outgoing traffic, don’t put a SNIP on the management subnet.
```
add ns ip 10.2.2.60 255.255.255.0 -type SNIP
```
Click the Host Name, DNS IP Address, Time Zone and NTP Server box.
Enter a hostname. In a High Availability pair each node can have a different hostname. You typically create a DNS record that resolves the hostname to the NSIP (management IP).
Enter one or more DNS Server IP addresses. Use the plus icon on the right to add more servers.
Change the time zone to GMT-05:00-CDT-America/Chicago or similar.
Add one or more NTP Servers.

Click Done.

set ns hostname ns02

add dns nameServer 10.2.2.11

set ns param -timezone "GMT-06:00-CST-America/Chicago"

Click Yes to save and reboot.
Click the Licenses box.
On the far right side of the screen you’ll see the Host ID. You’ll need this to allocate your licenses at mycitrix.com. See below for detailed instructions on how to allocate the license to this Host ID.
On the left, select Upload license files, and click Browse.
Browse to the license file, open it, and click Reboot when prompted.
- License files are stored in /nsconfig/license.
After the reboot and logging in, a box will pop up showing you the installed license, including Days to Expiration.
Also look in the top left corner to make sure it doesn’t say ADC VPX (Freemium). The number in the parentheses should match the MPX or VPX model number.

Licensing – VPX Mac Address

To license a Citrix ADC VPX appliance, you will need its MAC address.

Go to the Configuration tab.
In the right pane, look down for the Host Id field. This is the MAC address you need for license allocation.
Another option is to SSH to the appliance and run shell.
Then run lmutil lmhostid. The MAC address is returned.

License Allocation at MyCitrix.com

Allocate a Citrix ADC VPX license:

Login to http://mycitrix.com.
On the left, click Manage Licenses.
If you are activating an eval license, at the bottom of the page, click Don’t see a new license and enter the eval license key.
In the blue Find a license by… box, change the drop-down to Product name, enter adc in the text box, and click Search.
Select one of your ADC VPX licenses, open the Select an action menu, and click Allocate licenses.
Change the quantity to 1.
In the Host field, enter the Host ID (Mac Address) you got from your VPX appliance.
Click Create license file.
Click Yes, create license file.
Click Download license file and save it somewhere.

In Citrix ADC Standard Edition or higher, some Citrix Gateway Universal Licenses are included in your Citrix ADC platform license. There is no need to allocate a license file for these built-in licenses.

Citrix ADC Standard Edition comes with 500 Gateway Universal licenses
Citrix ADC Advanced Edition comes with 1,000 Gateway Universal licenses
Citrix ADC Premium Edition comes with unlimited Gateway Universal licenses

Citrix Gateway VPX Enterprise Edition does not come with any Gateway Universal Licenses. Citrix Gateway VPX Enterprise Edition is a Gateway-only edition that has fewer features than Citrix ADC Standard Edition.

If you need more Gateway Universal licenses than your ADC Edition provides, then you can acquire Gateway Universal licenses by purchasing Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) Premium Edition, Citrix Endpoint Management Enterprise Edition, or a la carte. Then allocate the additional Citrix Gateway Universal licenses at mycitrix.com.

Search for gateway licenses, select Citrix Gateway Universal License, open the Select an action menu, and click Allocate licenses.
Change the quantity, or leave it set to allocate all licenses.
Enter your appliance hostname (not Mac address). If you have two appliances in a HA pair, allocate these licenses to the first appliance hostname, then reallocate them to the second appliance hostname.
1. To get a Citrix ADC’s hostname, login to the ADC as nsroot, and then click the gear icon on the top right.
2. In the third row, notice the case sensitive Host Name.
Click Create license file.
Click Yes, create license file.
Click OK when prompted to download your license file. Save it somewhere you know where you are saving it.
If you have two appliances in a High Availability pair with different hostnames then you will need to return the Citrix Gateway Universal licenses and reallocate them to the other hostname. The Select an action menu has a Return allocations option.

Install Licenses on Appliance

If you haven’t already installed licenses on your appliance, then do the following:

If the Setup wizard is open, click the fourth row for Licenses.
Otherwise, in the Citrix ADC Configuration GUI, on the left, expand System, and click Licenses.
On the top right, click Manage Licenses.
Click Add New License.
If you have a license file, select Upload license files, and then click Browse. Select the license file(s), and click Open.
- License files are stored in /nsconfig/license.
Click Reboot when prompted.
After reboot, log in. If you allocated and installed your license correctly, then the top left should no longer say Freemium.
A window will appear showing the installed license.
1. Notice that Maximum ICA Users Allowed is set to Unlimited.
2. Maximum NetScaler Gateway Users Allowed will vary depending on your Citrix ADC Edition.
3. Days to Expiration is shown.
Note: the Citrix ADC SNMP counter allnic_tot_rx_mbits must remain less than the licensed bandwidth or packets will drop.

VPX 100% CPU

Citrix ADC VPX packet engine consumes 100% of the hypervisor CPU. VPX 200 and lower only have one packet engine, so it’s probably consuming around 50% CPU.

You can change this behavior by doing the following:

On the left, go to System > Settings.
On the right, in the bottom of the second column, click Change VPX Configuration Settings.
Change the CPU Yield drop-down to YES, and click OK.
After making this change, you can see an immediate drop-off in CPU consumption.

Upgrade Firmware

Citrix CTX241500 Citrix ADC Firmware Release Cycle:

Versions that end in x.1 (e.g 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, 14.1 etc.) get three years of maintenance releases after one year of feature releases (new features).
Versions that end in x.0 (e.g 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, etc.) get one year of maintenance releases after one year of feature releases (new features).

Citrix CTX220371 Must Read Articles Before and After Upgrading NetScaler

Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM) can upgrade firmware. ADM can also schedule the firmware upgrade instead of doing it immediately. ADM does a precheck to make sure there are no upgrade issues. For more details, see Creating Maintenance Tasks at Citrix Docs.

To upgrade firmware using the Citrix ADC GUI (source = Citrix CTX127455 How to Upgrade Software of the NetScaler Appliances in a High Availability Setup):

Download firmware. Ask your Citrix Partner or Citrix Support TRM for recommended versions and builds. You want the Build, not the VPX.
Note: Firmware for Citrix Gateway is identical to firmware for Citrix ADC.
- Watch the Security Bulletins to determine which versions and builds resolve security issues. You can subscribe to the Security Bulletins at http://support.citrix.com by clicking the Alerts (bell) link on the top right after logging in.
Save config – Make sure you Save the config before beginning the upgrade.
License – Transferring the firmware upgrade file to the appliance will be slow unless you license the appliance first. An unlicensed appliance will reduce the maximum upload speed to 20 Mbps.
Gateway Theme – When upgrading from 10.5 or older, make sure the Citrix Gateway Theme is set to Default or Green Bubbles. After the upgrade, you’ll have to create a new Portal Theme and bind it to the Gateway vServers.
Backup – Before upgrading the appliance, consider using WinSCP or similar to back up the /flash/nsconfig directory.
Start with the Secondary appliance.
In the Citrix ADC GUI, with the top left node System selected, on the right, click System Upgrade.
Click Choose File, and browse to the build…tgz file.
Click Upgrade.
The firmware will upload.
You should eventually see a System Upgrade window with text in it. Click Close when you see the line indicating that a reboot is required.
Go back to the System node. On the right, click the Reboot button.
Click OK to reboot.
After the reboot, after you login, you can see the firmware version by clicking your name on the top right of the browser window.
Once the Secondary is done, login, go to System, and click the Migrate button to start the zero downtime upgrade as detailed at Citrix Docs. This is a new feature in ADC 13.
1. If you are upgrading from a version older than 13, then go to System > High Availability > Nodes and do a Force Failover.
Click Start Migration. It will take some time for client connections to drain off of the Primary and move to the upgraded appliance.
Then upgrade the firmware on the former Primary.
Go to System > HA > Nodes and verify the Synchronization State. If one of them is disabled, then edit the node, and check the box next to Secondary node will fetch the configuration from Primary.

To install firmware by using the command-line interface

To upload the software to the Citrix ADC, use a secure FTP client (e.g. WinSCP) to connect to the appliance.
Create a version directory under /var/nsinstall (e.g. /var/nsinstall/13.0.36.27).
Copy the software from your computer to the /var/nsinstall/<version> (e.g. /var/nsinstall/13.0.26.27) directory on the appliance.
Open a Secure Shell (SSH) client (e.g. Putty) to open an SSH connection to the appliance.
At a command prompt, type shell.
At a command prompt, type cd /var/nsinstall/<version> to change to the nsinstall directory.
To view the contents of the directory, type ls.
To unpack the software, type tar -xvzf build_X_XX.tgz, where build_X_XX.tgz is the name of the build to which you want to upgrade.
To start the installation, at a command prompt, type ./installns.
When the installation is complete, restart Citrix ADC.
When the Citrix ADC restarts, at a command prompt type what or show version to verify successful installation.
To failover the pair without downtime, enter migrate ns and wait for connections to drain off the former primary appliance.
Then repeat these steps to upgrade the former primary appliance.

High Availability

Configure High Availability as soon as possible to ensure that almost all configurations are synchronized across the two appliances. The synchronization exceptions are mainly network interface configurations (e.g. LACP).

High Availability will also sync files between the two appliances. See CTX138748 File Synchronization in NetScaler High Availability Setup for more information.

Prepare the secondary appliance:
1. The secondary appliance must be the same hardware as the primary appliance.
2. Login to the second appliance and configure a NSIP.
3. Don’t configure a SNIP. In Step 2, Subnet IP Address, you can click Do It Later to skip the wizard. You’ll get the SNIP later when you pair it with the primary.
4. Configure Hostname, Time Zone, and NTP Servers.
5. Don’t configure DNS since you’ll get those addresses when you pair it. However, if NTP points to a DNS name, then NTP won’t work until you pair the appliance.
6. License the secondary appliance. The new secondary appliance must be the same edition (License Type) as the former primary appliance.
7. Upgrade firmware on the secondary appliance. The firmware of both nodes must be identical.
On the secondary appliance, go to System > High Availability > Nodes.
On the right, edit the local node.
1. Change High Availability Status to STAY SECONDARY and click OK. If you don’t do this then you run the risk of losing your config when you pair the appliances.
```
set ha node -hastatus STAYSECONDARY
```
On the primary appliance, on the left, expand System, expand Network, and click Interfaces.
1. On the right, look for any interface that is currently DOWN.
2. You need to disable those disconnected interfaces before enabling High Availability. Right-click the disconnected interface, and click Disable. Repeat for the remaining disconnected interfaces.
```
show interface
disable interface 1/1
```
On the primary appliance, on the left, expand System, expand High Availability, and click Nodes.
On the right, edit node 0.
1. Change the High Availability Status to STAY PRIMARY, and click OK.
On the right, click Add.
1. Enter the other Citrix ADC’s NSIP address.
2. Enter the other Citrix ADC’s login credentials, and click Create.
```
add ha node 1 192.168.123.14
```
  Note: this CLI command must be run separately on each appliance.
If you click the refresh icon near the top right, Synchronization State will probably say IN PROGRESS. Keep refreshing until it says SUCCESS.
Edit Node ID 0 (the local appliance).
1. Change High Availability State back to ENABLED.
2. Under Fail-safe Mode, check the box next to Maintain one primary node even when both nodes are unhealthy.
3. Scroll down, and click OK.
```
set ha node -failSafe ON
```
If you login to the Secondary appliance, you might see a message warning you against making changes. Always apply changes to the Primary appliance.
On the secondary appliance, go to System > High Availability > Nodes and edit the local node 0.
Change it from STAY SECONDARY to ENABLED. Also enable Fail-safe Mode. Click OK.
On the new secondary appliance, go to System > Network > Routes, and make sure you don’t have two 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 routes. Joining an appliance to an HA pair causes the default route on the primary appliance to sync to the secondary appliance. But, it doesn’t delete the default gateway that was formerly configured on the secondary appliance.
From the Citrix ADC CLI (SSH), run “sh ha node” to see the status. You should see heartbeats on all interfaces. If not, configure VLANs as detailed later..
You can also disable HA heartbeats on specific network interfaces (System > Network > Interfaces).
1. Note: Make sure HA heartbeats are enabled on at least one interface/channel.
2. Note: this is an interface configuration, which means this configuration change is not propagated to the other node.

HA Failover

HA Failover changes the MAC address associated with VIPs and SNIPs. If your firewall (e.g. Cisco ASA) doesn’t like Gratuitous ARP, then see CTX112701 – The Firewall Does not Update the Address Resolution Protocol Table
ADC 13 adds a graceful node Migrate operation which drains sessions instead of drops sessions.
1. Once migration is started, the two nodes no longer synchronize their configurations. The only way to clear the migration status is to reboot the Secondary. See zero downtime upgrade at Citrix Docs.
2. Go to System, and click the Migrate button to start the Migrate operation.
3. Click Start Migration. It will take some time for client connections to drain off of the Primary and move to the upgraded appliance.
```
migrate ns
```
4. To clear the migration and allow nodes to be failed over again, reboot the secondary.
5. Go to System > HA > Nodes and verify the Synchronization State. If one of them is disabled, then edit the node, and check the box next to Secondary node will fetch the configuration from Primary.
Instead of Migrate, you can do a Force Failover, which does not require a reboot, and the nodes continue synchronizing.
1. Go to System > High Availability > Nodes, open the menu named Select Action, and do a Force Failover.
```
force ha failover
```

Port Channels on Physical Citrix ADC MPX

If you are configuring a Citrix ADC MPX (physical appliance), and if you plugged in multiple cables, and if more than one of those cables is configured on the switch for the same VLAN(s), then you must bond the interfaces together by configuring a Port Channel.

On the switch, create a Port Channel, preferably with LACP enabled.
The Port Channel can be an Access Port (one VLAN), or a Trunk Port (multiple VLANs).
On the Citrix ADC, configure LACP on the network interfaces, or create a Channel manually. Both methods are detailed below.

Also see Webinar: Troubleshooting Common Network Related Issues with NetScaler.

LACP Port Channel

To configure Port Channels on a Citrix ADC, you can either enable LACP, or you can configure a Channel manually. If your switch is configured for LACP, do the following on Citrix ADC to enable LACP on the member interfaces.

Go to System > Network > Interfaces.
On the right, edit one of the Port Channel member interfaces.
Scroll down.
Check the box next to Enable LACP.
In the LACP Key field, enter a number. The number you enter here becomes the channel number. For example, if you enter 1, Citrix ADC creates a Channel named LA/1. All member interfaces of the same Port Channel must have the same LACP Key. Click OK when done.
Continue enabling LACP on member interfaces and specifying the key (channel number). If you are connected to two port channels, one set of member interfaces should have LACP Key 1, while the other set of member interfaces should have LACP Key 2.
In an HA pair, you must perform this interface configuration separately on both nodes. The LACP commands are not propagated across the HA pair.
If you go to System > Network > Channels.
You’ll see the LACP Channels on the right. These were created automatically after you set the LACP Key on the interface.
If you edit a Channel, there’s a LACP Details tab that shows you the member interfaces.

Manual Channel

If your switch ports are not configured for LACP, then you can instead create a Channel manually.

Go to System > Network > Channels.
On the right, click Add.
At the top, choose an unused Channel ID (e.g. LA/1).
On the bottom, in the Bind/Unbind section, click Add.
Click the plus icon next to each member interface to move it to the right. Then click Create.

Redundant Interface Set

You can also configure the Citrix ADC for switch-independent teaming. Create a Channel manually, but select a Channel ID starts with LR instead of LA. This is called Link Redundancy or Redundant Interface Set.

Channel Minimum Throughput

Channels can be configured so that a High Availability failover occurs when the Channel throughput drops below a configured value. For example, if you have four members in a Channel, you might want a High Availability failover to occur when two of the member interfaces fail.

Go to System > Network > Channels, and edit a Channel.
Near the top, enter a minimum threshold value in the Throughput field. If the total bonded throughput drops below this level, a High Availability failover will occur.

Trunk Port and High Availability

If you are trunking multiple VLANs across the channel, and if every VLAN is tagged (no native VLAN), then a special configuration is needed to allow High Availability heartbeats across the channel.

Go to System > Network > VLAN.
Add a VLAN object.
Bind the VLAN to a channel or interface. To bind multiple VLANs to a single interface/channel, the VLANs must be tagged.
Configure one of the VLANs as untagged. Only untag one of the VLANs. Which one you untag doesn’t matter. If your switch doesn’t allow untagged packets, don’t worry, we’ll fix that soon.
If your switch doesn’t allow untagged packets, go to System > Network > Channels, and edit the channel.
Scroll down and switch to the tab named Settings.
Set Tag all VLANs to ON to cause Citrix ADC to tag all packets, including the VLAN you formerly marked as untagged.
- We essentially moved the VLAN tagging from the VLAN to the Channel/Interface, which means VLAN tagging happens lower in the network stack so High Availability heartbeat packets are also tagged.
Note: in an HA pair, you must perform this Tagall configuration separately on both nodes. The Tagall command is not propagated across the HA pair.

Common physical interface configuration

Here is a common Citrix ADC networking configuration for a physical Citrix ADC MPX that is connected to both internal and DMZ.

Note: If the appliance is connected to both DMZ and internal, then be aware that this configuration essentially bypasses (straddles) the DMZ-to-internal firewall. That’s because if a user connects to a public/DMZ VIP, then Citrix ADC could use an internal SNIP to connect to the internal server: in other words, traffic comes into a DMZ VLAN, but goes out an internal VLAN. A more secure approach is to have different appliances for internal and DMZ. Or use Citrix ADC SDX, partitioning, or traffic domains.

0/1 connected to a dedicated management network. NSIP is on this network.
- No data on 0/1 – 0/1 is not optimized for high throughput so don’t put data traffic on this interface. If you don’t have a dedicated management network, then put your NSIP on one of the other interfaces (1/1, 10/1, LA/1, etc.) and don’t connect any cables to 0/1.
- No SNIP on management network – To prevent Citrix ADC from using this dedicated management interface for outbound data traffic, don’t put a SNIP on this management network, and configure the default gateway (route 0.0.0.0) to use a router on a different data network (typically the DMZ VLAN). However, if there’s no SNIP on this VLAN, and if the default gateway is on a different network, then there will be asymmetric routing for management traffic, since inbound management traffic goes in 0/1, but reply traffic goes out LA/1 or LA/2. To work around this problem, enable Mac Based Forwarding, or configure Policy Based Routing. Both of these options are detailed in the next section.
- Management VLAN tagging – It’s easiest if the switch port for this dedicated management interface is an Access Port (untagged). If VLAN tagging is required, then NSVLAN must be configured on the Citrix ADC.
10/1 and 10/2 in a LACP port channel (LA/1) connected to internal VLAN(s). Static routes to internal networks through a router on one of these internal VLANs.
- Access Port – If only one internal VLAN, configure the switch ports/channel as an Access Port.
- Trunk Port – If multiple internal VLANs, configure the switch ports/channel as a Trunk Port. Set one of the VLANs as the channel’s Native VLAN so it doesn’t have to be tagged.
- Tag HA heartbeat packets – If the networking team is unwilling to configure a Native VLAN on the Trunk Port, then Citrix ADC needs special configuration (tagall) to ensure HA heartbeat packets are tagged.
1/1 and 1/2 in a LACP port channel (LA/2) connected to DMZ VLAN(s). The default gateway (route 0.0.0.0) points to a router on a DMZ VLAN so replies can be sent to Internet clients.
- Access Port – If only one DMZ VLAN, configure the switch ports/channel as an Access Port.
- Trunk Port – If multiple DMZ VLANs, configure the switch ports/channel as a Trunk Port. Set one of the VLANs as the channel’s Native VLAN so it doesn’t have to be tagged.
- Tag HA heartbeat packets – If the networking team is unwilling to configure a Native VLAN on the Trunk Port, then Citrix ADC needs special configuration (tagall) to ensure HA heartbeat packets are tagged.

Dedicated Management Subnet

If your Citrix ADC is connected to multiple subnets, then one of those subnets could be a Dedicated Management Subnet. If you have a subnet that is for NSIP only, and if you don’t want to use the NSIP subnet for data traffic, then you’ll want to move the default route off of the NSIP subnet and onto a different data subnet. However, moving the default route breaks traffic from the NSIP. To work around this problem, create PBRs for the NSIP traffic, including both replies from NSIP, and traffic sourced by the NSIP (e.g. Syslog).

Citrix Blog Post Separating NetScaler Management and Data Traffic for DISA STIGs also uses PBRs.

Go to System > Network > PBRs. You can also search the menu for PBRs.
On the right, click Add.
Give the PBR a name (e.g. NSIP)
Set the Next Hop Type drop-down to New.
In the Next Hop field, enter the router IP address that is on the same network as the NSIP.
In the Configure IP section, set the first Operation drop-down to =.
In the Source IP Low field, enter the NSIP. This causes the PBR to match all traffic with NSIP as the Source IP address.
- In an HA pair, the PBR command is synced and applied to both nodes in the pair. To accommodate this, in the Source IP Low field, enter the lower NSIP address. Then in the Source IP High field, enter the higher NSIP address.
You don’t need anything else.
Scroll down, and click Create. This rule routes any traffic with NSIP as source IP address through a router on the NSIP subnet. The default route will be ignored, but only for NSIP traffic.
DNS traffic is special. To handle DNS traffic sourced by the NSIP, create another PBR by right-clicking the existing one, and clicking Add.
Change the name to NSIP-DNS or similar.
Change the Action drop-down to DENY, which tells ADC that traffic matching this PBR should use normal routing instead of overriding to a different gateway.
Change the Priority to a lower number than the original PBR so this rule is matched before the general NSIP rule. Scroll down.
In the Configure IP section, remove all settings.
In the Configure Protocol section, click the Protocol drop-down, and select UDP (17).
Above the two Destination port fields, change the Operation to =.
In the Destination port Low field, enter 53.
Scroll down, and click Create.
Make sure the DENY PBR is higher in the list (lower priority number) than the ALLOW PBR.
Then open the Action menu, and click Apply.

