XenHero Virtualization Blog

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Issues attaching SSL Certificate to NetScaler Gateway/LB VIPS on AWS NetScalers Firmware version NS12.1 48.13.nc

Issue: You are attempting to attach server SSL certificates for Load-Balancing VIPs or NetScaler Gateways VIPs on AWS NetScalers on the latest build (NS12.1 48.13.nc) but get the error “Certificate is not a server certificate”.

Workaround: Releases on NS12.0 53.22.nc or earlier seem to work fine for AWS Cloud NetScalers. Have not tested non-cloud VPXs at this time.

To launch different NS versions on AWS:

Navigate to AWS EC2>Instances

Select ‘Launch Instance’

Navigate to the AWS Marketplace. Search ‘netscaler’

Scroll down to ‘NetScaler ADC VPX – Customer Licensed’. Select ‘Previous versions’

Select ‘Continue to Configuration’

Under Fulfillment Option, choose ‘Amazon Machine Image’

Choose your NS firmware version.

Click ‘Continue to Launch’

Under the Choose Action menu, choose to ‘Launch through EC2’. Click ‘Launch’

From here you will be able to choose your instance type, configure subnets, add storage, configure security groups as normal.

Setting up a Citrix XA/XD 7.13 Proof-of-Concept on AWS – Part 2 – Configuring AD Infrastructure

Background: I will be setting up a small proof-of-concept Citrix Environment on Amazon Web Services for testing purposes. This particular POC will be completely on AWS and utilize a combination of free tier and paid on-demand instances. Eventually, I hope to integrate additional features such as autoscaling, a XenMobile component, and integrating it with an on-premises infrastructure for a hybrid environment. I will be breaking up this article into different parts. This article covers configuration of the AD infrastructure in our POC: Domain Controller setup, RDS licensing setup, Certificate Services setup.

  • Part 1: Intro and AWS Staging
  • Part 2: Configuring Microsoft infrastructure
  • Part 3: Installing Citrix Components
  • Part 4: Configuring Citrix Components
  • Part 5: Configuring External Access

If you plan on setting up your own testbed on AWS, please be mindful of your budget and the AWS free-tier limitations. You can reference the AWS free-tier at https://aws.amazon.com/free/.

Infrastructure:

  • AL-DC01.awslab.com – t2.micro – Domain Controller, DNS, RDS Licensing, Certificate Services
  • AL-DDC01.awslab.com – t2.medium – Delivery Controller, StoreFront, SQL Server Express, VDA for publishing apps and desktops, Citrix Licensing
  • NS1.awslab.com – m4.large – NetScaler VPX for external access
  • read more

    Setting up a Home VPN with OpenVPN

    Background: This post will show you how to setup a home VPN using OpenVPN. There are many reasons why you might want to setup a home VPN such as privacy, access to region-specific content, etc… OpenVPN is free and both the client and server components we will setup support a variety of different configurations. The OpenVPN access server also comes with 2 free client connections that can be used for testing purposes (https://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/pricing.html).

    Pre-requisities:

    VMware vSphere (https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=491&downloadGroup=ESXI60U3)
    OpenVPN VMware Server Appliance (

    https://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/download-openvpn-as-vm/469-deploying-openvpn-access-server-from-an-ovf-template-in-vmware-esxi-environment.html read more

    How to Export OVF Templates in VMware vCenter 6.X

    Background:

    Follow-up to the previous post where we performed Virtual Machine back-ups by exporting the files individually. This time we’ll export the whole VM into an OVF file which can be imported directly into vCenter.

    Prerequisites:

    • Access to vCenter

    Steps:

    Log into vCenter with appropriate credentials

    Navigate to VMs and Templates

     

    Select your desired virtual machine. If it’s a template you will need to convert it back to a virtual machine before you can export the OVF.

    Select the cluster or host that your VM will reside on. Note if you choose a cluster, DRS mode will have to be enabled.

    Confirm you settings than click Finish

    Once the template has been converted to a VM, right-click it and choose Template>Export OVF Template

    Choose a destination for the OVF. Click OK

    The progress of the export will be displayed at the bottom

     

    How to Back Up Templates or VMs in VMware vSphere vCenter 6 using Web Client

    Background: If there’s a need to backup VMs or templates to external media, this can be done via the vCenter Web Client.

    Steps:

    Logon to the vCenter Web Client using the appropriate credentials.

    Navigate to the Storage tab.

    Select the datastore where your VM or template resides than the Manage tab.

    The VMs or templates within the datastore will be represented by folders.

    Double-click the folder to view the contents of the VM/template.

    To back-up the contents to external media, right-click the files one-by-one and choose to Download from Datastore.

    Select your location

    The file will be downloaded. Download all files to backup the VM/template to external media. The progress of the file transfer will also display in the vCenter Web Client on the bottom pane.

    Setting up a Citrix XA/XD 7.9 Proof-of-Concept on AWS – Part 4

    Part 4 of the Citrix XA/XD 7.9 POC on AWS, configuring the remaining Citrix components.

    Background: In this part, we will configure settings for the Delivery Controller and StoreFront.

    Prerequisites:

    • Amazon EC2 instances provisioned via Part 1 of the series
    • Microsoft Infrastructure configured via Part 2 of the series
    • Citrix Infrastructure installed via Part 3 of the series

    Steps:

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