Click Yes to apply.

add ns pbr NSIP-DNS DENY -destPort = 53 -nextHop 10.2.2.1 -protocol UDP -priority 5
add ns pbr NSIP ALLOW -srcIP = 10.2.2.126-10.2.2.127 -nextHop 10.2.2.1
apply ns pbrs

Floating Management IP

If you want a floating management IP that is always on the Primary appliance, here’s a method of granting management access without adding a SNIP to the management subnet:

Create a Load Balancing Service on HTTP 80 on IP address 127.0.0.1. Note: Citrix ADC doesn’t allow creating a Load Balancing service on IP address 127.0.0.1 and port 443 (SSL).
- The IP address you enter is 127.0.0.1. When you view the Load Balancing Service, it shows the local NSIP. After a HA failover, the IP Address will change to the other NSIP.
Create a Load Balancing Virtual Server using a VIP on the management subnet. Protocol = SSL. Port number = 443. Bind a certificate.
1. Bind the loopback:80 service to the Load Balancing Virtual Server. In summary: the front end is 443 SSL, while the LB Service is 80 HTTP.
Add the new VIP to the PBRs so the replies go out the correct interface. Re-apply the PBRs after you modify them.
You should then be able to point your browser to https://Step2VIP to manage the appliance.
You can perform the same loopback trick for 22 SSH. Create a Load Balancing Service on TCP 22 on IP address 127.0.0.1.
Create a Load Balancing Virtual Server using the same management VIP specified earlier. Protocol = TCP. Port number = 22.
1. Bind the loopback:TCP:22 service to the Load Balancing Virtual Server.
You should then be able to point your SSH Client to <Step2VIP> to manage the appliance.

CLI Commands for the floating management VIP:

add service mgmt 127.0.0.1 HTTP 80
add service mgmt-SSH 127.0.0.1 TCP 22
add lb vserver mgmt-SSL SSL 10.2.2.128 443
add lb vserver mgmt-SSH TCP 10.2.2.128 22
bind lb vserver mgmt-SSL mgmt
bind lb vserver mgmt-SSH mgmt-SSH
set ns pbr NSIP-DNS DENY -srcIP = 10.2.2.126-10.2.2.128 -destPort = 53 -protocol UDP -priority 5
set ns pbr NSIP ALLOW -srcIP = 10.2.2.126-10.2.2.128 -nextHop 10.2.2.1
apply ns pbrs

Multiple Subnets / Multiple VLANs

Citrix CTX214033 Networking and VLAN Best Practices for NetScaler discusses many of the same topics detailed in this section.

If this is a physical MPX appliance, see the previous Port Channel section first.

If you only connected Citrix ADC to one subnet (one VLAN) then skip ahead to DNS servers.

Configuration Overview

The general configuration process for multiple subnets is this:

Create a SNIP for each subnet/VLAN.
Create a VLAN object for each subnet/VLAN.
1. Bind the VLAN object to the SNIP for the subnet.
2. Bind the VLAN object to the Port Channel or single interface that is configured for the VLAN/subnet.

SNIPs for each VLAN

You will need one SNIP for each connected subnet/VLAN. VLAN objects (tagged or untagged) bind the SNIPs to particular interfaces. Citrix ADC uses the SNIP’s subnet mask to assign IP addresses to particular interfaces.

NSIP Subnet

The NSIP subnet is special, so you won’t be able to bind it to a VLAN. Use the following SNIP/VLAN method for any network that does not have the NSIP. The remaining interfaces will be in VLAN 1, which is the VLAN that the NSIP is in. VLAN 1 is only locally significant so it doesn’t matter if the switch is configured with it or not. Just make sure the switch has a native VLAN configured, or configure the interface as an access port. If you require trunking of every VLAN, including the NSIP VLAN, then additional configuration is required (NSVLAN or Tagall).

Configure Subnets/VLANs

To configure Citrix ADC with multiple connected subnets:

Add a subnet IP for every network the Citrix ADC is connected to, except the dedicated management network. Expand System, expand Network, and click IPs.
On the right, click Add.
1. Enter the Subnet IP Address for this network/subnet. The SNIP will be the source IP address the Citrix ADC will use when communicating with any other service/server on this network. The Subnet IP is also known as the Interface IP for the network. You will need a separate SNIP for each connected network (VLAN).
2. Enter the netmask for this network.
3. Ensure the IP Type is set to Subnet IP. Scroll down.
```
add ns ip 172.16.1.11 255.255.255.0 -type SNIP
```
4. Under Application Access Controls, decide if you want to enable GUI management on this SNIP. This feature can be particularly useful for High Availability pairs, because when you point your browser to the SNIP, only the primary appliance will respond. However, enabling management access on the SNIP can be a security risk, especially if this is a SNIP for a DMZ network.
5. Click Create when done. Continue adding SNIPs for each connected network (VLAN).
```
set ns ip 172.16.1.11 -mgmtAccess ENABLED -telnet DISABLED -ftp DISABLED
```
On the left, expand System, expand Network, and click VLANs.
On the right, click Add.
1. Enter a descriptive VLAN ID. The actual VLAN ID only matters if you intend to tag the traffic. If not tagged, then any ID (except 1) will work.
2. In the Interface Bindings section, check the box next to one physical interface or channel (e.g. LA/1) that is connected to the network.
3. If this is a trunk port, select Tagged if the switch port/channel is expecting the VLAN to be tagged.
4. If your switches do not allow untagged packets, then you will need to use the tagall interface option to tag Citrix ADC High Availability heartbeat packets. See CTX122921 Citrix NetScaler Interface Tagging and Flow of High Availability Packets
5. If you don’t tag the VLAN, then the Citrix ADC interface/channel is removed from VLAN 1, and instead put in this VLAN ID.
6. Switch to the tab named IP Bindings.
7. Check the box next to the Subnet IP for this network. This lets Citrix ADC know which interface is used for which IP subnet. Click Create when done.
```
add vlan 50
bind vlan 50 -ifnum LA/1 -IPAddress 172.16.1.11 255.255.255.0
```
Add static routes to the internal networks through an internal router.
1. On the left, expand System, expand Network, and click Routes.
2. On the right, click Add.
3. Make sure NULL Route is set to No.
4. Set the Gateway (next hop) to an internal router.
5. Then click Create.
  
  add route 10.2.0.0 255.255.0.0 10.2.2.1
The default route should be changed to use a router on the DMZ network (towards the Internet). Before deleting the existing default route, either enable Mac Based Forwarding, or create a Policy Based Route, so that the replies from NSIP can reach your machine. You usually only need to do this for dedicated management networks.
1. Note: PBR is recommended over MBF, because PBR can handle traffic sourced by NSIP (e.g Syslog traffic), while MBF cannot.
2. Mac Based Forwarding sends replies out the same interface they came in on. However, MBF ignores the routing table, and doesn’t handle traffic sourced by the NSIP (e.g. LDAP traffic). To enable MBF:
  1. On the left, expand System, and click Settings.
  2. On the right, in the left column, click Configure modes.
  3. Check the box next to MAC Based Forwarding (MBF), and click OK. More info on MAC Based Forwarding can be found at Citrix CTX1329532 FAQ: Citrix NetScaler MAC Based Forwarding (MBF).
```
enable mode mbf
```
Go back to System > Network > Routes.
1. On the right, delete the 0.0.0.0 route. Don’t do this unless the Citrix ADC has a route, PBR, or MBF to the IP address of the machine you are running the browser on.
  
  rm route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.2.2.1
2. Then click Add.
3. Set the Network to 0.0.0.0, and the Netmask to 0.0.0.0.
4. Make sure NULL Route is set to No.
5. Enter the IP address of the DMZ (or data) router, and click Create.
  
  add route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.16.1.1

DNS Servers

To configure DNS servers, expand Traffic Management, expand DNS, and click Name Servers.
On the right, click Add.
1. Enter the IP address of a DNS server, and click Create.
2. Note: The Citrix ADC must be able ping each of the DNS servers, or they will not be marked as UP. The ping originates from the SNIP.
  
  add dns nameServer 10.2.2.11
Citrix ADC includes DNS Security Options, which are useful if you use this Citrix ADC to provide DNS services to clients (e.g. DNS Proxy/Load Balancing, GSLB, etc.). You can configure them at Security > DNS Security.
Additional DNS Security Options are detailed at DNS security options at Citrix Docs.

NTP Servers

On the left, expand System, and click NTP Servers.
On the right, click Add.
Enter the IP Address of your NTP Server (or pool.ntp.org), and click Create.

add ntp server pool.ntp.org
On the right, open the Action menu, and click NTP Synchronization.
Select ENABLED, and click OK. This starts the NTP daemon in BSD to perform the NTP sync.

enable ntp sync
You can click the System node to view the System Time.
If you need to manually set the time:
1. SSH (Putty) to the Citrix ADC appliances.
2. Run shell to access BSD.
3. Run date to manually set the time. Run date –help to see the syntax.
4. Ntpdate –u pool.ntp.org will cause an immediate NTP time update. You’ll need to disable NTP Sync before you can run this command.

SYSLOG Server

Citrix CTX120609 NetScaler Log Rotation and Configuration Using Newsyslog

The Citrix ADC will, by default, store a few syslogs on the local appliance. You can create a syslog policy to also send the syslog entries to an external server, like Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM).

On the left, expand System, expand Auditing, and click Syslog.
On the right, switch to the Servers tab, and click Add.
1. Enter a name for the Syslog server.
2. You can change Server Type to Server Domain Name, and enter a FQDN.
3. Enter the IP Address or FQDN of the SYSLOG server, and 514 as the port.
4. Configure the Log Levels you’d like to send to it by clicking CUSTOM – typically select everything except DEBUG.
5. Select your desired Time Zone and Date Format.
6. You can optionally enable other logging features. User Configurable Log Messages lets you use Responder policies to generate log entries.
7. Then click Create.
```
add audit syslogAction MySyslogServer 10.2.2.12 -logLevel EMERGENCY ALERT CRITICAL ERROR WARNING -timeZone LOCAL_TIME -userDefinedAuditlog YES
add audit syslogAction MySyslogServer syslog.corp.local -logLevel EMERGENCY ALERT CRITICAL ERROR WARNING -timeZone LOCAL_TIME -userDefinedAuditlog YES
```
On the right, switch to the Policies tab, and then click Add.
1. Give the policy a descriptive name,
2. Change the Expression Type selection to Advanced Policy.
3. Select the previously created Syslog server.
4. And then click Create.
```
add audit syslogPolicy MySyslogServer true MySyslogServer
```
While still on the Policies tab, open the Actions menu, and click Classic Policy Global Bindings or Advanced Policy Global Bindings, depending on which one you chose when creating the Syslog policy.
1. Click Add Binding.
2. Click where it says Click to select.
3. Click the radio button next to the Syslog policy you want to bind, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
4. Change the Priority to 100 or similar.
5. If you don’t select anything in Global Bind Type, then it defaults to SYSTEM_GLOBAL.
6. Click Bind.
7. Click Done.
```
bind audit syslogGlobal -policyName MySyslogServer -priority 100
bind system global MySyslogServer -priority 100
```

SNMP – MIB, Traps, and Alarms

On the left, expand System, and click SNMP.
On the right, click Change SNMP MIB.
1. Change the fields as desired. Your SNMP tool (e.g. Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM)) will read this information. Click OK.
2. This configuration needs to be repeated on the other node.
```
set snmp mib -contact NSAdmins@corp.com -name ns02 -location Corp
```
Expand System, expand SNMP, and click Community.
1. On the right, click Add.
2. Specify a community string, and the Permission, and click Create.
```
add snmp community public GET
```
On the left, under SNMP, click Traps.
1. On the right, click Add.
2. Specify a trap destination. The fields will vary for V2 vs V3. Click Create. You’ll have to add the Trap Destinations twice so you can select both Generic and Specific.
```
add snmp trap generic 10.2.2.12 -communityName public
add snmp trap specific 10.2.2.12 -communityName public
```
On the left, under SNMP, click Managers.
1. On the right, click Add.
2. Change the selection to Management Network.
3. Specify the IP of the Management Host, and click Create.
```
add snmp manager 10.2.2.12
```
The Alarms node allows you to enable SNMP Alarms and configure thresholds.
1. You can Edit an alarm to set thresholds. For example, CPU-USAGE can be set to 90% alarm, and 50% normal, with a Critical severity.
```
set snmp alarm CPU-USAGE -thresholdValue 90 -normalValue 50 -severity Critical
```
2. You can also configure the MEMORY alarm.
```
set snmp alarm MEMORY -thresholdValue 90 -normalValue 50 -severity Critical
```

From http://www.slideshare.net/masonke/net-scaler-tcpperformancetuningintheaolnetwork: In addition to the usual OIDs, we have found these very useful to warn of potential problems.

ifTotXoﬀSent – .1.3.6.1.4.1.5951.4.1.1.54.1.43
ifnicTxStalls – .1.3.6.1.4.1.5951.4.1.1.54.1.45
ifErrRxNoBuﬀs – .1.3.6.1.4.1.5951.4.1.1.54.1.30
ifErrTxNoNSB – .1.3.6.1.4.1.5951.4.1.1.54.1.31

Call Home

Citrix Blog Post – Protect Your NetScaler From Disaster With Call Home!: If you have a physical Citrix ADC (MPX or SDX) with an active support contract, you may optionally enable Call Home to automatically notify Citrix Technical Support of hardware and software failures.

Call Home at Citrix Docs has information on how it work.

From the Citrix ADC release notes: Call Home is now enhanced to send Citrix ADC usage metrics to Citrix Insight Services (CIS) periodically. Citrix collects the data to understand how the appliance works and how to improve the product. By default, Call Home sends the metrics once in every 7 days. For more information, see Call Home at Citrix Docs.

To enable Call Home:

On the left, expand System, and click Diagnostics.
On the right, in the left column, in the Technical Support Tools section, click Call Home.
Check the box next to Enable Call Home.
Optionally enter an email address to receive notifications from Citrix Technical Support. Click OK.
If you go back into Call Home, it should indicate if registration succeeded or failed. Successful registration requires an active support contract.

Change nsroot Password

If you want to force strong passwords for local accounts, go to System > Settings, and on the right, click Change Global System Settings
1. Scroll down to the Password section.
2. You can change Strong Password to Enable Local, and also specify a Min Password Length. Click OK.
Expand System, expand User Administration, and click Users.
On the right, right-click nsroot, and click Change Password.
Specify a new password, and click OK.
```
set system user nsroot Passw0rd
```

TCP, HTTP, SSL, and Security Settings

Citrix Docs Introduction to best practices for Citrix ADC MPX, VPX, and SDX security

Best practice settings:

On the left, expand System, and click Settings.
On the right, in the right column, click Change TCP parameters.
1. Check the box for Window scaling (near the top) and set the Factor to 8.
2. Scroll down and check the box for Selective Acknowledgement.
3. Nagle’s algorithm should not be checked.
4. Click OK.
```
set ns tcpParam -WS ENABLED -SACK ENABLED
```
On the right, click Change HTTP parameters.
1. Under Cookie, change the selection to Version1. This causes Citrix ADC to set Cookie expiration to a relative time instead of an absolute time.
```
set ns param -cookieversion 1
```
2. Check the box next to Drop invalid HTTP requests. Note: this might break some web sites.
3. Scroll down, and click OK.
```
set ns httpParam -dropInvalReqs ON
```
From Citrix CTX232321 Recommended TCP Profile Settings for Full Tunnel VPN/ICAProxy from NetScaler Gateway 11.1 Onwards:
1. Expand System, and click Profiles.
2. On the right, on the tab named TCP Profiles, edit the nstcp_default_profile.
3. Enable Window Scaling with a factor of 8.
4. Set Minimum RTO (in millisec) = 600.
5. Set TCP Buffer Size (bytes) = 600000
6. Set TCP Send Buffer Size (bytes) = 600000
7. Change TCP Flavor = BIC.
8. Enable Selective Acknowledgement. Don’t enable Nagle’s algorithm.
9. Click OK when done.
You can run the following command to see statistics on the dropped packets:
```
nsconmsg -g http_err_noreuse_ -d stats
```
See CTX209398 Addressing false positives from CBC and MAC vulnerability scans of SSHD to harden SSHD by editing /nsconfig/sshd_config with the following. Then run kill -HUP `cat /var/run/sshd.pid` to restart SSHD.
```
Ciphers aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr
MACs hmac-sha1,hmac-ripemd160
```

Citrix Knowledgebase articles:

CTX228148 How to Lock Down the NetScaler Management Interfaces with ACLs
- Also see CTP George Spiers How to secure management access to NetScaler and create unique certificates in a highly available setup
CTX109011 How to Secure SSH Access to the NetScaler Appliance with Public Key Authentication
CTX127917 How to Configuring the Rate Limiting Feature of a NetScaler Appliance to Mitigate a DDoS Attack
CTX131681 How to Use NetScaler Appliance to Avoid Layer 7 DDoS Attacks
CTX209398 Addressing false positives from CBC and MAC vulnerability scans of SSHD

The following security configurations are detailed by Jason Samuel at Mitigating DDoS and brute force attacks against a Citrix Netscaler Access Gateway:

Maximum logon attempts on Citrix Gateway Virtual Server
Rate Limiting for IP.SRC and HTTP.REQ.URL.
nstcp_default_XA_XD_profile TCP profile on the Citrix Gateway Virtual Server.
Syslog logging
External website monitoring
Obfuscate the Server header in the HTTP response
Disable management access on SNIPs
Change nsroot strong password, use LDAP authentication, audit local accounts
Don’t enable Enhanced Authentication Feedback
SSL – disable SSLv3, deny SSL renegotiation, enable ECDHE ciphers, disable RC4 ciphers.
2-factor authentication
Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM)
Review IPS/IDS & Firewall logs

Management Authentication – LDAP

Load balancing of LDAP servers is strongly recommended. If you bind multiple LDAP servers instead of load balancing them, Citrix ADC will try each of the LDAP servers, and for incorrect passwords, will lock out the user sooner than expected. But if you instead load balance your LDAP servers, the authentication attempt will only be sent to one of them.

Expand System, expand Authentication, expand Basic Policies, and then click LDAP.
On the right, switch to the Servers tab. Then click Add.
1. Enter LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt or similar as the name. If you have multiple domains, you’ll need a separate LDAP Server per domain so make sure you include the domain name. Also, the LDAP policy used for management authentication will be different than the LDAP policy used for Citrix Gateway.
2. Change the selection to Server IP. Enter the VIP of the Citrix ADC load balancing vServer for LDAP.
3. Change the Security Type to SSL.
4. Enter 636 as the Port. Scroll down.
5. In the Connection Settings section, in the Base DN field, enter your Active Directory DNS domain name in LDAP format.
6. In the Administrator Bind DN field, enter the credentials of the LDAP bind account in userPrincipalName format.
7. Enter the Administrator Password (bind account password). Click Test LDAP Reachability. Scroll down.
8. In the Other Settings section, use the drop-down next to Server Logon Name Attribute, Group Attribute, and Sub Attribute Name to select the default fields for Active Directory.
9. On the right, check the box next to Allow Password Change.
10. It is best to restrict access to only members of a specific group. In the Search Filter field, enter memberOf=<GroupDN>. See the example below:
  memberOf=CN=Citrix ADC Administrators,OU=Citrix,DC=corp,DC=local
  
  You can add :1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941: to the query so it searches through nested groups. Without this, users will need to be direct members of the filtered group.
  
  memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:=CN=Citrix ADC Administrators,OU=Citrix,DC=corp,DC=local
  
  Citrix 132802 How to Use the ldapsearch Utility on the NetScaler Gateway Enterprise Edition Appliance to Validate a Search Filter
  
  An easy way to get the full distinguished name of the group is through Active Directory Users & Computers. Make sure Advanced Features is enabled in the View menu. Double-click the group object. Switch to the Attribute Editor tab. Find Distinguished Name and copy it.
  
  Scroll down to distinguishedName, double-click it, and then copy it to the clipboard.
  
  Back on the Citrix ADC, in the Search Filter field, type in memberOf=, and then paste the Distinguished Name right after the equals sign. Don’t worry about spaces.
11. Scroll down and click More to expand it.
12. For Nested Group Extraction, if desired, change the selection to Enabled.
13. Set the Group Name Identifier to samAccountName.
14. Set Group Search Attribute to –<< New >>–, and enter memberOf.
15. Set Group Search Sub-Attribute to –<< New >>–, and enter CN.
16. Example of LDAP Nested Group Search Filter Syntax
17. Scroll down, and click Create.
```
add authentication ldapAction Corp-Mgmt -serverIP 10.2.2.210 -serverPort 636 -ldapBase "dc=corp,dc=local" -ldapBindDn "corp\\ctxsvc" -ldapBindDnPassword Passw0rd -ldapLoginName samaccountname -searchFilter "memberOf=CN=Citrix ADC Admins,CN=Users,DC=corp,DC=local" -groupAttrName memberOf -subAttributeName CN -secType SSL -passwdChange ENABLED
```
On the left, go to System > Authentication > Advanced Policies > Policy.
On the right, click Add.
1. Enter the name LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt or similar.
2. Change the Action Type drop-down to LDAP.
3. Select the previously created LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt server.
4. On the bottom, in the Expression area, type in true.
5. Click Create.
```
add authentication Policy LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -rule true -action LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt
```
Click Global Bindings in the right pane.
1. Click where it says Click to select.
2. Click the radio button next to the newly created LDAP policy, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
3. Click Bind.
4. Click Done.
```
bind system global LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT
```
Under System, expand User Administration, and click Groups.
1. On the right, click Add.
2. In the Group Name field, enter the case sensitive name of the Active Directory group containing the Citrix ADC administrators.
3. In the Command Policies section, click Bind.
4. Select the superuser policy, and click Insert.
5. Scroll down, and click Create.
```
add system group "Citrix ADC Admins" -timeout 900
bind system group "Citrix ADC Admins" -policyName superuser 100
```
To prevent somebody from creating an nsroot account in LDAP (Active Directory) and then using that external nsroot account to login to ADC, disable external authentication on the local nsroot account.
1. On the left, go to System > User Administration > Users.
2. On the right, edit the nsroot user.
3. At the top of the page, in the System User section, click the pencil icon.
4. Uncheck the box next to Enable External Authentication and then click Continue.
5. Click Save and then click Done.
If you logout:
You should be able to login to Citrix ADC using an Active Directory account.

Management Authentication – Two Factor

Citrix ADC supports two factor authentication for management access. The technology is based on nFactor but works in all editions of ADC (no licensing restrictions). Here’s a summary of the configuration steps with more detail coming later:

The first authentication factor must be an Advanced Authentication Policy that is bound globally. Classic Authentication Policies will not work.
Create a Login Schema to ask for the second factor password (i.e. passcode).
- This Login Schema is for second factor only and has no effect on the first factor. The second factor Login Schema should only ask for a single password prompt. It doesn’t appear to be possible to ask for both factors using the same Login Schema.
- Login Schema for the second factor does not use the normal nFactor language files and you instead must hard code the password prompt label for the second factor logon field directly in the Login Schema .xml file.
Create an Advanced Authentication Server and Policy for the second factor (e.g. RADIUS).
Create an Authentication Policy Label with Feature Type set to RBA_REQ. This is not the default so make sure you change the Feature Type drop-down field.
1. When creating the Policy Label, select the Login Schema for the second factor.
2. Bind the second factor Advanced Authentication Policy to the Policy Label.
Go to Global Bindings for Authentication, edit the existing authentication binding, click Next Factor, and select your new Policy Label. That’s it.

Here are detailed configuration instructions for adding a second authentication factor to the management logon page.

Login Schema XML File:
1. Point WinSCP to your ADC appliance.
2. Navigate to /nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema and download the SingleAuth.xml file.
3. Rename the file to MgmtNextFactor.xml or something like that.
4. Edit the file.
5. Look for the <Requirement> element with ID of passwd. Then look for the Label and set the Text field to whatever you want displayed on the second password page. Save the file when done.
6. The Label Text you enter will be shown on the second factor logon page.
7. In WinSCP, change the directory to /nsconfig/loginschema, which is one directory up from where you downloaded the file.
8. Upload your modified file.
RADIUS Authentication Server:
1. Follow the link for instructions to create a RADIUS Server. Only create the Server object. The Policy object will be created later when creating the Authentication Policy Label.
```
add authentication radiusAction RADIUSMgmt -serverName 10.2.2.42 -serverPort 1812 -radKey b746744 -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3
```
On the left, go to System > Authentication > Advanced Policies > Policy Label.
On the right, click Add.
Name the Policy Label MgmtNextFactor or similar.
In the Login Schema field, click Add.
1. Name the Login Schema MgmtNextFactor or similar.
2. In the Authentication Schema field, click the pencil icon.
3. On the left, select the Login Schema .xml file you uploaded earlier.
4. On the top right, click the blue Select button. Do NOT click Create on the bottom left until you’ve clicked this blue Select button.
5. The window collapses showing you the Login Schema file that you selected. Now you can click Create.
```
add authentication loginSchema MgmtNextFactor -authenticationSchema "/nsconfig/loginschema/MgmtNextFactor.xml"
```
Back in the Authentication Policy Label screen, notice that you can edit the Login Schema object from here.
Change the Feature Type drop-down to RBA_REQ. If you don’t do this, then you won’t be able to bind this later.

Click Continue.

add authentication policylabel MgmtNextFactor -type RBA_REQ -loginSchema MgmtNextFactor

In the Policy Label’s Policy Binding field, click Add.
1. Name the Authentication Policy RADIUSMgmt or similar.
2. Change the Action Type drop-down to RADIUS.
3. Select the RADIUS server that you created earlier. Or you can Add one from here.
4. In the Expression box, enter the word true and then click Create.
```
add authentication Policy RADIUSMgmt -rule true -action RADIUSMgmt
```

Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding screen, click Bind.

bind authentication policylabel MgmtNextFactor -policyName RADIUSMgmt -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT

The Authentication Policy Label configuration is complete so click Done.
On the left, go to System > Authentication > Advanced Policies > Policy.
On the right, click the Global Bindings button.

You should already have an Advanced Authentication Policy bound globally.

add authentication ldapAction LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -serverIP 10.2.2.11 -serverPort 636 -ldapBase "dc=corp,dc=local" -ldapBindDn ctxsvc@corp.local -ldapBindDnPassword 5054fc33f673bf4c5c6 -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -ldapLoginName sAMAccountName -groupAttrName memberOf -subAttributeName cn -secType SSL -passwdChange ENABLED

add authentication Policy LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -rule true -action LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt

bind system global LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END

Right-click your existing global binding and click Edit Binding.
In the Next Factor field, click where it says Click to select.
Click the small circle next to your Management Next Factor Policy Label and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.

Back in the Policy Binding screen, click Bind.

bind system global LDAPS-Corp-Mgmt -priority 100 -nextFactor RADIUSMgmt -gotoPriorityExpression END

Click Done to close the Global Authentication Policy Binding screen.

CLI Prompt

When you connect to the Citrix ADC CLI prompt, by default, the prompt is just a >.
You can run set cli prompt %u@%h to make it the same as a UNIX prompt. See Citrix Docs for the cli prompt syntax.

Backup and Restore

Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM) can automatically backup your instances. Or you can do it manually:

Save the configuration.
On the left, expand System, and click Backup and Restore.
On the right, click Backup/Import.
Give the backup file a name.
For Level, select Full, and click Backup.
Once the backup is complete, you can download the file.

For a PowerShell script, see John Billekens Create offline backups of the NetScaler config

To restore:

If you want to restore the system, and if the backup file is not currently on the appliance, click the Backup/Import button.
Change the selection to Import.
Browse Local to the previously downloaded backup file.
Then click Backup. This uploads the file to the appliance and adds it to the list of backup files.
Now you can select the backup, and click Restore.

Next Steps

Return to Citrix ADC 13 Procedures list

↧

Certificates – Citrix ADC 13

June 13, 2019, 8:04 am

≫ Next: SSL Virtual Servers – Citrix ADC 13

≪ Previous: System Configuration – Citrix ADC 13

Navigation

Change Log
Two common methods of installing certificates on Citrix ADC:
- Import .PFX Certificate
- Create Key and CSR on the appliance
Import the intermediate certificate and bind it.
Export/Download certificate files from NetScaler
Replace the management certificate, and then force SSL access for management.
Update certificates before they expire.

💡 = Recently Updated

Change Log

Updated screenshots and procedures for ADC 13

Convert .PFX Certificate to PEM Format

You can export a certificate (with private key) from Windows, and import it to Citrix ADC.

To export a Windows certificate in .pfx format

If Windows Server 2012 or newer, on the Windows server that has the certificate, you can run certlm.msc to open the Certificates console pointing at Local Computer.
1. Or, run mmc.exe, manually add the Certificates snap-in, and point it to Local Computer.
Go to Personal > Certificates.
Right-click the certificate, expand All Tasks, and click Export.
On the Welcome to the Certificate Export Wizard page, click Next.
On the Export Private Key page, select Yes, export the private key, and click Next.
On the Export File Format page, click Next.
On the Security page, check the box next to Password, and enter a new temporary password. Click Next.
On the File to Export page, specify a save location and name the .pfx file. Don’t put any spaces in the filename. Click Next.
In the Completing the Certificate Export Wizard page, click Finish.
Click OK when prompted that the export was successful.

Import a .pfx file to Citrix ADC

Citrix ADC 13 imports .pfx files and uses them in their native encrypted format.

To import the .pfx file:

On the Citrix ADC, expand Traffic Management, and click SSL.
If the SSL feature is disabled, right-click the SSL node, and click Enable Feature.
Go to Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates > Server Certificates.
There are four different certificate nodes:
1. Server Certificates have private keys. These certificates are intended to be bound to SSL vServers.
2. Client Certificates also have private keys, but they are intended to be bound to Services so Citrix ADC can perform client-certificate authentication against back-end web servers.
3. CA Certificates don’t have private keys. The CA certificates node contains intermediate certificates that are linked to Server Certificates. CA certificates can also be used for SAML authentication, and to verify client certificates.
4. Unknown Certificates list the certificates that don’t fall under the other categories. Some SAML certificates (e.g. Azure) show up here.
On the left, click the Server Certificates node.
On the right, click Install.
Give the certificate (Certificate-Key Pair) a name.
Click the drop-down next to Choose File, select Local, and browse to the .pfx file that you exported earlier.
After browsing to the .pfx file, Citrix ADC will prompt you to enter the Password for the .pfx file. Ignore the Key File Name field.
Then click Install.
If you click the information icon next to the new certificate…
You’ll see that Citrix ADC uses the file in native .pfx format. No PEM conversion.
You can now link an intermediate certificate to this SSL certificate, and then bind this SSL certificate to SSL and/or Citrix Gateway Virtual Servers.
To automatically backup SSL certificates and receive notification when the certificates are about the expire, deploy Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM). Also see Citrix CTX213342 How to handle certificate expiry on NetScaler.

To convert PFX to PEM (with Private Key encryption)

If you followed the previous section to import a .pfx in native format, then you can skip this section.

Sometimes you need to convert a .pfx file to PEM format so you can use the PEM certificate on other systems. To use Citrix ADC to convert PFX to PEM, do the following:

In the Citrix ADC Configuration GUI, on the left, expand Traffic Management, and click SSL.
In the right column of the right pane, in the Tools section, click Import PKCS#12.
In the Import PKCS12 File dialog box:
1. In the Output File Name field, enter a name for a new file where the converted PEM certificate and private key will be placed. This new file is created under /nsconfig/ssl on the Citrix ADC appliance.
2. In the PKCS12 File field, click Choose File, and browse to the .pfx file.
3. In the Import Password field, enter the password you specified when you previously exported the .pfx file.
4. By default, the private key in the new PEM file is unencrypted. To encrypt the private key, change the Encoding Format selection to AES256 or DES3. This causes the new PEM file to be password protected, and encrypted.
5. Enter a permanent password for the new PEM file, and click OK.
You can use the Manage Certificates / Keys / CSRs link to view the new PEM file.
1. The new file is usually at the bottom of the page.
2. Right-click the new file, and click View.
3. Notice that the Private Key is encrypted.
4. If you scroll down, notice that the file contains both the certificate, and the RSA Private key.
If you want to use this PEM certificate on a different system, then you can right-click the file and Download it.

Install PEM Certificate on Citrix ADC

If you want to bind the PEM certificate to ADC SSL Virtual Servers, then you must first install the PEM certificate. Or you can import a .pfx file in native format as described earlier.

ADC probably won’t import the PEM certificate file if it contains CA certificates. Download the PEM file.
1. Edit the downloaded file.
2. Scroll down. Skip the first certificate. Then delete the rest of the certificates in the file. When done, you should have a Private Key and one Certificate (the first one in the file).
3. Save the file with a new name. You can upload the file, or browse to it later when installing the certificate.
On the left side of the Citrix ADC Configuration GUI, go to Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates > Server Certificates.
On the right, click Install.
In the Certificate-Key Pair Name field, enter a friendly name for this certificate.
In the Certificate File Name field, click the drop-down next to Choose File, and select Local.
Browse to the PEM file that you downloaded and edited to remove the CA certificates.
Citrix ADC will ask you to enter the Password for the encrypted private key.
Ignore the Key File Name since the converted PEM file contains both the certificate and the key.
Click Install.
You can now link an intermediate certificate to this SSL certificate, and then bind this SSL certificate to SSL and/or Citrix Gateway Virtual Servers.
To automatically backup SSL certificates and receive notification when the certificates are about the expire, deploy Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM). Also see Citrix CTX213342 How to handle certificate expiry on NetScaler.
You can also export the certificate files and use them on a different Citrix ADC.

Create Key and Certificate Request

If you want to create free Let’s Encrypt certificates, see John Billekens’ PowerShell script detailed at Let’s Encrypt Certificates on a NetScaler.

You can create a key pair and Certificate Signing Request (CSR) directly on the Citrix ADC appliance. The CSR can then be signed by an internal, or public, Certificate Authority.

Most Certificate Authorities let you add Subject Alternative Names when creating (or purchasing) a signed certificate, and thus there’s no reason to include Subject Alternative Names in the CSR created on Citrix ADC. You typically create a CSR with a single DNS name. Then when submitting the CSR to the Certificate Authority, you type in additional DNS names.

For a Microsoft Certificate Authority, you can enter Subject Alternative Names in the Attributes box of the Web Enrollment wizard.
For public Certificate Authorities, you purchase a UCC certificate or purchase a certificate option that lets you type in additional names.

To create a key pair on Citrix ADC

On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand SSL, and click SSL Files.
On the right, switch to the tab named Keys.
Click the button named Create RSA Key.
In the Key Filename box, enter a new filename (e.g. wildcard.key). Key pair files typically have a .key extension.
In the Key Size field, enter 2048 bits.
By default, the private key is unencrypted. To encrypt it, set the PEM Encoding Algorithm drop-down to AES256 or DES3.
Enter a password to encrypt the private key.
Click Create.
The new file is probably at the bottom of the list. Select it and click the button named View.
The Private Key should be encrypted with your chosen encoding algorithm.

To create CSR file

Back in the SSL Files page, on the right, switch to the tab named CSRs.
Click the button named Create Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
In the Request File Name field, enter the name of a new CSR file. CSR files typically have .csr or .txt extension.
In the Key Filename field, click Choose File (Appliance) and select the previously created .key file. It’s probably at the bottom of the list.
If the key file is encrypted, enter the password.
You can optionally change the CSR Digest Method to SHA256. This only applies to the CSR and does not affect the CA-signed certificate.
Citrix ADC 13 lets you specify up to three Subject Alternative Names in the CSR. Some Certificate Authorities ignore this field and instead require you to specify the Subject Alternative Names when purchasing the signed certificate. See CTX232305 How to create a SAN CSR in NetScaler 12.0 57.19.
In the Common Name field, enter the FQDN of the SSL enabled-website. If this is a wildcard certificate, enter * for the left part of the FQDN. This is the field that normally must match what users enter into their browser address bars.
In the Organization Name field, enter your official Organization Name.
Enter IT, or similar, as the Organization Unit.
Enter the City name.
In the State field, enter your state name without abbreviating.
Scroll down and click Create.
The new CSR file is at the bottom of the list. You can select the new .csr file, and click the buttons named View or Download.

Get CSR signed by CA, and install certificate on Citrix ADC

View the CSR file or open the downloaded .csr file with Notepad, and send the contents to your Certificate Authority.
1. Chrome requires every certificate to have at least one Subject Alternative Name that matches the FQDN entered in Chrome’s address bar. Public CAs will handle this automatically. But for Internal CAs, you typically must specify the Subject Alternative Names manually when signing the certificate.
2. If the CA asks you for the type of web server, select Apache, or save the CA response as a Base 64 file.
After you get the signed certificate, on the left side of the Citrix ADC Configuration GUI, expand Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates, and click Server Certificates.
On the right, click Install.
In the Certificate-Key Pair Name field, enter a friendly name for this certificate.
In the Certificate File Name field, click the drop-down next to Choose File, and select Local.
Browse to the Base64 (Apache) .cer file you received from the Certificate Authority.
In the Key File Name field, click the drop-down next to Choose File, and select Appliance.
Select the key file you created earlier, and click Open. It’s probably at the bottom of the list.
If the key file is encrypted, enter the password.
Click Install.
The certificate is now added to the list.
You can now link an intermediate certificate to this SSL certificate, and then bind this SSL certificate to SSL and/or Citrix Gateway Virtual Servers.
To automatically backup SSL certificates and receive notification when the certificates are about the expire, deploy Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM). Also see Citrix CTX213342 How to handle certificate expiry on NetScaler.
You can also export the certificate files and use them on a different Citrix ADC.

Intermediate Certificate

If your Server Certificate is signed by an intermediate Certificate Authority, then you must install the intermediate Certificate Authority’s certificate on the Citrix ADC. This Intermediate Certificate then must be linked to the Server Certificate.

Get the correct intermediate certificate

Log into Windows, and double-click the signed certificate file.
On the Certification Path tab, double-click the intermediate certificate (e.g. Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority. It’s the one in the middle).
On the Details tab, click Copy to File.
In the Welcome to the Certificate Export Wizard page, click Next.
In the Export File Format page, select Base-64 encoded, and click Next.
Give it a file name, and click Next.
In the Completing the Certificate Export Wizard page, click Finish.

To import the intermediate certificate

In the Citrix ADC configuration GUI, expand Traffic Management, expand SSL, expand Certificates, and click CA Certificates.
On the right, click Install.
Name it Intermediate or similar.
Click the arrow next to Choose File, select Local, and browse to the Intermediate certificate file and open it.
Click Install.

Link Intermediate Certificate to Server Certificate

Go back to Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates >Server Certificates.
On the right, right-click the server certificate, and click Link.
The previously imported Intermediate certificate should already be selected. Click OK.
You might be tempted to link the Intermediate certificate to a Root certificate. Don’t do this. Root certificates are installed on client machines, not on Citrix ADC. Citrix ADC must never send the root certificate to the client device. If you run ssllabs.com against your website, SSL Labs might show Contains anchor. If so, then you linked your intermediate to your root when you shouldn’t have.

Export Certificate Files from Citrix ADC

You can easily export certificate files from the Citrix ADC, and import them to a different Citrix ADC.

In the menu, expand Traffic Management, expand SSL, expand Certificates, and click one of the certificate types.
Move your mouse over the certificate you want to export, and then click the information icon on the far left.
Note the file names. There could be one file name or two file names.
On the left, go to Traffic Management > SSL.
On the right, in the right column, click Manage Certificates / Keys / CSRs.
Find the file(s) in the list, right-click the file, and click Download.
1. You can only download one file at a time.
2. In the search area, you can enter “Name:myfilename” to filter the list.
3. You might have to increase the number of files shown per page, or go to a different page.
Also download the files for any linked intermediate certificate.
You can also use WinSCP to download the SSL certificate files from /nsconfig/ssl.
You can now use the downloaded files to install certificates on a different Citrix ADC.

Replace Management Certificate

You can replace the default management certificate with a new trusted management certificate.

High Availability – When a management certificate is installed on one node of a High Availability pair, the management certificate is synchronized to the other node and used for the other node’s NSIP too. So make sure the management certificate matches the DNS names of both nodes. This is easily doable using a Subject Alternative Name certificate. Here are some SAN names the management certificate should match (note: a wildcard certificate won’t match all of these names):

The FQDN for each node’s NSIP. Example: adc01.corp.local and adc02.corp.local
The shortnames (left label) for each node’s NSIP. Example: adc01 and adc02
The NSIP IP address of each node. Example: 192.168.123.14 and 192.168.123.29
If you enabled management access on your SNIPs, add names for the SNIPs:
- FQDN for the SNIP. Example: adc.corp.local
- Shortname for the SNIP. Example: adc
- SNIP IP address. Example: 192.168.123.30

If you prefer to create a separate management certificate for each HA node, then see CTP George Spiers How to secure management access to NetScaler and create unique certificates in a highly available setup.

Request Management Certificate

If you are creating a Subject Alternative Name certificate, it’s probably easiest to request a SAN certificate from an internal CA using the MMC Certificates snap-in on a Windows box.:

Open the MMC certificates snap-in by running certlm.msc on a Windows 2012 or newer machine.
Go to Personal, right-click Certificate, expand All Tasks, and click Request New Certificate.
A web server certificate template should let you specify subject information.
In the top half, change the Subject name > Type drop-down to Common Name. Enter a DNS name, and click Add to move it to the right.
In the bottom half, change the Alternative Name > Type drop-down to either DNS or IP address (v4).
Type in different names or IPs as detailed earlier, and click Add to move them to the right.
Switch to the tab named Private Key.
Expand Key Options, and make sure Mark private key as exportable is checked.
Click OK. Then finish Enrolling the certificate.
Export the certificate and Private Key to a .pfx file.
Then follow one of the procedures below to replace the ADC’s management certificate.

Methods of replacing the Management Certificate

There are two methods of replacing the management certificate:

In the Citrix ADC GUI, right-click ns-server-certificate, and click Update. This automatically updates all of the Internal Services bindings too. This method is intended for dedicated management certificates, not wildcard certificates. Notes:
- You cannot rename the ns-server-certificate in the Citrix ADC GUI. It remains as ns-server-certificate.
- ns-server-certificate cannot be bound to Virtual Servers, so make sure you are replacing it with a dedicated management certificate.
Or manually Bind a new management certificate to each of the Internal Services.

Update Certificate Method

The Update Certificate button method is detailed below:

The Update method doesn’t work with .pfx files so you’ll first have to convert your .pfx to PEM.
1. In the Citrix ADC Configuration GUI, on the left, expand Traffic Management, and click SSL.
2. In the right column of the right pane, in the Tools section, click Import PKCS#12.
3. In the Output File Name field, enter a name for a new file where the converted PEM certificate and private key will be placed. This new file is created under /nsconfig/ssl on the Citrix ADC appliance.
4. In the PKCS12 File field, click Choose File, and browse to the .pfx file.
5. In the Import Password field, enter the password you specified when you previously exported the .pfx file.
6. By default, the private key in the new PEM file is unencrypted. To encrypt the private key, change the Encoding Format selection to AES256 or DES3. This causes the new PEM file to be password protected, and encrypted.
7. Enter a permanent password for the new PEM file, and click OK.
You can’t update the certificate while connected to the Citrix ADC using https, so make sure you connect using http.
On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand SSL, expand Certificates, and click Server Certificates.
On the right, right-click ns-server-certificate, and click Update.
Check the box next to Click to update the certificate and key.
Click Choose File, and browse to the new PEM (not PFX) management certificate. It could be on the appliance, or it could be on your local machine.
Click Yes to update the certificate.
For the Key File Name, browse to the same PEM certificate file.
If the PEM private key is encrypted, enter the password.
Check the box next to No Domain Check. Click OK.
You can now connect to the Citrix ADC using https protocol. The certificate should be valid (no certificate errors).

Manual Binding Method

The manual Binding to Internal Services method is detailed below:

You can’t update the certificate while connected to the Citrix ADC using https, so make sure you connect using http.
On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand SSL, expand Certificates, and click Server Certificates.
On the right, use the Install button to install the new management certificate, which can be .pfx format, or PEM format.
In the menu, expand Traffic Management, expand Load Balancing, and click Services.
On the right, switch to the tab named Internal Services.
Right-click one of the services, and click Edit.
Scroll down to the Certificate section and click where it says 1 Server Certificate.
Click the button named Add Binding.
In the Select Server Certificate field, click where it says Click to select.
Click the small circle next to the new management certificate and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
Click Bind.
Click Close.
If Default SSL Profile is not enabled, then you can modify the SSL Parameters and/or Ciphers on each of these Internal Services to disable SSLv3 and bind stronger ciphers.
Repeat for each of the rest of the internal services. There should be at least 6 services. Additional Internal Services are created for SNIPs that have management access enabled.

Force Management SSL

By default, administrators can connect to the NSIP using HTTP or SSL. This section details how to disable HTTP.

Connect to the NSIP using https.
On the left, expand System, expand Network, and click IPs.
On the right, right-click your NetScaler IP, and click Edit.
Near the bottom, check the box next to Secure access only, and then click OK.
```
set ns ip 10.2.2.126 -gui SECUREONLY
```
Repeat this procedure on the secondary appliance.
Repeat for any SNIPs that have management access enabled.

Also see:

Citrix CTX204217 How to redirect users from HTTP to HTTPS while accessing NSIP/Management IP. Requires a Responder policy, and a nsapimgr command.

SSL Certificate – Update

There are two options for updating a certificate:

Create or Import a new certificate to Citrix ADC > Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates > Server Certificates. Then find all of the places the original certificate is bound, and manually replace the original certificate binding with the new certificate. This method is obviously prone to errors.
- You can right-click a certificate and click Show Bindings to see where the certificate is being used.
On Citrix ADC, simply right-click the existing certificate, and click Update. This automatically updates all of the bindings. Much faster and easier.

To update a certificate using the Update method:

Create an updated certificate, and export it as .pfx file (with private key). Don’t install the certificate onto Citrix ADC yet, but instead, simply have access to the .pfx file.
In Citrix ADC, navigate to Traffic Management > SSL > Certificates > Server Certificates.
On the right, right-click the certificate you intend to update, and click Update.
Check the box next to Update the certificate and key.
Click Choose File > Local, and browse to the updated .pfx file.
For Key File Name, browse to the same .pfx file.
Enter the .pfx file password.
Click OK. This will automatically update every Virtual Server on which this certificate is bound.
Click OK when told that cert links were broken.
Intermediate certificate – After replacing the certificate, you might have to update the cert link to a new Intermediate certificate.
1. Right-click the updated certificate, and click Cert Links, to see if it is currently linked to an intermediate certificate.
2. If not, right-click the updated certificate, and click Link, to link it to an intermediate certificate. If it doesn’t give you an option to link it to, then you’ll first have to install the new intermediate certificate on the Citrix ADC.

Certificates can also be updated in Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM).

Certificates can be updated from the CLI by running update ssl certKey MyCert. However, the certificate files must be stored somewhere on the appliance, and already be in PEM format.

Next Steps

Return to Citrix ADC 13 Procedures list

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SSL Virtual Servers – Citrix ADC 13

June 13, 2019, 6:08 pm

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Navigation

This page contains generic SSL instructions for all SSL-based Virtual Servers, including: Load Balancing, Citrix Gateway, Content Switching, and AAA.

Change Log
Preparation:
- Custom Cipher Group
- Strict Transport Security Rewrite Policy
- SSL Profiles – Default and Custom
SSL vServer Configuration – Bind Cert, Ciphers, ECC, and enable HSTS
SSL Test
SSL Redirect Methods:

💡 = Recently Updated

Change Log

ADC 13 screenshots

Custom Cipher Group

References:

Citrix Blog Post Scoring an A+ at SSLlabs.com with Citrix NetScaler – Q2 2018 update
Ciphers available on the Citrix ADC appliances at Citrix Docs
Ryan Butler has a PowerShell script at Github that can automate NetScaler SSL configuration to get an A+

To get an A+ at SSL Labs, create a custom secure cipher group:

Enable SSL Secure Renegotiation:
1. In the left menu, expand Traffic Management, and then click SSL.
2. On the right, in the right column, click Change advanced SSL settings.
3. Find Deny SSL Renegotiation, and set the drop-down to NONSECURE.
4. Scroll down and click OK.
```
set ssl parameter -denySSLReneg NONSECURE
```

The easiest way to create a cipher group is from the CLI. See Citrix Blogs Scoring an A+ at SSLlabs.com with Citrix NetScaler – Q2 2018 update for cipher group CLI commands. Putty (SSH) to the Citrix ADC and paste the following commands.

Note: The TLS 1.3 ciphers are not in the Citrix Blog Post. You can add TLS 1.3 ciphers to the cipher group. Make sure the TLS 1.3 ciphers are listed first (top of the list).

add ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.3-AES256-GCM-SHA384 -cipherPriority 1
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.3-CHACHA20-POLY1305-SHA256 -cipherPriority 2
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.3-AES128-GCM-SHA256 -cipherPriority 3
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-RSA-AES-128-SHA256
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-ECDHE-RSA-AES-256-SHA384
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1.2-DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-DHE-RSA-AES-128-CBC-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-DHE-RSA-AES-256-CBC-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-AES-128-CBC-SHA
bind ssl cipher ssllabs-smw-q2-2018 -cipherName TLS1-AES-256-CBC-SHA

Or you can create the cipher group using the GUI.
1. Go to Traffic Management > SSL > Cipher Groups.
2. On the right, click Add.
3. Name it SSL Labs or similar.
4. In the middle, click the button named Add.
5. Use the search box to find a particular cipher.
6. Check the box next to one of the results, and click the arrow to move it to the right.
7. For TLS 1.3 support, add the TLS 1.3 ciphers first.
8. Then add the ciphers from Citrix Blog Post Scoring an A+ at SSLlabs.com with Citrix NetScaler – Q2 2018 update.
9. Use the up and down arrows to order the ciphers. Citrix ADC prefers the ciphers on top of the list, so the ciphers at the top of the list should be the most secure ciphers (TLS 1.3).
10. Click Create when done.

Strict Transport Security – Rewrite Policy Method

To get an A+ at SSLLabs.com, you need to insert the Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header in the responses. Citrix ADC Rewrite Policy is one method of doing this. Another method is to enable HSTS in an SSL Profile, or enable it in SSL Parameters on a SSL vServer.

To create a Rewrite Policy that inserts the Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header:

In the left menu, expand AppExpert, right-click Rewrite, and click Enable Feature.
Create the Rewrite Action:
1. Go to AppExpert > Rewrite > Actions.
2. On the right, click Add.
3. Name the action insert_STS_header or similar.
4. The Type should be INSERT_HTTP_HEADER.
5. In the Header Name field, enter Strict-Transport-Security.
6. In the Expression field, enter the following:
```
"max-age=157680000"
```
7. Click Create.
Create the Rewrite Policy:
1. On the left, go to AppExpert > Rewrite > Policies.
2. On the right, click Add.
3. Name it insert_STS_header or similar.
4. Select the previously created Action.
5. In the Expression box, enter HTTP.REQ.IS_VALID.
6. Click Create.
Now you can bind this Rewrite Response policy to SSL-based SSL vServers.
1. Edit an SSL vServer (Gateway vServer, Load Balancing vServer, etc.).
2. if the Policies section doesn’t exist on the left, then add it from the Advanced Settings column on the right.
3. On the left, in the Policies section, click the plus icon.
4. Change the Choose Policy drop-down to Rewrite.
5. Change the Choose Type drop-down to Response, and click Continue.
6. In the Select Policy field, click where it says Click to select.
7. Click the small circle next to insert_STS_header, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
8. Click Bind.

enable ns feature rewrite

add rewrite action insert_STS_header insert_http_header Strict-Transport-Security "\"max-age=157680000\""

add rewrite policy insert_STS_header true insert_STS_header

bind lb vserver MyvServer -policyName insert_STS_header -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type RESPONSE

SSL Profiles – Default and Custom

You can use SSL Profiles to package several SSL settings together and apply the settings package (Profile) to SSL-based Virtual Servers and SSL-based Services. These SSL settings include:

Disable SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv11
Bind secure ciphers
Bind ECC curves
Enable HSTS (Strict Transport Security), etc.

There are default SSL Profiles, and there are custom SSL Profiles. The default SSL Profiles are disabled by default because they would impact every SSL-based Virtual Server and Service on the appliance. Once default SSL Profiles are enabled, you cannot disable the default SSL Profiles.

Some features of custom SSL Profiles require default SSL Profiles to be enabled. For example, you cannot configure ciphers in a custom SSL Profile unless the default SSL Profiles are enabled.

Default SSL Profiles are intended to provide a baseline SSL configuration for all newly created SSL Virtual Servers and SSL Services. You can still create Custom SSL Profiles to override the Default SSL Profiles.

Enabling the default SSL profile will wipe out any SSL configuration on SSL entities (e.g. SSL Virtual Servers) that do not have a custom SSL profile bound. Citrix offers a script that can read your existing SSL entity SSL configuration and convert them to custom SSL Profiles. See Enabling the Default Profiles at Citrix Docs. The default_profile_script can be downloaded from any of the individual Citrix ADC firmware download pages under Additional Components. The commands output by the script won’t work until the default SSL Profile is enabled.

To enable Default SSL profiles

Enabling Default SSL Profiles is irreversible.

Make sure you are connected to the appliance NSIP using http, and not https.
In the left menu, go to Traffic Management > SSL.
On the right, in the right column, click Change advanced SSL settings.
Near the bottom, check the box next to Enable Default Profile. Note: this will change SSL settings on all SSL Virtual Servers to match the default SSL profile. You might want to do this during a maintenance window.
Click OK at the bottom of the page.
Click Yes to confirm that you are enabling the Default profile.
If you go back into Change Advanced SSL Settings, notice that the Default Profile is enabled, and there’s no way to disable it.

Edit Default SSL Profile with Recommended SSL Profile Settings

The Default SSL Profile applies to all newly created SSL vServers and all newly created SSL Services.

The Default SSL Profile also applies to the management GUI unless you change the SSL Profile assigned to the management Internal Services.

In the left menu, expand System, and click Profiles.
On the right, switch to the SSL Profile tab.
Edit the default frontend or backend profile.
- Frontend = client-side connections to SSL Virtual Servers.
- Backend = server-side connections (SSL Services and Service Groups).
- ns_default_ssl_profile_frontend is automatically applied to all newly created SSL vServers.
- ns_default_ssl_profile_backend is automatically applied to all newly created SSL Services.
This section focuses on FrontEnd profiles so edit ns_default_ssl_profile_frontend.
Click the pencil icon in the Basic Settings section.
1. Scroll all the way down to the Protocol section.
2. Notice that SSLv3 is already unchecked.
3. It’s recommended that you uncheck TLSv1 and TLSv11 in the Default FrontEnd SSL profile.
  - If you have a website that requires TLSv1, then you can create another Custom FrontEnd SSL Profile that has TLSv1 enabled and manually bind the new Custom SSL Profile to the SSL vServers that need it.
4. TLSv13 is an option.
  - You can either enable TLSv13 in this Default SSL Profile, or you can create new Custom SSL Profiles that have TLSv13 enabled.
  - If you enable TLSv13, then make sure your cipher group includes TLS 1.3 ciphers.
  - To log SSL Protocol usage, see NetScaler SSL Protocol’s Used (SSLv3, TLS1.0, etc) at Citrix Discussions.
5. Find Deny SSL Renegotiation and set it to NONSECURE. To find the setting, press Ctrl+F in your browser and search for it.
6. To enable Strict Transport Security (HSTS), scroll up a little, and check the box next to HSTS.
7. Enter 157680000 in the Max Age box.
  - You can either enable HSTS in an SSL Profile, or you can enable HSTS by binding a Rewrite policy to your SSL vServer. Do not use both methods at the same time or else you will end up with two Strict-Transport-Security headers in your responses.
8. If you do any SSL Offload (SSL on the client side, HTTP on the server side), then you’ll need to enable SSL Redirect. It’s above HSTS. With this option enabled, any 301/302 redirects from the server with HTTP Location headers are rewritten to HTTPS Location headers. You might need this option for StoreFront load balancing if doing SSL Offload (port 80 to the StoreFront servers).
  - This setting might be more appropriate in a Custom SSL Profile instead of the Default SSL Profile.
9. For SSL vServers that need multiple SSL certificates, you can enable the SNI Enable checkbox.
  - This setting might be more appropriate in a Custom SSL Profile instead of the Default SSL Profile.
10. Click OK when done modifying the Basic Settings section.
Scroll down to the SSL Ciphers section, and click the pencil icon.
1. Scroll down, and select your custom cipher group (e.g. SSL Labs). Click the arrow to move it to the right.
  If you enabled TLS 1.3, then make sure your cipher group includes TLS 1.3 ciphers.
2. In the Configured list on the right, click the minus sign next to the DEFAULT cipher group to remove it from the Configured list.
3. Click OK to close the SSL Ciphers section.
4. If you make changes to the Custom Cipher Group, then you might have to edit the SSL Profile, remove the Custom Cipher Group, and rebind it.

Create a custom SSL Profile

You can create Custom SSL Profiles to override the Default SSL Profile.

In the left menu, expand System, and click Profiles.
On the right, switch to the tab named SSL Profile.
To copy the existing settings from the Default SSL Profile, check the box next to ns_default_ssl_profile_frontend and then click the button named Add.
1. Enter a name.
2. Change the SSL Profile Type to FrontEnd or BackEnd.
3. Configure SSL Profile settings as desired (see above for some recommendations).
4. For example, your Custom SSL Profile can enable TLSv13 protocol and include TLSv13 ciphers.
5. For example, your Custom SSL Profile can enable Client Authentication (client certificates).
6. Another example, your Custom SSL Profile can enable SNI.
7. When done, click OK at the bottom of the page.
When you clone an SSL Profile, the Ciphers are not cloned so you’ll have to rebind the ciphers to the Custom SSL Profile.
After the SSL Profile is created, edit any SSL-based Virtual Server.
1. If you don’t see the SSL Profile section on the left, then on the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click SSL Profile to add the section to the left.
2. On the left, scroll down to the SSL Profile section and click the pencil icon.
3. Select an SSL Profile.
4. Click OK to close the SSL Profile section.

SSL vServers – Bind Certificate, Bind Cipher Group, Disable SSLv3, Enable STS

If you enabled the Default SSL Profiles feature, you can either leave the vServer configured with the Default SSL Profile; or you can change the vServer to use a Custom SSL Profile.

If you don’t use the Default SSL Profiles feature, then you’ll need to manually configure ciphers and SSL settings on every SSL vServer.

Do the following on every SSL vServer:

When creating an SSL Virtual Server (e.g. SSL Load Balancing vServer), on the left, in the Certificates section, click where it says No Server Certificate.
1. In the Select Server Certificate field, click where it says Click to select.
2. Click the small circle next to a certificate, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
3. Click Bind.
```
bind ssl vserver MyvServer -certkeyName MyCert
```
You can bind a Custom SSL Profile:
1. Find the SSL Profile section on the left, and click the pencil icon.
  - If you don’t see the SSL Profile section on the left, then add the SSL Profile section from the Advanced Settings column on the right.
2. Select a Custom SSL Profile, and click OK.
If default SSL Profiles are not enabled:
1. On the left, in the SSL Parameters section, click the pencil icon. You won’t see this section if Default SSL Profiles are enabled.
2. Uncheck the box next to SSLv3.
3. Optionally uncheck the boxes next to TLSv1 and TLSv11.
4. Make sure TLSv12 is checked.
5. TLSv13 is an option. If you enable this, then make sure your cipher group includes TLS 1.3 ciphers.
6. Click OK.
```
set ssl vserver MyvServer -ssl3 DISABLED -tls12 ENABLED
```
  - To log SSL Protocol usage, see Netscaler SSL Protocol’s Used (SSLv3, TLS1.0, etc) at Citrix Discussions.
7. Scroll to the SSL Ciphers section, and click the pencil icon.
8. In the middle, click Add.
9. Select your custom cipher group. It’s probably at the bottom of the list. If you enabled TLS 1.3, then make sure your cipher group includes TLS 1.3 ciphers. Move the cipher group to the right.
10. Remove the DEFAULT cipher group from the Configured list
```
unbind ssl vserver MyvServer -cipherName ALL
bind ssl vserver MyvServer -cipherName ssllabs-smw-q2-2018
```
11. Then click OK to close the SSL Ciphers section.
SSL Virtual Servers created on newer versions of Citrix ADC will automatically have ECC Curves bound to them. However, if this appliance was upgraded from an older version, then the ECC Curves might not be bound. If you are not using SSL Profile, then on the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click ECC Curve.
1. On the left, in the ECC Curve section, click where it says No ECC Curve.
2. In the ECC Curve Binding field, click where it says Click to select.
3. Click the small circle next to ALL, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
4. Click Bind.
```
bind ssl vserver MyvServer -eccCurveName ALL
```
If HSTS is not enabled in a bound SSL Profile, you can enable it in SSL Parameters, or you can enable it by binding a Rewrite policy.
To enable HSTS by configuring SSL Parameters:
1. On the left, find the SSL Parameters section, and click the pencil icon. This section is only present if Default SSL Profiles are not enabled.
2. In the right column, check the box next to HSTS.
3. Enter 157680000 in the Max Age box.
4. Click OK to close SSL Parameters.
If enabling HSTS in an SSL Profile or SSL Parameters causes technical issues, then bind a Rewrite policy instead. Don’t do both methods.
1. If the Policies section doesn’t exist on the left, then add it from the Advanced Settings column on the right.
2. On the left, find the Policies section, and click the plus icon.
3. Change the Choose Policy drop-down to Rewrite.
4. Change the Choose Type drop-down to Response, and click Continue.
5. In the Select Policy field, click where it says Click to select.
6. Click the small circle next to the insert_STS_header policy, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
7. Click Bind.
```
bind lb vserver MyvServer -policyName insert_STS_header -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type RESPONSE
```

If you experience SSL performance problems on a Citrix ADC MPX, Citrix CTX207005 Performance Issues with NetScaler MPX SSL recommends creating and binding the following TCP Profile:

add ns tcpProfile tcp_test -WS ENABLED -SACK ENABLED -maxBurst 20 -initialCwnd 8 -bufferSize 4096000 -flavor BIC -dynamicReceiveBuffering DISABLED -sendBuffsize 4096000

SSL Tests

After you’ve created an SSL Virtual Server and configured SSL settings, run the following test:

Go to https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ and check the security settings of the website. Check the box next to Do not show the results on the boards.

SSL Redirect – Methods

There are typically three methods of performing SSL Redirect (http to https) in Citrix ADC:

Load Balancing Virtual Server Method – enable SSL Redirect directly on the Load Balancing Virtual Server. This is the easiest method.
- This option is not available for Gateway Virtual Servers and Content Switching Virtual Servers.
- There’s nothing in the GUI to indicate that the SSL Virtual Server is also listening on port 80.
Down vServer Method – create a new Load Balancing Virtual Server on Port 80, and configure the Redirect URL for when it is down.
- The Virtual Server must be DOWN for the Redirect to occur. These Virtual Servers are shown as Red instead of Green.
Responder Method – create a new Load Balancing Virtual Server on Port 80, and bind a Responder policy that redirects to https.
- The Responder policy only works if the Virtual Server is UP, which means it is shown as Green.
- Some setup tasks are required – create the AlwaysUP service, and create the Responder Policy. But once setup is complete, it only requires slightly more steps than the Down vServer method.

SSL Redirect – SSL Load Balancing vServer Method

You can configure SSL Redirect directly in an SSL Load Balancing vServer (port 443) instead of creating a separate HTTP (port 80) Load Balancing vServer.

Limitations:

This is only an option for SSL Load Balancing vServers; it’s not configurable in Gateway vServers or Content Switching vServers.
Only one Redirect URL can be specified. Alternatively, the Responder method can handle multiple FQDNs to one VIP (e.g. wildcard certificate) and/or IP address URLs.

To configure an SSL Load Balancing vServer to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS:

Edit the SSL Load Balancing vServer (port 443).
In the Basic Settings section, click the pencil icon.
Click More.
In the Redirect from Port field, enter 80.
In the HTTPS Redirect URL field, enter https://MyFQDN.
Click Continue twice.
When you view the list of Load Balancing Virtual Servers, there’s no indication that it’s listening on port 80.

SSL Redirect – Down vServer Method

If you created an SSL Virtual Server that only listens on SSL 443, then users must enter https:// when navigating to the website. To make it easier for the users, create another load balancing Virtual Server on the same VIP, but listens on HTTP 80, and then redirects the user’s browser to reconnect on SSL 443.

The Down Virtual Server Method is easy, but the Redirect Virtual Server must be down in order for the redirect to take effect. Another option is to use Responder policies to perform the redirect.

To create the down Redirect Virtual Server:

On the left, under Traffic Management > Load Balancing, click Virtual Servers.
On the right, right-click an SSL Virtual Server you’ve already created, and click Add. Doing it this way copies some of the data from the already created Virtual Server.
Or, if you are redirecting Citrix Gateway, create a new Load Balancing vServer with the same VIP as the Gateway.
Change the name of the Virtual Server to indicate that this new Virtual Server is an SSL Redirect.
Change the Protocol to HTTP on Port 80.
The IP Address should already be filled in. It must match the original SSL Virtual Server (or Gateway vServer). Click OK.
Don’t bind any services. This vServer must intentionally be marked down so the redirect will take effect. Click Continue.
On the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click Protection.
On the left, in the Protection section, in the Redirect URL field, enter the full URL including https://. For example: https://storefront.corp.com/Citrix/StoreWeb.
Click OK to close the Protection section.
Click Done.
When you view the SSL redirect Virtual Server in the list, it will have a state of DOWN. That’s expected. The Port 80 Virtual Server must be DOWN for this redirect method to work.

SSL Redirect – Responder Method

The Down Virtual Server Method is easy, but the Redirect Virtual Server must be down in order for the redirect to take effect. Another option is to use Responder policies to perform the redirect. The Responder method requires the Redirect Virtual Server to be UP.

Responder Method Setup Tasks

The following setup tasks are performed once no matter how many redirects you want to configure.

Create a dummy Load Balancing service. This dummy service can be bound to multiple Redirect Virtual Servers.

Go to Traffic Management > Load Balancing > Services.
On the right, click Add.
Name the service AlwaysUp or similar.
Enter a fake IP address. Try not to use any IP address owned by the Citrix ADC to avoid being able to access the ADC management web page.
Click the More link.
This dummy service must always be UP, so uncheck the box next to Health Monitoring.

Click OK, and then click Done to close the Load Balancing Service.

add server 1.1.1.1 1.1.1.1
add service AlwaysUp 1.1.1.1 HTTP 80 -healthMonitor NO

Create the Responder Action:

On the left, expand AppExpert, and click Responder.
If Responder feature is not enabled, right-click Responder, and click Enable Feature.
```
enable ns feature RESPONDER
```
Under Responder, click Actions.
On the right, click Add.
Give the action a name.
Change the Type to Redirect. If you leave this set to Respond With then it won’t work.

Enter an expression. The following expression redirects to https on the same URL the user entered in the browser. Or you can create a Responder Action with a more specific Target.

"https://" + HTTP.REQ.HOSTNAME.HTTP_URL_SAFE + HTTP.REQ.URL.PATH_AND_QUERY.HTTP_URL_SAFE

add responder action http_to_ssl_redirect_responderact redirect "\"https://\" + HTTP.REQ.HOSTNAME.HTTP_URL_SAFE + HTTP.REQ.URL.PATH_AND_QUERY.HTTP_URL_SAFE" -responseStatusCode 302

Click Create.

Create the Responder Policy:

On the left, under Responder, click Policies.
On the right, click Add.
Give the policy a name.
Select the previously created Responder action.

For the expression, enter the following.

HTTP.REQ.IS_VALID

add responder policy http_to_ssl_redirect_responderpol HTTP.REQ.IS_VALID http_to_ssl_redirect_responderact

Then click Create.

Enable Redirect using Responder Policy

Repeat this section for each HTTP to HTTPS redirect that you want to configure:

Create a Load Balancing Virtual Server with Protocol HTTP, and Port 80.
The vServer’s VIP should match an existing SSL Virtual Server or existing Citrix Gateway Virtual Server.
Bind the AlwaysUp service.
1. In the Services and Service Groups section, click where it says No Load Balancing Virtual Server Service Binding.
2. In the Select Service field, click where it says Click to select.
3. Check the box next to AlwaysUp, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
4. Click Bind.
5. Click Continue to close Services and Service Groups.
Bind the Responder Policy:
1. On the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click Policies.
2. On the left, scroll down to the Policies section, and click the plus icon in the top right of the Policies box.
3. Change the Choose Policy drop-down to Responder. Click Continue.
4. In the Select Policy field, click where it says Click to select.
5. Click the small circle next to the redirect Responder policy, and then click the blue Select button at the top of the page.
6. Click Bind.
7. Then click Done to close the Load Balancing Virtual Server.
```
add lb vserver MyvServer-HTTP-SSLRedirect HTTP 10.2.2.201 80

bind lb vserver storefront.corp.com-HTTP-SSLRedirect AlwaysUp

bind lb vserver storefront.corp.com-HTTP-SSLRedirect -policyName http_to_ssl_redirect_responderpol -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type REQUEST
```
The primary advantage of this method is that the Redirect Virtual Server is UP.

Citrix ADC Certificates
Back to Citrix ADC 13

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – June 15, 2019

June 15, 2019, 3:26 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – June 22, 2019

≪ Previous: SSL Virtual Servers – Citrix ADC 13

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Gateway

Citrix ADC Native OTP: Securing OTP management – first device registered only from within the premises. Subsequent devices use one of the previously registered devices’ OTP – Citrix Docs

Other

NVIDIA vGPU Software now has Long-Term Support Branch and New-Feature Branch
Deploy Nutanix Xi Frame AHV On-Premises VDI – Saadallah Chebaro
iOS 13 MDM User Enrollment – Jack Madden

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – June 22, 2019

June 22, 2019, 3:29 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – July 6, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – June 15, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Download Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1906, All Editions
What’s new in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1906 – Citrix Docs
Deprecated features in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1906 – Brokering components on Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10 x86, and Microsoft SQL 2014 and older – Citrix Docs
Citrix IT Service Management connector (ITSM connector) for ServiceNow User Guide – Citrix Docs

Citrix VDA

Session Recording 1906 – RBAC policies to place granular rules who can view recorded sessions; tag browser URLs

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

How to roam Start menu pinned applications – add AppData\Local\Packages to folders to mirror – Citrix Docs
Download Citrix Workspace Environment Management 1906
History of the Windows user profile in EUC environments (1994-2019) – CTP James Rankin

Citrix Provisioning

Download Citrix Provisioning 1906
Powershell SnapIns are not upgraded from PVS 7.15 LTSR CU3 to 7.15 LTSR CU4 after the upgrade is complete – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix StoreFront

Designing StoreFront Multi-Site Aggregation – Citrix Tech Zone
Configure on-prem StoreFront 1906 to send events to Citrix Analytics – Citrix Docs
Tech Insight – Access Control for StoreFront – YouTube

Citrix Workspace app

Download Citrix Receiver 4.9.7000 for Windows, LTSR Cumulative Update 7
Download Citrix Workspace app 1905 for Windows

Citrix ADC

Canary deployment with Citrix ADC – Content Switching with “sys.random” rules – Citrix Blog Post

Citrix Cloud

Citrix Cloud can now use on-premises Citrix Gateway 12.1 52.15 or later for end-user authentication into Citrix Workspace – Citrix Docs

VMware

Using Amazon RDS for the Horizon 7 Events Database – Sean Massey

Microsoft

As of July 1, 2019, Microsoft will no longer offer MFA Server for new deployments – Microsoft Docs

Other

NVIDIA vGPU software 9.0 (430.27/430.30/431.02) June 2019 – Win10 1903 support, VMware Horizon 7.9 support

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – July 6, 2019

July 6, 2019, 4:51 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – July 13, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – June 22, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

We’re aware of some random Disconnect issues with the citrix virtual apps and desktops 1906 VDA and Workspace app. We’ve got support and engineering teams engaged to try to figure out what’s causing this. Can’t promise an ETA, but we’re on it xx – Citrix Phil Wiffen on Twitter
If a customer uses a Citrix Current Release (CR) VDA with LTSR version Controller, the site is no longer LTSR compliant and not eligible for the benefits of LTSR including extended support – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix Director / Monitoring

Citrix Director 7.15 LTSR CU4 Does Not List All Entries Under Session And Machine Filters – private fix – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix StoreFront

Download Citrix StoreFront 1906 (build 3.19.0.31) to resolve upgrade problems

Citrix Workspace app

Download Citrix Workspace app 1906 for Linux

Citrix ADC

Citrix Networking SSL / TLS Best Practices updated with TLS 1.3 ciphers and Zombie POODLE vulnerability information – Citrix Tech Zone
How to fix jQuery Object Prototype Pollution Vulnerability on Citrix NetScalers – Manually update JQuery Library on the NetScaler – Jess Martin
Download Citrix NetScaler Release (Maintenance Phase) 11.1 Build 62.8
Citrix ADC App Firewall Signature update for June 2019 – Citrix Docs

Citrix ADM

Citrix ADM 13 Infrastructure Analytics: Visualize the health of your Citrix Networking devices – YouTube

VMware

Download VMware Horizon 7.9
- What’s New in VMware Horizon 7.9 and Horizon Client 5.1 – VMware Tech Zone
Upgrade to VMware Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 3.6 to resolve SACK vulnerability. Or disable SACK – VMware Knowledgebase article
VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.6: Deep Dive – AirWatch Secure Email Gateway, AirWatch Per-app Tunnel for SDK apps – YouTube
Download VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 3

Microsoft

Download and Install Microsoft FSLogix – The FSLogix software no longer requires license keys – Microsoft Docs
Office365 ProPlus for Server 2019 — plus all fslogix products for (almost) everyone! – Microsoft Blog Post

Other

Teradici unveiled “PCoIP Ultra.” How is it different from PCoIP and where does it fit in the market? – Rachel Berry

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – July 13, 2019

July 13, 2019, 6:22 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – July 20, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – July 6, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix VDA

Download User Session Disconnect Hotfix – For Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1906.1 VDA
Download Citrix Connection Quality Indicator Updated: Jul 12, 2019 – Fixed an issue that GPO settings could not control notifications
Controlling the Starting of the Citrix Desktop Service (BrokerAgent) – updated May 16 – Jeremy Saunders

Citrix Workspace app

Citrix Workspace app 1904 onwards certain changes were made to the process handling in the installer – Therefore, you might need to update your script
Download Citrix Workspace app 1906 for Mac

Citrix StoreFront

Download Citrix Workspace app 1907 for HTML5
StoreFront 1906.1.0.27 upgrade and installation issues – replace StoreFront on CVAD metainstaller with build 1906.1.0.31

Citrix App Layering

Citrix App Layering – Four common mistakes (and how to avoid them) – Citrix Blog Post

Citrix ADC

Customizations to make the nFactor logon interface more intuitive for rich user experience – Citrix Docs

Citrix Gateway

Citrix NetScaler Gateway: EPA scan slowness on Windows 10 build 1809 – Upgrade NS to 12.0 or 12.1 builds

Citrix Cloud

What’s new in Citrix Analytics July 11, 2019 – risk events whenever there is a change in Admin or Executive privilege status of a user

Microsoft

FSLogix Containers – Search Index Considerations and Troubleshooting – FSLogix Blog Post
Getting started with FSLogix profile containers on Azure Files in Windows Virtual Desktop – Microsoft Blog Post

VMware

Download VMware Horizon Helpdesk Utility fling updated July 11, 2019 – No longer requires a helpdesk license
Download Horizon Session Recording fling updated July 10, 2019 – now supports Horizon 7.8 and above
Download VMware Horizon Toolbox fling updated July 12, 2019
Computer-based Global Policy Objects (GPOs) that require reboot are not applied on instant clones – improved in Horizon 7.8+ – VMware Knowledgebase article
Horizon Cloud Q2 Release – Learn What’s New – VMware Blog Post

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – July 20, 2019

July 20, 2019, 4:22 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – July 27, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – July 13, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix App Layering

What’s Fixed in Citrix App Layering 1907 – Citrix Docs

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

New Citrix WEM Agent installer – Citrix Docs

Citrix StoreFront

Configuration Utility for Citrix Workspace app for Chrome and HTML5 – updated July 15

Citrix Workspace app

Download Citrix Workspace app 1907 for Windows

Citrix ADC

What’s new in Citrix ingress controller 1.2.0 for Kubernetes – Expose services of type LoadBalancer; Establish network connectivity between Kubernetes nodes and Ingress Citrix ADC using Citrix node controller – Github

Citrix ADM

What’s new in Citrix Application Delivery Management Cloud Service July 16, 2019 – Apply virtual server licenses and enable analytics in a single workflow, Logstream for Partitions, BLX support – Citrix Docs

Citrix Cloud

July Ask the Cloud Experts: Citrix Director & Studio – YouTube

VMware

VMware Workspace ONE UEM™ Powered by AirWatch 1907 Release Notes

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – July 27, 2019

July 27, 2019, 7:50 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – August 3, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – July 20, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix VDA

Predicted loss in VDI scalability numbers due to security patching – LoginVSI

Citrix Provisioning

How to Configure PVS vDisk Update Management Using SCCM – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix ADC

Download Citrix ADC Release (Maintenance Phase) 12.1 Build 53.12

Citrix Gateway

Download Citrix Gateway Endpoint Analysis Libraries dated Jul 25, 2019

Citrix SD-WAN

What’s New in Citrix SD-WAN 11 – Citrix Docs
Install Citrix SD-WAN SE VPX on Google Cloud Platform – Citrix Docs

Citrix Endpoint Management

Download Citrix XenMobile Server 10.10.0 Rolling Patch 3

Citrix Cloud

Citrix Cloud Connector -101 – CTP Gareth Carson

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – August 3, 2019

August 3, 2019, 5:52 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – August 10, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – July 27, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Download Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1906.2 – respin to include hotfixes

Citrix App Layering

Citrix App Layering Reference Architecture in Tech Zone – Citrix Docs
VDAs are not registering using a published image – Use GPO/GPP to add the proper accounts and services – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix Cloud

Citrix Analytics now supports the European Union region – Citrix Docs
Tech Insight – Citrix Workspace cloud with on-prem Citrix Gateway as IdP – YouTube

VMware

Workspace ONE Intelligence: What’s New – August 2019 – YouTube

Microsoft

How to open an FSLogix Support Request – Microsoft Forums

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – August 10, 2019

August 10, 2019, 4:31 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – August 17, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – August 3, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Schedule periodic logging data deletion – Citrix Docs

Citrix VDA

Updated Microsoft licensing terms for cloud dedicated hosts (e.g. AWS) – only license mobility allowed – Windows Server doesn’t have license mobility so must purchase new; Windows 10 Enterprise requires VDA E3/E5 (per user)’t have license mobility so must purchase new; Windows 10 Enterprise requires VDA E3/E5 (per user) – Microsoft Licensing
Bye SmartScale, Hello PowerScale! – CUGC recorded webinar

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

Migrating GPO settings to WEM Cloud Service – CTP James Kindon

Citrix StoreFront

Download Citrix Workspace app 1908 for HTML5

Citrix ADC

Citrix Networking Master Class – July 2019 – Private Cloud (e.g. OpenStack), Public Cloud – YouTube

Citrix Content Collaboration

What’s new in Citrix storage zones controller 5.8 – Checkin and checkout for files from Network Shares Connector, create MS Office documents in on-premises folders – Citrix Docs

VMware

Horizon Cloud Services – August 2019 updates and feature enhancements – YouTube

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – August 17, 2019

August 17, 2019, 4:41 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – August 24, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – August 10, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix VDA

Citrix VDA Cleanup Utility v1.6.0.6 – removes browser content redirection, supports Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrades, 2016 support – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix StoreFront

If favorites exist, go to favorites tab. If favorites do not exist, go to the store tab – Citrix Blog Post

Citrix ADC

Download Citrix NetScaler Release (Maintenance Phase) 12.0 Build 62.8

Citrix ADM

New Citrix ADM Cloud feature – migrate VIP config from one ADC to a different ADC – Citrix Docs

VMware

Location analysis using vROPs for Horizon – Cameron Fore

Other

Use ControlUp Automation to speed up Citrix Local Host Cache failover – YouTube

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – August 24, 2019

August 24, 2019, 4:55 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – August 31, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – August 17, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix StoreFront

XML External Entity (XXE) Processing Vulnerability in Citrix StoreFront Server – fixed in 7.6 CU8, 7.15 CU4, or 1903+

Citrix ADC

Citrix ADC Web App Firewall Signature version 32 – new rules for WordPress – Citrix Docs
Citrix ADC Security: create system KEK files to encrypt ns.conf passwords – Michael Shuster
Citrix Networking Master Class – August 2019 – ADC BLX – YouTube

VMware

Only VMware Horizon version 7.9 is supported with vSphere 6.7 U3 – VMware Interoperability Matrix
Download VMware vSphere 6.7U3
VMware User Environment Manager renamed to Dynamic Environment Manager?
SRM support for Identity Manager Disaster Recovery – VMware Tech Zone
VMware Workspace ONE UEM™ Powered by AirWatch 1908 Release Notes – VMware Docs

Other

ControlUp v7.5.1.1 Release Notes

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – August 31, 2019

August 31, 2019, 3:44 am

≫ Next: Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) – Citrix ADC

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – August 24, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Download Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 LTSR Cumulative Update 8 – All Editions

Citrix App Layering

Download Citrix App Layering 1908 – Windows 10 version 1903 is now supported; user layer repair

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

Citrix WEM Cloud Service documentation has some info on upcoming Profile Management 1909 features – Citrix Docs
Some considerations around @fslogix containers and high availability with Azure Files, Cloud Cache and more – CTP James Kindon

Citrix Workspace app

Download Citrix Receiver 4.9.8000 for Windows, LTSR Cumulative Update 8
Download Citrix Workspace app 1908 for Linux
Download Citrix Workspace app 1909 Technology Preview for macOS – Support for macOS Catalina 10.15

Citrix ADC

VMware

Horizon announcements at VMworld 2019 – VMware Blog Post
Workspace ONE VMworld 2019 Announcements – VMware Blog Post
Project Pacific – Technical Overview – Kubernetes control of vSphere
VMware Workspace ONE Hub Services Release Notification – August 2019 – VMware Docs

Other

NVIDIA Virtual GPU Software Release 9.1 – security updates; support for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops version 7 1906

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) – Citrix ADC

September 1, 2019, 9:14 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – September 7, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – August 31, 2019

Navigation

SSPR Flow

The SSPR feature in Citrix ADC is completely unrelated to the SSPR in Citrix StoreFront. They are separate registrations.

SSPR is available in Citrix ADC 12.1 build 51.16 and higher.

SSPR requires nFactor, which is only available in Citrix ADC Advanced Edition and Premium Edition. You can use nFactor with Citrix Gateway.

SSPR Registration doesn’t work in Citrix Workspace app.

The first factor is a Login Schema that has an optional Forgot Password link. The Login Schema file named SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml has this link. There are other built-in Login Schemas for Username Only and Dual Auth that also have the link.

If the user logs in normally, then ADC checks if the user has been enrolled in SSPR or not. If not enrolled, then the user is prompted to select questions and provide answers. This is a custom Login Schema that you can create from the ADC GUI as described later.

If the user clicks the Forgot Password link, then the user is prompted to answer two of the previously enrolled questions.

Optionally, the user might be prompted to retrieve a One-time password (OTP) sent to an Alternate Email address. The user might not have access to corporate email, so the OTP should be sent to the user’s personal email address. The user enters the alternate email address during SSPR registration.
Finally, the user is prompted to enter a new password.

Here’s what a sample SSPR nFactor configuration looks like:

# ** nFactor Visualizer 
# ** ------------------ 
# ** AAA vserver: AAA-SSPR
# **    Login Schema Policy = lschema_password_reset
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Login Schema XML = "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml"
# **    Adv Authn Policy = LDAP_Password_Reset
# **       Priority = 10
# **       Rule = "aaa.LOGIN.VALUE(\"passwdreset\").EQ(\"1\")"
# **       Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **       Goto if failed = NEXT
# **       Next Factor if Success = kba_validation
# **          Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = kba_validation
# **             Priority = 10
# **             Rule = true
# **             Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **             Goto if failed = NEXT
# **             Next Factor if Success = email_validation
# **                Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **                Adv Authn Policy = email_validation
# **                   Priority = 10
# **                   Rule = true
# **                   Action = emailAction named EmailOTP
# **                   Goto if failed = NEXT
# **                   Next Factor if Success = password_reset
# **                      Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **                      Adv Authn Policy = LDAP-Corp-Adv_NoAuth
# **                         Priority = 100
# **                         Rule = true
# **                         Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **                         Goto if failed = NEXT
# **    Adv Authn Policy = LDAP-Corp-Adv
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp
# **       Goto if failed = NEXT
# **       Next Factor if Success = check_for_sspr_registration
# **          Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = switch_to_kba_register
# **             Priority = 1
# **             Rule = "AAA.USER.ATTRIBUTE(\"kba_registered\").EQ(\"0\")"
# **             Action = NO_AUTHN
# **             Goto if failed = NEXT
# **             Next Factor if Success = kba_registration
# **                Login Schema Profile = lschema_KBARegistration
# **                Adv Authn Policy = first_time_login_forced_kba_registration
# **                   Priority = 1
# **                   Rule = true
# **                   Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp
# **                   Goto if failed = NEXT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = NoAuth
# **             Priority = 100
# **             Rule = true
# **             Action = NO_AUTHN
# **             Goto if failed = END

Active Directory User Attribute

Citrix ADC SSPR stores its configuration in an Active Directory User attribute.

The attribute must be dedicated to SSPR. You can’t use the same attribute that you might already be using for Citrix ADC One-time passwords (OTP).

In Active Directory Users and Computers, enable Advanced Features mode (from the View menu), double-click a user, switch to the Attribute Editor tab, and find a String attribute that is not being used. When you double-click an attribute, look for String in the window title.
Open the Active Directory Schema console. Under Attributes, find your candidate attribute and double-click it. Make sure the Maximum length is high (e.g. 32767). The extensionAttributes default to 1024 or 2048, which is not long enough.
You might want to uncheck the bottom boxes (e.g. Attribute is copied when duplicating a user) since each user has their own SSPR configuration.
ADC needs permissions to set this Attribute and reset user passwords. You can use the Delegate Control wizard to grant these permissions.
1. Consider creating a group for SSPR Admins and delegating permissions to that group. You can add your LDAP Bind Account and your Service Desk accounts to this group.
2. In the Tasks to Delegate page, change it to Create a custom task to delegate and click Next.
3. In the Active Directory Object Type page, change the selection to Only the following objects in this folder and select User objects. Click Next.
4. In the Permissions page, on the top of the page, check the box for Property-specific.
5. In the Permissions list, check the box next to Reset password. Scroll down.
6. Find the attribute you are using for SSPR and check the Read and Write boxes. Click Next.

Help Desk will need to be trained to reset a user’s SSPR registration by double-clicking the attribute and clicking the Clear button. The next time the user logs in, the user will be prompted to enroll for SSPR again.

ADC uses a certificate to encrypt the contents of the Attribute. It currently is not possible to configure the certificate from the GUI, so you’ll need to SSH to the ADC and run the following command:

bind vpn global -userDataEncryptionKey MyCertificate

The ADC SSPR configuration needs two LDAP Policy/Servers: one with authentication enabled, and one without authentication. In both LDAP Servers, in the Other Settings section, enter the Attribute name into the Alternate Email field and in the KB Attribute field. The same attribute can be used for both. However, you cannot use the same attribute for the OTP Secret field.

SSPR KBA Registration Login Schema

When creating the KBA Registration Login Schema you will be prompted to choose from a list of questions. This list is configured in the file KBQuestions.json located in /nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema.

In ADC GUI, on the left, expand Security, expand AAA – Application Traffic, and click Login Schema.
On the right, switch to the Profiles tab.
On the right, click the button labelled Add KBA Registration Login Schema.
Give the Schema a name. ADC will create a file with the same name.
Configure at least two questions. Move questions from the left to the right. Note: the XML file that it creates has size limits so don’t choose too many questions.
On the right, you can optionally change the labels for Question Field and Answer Field. If you don’t enter anything, then the labels are Question, and Answer, as shown earlier in this article. Scroll down.
Near the bottom are two More links you can click.
The first More link lets you allow users to enter their own questions.
The second More link lets you enable Register Alternate Email.
Click Create when done.
ADC creates a file in /nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema that matches the Schema name you entered earlier.
ADC also adds a Login Schema Profile with the same name you entered earlier.

LDAP Servers

You’ll need two LDAP Servers: one with Authentication enabled, and the other with Authentication unchecked. Other than the Authentication checkbox, they are identical. Configure them like normal LDAP Servers.

The NoAuth server has Authentication unchecked.

Configure both LDAP Servers with the SSPR attribute as detailed earlier.

Email Action and Policy

You can optionally configure an Email action to send the user a OTP before allowing the password reset.

In the ADC GUI, the easy way to find Email Actions is to enter “email” in the top left search box.
On the right, click Add.
Give the Email Action a name.
In the Username box, enter the From email address. The emails will look like they come from this address.
Enter the SMTP password for this From address.
In the Server URL box, enter a smtps URL with port number similar to smtps://mail01.corp.com:587. Gmail’s URL smtps://smtp-relay.gmail.com:587 also works.
In the Content box, enter a string containing $code. ADC replaces $code with the OTP.
In the Type box, enter SMTP.
In the Email Address box, enter aaa.user.attribute("alternate_mail"). This expression pulls the destination email address from Alternate Email attribute you defined in your LDAP Server.
Click Create.
It does not appear to be possible to use the ADC GUI to create an Email Authentication Policy. SSH to your ADC and run something similar to the following command:
```
add authentication Policy email_validation -rule true -action EmailOTP
```

SSPR nFactor Configuration

AAA vServer and Login Schema

The first factor will be a Login Schema that has the Reset Password link. This section creates the following portion of the nFactor configuration:

# ** AAA vserver: AAA-SSPR
# **    Login Schema Policy = lschema_password_reset
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Login Schema XML = "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml"

Do the following:

Create a AAA vServer.
It can be Non Addressable.
Optionally bind a certificate to the AAA vServer so its status will be Green instead of Red.
On the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click Login Schemas to move it to the left.
On the left, in the Login Schemas section, click where it says No Login Schema.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create a new Login Schema Policy.
Give the Login Schema Policy a name to indicate that this Login Schema includes a link for Self-Service Password Reset.
Next to Profile, click Add to create a new Login Schema Profile.
Give the Login Schema Profile a name.
In the Authentication Schema field, click the edit icon.
In the Login Schema Files section, click the LoginSchema folder.
Highlight one of the PasswordReset files (e.g. SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml) and then click the blue Select button on the top right. You can also optionally modify the built-in files.
The Create Authentication Login Schema window collapses and the Authentication Schema field shows the selected file. Click Create when done.
Click Create to finish creating the Authentication Login Schema Policy.
Click Bind to bind the Login Schema Policy to the AAA vServer.

SSPR Registration

Let’s start with the SSPR Registration flow. This section creates the following snippet of the full nFactor configuration:

# ** AAA vserver: AAA-SSPR
# **    Login Schema Policy = lschema_password_reset
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Login Schema XML = "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml"
# **    Adv Authn Policy = LDAP-Corp-Adv
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp
# **       Goto if failed = NEXT
# **       Next Factor if Success = check_for_sspr_registration
# **          Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = switch_to_kba_register
# **             Priority = 1
# **             Rule = "AAA.USER.ATTRIBUTE(\"kba_registered\").EQ(\"0\")"
# **             Action = NO_AUTHN
# **             Goto if failed = NEXT
# **             Next Factor if Success = kba_registration
# **                Login Schema Profile = lschema_KBARegistration
# **                Adv Authn Policy = first_time_login_forced_kba_registration
# **                   Priority = 1
# **                   Rule = true
# **                   Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp
# **                   Goto if failed = NEXT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = NoAuth
# **             Priority = 100
# **             Rule = true
# **             Action = NO_AUTHN
# **             Goto if failed = END

Do the following:

In the AAA vServer, scroll down to the Advanced Authentication Policies section and click where it says No Authentication Policy.
In the Select Policy field, select your normal LDAP policy. The Login Schema collects username and password and verifies it with the LDAP Policy that you select here.
Change the Priority to 20 or similar. This binding must be a higher number than the Password Reset flow that we configure later.
Next to the Select Next Factor field, click Add to create a Policy Label which will check if the user is registered or not.
Name the Policy Label to indicate that this Policy Label checks if the user is registered or not.
Leave the Login Schema set to LSCHEMA_INT (i.e. no schema), and click Continue.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name this Authentication Policy to indicate that it does nothing more than check if the user is registered or not.
In the Expression field, enter the following expression:
```
AAA.USER.ATTRIBUTE("kba_registered").EQ("0")
```
Click Create.
Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding window, next to the Select Next Factor field, click Add to create another Policy Label.
Name the Policy Label to indicate that this factor performs the SSPR Registration (i.e. Knowledge-Based Authentication registration).
In the Login Schema field, select the KBA Registration Login Schema that you created earlier.
Click Continue.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name the Authentication Policy to indicate that ADC uses this LDAP Server to store the KBA registration information in the Active Directory User attribute.
Change Action Type to LDAP.
Change Action to your normal authenticating LDAP Server that has the KB Attribute defined.
For Expression, enter true.
Click Create.
Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding page, click Bind.
Click Done to finish creating the Policy Label for KBA Registration.
Back in the “Check for SSPR Registration” Policy Label Policy Binding page, click Bind.
To handle users that are already registered, click Add Binding.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name the Policy to indicate that no authentication is occurring. This policy always returns true and is necessary to avoid errors for users that are already registered.
Change Action Type to NO_AUTHN.
In the Expression box, enter true.
Click Create.
Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding screen, click Bind.
Click Done to close the “Check for SSPR Registration” Policy Label.
Click Bind to bind the LDAP Policy and “Check for SSPR Registration” factor to the AAA vServer.

Password Reset

This section creates the following snippet of the full nFactor configuration:

# ** AAA vserver: AAA-SSPR
# **    Login Schema Policy = lschema_password_reset
# **       Priority = 20
# **       Rule = true
# **       Login Schema XML = "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml"
# **    Adv Authn Policy = LDAP_Password_Reset
# **       Priority = 10
# **       Rule = "aaa.LOGIN.VALUE(\"passwdreset\").EQ(\"1\")"
# **       Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **       Goto if failed = NEXT
# **       Next Factor if Success = kba_validation
# **          Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **          Adv Authn Policy = kba_validation
# **             Priority = 10
# **             Rule = true
# **             Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **             Goto if failed = NEXT
# **             Next Factor if Success = email_validation
# **                Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **                Adv Authn Policy = email_validation
# **                   Priority = 10
# **                   Rule = true
# **                   Action = emailAction named EmailOTP
# **                   Goto if failed = NEXT
# **                   Next Factor if Success = password_reset
# **                      Login Schema Profile = LSCHEMA_INT
# **                      Adv Authn Policy = LDAP-Corp-Adv_NoAuth
# **                         Priority = 100
# **                         Rule = true
# **                         Action = ldapAction named LDAP-Corp_NoAuth
# **                         Goto if failed = NEXT

Do the following to create the Password Reset flow:

In the AAA vServer, in the Advanced Authentication Policies section, click where it says 1 Authentication Policy
Note the Priority number of the existing binding. Our new binding will need a lower priority number so it is evaluated first. Click Add Binding.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name the Authentication Policy to indicate that this policy only applies if the user clicked the Forgot Password link in the Login Schema.
Change Action Type to LDAP.
Change Action to the your LDAP Server that has Authentication unchecked (i.e. not enabled).
In the Expression box, enter the following expression that returns true if the user clicked the link:
```
aaa.LOGIN.VALUE("passwdreset").EQ("1")
```
Click Create.
Back in the Policy Binding page, change the Priority to a number that is lower than the existing Policy Binding.
Next to the Select Next Factor field, click Add to create a Policy Label (i.e. factor)
Name the Policy Label to indicate that this factor will verify the user’s questions and answers.
Leave the Login Schema set to the default LSCHEMA_INT (i.e. no schema) and click Continue.
Next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name the Authentication Policy to indicate that this policy verifies the user’s KBA questions and answers.
Change Action Type to LDAP.
Change Action to your LDAP Server that does not require authentication.
In the Expression box, enter true.
Click Create.
Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding page, if you wish to add email validation, then next to Select Next Factor, click Add to create another Policy Label (factor).
Name the Policy Label to indicate that this factor will perform Email OTP verification.
Leave the Login Schema set to the default LSCHEMA_INT (i.e. no schema) and click Add.
In the Policy Label Policy Binding section, click where it says Click to select.
Click the small circle next to the email policy that you created earlier from the ADC’s command line. It’s not possible to use the GUI to create the email policy.
At the top of the screen, click the blue Select button.
Back in the Policy Label Policy Binding screen, next to the Select Next Factor field, click Add to create another Policy Label (i.e. factor).
Name this Policy Label to indicate that this factor performs the password reset.
Leave the Login Schema set to the default LSCHEMA_INT (i.e. no schema) and click Continue.
In the Policy Label Policy Binding section, next to the Select Policy field, click Add to create an Authentication Policy.
Name the Authentication Policy to indicate that this is your LDAP Policy that has Authentication unchecked (not enabled).
Change Action Type to LDAP.
Change Action to your LDAP Server that has Authentication unchecked.
In the Expression field, enter true.
Click Create.
That’s it for the AAA configuration. Now click Bind and Done several times to return to the AAA vServer.
Click Close to finish the AAA vServer’s Authentication Policy bindings.

Bind to Citrix Gateway

If you are using nFactor configuration with Citrix Gateway, then configure the Authentication Profile like normal.

Go to Citrix Gateway > Virtual Servers and edit a Gateway.
On the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click Authentication Profile to move it to the left.
On the left, in the Authentication Profile section, click Add.
Name the Authentication Profile to indicate that this nFactor Flow does Self-Service Password Reset.
In the Authentication Virtual Server field, click where it says Click to select.
Click the small circle next to the AAA vServer that is configured with your SSPR flow.
At the top of the page, click the blue Select button.
Click Create.
Click OK to select the Authentication Profile.

CLI Commands

Here’s a full sample ADC CLI configuration:

# Certs
# -----
add ssl certKey WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KE_ic1 -cert WildcardCorpCom.cer_ic1 -passcrypt b217e266 -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3

add ssl certKey WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KEY -cert WildcardCorpCom.pfx -key WildcardCorpCom.pfx -inform PFX -passcrypt 52e54af -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -expiryMonitor DISABLED

add ssl certKey CorpIntermediate -cert CorpIntermediate.cer -inform DER -passcrypt cc9675 -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -expiryMonitor DISABLED

# Cert Links
# ----------
link ssl certKey WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KEY CorpIntermediate

link ssl certKey CorpIntermediate WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KE_ic1


# AAA Global Settings
# -------------------
enable ns feature AAA


# LDAP Actions
# ------------
add authentication ldapAction LDAP-Corp -serverIP 10.2.2.11 -serverPort 636 -ldapBase "dc=corp,dc=local" -ldapBindDn ctxsvc@corp.local -ldapBindDnPassword 868d22c -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -ldapLoginName sAMAccountName -groupAttrName memberOf -subAttributeName cn -secType SSL -passwdChange ENABLED -nestedGroupExtraction ON -groupNameIdentifier sAMAccountName -groupSearchAttribute memberOf -groupSearchSubAttribute CN -KBAttribute extensionAttribute1 -alternateEmailAttr extensionAttribute1

add authentication ldapAction LDAP-Corp_NoAuth -serverIP 10.2.2.11 -serverPort 636 -ldapBase "dc=corp,dc=local" -ldapBindDn ctxsvc@corp.local -ldapBindDnPassword a4ffb4 -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -ldapLoginName sAMAccountName -groupAttrName memberOf -subAttributeName cn -secType SSL -authentication DISABLED -passwdChange ENABLED -nestedGroupExtraction ON -groupNameIdentifier sAMAccountName -groupSearchAttribute memberOf -groupSearchSubAttribute CN -KBAttribute extensionAttribute1 -alternateEmailAttr extensionAttribute1


# Email (SSPR) Actions
# --------------------
add authentication emailAction EmailOTP -userName admin@corp.local -password 7868e -encrypted -encryptmethod ENCMTHD_3 -serverURL "smtps://mail01.corp.local:587" -content "Your OTP is $code" -emailAddress "aaa.user.attribute(\"alternate_mail\")"


# Advanced Authentication Policies
# --------------------------------
add authentication Policy LDAP-Corp-Adv -rule true -action LDAP-Corp

add authentication Policy kba_validation -rule true -action LDAP-Corp_NoAuth

add authentication Policy LDAP_Password_Reset -rule "aaa.LOGIN.VALUE(\"passwdreset\").EQ(\"1\")" -action LDAP-Corp_NoAuth

add authentication Policy NoAuth -rule true -action NO_AUTHN

add authentication Policy switch_to_kba_register -rule "AAA.USER.ATTRIBUTE(\"kba_registered\").EQ(\"0\")" -action NO_AUTHN

add authentication Policy email_validation -rule true -action EmailOTP

add authentication Policy first_time_login_forced_kba_registration -rule true -action LDAP-Corp

add authentication Policy EmailOTP -rule true -action EmailOTP

add authentication Policy LDAP-Corp-Adv_NoAuth -rule true -action LDAP-Corp_NoAuth


# Login Schemas
# -------------
add authentication loginSchema lschema_KBARegistration -authenticationSchema "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/lschema_KBARegistration.xml"

add authentication loginSchema lschema_password_reset -authenticationSchema "/nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema/SingleAuthPasswordResetRem.xml"


# Login Schema Policies
# ---------------------
add authentication loginSchemaPolicy lschema_password_reset -rule true -action lschema_password_reset


# Authentication Policy Labels
# ----------------------------
add authentication policylabel kba_registration -loginSchema lschema_KBARegistration

bind authentication policylabel kba_registration -policyName first_time_login_forced_kba_registration -priority 1 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT

add authentication policylabel check_for_sspr_registration -loginSchema LSCHEMA_INT

bind authentication policylabel check_for_sspr_registration -policyName switch_to_kba_register -priority 1 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT -nextFactor kba_registration

bind authentication policylabel check_for_sspr_registration -policyName NoAuth -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END

add authentication policylabel password_reset -loginSchema lschema_noschema

bind authentication policylabel password_reset -policyName LDAP-Corp-Adv_NoAuth -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT

add authentication policylabel email_validation -loginSchema lschema_noschema

bind authentication policylabel email_validation -policyName email_validation -priority 10 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT -nextFactor password_reset

add authentication policylabel kba_validation -loginSchema lschema_noschema

bind authentication policylabel kba_validation -policyName kba_validation -priority 10 -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT -nextFactor email_validation


# Authentication Virtual Servers
# ------------------------------
add authentication vserver AAA-SSPR SSL 0.0.0.0

bind authentication vserver AAA-SSPR -portaltheme RfWebUI

bind authentication vserver AAA-SSPR -policy lschema_password_reset -priority 20 -gotoPriorityExpression END

bind authentication vserver AAA-SSPR -policy LDAP_Password_Reset -priority 10 -nextFactor kba_validation -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT

bind authentication vserver AAA-SSPR -policy LDAP-Corp-Adv -priority 20 -nextFactor check_for_sspr_registration -gotoPriorityExpression NEXT


# Authentication Profiles
# -----------------------
add authentication authnProfile SSPR -authnVsName AAA-SSPR


# NetScaler Gateway Global Bindings
# ---------------------------------
bind vpn global -userDataEncryptionKey WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KEY


# NetScaler Gateway Virtual Servers
# ---------------------------------
add vpn vserver gateway2 SSL 10.2.4.220 443 -Listenpolicy NONE -tcpProfileName nstcp_default_XA_XD_profile -httpProfileName http2 -deploymentType ICA_STOREFRONT -authnProfile SSPR -vserverFqdn gateway3.corp.com

bind vpn vserver gateway2 -portaltheme RfWebUI

bind vpn vserver gateway2 -policy PL_OS_10.2.4.120 -priority 100

bind vpn vserver gateway2 -policy PL_WB_10.2.4.120 -priority 100


# SSL Virtual Servers
# -------------------
bind ssl vserver gateway2 -certkeyName WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KEY

bind ssl vserver AAA-SSPR -certkeyName WildcardCorpCom.cer_CERT_KEY

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – September 7, 2019

September 7, 2019, 4:37 am

≫ Next: Citrix Health Check

≪ Previous: Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) – Citrix ADC

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Citrix supported hypervisors – Added support for vSphere 6.7 Update 3

Citrix StoreFront

How to land on the categories view in StoreFront 1811+ – Citrix Blog Post
Download Citrix Workspace app 1909 for HTML5 – support for DPI scaling

Citrix ADM

ADC Application migration using Citrix ADM StyleBooks – YouTube
Kubernetes Service Graph in Citrix ADM Cloud Service – Citrix Docs

Citrix Endpoint Management

Download Citrix XenMobile Server 10.11.0.10 – Released 4-Sep-2019

Citrix Cloud

Connect Okta as an identity provider to Citrix Cloud – Citrix Docs

VMware

VMware ESXi 6.7 U3 is now supported by Horizon 7.8 – VMware Interoperability Matrix
VMware Cloud Foundation 3.8.1 supports Horizon 7.9 and vSphere 6.7 Update 3 – VMware Docs

Microsoft

FSLogix Profile Compacting Tool – David Ott
FSLogix Application Masking – Advanced Hiding of Project and Visio – CTP Jim Moyle at YouTube
OneDrive sync client now supports Windows Server 2019 with Files On-Demand – Microsoft Blog

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

Citrix Health Check

September 9, 2019, 8:27 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – September 14, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – September 7, 2019

Navigation

💡 = Recently Modified

Change Log

2019-09-15 – added WEM assertions from CTP James Kindon.

Health Check Overview

Health Checks review an environment for configurations that might cause future problems, not necessarily existing problems. Health Checks tend to focus on non-functional qualities like the following:

Availability
Security
Manageability
User Experience
Performance
Reliability

The rest of this article is an incomplete list of health check assertions for Citrix environments.

StoreFront Load Balancing

Citrix connectivity infrastructure design is documented: StoreFront, Gateways, ADCs, multiple datacenters, Delivery Controllers, SQL, etc.
The FQDN that users use to access Citrix (e.g. https://citrix.company.com) resolves to a Load Balancing VIP, not a single server.
- The FQDN automatically fails over (e.g. GSLB) to a VIP in a different data center if the primary data center is down.
The certificate for the SSL Load Balancing VIP is valid: trusted, not expired, matches FQDN, no errors in Chrome, etc.
- Someone is responsible for ensuring the certificate is not expired and receives pending certificate expiration notifications.
The Load Balancing VIP sends SSL traffic to two or more StoreFront servers in the local data center – for redundancy.
- The ADC-to-StoreFront server communication is SSL/TLS encrypted, not HTTP – this traffic contains user credentials.
The ADC monitor for the StoreFront servers is type STOREFRONT, or does a GET request to /Citrix/Store/discovery – other monitors might not detect stopped services.
X-Forwarded-For is configured in the Load Balancing Services (or Service Group) for Client IP header insertion.
Load balancing persistence is SOURCEIP with a timeout that is as long as the Receiver for Web timeout – COOKIEINSERT doesn’t work on all client devices.

StoreFront Servers

If the StoreFront servers are on the same hypervisor cluster, then anti-affinity is configured to keep them on separate hypervisor hosts.
StoreFront server VMs do no have any old snapshots – slows down performance, and consumes disk space.
StoreFront version is an LTSR Cumulative Update version (e.g. 3.12.4000), or the latest Current Release version (e.g. 1906) – No other versions are supported.
- Upgrades are performed in a separate test environment before performed in production.
StoreFront configuration is propagated to other servers in the StoreFront Server Group.
No recent unknown errors in Event Viewer at Applications and Services -> Citrix Delivery Services.
StoreFront Base URL is an https URL, not http. The FQDN resolves to the Load Balancing VIP, not a single server.
SSL certificates are installed on each StoreFront server and bound to IIS Default Web site. The SSL certificates are not expired.
C:\Users does not contain a bunch of user profiles. Delprof2.exe should be scheduled to delete these profiles – caused by users changing expired passwords.
If HTML5 Workspace app is enabled, then HTML5 Receiver is up to date – New versions are released at least monthly.
If Workspace app is stored on StoreFront servers, then the local Workspace apps in C:\Program Files\Citrix\Receiver StoreFront\Receiver Clients is current.
If Favorites are enabled, then Favorites (aka Subscriptions) are replicated to a StoreFront Server Group in a different data center.
If Federated Authentication Service (FAS), then multiple FAS servers configured through Group Policy.
- FAS Servers are the same version as StoreFront.
- If the FAS servers are on the same hypervisor cluster, then anti-affinity is configured to keep them on separate hypervisor hosts.
- FAS Get-FasAuthorizationCertificate shows registration certificate is OK and not MaintenanceDue.
- FAS group policy .admx template is up to date in SYSVOL.
- FAS User Rules restricts usage to just some StoreFront servers, some VDAs, and some users – not all
- Auto-enrollment is not enabled on the FAS certificate templates..
- The Certificate Authority database is not excessively large.
Task Manager shows sufficient CPU and Memory for each StoreFront server.
A monitoring tool alerts administrators of any StoreFront performance metric issue, availability issue (e.g. service stopped), and Event Log errors.
Logon Simulator runs periodically to verify that StoreFront is functional.
StoreFront Disaster Recovery procedure is documented and tested.

StoreFront Configuration

Only one store. Or every store but one is hidden – if multiple stores are advertised, then Workspace app will prompt the user to select a store.
Each Delivery Controller farm is configured with two or more Delivery Controllers – for redundancy.
- Prefer separate farms per data center instead of stretched single farms (with zones) across multiple data centers.
Transport Type for Delivery Controllers is https, not http – this traffic includes user credentials.
Receiver for Web Session Timeout is not too short for user experience or too long for security.
Citrix Gateway configuration in StoreFront console:
- The STAs in StoreFront match the STAs configured on the Citrix Gateway Virtual Server on the ADC appliances.
- Session Reliability is enabled.
- Callback URL is only needed for SmartAccess and Citrix FAS. Callback URL should be removed if it’s not needed.
- Internal Beacon is only reachable internally.
HDX Optimal Routing can send ICA traffic through the Citrix Gateway that is closest to the VDA (i.e. farm).

Delivery Controllers

If the Delivery Controller servers are on the same hypervisor cluster, then ensure anti-affinity is configured to keep them on separate hypervisor hosts.
Delivery Controller VMs do no have any old snapshots.
Delivery Controller version is an LTSR Cumulative Update version (e.g. 7.15.4000), or the latest Current Release version (e.g. 1906). No other versions are supported.
- Delivery Controller Upgrades are performed in a separate test environment before performed in production.
Run Get-BrokerDBConnection to see the SQL connection string. No SQL Express. For AlwaysOn Availability Group (AAG):
- SQL String points to AAG Listener, not single node.
- All AAG SQL nodes in one data center. For multiple data centers, prefer separate farms in each data center with local SQL.
- SQL String contains MultiSubnetFailover.
- Each SQL server has SQL Logins for all Delivery Controllers – SQL Logins usually don’t replicate between SQL nodes.
- Prefer Synchronous Commit with Automatic Failover over Asynchronous replication.
- AAG Dashboard in SQL Studio does not show any issues.
SQL databases for Citrix are not excessively large. Database Backup tool is truncating the database logs.
SQL Servers have sufficient CPU/Memory to handle the Citrix SQL traffic. Monitoring tool alerts SQL DBAs of any performance or availability issues.
SQL Server version is supported by Citrix. https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX114501
Local Host Cache is enabled on the Delivery Controllers. Run Get-BrokerSite to confirm.
- How are non-persistent virtual desktops handled during SQL outage?
SQL Disaster Recovery plan is documented and tested.
SSL Certificates are installed on Delivery Controllers to encrypt XML traffic from StoreFront.
- SSL certificates are bound to IIS Default Web Site, or netsh http sslcert to perform binding. IIS Binding does not include hostname.
- SSL certificate not expired.
Trust XML Requests is enabled for pass-through authentication, SmartAccess, FAS, etc. Run Get-BrokerSite to confirm.
Task Manager shows sufficient CPU and Memory for each Delivery Controller server.
A monitoring tool alerts administrators of any Delivery Controller performance metric issue, availability issue (e.g. service stopped), and Event Log errors.

Citrix Studio

Citrix Studio consoles installed on administrator machines are the same version as the Delivery Controllers.
Customer Experience Improvement Program is disabled in Citrix Studio > Configuration node > Product Support tab.
Licensing Model/Edition matches what you actually own.
Citrix Studio Administrators are periodically audited to ensure only authorized users are granted Studio access.
- Administrators are added as Active Directory Groups, not individual users.
Applications are published to Active Directory Groups, not individual users.
If App Groups, applications are published to only App Groups. Applications are not published to both App Groups and Delivery Groups.
Hypervisor connection uses a service account, not an admin account.
- Hypervisor permissions for the service account are the minimum permissions required (custom role), not full hypervisor administrator.
Each Hosting Resource only has one datastore selected, not multiple datastores – Citrix MCS does not have a datastore “Rebalance” option. More datastores means more copies of master image snapshots, which means longer time to push out an updated Master image.
MCS Memory Caching Option is not enabled unless VDA 1903 or newer – older VDA, including 7.15 VDA, has poor performing MCSIO driver.
StoreFront URLs are not assigned to Delivery Groups using Studio – instead use Workspace app group policy to assign StoreFront URL.

Citrix License Server

Citrix License Server is version 11.15.0 build 27000 or newer to resolve a security vulnerability.
The licenses installed on Citrix License Server match the purchased licenses at http://mycitrix.com – some Citrix License Servers have too many licenses installed.
If multiple Citrix License Servers, installed license count across all License Servers does not exceed the purchased licenses shown at http://mycitrix.com
Administrators are not frequently clearing named user license assignments to simulate concurrent licensing – license assignments should only be cleared when the user permanently no longer uses Citrix.
Subscription Advantage dates are not expired – if expired, download new license files and install them.
Usage and Statistics tab is configured as intended in the Citrix Licensing Manager gear icon.
Citrix License Server Disaster Recovery procedure is documented and tested.

Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Licensing

If RDSH VDAs, two or more activated RDS Licensing servers.
RDS Licensing Server operating system version matches the RDSH VDA operating system version – e.g. Windows 2019 RDS Licensing for Windows 2019 RDSH servers.
In RD Licensing Manager, right-click server -> Review Configuration shows green checkmarks.
On RDSH VDAs, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services\LicenseServers shows two servers.
- LicensingMode = 4, which is Per User mode, which is not enforced.

Citrix Director

Director version matches the Delivery Controller version.
If multiple Director servers:
- Hypervisor Anti-affinity is configured.
- Director Saved Filters are relocated to a UNC path instead of local C: drive.
Director server VMs do not have old snapshots – slows down servers, and increases disk space.
SSL certificate is installed on Director servers.
- Admins and Support teams always use https to access Director. IIS or load balancer redirects from http to https.
Director website is SSL load balanced.
- SSL protocol, not http, between load balancer and Director servers – this traffic contains user credentials.
Director logon page auto-populates the domain name – for user convenience. Might have to reconfigure the domain name after every Director upgrade.
Citrix Policy Settings for Director:
- Enable Process monitoring is enabled.
- Enable monitoring of application failures is enabled.
If Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) is Premium Edition:
- Director Alerts are configured to email CVAD administrators.
- Citrix ADM HDX Insight is integrated with Director. HTTPS protocol, not HTTP.
- Probes are configured.
Help Desk knows how to use Citrix Director to support users.
Average logon durations are not excessive.
Repetitive issues (e.g. profile resets) are analyzed for root cause analysis and future prevention.

VDAs

Catalog design is documented – storage design, network design, multiple datacenters design, recovery design, etc.
VDA version matches the Delivery Controller version.
VDA Subnets are added to Active Directory Sites & Services.
DHCP is highly available. VDA IP Subnet router forwards DHCP requests to more than one DHCP server. DHCP scope is replicated to more than one DHCP server.
- DHCP Scope has sufficient address availability for VDAs.
If KMS, slmgr.vbs /dlv shows a unique KMS CMID for each VDA machine – another option is Active Directory-based activation.
If persistent (dedicated) Catalogs:
- The VDA version matches the Delivery Controller version – VDA updates should be automated (e.g. SCCM).
- Dedicated Catalogs are created as Full Clones – Fast Clones cannot be moved to different storage or different hypervisor cluster.
- Persistent desktops are backed up, replicated, etc. Recovery process is documented and tested.
- Persistent desktop provisioning process is automated, preferably from a self-service portal.
No Personal vDisk – prefer SCCM-managed persistent desktops. Or App Layering User Layers if SCCM is not mature.
No double-hop – prefer master images with every application installed locally instead of double-hop to published application. Single hop have faster logins than double hop. Single hop is less complex than double hop since double hop requires Workspace app and icon management on the first-hop VDA machine. FSLogix can hide local applications.
Catalogs are upgraded to latest Catalog version available.
VDA registrations are somewhat evenly distributed across the Delivery Controllers.
ListOfDDCs registry value on VDAs has two or more Delivery Controllers.
Daily Health Check report shows registration status and maintenance mode status of every VDA machine.
RDSH Load Index Policy has not been modified from the default. CPU Metric is too volatile, and can cause a Denial of Service and uneven distribution of sessions. Current Load Index values should be almost the same on every RDSH VDA and not be anywhere near 10000.
In-guest monitoring agent shows VDA memory usage. Allocated VM Memory matches or exceeds memory Committed Bytes – Hypervisor monitoring can’t show actual VM memory usage.
RDSH VDAs are periodically rebooted – Net server statistics shows uptime.
If Cloud-hosting of VDAs, PowerScale controls VDA power management.

VDAs – Hypervisor Hardware Clusters

Desktop VDAs are in their own hypervisor cluster that does not contain any Server virtual machines – avoids Windows Server licensing.
- Hypervisor clusters with Windows Servers have proper Windows Server licensing.
Hypervisor admins don’t perform any hypervisor updates without first reviewing Citrix’s Supported Hypervisors article.
- Hypervisor software is recently patched.
VDA vCenter is separate from non-VDA vCenter – allows non-VDA vCenter to be upgraded without affecting Citrix.
Hypervisor performance is monitored and alerted: CPU contention (aka CPU Ready Percentage), disk latency, CPU Usage, etc.
Capacity planning tool warns admins when more hypervisor hardware is needed.
If VMFS6 datastores, vSphere 6.7 Update 3 is installed – see release notes
NTP is configured and running on hypervisor hosts.
Hypervisor hosts have High performance BIOS settings.
NVIDIA vGPU software is current on hypervisor host and virtual machines.
- The newest hypervisors can vMotion GPU-configured virtual machines.

VDAs – Virtual Machine Hardware (vSphere)

Network Interface type is VMXNET3, not E1000.
devices.hotplug=false is configured in Virtual Machine Configuration Settings.
If disk space is a concern, virtual machine memory is reserved to reduce .vswp file size.
If Citrix App Layering:
- Paravirtual controller is not added.
- Boot firmware is BIOS, not EFI.
Windows 10 version is supported by Citrix VDA version, and supported by App Layering version.
VMware Tools version is current.

VDAs – Master Image Build

Master Image build process is documented.
Master Image virtual machine was built from scratch – not converted from a physical machine.
Security scan of the VDA Master Images shows compliance with enterprise security requirements.
Master Image updates:
- Master Image maintenance is automated – e.g. SCCM can push updates to Master Images. A script can push Master Images to Catalogs.
- Software Deployment team notifies the Master Image maintainers when applications or Windows require an update.
- Master Image updates are tested before deployed to production. QA testing. Canary testing.
- Master Image snapshots are deleted after a period of time.
Antivirus is installed. Antivirus is optimized for non-persistent machines (aka VDI).
Other IT agents (e.g. software auditing, SCCM Agent) are optimized for non-persistent machines.
Local Groups:
- Administrators group does not contain any non-administrators.
- Direct Access Users group only contains authorized RDP users.
Citrix Optimizer or similar has removed Windows 10 Store Apps.
Windows Default profile was not modified – instead use group policy to control Windows appearance.
Windows Updates are current (i.e. last install date is within the last 60 days).
C: drive permissions are changed so Users can’t create folders on root of C: drive.
Power management is set to High Performance with no sleep timers.
If Citrix Provisioning:
- Pagefile is shrunk so it fits on PVS cache disk – there’s no need to move the pagefile since PVS will move it for you. Just make sure it’s small.
- Event Logs are moved to PVS cache disk.
Customer Experience Improvement Program is disabled in VDA registry.
Office 365 Shared Computer Activation is enabled.
- FSLogix is implemented for Outlook search roaming.

Citrix App Layering

Prefer automated (e.g. SCCM) Master Image updates over manual App Layering layer updates – if SCCM is mature, then there’s no need for App Layering.
Prefer SCCM-managed dedicated desktops over User Layers – SCCM is a known technology. User Layers are proprietary to Citrix and might not support every application.
Enterprise Layer Manager (ELM) version is current – ELM updates are required to support newer Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) and newer Windows 10. There’s no LTSR version of ELM.
Citrix Provisioning Agent version matches the ELM version.
Directory Junction Bind account is a service account, not a regular user whose password expires.
- LDAP is Secure (Use SSL).
Administrator role membership is periodically audited to ensure only authorized users are granted access.
ELM is backed up. Or layers are periodically exported from ELM.
Group Policy controls membership of local groups in VDA machines – e.g. add Domain Admins to local Administrators group.
Antivirus is configured properly for Layering.
Hypervisor Connector uses a service account with limited permissions.
Connector cache is enabled to speed up layering operations.
File servers hosting Elastic Layers and User Layers are monitored for performance issues and capacity planning.
User Layers are backed up, replicated, etc.

Citrix Provisioning

Provisioning Servers:

Provisioning Servers version matches the Delivery Controller version.
Multiple Provisioning Servers for High Availability.
- Hypervisor Anti-affinity is configured.
Sufficient RAM for vDisk caching in memory – around 2-3 GB of memory per active vDisk.
Only one NIC per Provisioning Server – simplifies the configuration.
Server Bootstrap has multiple Provisioning Servers listed.
Threads times Ports are sufficient for the number of target devices.
vDisk Boot Menu is disabled in the registry – enables maintenance mode Target Devices to automatically boot from maintenance mode vDisks.
Antivirus has exclusions for Citrix Provisioning.
Provisioning Server performance metrics are monitored and alerted.
- NIC throughput is not saturated.

Provisioning Farm Properties:

Offline database is enabled.
Auditing is enabled.
Administrators list only contains authorized administrators, preferably from an Active Directory Group.
Customer Experience Improvement Program is disabled.
For AlwaysOn Availability Group, MultiSubnetFailover is configured in the database connection string.

vDisks:

If local storage, vDisk files are identical on all Provisioning Servers.
vDisk files are VHDX, not VHD – faster version merging.
vDisks are sized dynamic, not fixed – Saves disk space. Standard Mode vDisks don’t grow so no performance impact.
vDisk files are defragmented.
vDisk files are backed up.
vDisk updates are automated.

Target Devices:

Target Device Boot Method is highly available – Target Devices on same subnet Provisioning Servers. Or DHCP Option 66 with TFTP Load Balancing. Or Boot ISO/Boot Partition has multiple Provisioning Server addresses.
- DHCP is highly available. Subnet’s router forwards DHCP requests to multiple DHCP servers. Replicated DHCP scope.
vDisk Write cache is configured for Target Device RAM with overflow to disk – health check script should periodically verify this.
WriteCache folders on Provisioning Servers are empty – no server-side caching.
If KMS, slmgr.vbs /dlv shows a unique KMS CMID for each Target Device machine – another option is Active Directory-based activation.
Target Devices are evenly distributed across multiple Provisioning servers.
VMware Tools in Target Devices (vDisks) is up to date.
Target Device Software version matches the Citrix Provisioning version.
Target Device status shows low number of retries.

Group Policies and Active Directory

VDAs are placed in VDA-only OUs, no users – group policies apply to VDAs without affecting physical endpoints.
- Separate OUs per Delivery Group – different group policies apply to different Delivery Groups.
Master Images are located in VDA OUs – computer-level GPO settings apply to the Master Images to avoid GPO timing issues on linked clones.
Block Inheritance OUs and Enforced GPOs are minimized.
.admx templates in SYSVOL > PolicyDefinitions are current – Windows 10 templates, Office templates, Citrix templates, etc.
Group Policy Loopback Processing Mode is enabled.
Duplicate, conflicting GPO settings are minimized – e.g. Group Policy Loopback Processing Mode is sometimes enabled in several GPOs.
- Group Policy Results shows the actual GPO settings that applied to a specific session.
Lockdown GPO applies to non-administrators that log into VDA machines. Lockdown GPO doesn’t apply to administrators.
Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) session timeouts are configured in a Microsoft GPO.
Initial application configuration is automated using group policy – e.g. auto configure application database connections, remove first time usage prompts.
Group Policy changes are tested in separate Test GPOs and separate Test VDAs before applying to production.
Monitoring tool shows group policy processing duration during logon.

Citrix Policies

Citrix Policies are configured in a Group Policy Object, not in Citrix Studio – GPO can apply to multiple Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) farms in multiple datacenters. Citrix Studio is single farm only.
Citrix Group Policy Management plug-in on GPMC machines is same version included with CVAD ISO.
Unfiltered policy is on the bottom of the list (lowest priority) – most specific filters on top, least specific filters on bottom.
Client drive mapping, client clipboard, client printing, and client USB are disabled when connecting from external (e.g. SmartAccess) – only enabled by exception.
Client printing is set to Use Universal Print Driver only – avoids installing print drivers on VDA machines.
Audio is set to Medium quality – High Quality uses more bandwidth than Medium Quality.
Time zone redirection is configured in both Citrix Policy and RDSH Microsoft Group Policy.
For HDX Insight, ICA Round-Trip Time policy is enabled.
Visual quality and video codec settings are not modified from the defaults.
- Legacy Graphics Mode is disabled.
Adaptive Transport is enabled – default disabled in 7.15.
Session Reliability is not disabled.
RDSH Session Timers are configured in Microsoft GPO, not Citrix Policy – Citrix Policy setting description shows if setting applies to Server OS or not.

Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM)

Prefer Group Policies over WEM – WEM requires extra infrastructure, extra learning, extra administration, and extra support. Some WEM user settings are per-machine (per configuration set) only. WEM can’t replace group policies since there’s currently no .admx support.
- Citrix Profile Management and Microsoft Folder Redirection are configured using Microsoft Group Policy, not WEM – Group Policies are well known. WEM is proprietary to Citrix and requires WEM skills to troubleshoot.
WEM is within two versions of the latest – there’s no LTSR version of WEM.
- WEM Consoles and WEM Agents match WEM Server version.
Multiple load balanced WEM Servers for High Availability.
- If multiple WEM servers are on the same hypervisor cluster, then Hypervisor anti-affinity is configured for the multiple WEM servers.
- WEM Agents point to WEM Server load balanced FQDN, not individual server.
- WEM Console points to single WEM Server, not load balanced FQDN.
WEM Brokers are close the VDAs. WEM configuration can be exported/imported into WEM implementations in multiple data centers.
WEM Database is hosted on an AlwaysOn Availability Group or other Highly Available SQL solution.
- SQL database is backed up. SQL database recovery is documented and tested.
Antivirus exclusions are configured for Citrix WEM.
WEM .admx group policy template in SYSVOL > PolicyDefinitions is updated whenever WEM Servers are updated.
Settings are in WEM, or Group Policy, but not both – helps troubleshooting. Reduces confusion.
Bypass ie4uinit Check is enabled (Advanced Settings > Service Options) – for faster logons.
Drive mappings and printer mappings are moved to WEM and processed asynchronously (Advanced Settings > Agent Options).
Check Application Existence is enabled (Advanced Settings > Agent Options) – doesn’t create shortcut unless application exists
CPU Optimization is enabled – Memory management trades memory for disk; which is cheaper? Process exclusions might be needed.
Fast logoff is enabled.
Unused action types are disabled from processing (Advanced Settings > Main Configuration) – speeds up logons.
Run Once enabled for Actions and scenarios that support it – speeds up logons.
WEM Agent Offline mode is enabled.
Computer startup script refreshes WEM Agent cache on each VDA reboot.
WEM Logs are reviewed for problems – enable debug logging. Look for Active Directory timeouts.
WEM Server performance is monitored for metric thresholds and future capacity issues.
WEM Server recovery is documented and tested.

Citrix Profile Management and Folder Redirection

No mandatory profiles on Windows 10 – benchmarks show slower performance.
Profile Management is configured in Group Policy, not Citrix Policy or Citrix WEM – Group Policy is the most reliable and most well-known option.
Profile file share:
- File server is close to the VDAs – users log into VDAs that are closest to the file server (aka home site).
- File share is highly available.
- No DFS multi-master replication. Single target only – neither Citrix nor Microsoft support merge replication.
- Profiles are backed up and/or replicated. Recovery process is documented and tested.
- Different profile folders for different operating system versions and/or different Delivery Groups.
- NTFS permissions of individual user folders in the file share only grant access to the one user – no Users, no Domain Users, and no Authenticated Users.
- Use TreeSize or similar to see profile size – adjust profile exclusions if too big.
- Antivirus is not slowing down profile file transfer performance – time how long it takes to copy a profile folder to the local machine.
- File servers are monitored for performance issues, including disk latency and free disk space.
Profile Management .admx file in SYSVOL > PolicyDefinitions matches the VDA version (or date).
Profile Management logs are stored on UNC share instead of local C: drive, especially if the VDAs are non-persistent.
- Only Domain Computers have Modify permission to the Logs share – Users don’t need any permission.
Profile Management logs contain at least a few days of logons – if only a few minutes, then too much information is being logged and Log Settings GPO setting should be modified.
Profile streaming is enabled – speeds up logons.
Active Write Back is disabled – places extra load on file servers for not much benefit.
Customer Experience Improvement Program is disabled.
Locally cached profiles are deleted at logoff from RDSH machines that don’t reboot often.
No Start Menu roaming issues – might need ResetCache registry value.
Microsoft FSLogix is implemented for Outlook Search roaming – better than UPM’s Outlook search roaming.

Folder Redirection:

Folder Redirection is configured in Microsoft GPO settings, not in Citrix Profile Management settings – Microsoft GPO configuration is most reliable, most known, and can migrate existing files.
No AppData redirection – slows down applications.
“Grant the user exclusive rights” option is unchecked – allows administrators to access redirected profile folders.
Folder Redirection file share:
- File share is highly available.
- No DFS multi-master replication. Single target only – neither Citrix nor Microsoft support merge replication.
- Redirected Folders are backed up and/or replicated. Recovery process is documented and tested.
- NTFS permissions of individual user folders in the file share only grant access to the one user – no Users, no Domain Users, and no Authenticated Users.
- Antivirus is not slowing down folder redirection performance.
- File servers are monitored for performance issues, including disk latency and free disk space.

Home Directories:

File server is close to the VDAs – users log into VDAs that are closest to the file server (aka home site).
File share is highly available.
No DFS multi-master replication. Single target only – neither Citrix nor Microsoft support merge replication.
Home Directories are backed up and/or replicated. Recovery process is documented and tested.
NTFS permissions of individual user folders in the file share only grant access to the one user – no Users, no Domain Users, and no Authenticated Users.
Antivirus is not slowing down file transfer performance – time how long it takes to copy a Home Directory folder to the local machine.
File servers are monitored for performance issues, including disk latency and free disk space.

Endpoint Devices

Prefer Windows 10 endpoints over thin clients – thin clients don’t support all Citrix functionality (e.g. local printing, browser content redirection). ThinKiosk can lock down Windows 10 endpoints.
Newest VDAs and newest Workspace apps have better WAN performance than LTSR 7.15.
Browser Content Redirection offloads video (e.g. YouTube) from VDAs to endpoint – reduces CPU consumption in the data center.
Receiver and/or Workspace app is periodically (e.g. twice per year) updated by endpoint management team.
- If LTSR Receiver 4.9, then version is 4.9.6001 or newer to resolve security vulnerability.
Workspace app (or Receiver) ADMX templates in SYSVOL > PolicyDefinitions are current.
Group Policy adds StoreFront URL to Local Intranet zone.
Group Policy pushes StoreFront URL to Workspace app (or Receiver) – so users don’t have to enter the URL.
Pass-through authentication is enabled for internal PCs – SSON Configuration Checker can verify proper configuration.
HKCU\Software\Citrix\Dazzle\Sites\store\type shows DS, not PNA – store added as Delivery Services (StoreFront), not PNAgent (legacy).
Internal Beacon at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Citrix\Receiver\SR\Store\#\Beacons\Internal\Addr0 is internally reachable only – not reachable externally.
EDT protocol (aka Adaptive Transport) is enabled. Director shows HDX protocol as UDP.
HDX Insight: Newest VDAs and newest Workspace app have less AppFlow CPU impact on ADC than LTSR 7.15 VDAs.

Citrix ADC

ADC Admins have subscribed to Citrix Security Bulletins at https://support.citrix.com/user/alerts
ADC firmware build is not vulnerable to TLS vulnerability
ADC VPX on vSphere:
- ADC NICs are VMXNET3, not E1000.
- If ADC 12.0 or older, no vMotion/DRS (not supported).
- In 12.1 and newer, DRS Cluster Anti-affinity is configured for the VPX appliances in the same HA pair.
- CPU/Memory are reserved. Yield CPU is not enabled.
ADC license does not expire any time soon.
Physical ADC:
- LOM port is connected and configured.
- LOM nsroot password is changed from the default.
ADC nsroot password is not nsroot. nsroot password is managed by Privileged Identity Management tool. Admins don’t use nsroot to login.
Management authentication is configured for external authentication server, typically LDAP.
- LDAP is load balanced instead of multiple LDAP Policies to individual LDAP servers – avoids premature account lockout.
- LDAP is encrypted: LDAPS on port 636.
- LDAP Bind account is a service account – not a regular user whose password expires.
- LDAP Search Filter only allows ADC Admins Active Directory Group to authenticate.
If TACACS, firmware is 12.0 build 57 or newer to prevent TACACS Accounting from blocking AAA.
nsroot account has external authentication disabled.
No local ADC accounts except nsroot.
NTP and Time Zone are configured.
Syslog is configured to send logs to external SIEM, especially if ADC is performing authentication.
SNMP Traps are sent to Citrix ADM appliance.
- Thresholds are configured for CPU and Memory alarms.
Customer Experience Improvement Program (CUXIP) is disabled.
Recommended TCP Profile Settings are configured.
Drop Invalid HTTP requests is enabled in HTTP global settings.
Secure Access Only is enabled on all NSIPs and all management-enabled SNIPs – check both nodes of High Availability pair.
- Management certificate has no certificate errors.
Networking:
- If Dedicated Management Network, Policy Based Routes (PBR) are configured for NSIP reply traffic and NSIP-initiated traffic.
- Unused network interfaces are disabled.
- ADC instance is connected to only one security zone – if connected to multiple security zones, then a firewall is bypassed.
- Default route should be Internet facing, or a data VLAN – not NSIP VLAN.
- Only one default route – extra default routes can come from HA pairing or hardware migration.
Unused ADC configurations are removed – unused server objects, unused policies, etc.
Citrix ADM monitors and backs up the ADC appliances.
ADC Dashboard shows that CPU, Memory, and Throughput have not exceeded appliance capacity.
/var/core and /var/crash do not have recent crash dumps.

ADC High Availability Pair

Firmware build is identical on both nodes.
Installed Licenses are identical on both nodes.
NTP and time zones are configured on both appliances – Configuration node shows System Time.
Unused interfaces are disabled.
HA is synchronizing without error.
Both HA nodes are set to ENABLED – not STAYPRIMARY and/or STAYSECONDARY.
Fail-safe mode is enabled.
“show ha node” shows heartbeats across all interfaces – no “interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen”.
High Availability failover has been tested, including RADIUS authentication, which might come from a different source IP.

ADC SDX

LOM port is connected and configured.
- LOM nsroot password is not nsroot.
No hardware problems shown on SDX SVM dashboard page.
SDX firmware is current – should be same or newer than the VPX firmware.
SDX SVM nsroot password is not nsroot. nsroot password is complex. Admins don’t use nsroot to login.
Management authentication is configured for external authentication server, typically LDAP.
- LDAP is load balanced instead of multiple LDAP Policies to individual LDAP servers – avoids premature account lockout.
- LDAP is encrypted: LDAPS on port 636.
- LDAP Bind account is a service account – not a regular user whose password expires.
- LDAP Search Filter only allows ADC SDX Admins Active Directory Group to authenticate.
No local accounts except nsroot.
No certificate errors when accessing SVM management using htttps.
- HTTPS is forced in System Settings – HTTP is not allowed.
Multiple DNS servers are configured in Networking Configuration – initial setup only asks for one DNS server.
Channels are created at SDX SVM instead of inside VPX instances.
NTP is configured and enabled.
Syslog is configured.
SNMP traps are sent to Citrix ADM.
The number of SDX instance licenses installed matches what’s owned at http://mycitrix.com/
SDX SVM Backups are configured with External Transfer – or download periodically – or ADM.
VPX Instances:
- Platinum Edition license is assigned to instances.
- SSL Chips are assigned to VPX instances.
- All SDX hardware is allocated to VPX instances – If not, why not?
- Production instances typically have Dedicated CPU cores. Test/Dev instances typically have Shared CPU.
- VLANs are specified inside VPX instances instead of at instance properties on SDX Management Service – avoids reboot if you need to change the VLAN configuration.
- No VMACs in instance interface settings.

ADC Load Balancing and SSL

Load Balancing configurations are documented.
Monitors do more than just telnet – e.g. LDAP monitor performs LDAP query.
- LDAP monitor bind account uses service account, not domain admin.
- LDAP monitor is filtered to cn=builtin – to reduce result size.
- RADIUS monitor looks for response code 2 or 3.
If multiple Virtual Servers for multiple ports on the same VIP, configure Persistency Group – e.g. Horizon Load Balancing.
SSL Labs SSL Server Test shows A or A+ grade for all Internet-facing SSL vServers.
Redirect Virtual Servers are UP (Responder method) instead of DOWN (Backup URL method).
Custom (non-default) ciphers are bound to every SSL Virtual Server – see Citrix Networking SSL / TLS Best Practices.
SSL v3 and TLS v1.0 are disabled on every SSL Virtual Server.
SSL Renegotiation is set to NONSECURE: configured globally, or in SSL Profiles (including default profile).
Root certificate is not linked to intermediate certificate.
Certificates are not expired.
ADM alerts ADC administrators when certificates are soon to expire.

Citrix ADM

ADM exists and manages all ADC appliances.
- Prompt credentials for instance login is enabled in ADM System Settings – if ADM does Single Sign-on to instances, then all instance changes are logged as nsroot instead of ADM user.
ADM firmware version is current. ADM Agents and DR nodes have same firmware version as ADM – many bugs are fixed in ADM 12.1 build 53 and newer.
Two DNS servers are configured in ADM Network Configuration – initial setup only asks for one DNS server.
Two ADM appliances in High Availability mode with Floating IP – provides redundancy.
Every High Availability node and DR node has same disk size.
ADM nsroot password is not nsroot. nsroot password is complex. Admins don’t use nsroot to login.
Management authentication is configured for external authentication server, typically LDAP.
- LDAP is load balanced instead of multiple LDAP Policies to individual LDAP servers – avoids premature account lockout.
- LDAP is encrypted: LDAPS on port 636.
- LDAP Bind account is a service account – not a regular user whose password expires.
- LDAP Search Filter only allows ADM Admins Active Directory Group to authenticate.
No local accounts except nsroot.
No certificate errors when accessing ADM management using htttps.
- HTTPS is forced in System Settings – HTTP is not allowed
Time zone is configured.
NTP is configured and enabled.
ADM Database is not full. Sufficient disk space.
Sufficient ADM CPU/Memory – verify at System > Statistics or System > Deployment.
SSL Dashboard alert notifications are enabled to warn of upcoming certificate expiration.
Event Rules are configured to email ADC administrators of Critical or Major ADC alarms.
ADC Instance Backup settings on ADM:
- Number of ADC instance backups retained is sufficient for restoring from history.
- ADC Backups are transferred to external SFTP, SCP, or FTP server.
- ADC Restore process is documented and tested.
VIP Licensing:
- Installed license count on ADM matches the licenses owned at http://mycitrix.com.
- Licenses are assigned to Virtual Servers that need Analytics (e.g. HDX Insight) or Applications tab.
- AppFlow/Insight is enabled on Gateway and HTTP Virtual Servers.
- License expiration notifications are enabled.
Private IP Blocks are configured for geo mapping of ADC instances and Analytics sessions.
Analytics Thresholds are configured – e.g. ICA Latency threshold.
Session Reliability on HA Failover is enabled on ADC instances in ICA Parameters – if not enabled, then sessions drop on failover.
ADM HDX Insight is linked to Director Premium Edition using https protocol, not http protocol.

Citrix Gateway ICA Proxy

Gateway Virtual Server:

SSL Labs SSL Server Test shows A or A+ when it scans the Gateway external FQDN.
If ICA Only is unchecked on the Gateway Virtual Server, then System > Licenses shows sufficient Maximum Citrix Gateway Users Allowed.
Gateway Virtual Server Maximum Users is 0, which means unlimited.
TCP Profile is configured with Recommended TCP Profile Settings.
DTLS is enabled on the Virtual Server for EDT protocol.
- UDP ports are open on firewall from Internet and to VDAs.
- Director Session Details shows HDX protocol as UDP.
ICA Connections shows port 2598 (Session Reliability enabled), not 1494.
Gateway communication to StoreFront is https protocol, not http.
Gateway communication to StoreFront is load balanced to multiple StoreFront servers – not a single StoreFront server.
STAs on Citrix Gateway matches StoreFront configuration.
If EPA is used for SmartAccess, then Endpoint Analysis Libraries are updated.

Gateway Authentication:

Encrypted LDAP:
- LDAP is load balanced instead of multiple LDAP Policies to individual LDAP servers – avoids premature account lockout.
- LDAP is encrypted: LDAPS on port 636.
- LDAP Bind account is a service account – not a regular user whose password expires.
- LDAP Search Filter only allows authorized remote users in an Active Directory group to authenticate.
Two-factor authentication – RADIUS:
- For Workspace app or Receiver, password fields are swapped.
- Both factors are required to login. Can’t bypass second factor.
- RADIUS tested from both High Availability nodes (perform failover).
SAML Authentication:
- Prefer RADIUS over SAML so that ADC will have access to the user’s password to facilitate Single Sign-on to the VDA machines.
- If SAML response does not provide user’s password, then Federated Authentication Service (FAS) is deployed .
- For Workspace app support of SAML, SAML is configured in nFactor (AAA), not Gateway – requires ADC 12.1 and newest Workspace app.
- SAML iDP Signing certificate is not expired. ADC administrators know how to update the Signing certificate.

Citrix ADC GSLB

If a DNS name resolves to multiple IP addresses, then the DNS name should be GSLB-enabled for automatic failover.
DNS Records are delegated to two or more ADC ADNS services, usually in separate data centers.
- NS records and SOA records are added to ADC for delegated domain names and/or delegated sub zones.
All ADC nodes that have ADNS listeners for the same DNS name have identical GSLB configuration.
Public GSLB Services have monitors that verify remote Internet connectivity – don’t give out IP if users can’t reach it.
Separate ADC appliances for public DNS and internal DNS – If both are on one appliance, then how are the DNS configurations separated?
RPC nodes for Metric Exchange Protocol (MEP) should have Secure enabled.
Firewall should only allow the MEP endpoints to communicate over 3009 – don’t open to whole Internet.
If Static Proximity:
- Static Proximity database is current.
- GSLB Services show correct geo location.
- Custom Entries are added for internal subnets.
If DNS Views, DNS Views are configured on all GSLB Services – if GSLB Service doesn’t have a DNS View, then that GSLB Service might not function correctly.
If Active/Active GSLB load balancing, then site persistence is functioning correctly.
DNS security options are configured to prevent ADNS Denial of Service.

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EUC Weekly Digest – September 14, 2019

September 14, 2019, 4:31 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – September 21, 2019

≪ Previous: Citrix Health Check

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Applications are open for the Citrix CTP and CTA classes of 2020! – Citrix Blog Post

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

Path changes in Citrix WEM 1909 (on-prem) Agent require modification of Start-Up Scripts – CTP James Kindon

Citrix ADC

Citrix Networking Master Class – September 2019 – 1 hour 45 minutes video on YouTube

Citrix Gateway

How to publish a RemoteApp through Citrix Gateway RDP Proxy – Citrix Discussions

VMware

Download VMware ThinApp 5.2.6 – Support for Windows 10 1903, security updates

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

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EUC Weekly Digest – September 21, 2019

September 21, 2019, 5:09 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – September 28, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – September 14, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Download Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1909, All Editions
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Disaster Recovery Planning – Stretched farms is not a DR design – Citrix Tech Zone
Citrix Health Check checklist – carlstalhood.com

Citrix WEM and Profile Management

Download Citrix Workspace Environment Management 1909

Citrix Workspace app

Download Citrix Workspace app 1909 for Windows

Citrix ADC

Download Citrix ADC Release (Feature Phase) 13.0 Build 41.20 – Bot Management mitigates automated threats and unwanted bot traffic
Citrix ADC 13.0 Bot Management documentation – Citrix Docs
Citrix ADC Web App Firewall Signature update version 35 for September 2019 – Rails and WordPress vulnerabilities – Citrix Docs
Store OTP secret data in an encrypted format – Citrix Docs

Citrix ADM

Download Citrix ADM Release (Feature Phase) 13.0 Build 41.20

Citrix Gateway

Citrix Gateway AlwaysOn VPN before logon with a user persona – machine tunnel is replaced by user tunnel – Citrix Docs

Citrix Cloud

Citrix Cloud can now use on-premises Citrix Gateway for end-user authentication into Citrix Workspace – Citrix Docs

VMware

Download VMware Horizon 7.10
- What’s New in Horizon 7.10, Horizon Client 5.2, Dynamic Environment Manager 9.9 and App Volumes 2.18 – VMware Blog Post
VMware Horizon Cloud Service Release Notes – v2.1 – September 2019 – VMware Docs
Managing User Experience with VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition – persistent vs non-persistent vs semi-persistent, application integration, profiles, provisioning options, etc. – 44-page guide on VMware Tech Zone
VMware Horizon 7 Deployment Guide for Healthcare – VMware Tech Zone
Download VMware Tools 11.0.0

Microsoft

FSLogix: Capacity decrease of at least 27%. Also degradation in responsiveness, resulting in a slower user experience – G0-EUC

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

↧

EUC Weekly Digest – September 28, 2019

September 28, 2019, 4:34 am

≫ Next: EUC Weekly Digest – October 5, 2019

≪ Previous: EUC Weekly Digest – September 21, 2019

Interesting EUC items from last week:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Multiple Vulnerabilities in Citrix License Server for Windows – vulnerabilities have been addressed in Citrix License Server for Windows version 11.16.3 build 28000 and newer – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix VDA

No Audio on Google Chrome version 77.x inside ICA session – Citrix Knowledgebase article
Windows Server 2019, Citrix VDA and the Broken, Not-so-Fast Reconnect – CUGC

Citrix Workspace app

If Citrix Receiver/StoreFront’s external beacon is citrix.com (not ping.citrix.com), “With immediate effect, all requests to citrix.com will be blocked.” – Citrix Knowledgebase article

Citrix ADC

Best practices for Citrix ADC network configurations – Citrix Docs
Download Citrix ADC Release (Maintenance Phase) 12.1 Build 54.13

Citrix ADM

Intelligent Application Analytics – 5 minute YouTube video

VMware

Download VMware OS Optimization Tool version b1110 released September 21, 2019 – Windows 10 1809+ support – OSOT removes calculator
Download VMware App Volumes 2.17.1
VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.7: What’s New – YouTube 8-minute video
Overview of Opswat MetaAccess and how it integrates with VMware Unified Access Gateway – 7 minute YouTube video
What’s New with the Workspace ONE Secure Productivity Apps – VMware Blog Post
High availability, enhanced alerting, and more: What’s new in Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure – VMware Blog Post
Automation of the Recompose/Push Image Process – Script does the following: Software installs based on SCCM and/or Windows updates, shut down the VM, take a snapshot, clean out the old snaps, power it back on all while updating ServiceNow Incident and Change – Chris Hildebrandt

Other

Zoom application can be used with Citrix or VMWare VDI solutions and can be delivered to a thin client

For more immediate updates, follow me at http://twitter.com/cstalhood.

For a list of updates at carlstalhood.com, see the Detailed Change Log.

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