Citrix CCA MetaFrame Presentation Server 3. 0 and 4. 0 Exam CramT (Exams 223 and 256)

The steps necessary to install Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server (MPS) 3.0 are virtually the same whether you are installing it on Windows 2000 Server or on Windows Server 2003, provided that you meet the prerequisites we discussed in earlier chapters. MPS can be installed using various methods ; you can use the CD, of course, or you can copy the contents of the CD to a network share and run it from that location. For the purposes of this book, we use the CD as our installation method.

After you insert the CD in the CD-ROM drive, if your server is configured for Autorun, you immediately see the Citrix splash screen, which offers you several options to choose from. If Autorun is disabled on your server or if you are installing from a network share, you should look for autorun.exe , which is the file that the Autorun would have run had it been enabled on the server. If you double-click this file, the Citrix splash screen should appear.

To started the installation of MPS 3.0, select the second option, Product Installations. This selection takes you into a submenu where you can elect to install several different Citrix components. Because you are trying to install MetaFrame, choose the second option, Install MetaFrame Presentation Server and Its Components . This selection kicks off the installation wizard, and the first screen you are presented with is the license agreement window. You should, of course, read the whole agreement and then accept it if you want to continue. Next is an informational window listing the installation prerequisites, which you should have met by now. Browse through and make sure you didn't miss anything; then click Next to move on with the wizard.

Choosing Components to Be Installed

You are now prompted to select the components you want to install. You should have installed Citrix License Server in Chapter 4, "Installing and Managing MataFrame Access Suite Licensing," so you can choose not to install it here. The other options available for install are MetaFrame Presentation Server, Access Suite Console, Presentation Server Console, and Documentation Center. For this chapter, choose to install MetaFrame Presentation Server, Presentation Server Console, and Document Center. Generally, it is a good idea to have the Presentation Server Console on your MPS servers, and the Document Center can always be useful. As for the Access Suite Console, usually you install it on your administrative workstation, but you can install it on the servers if you choose to do so. After making the appropriate choices, click Next to continue with the setup wizard.

Installing the Citrix License Server

On the next page of the setup wizard, you must choose either Install a Citrix License Server or the second option, I Already Have a Citrix License Server, or I Will Install One Later Using the Product CD. Because we covered the installation of a Citrix License Server in Chapter 4, we assume you have done that already, so you can choose the second option, as shown in Figure 5.2. Click Next, and the wizard launches the installation of MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0.

Installing MetaFrame

The MetaFrame installation wizard kicks off by presenting the standard Welcome screen. Feel free to read though it and then click Next to continue. Again, you are presented with the license agreement, which you must accept before you can go to the next step. This second license agreement is for the MetaFrame Presentation Server product, so it is different from the one presented earlier. Select I Accept the License Agreement and click Next to continue.

Choosing Product Editions

Next, you arrive at the first screen where you actually have to make a decision that will affect the features installed and available to you. You have to choose which flavor of MPS you are installing. Depending on the type of licensing you have purchased, you must select Enterprise Edition, Advanced Edition, or Standard Edition. For the purposes of this example, select Enterprise Edition. Click Next to continue.

Choosing MetaFrame Components

Depending on the MetaFrame edition you selected in the preceding step, you have to choose the components that you can install with that edition. Because you selected the Enterprise Edition, select all the options available except Program Neighborhood Agent, which requires the installation of the Web Interface covered in Chapter 14, "Web Connectivity." Also, accept all the other components, which include the Management Console, Installation Manager, Resource Manager, Load Manager, Network Manager, Program Neighborhood (PN), and WMI Providers. Click Next to continue.

Enabling the Pass-Through Client

You are now prompted to choose between enabling the Pass-Through Authentication for the Pass-Through client. Your options are Yes or No. For the purposes of this example, select Yes. The Pass-Through client is used by users of operating systems other than Win32. As you will learn in Chapter 13, "Citrix ICA Client Software," the Program Neighborhood interface, which is the most powerful ICA client, is available only for Win32. For users of other operating systems to take advantage of PN, Citrix offers the Pass-Through client.

But you might be wondering why you need it. Let's look at an example illustrating when and why the Pass-Through client is useful. When you use the Win32 ICA client, also known as Program Neighborhood, you take advantage of all its dynamic features and options. Most importantly, you can authenticate once to the server farm and get a list of all the applications you have access to. After you get this list, you can double-click on any of these applications and can launch them without any further steps on your part. If an administrator adds or removes applications or content, these changes are reflected dynamically and automatically for you.

All other ICA clients lack this dynamic nature, which means if you are connecting from a Mac or a Linux box, you have to create a manual connection to every application you want to launch. If anything changes on the server side, you have to manually make these changes. You also lack many of the performance enhancements available with the Win32 client.

For this reason, Citrix offers the Pass-Through client. To take advantage of this client, you have to configure a connection from your ICA client to the server that hosts the Pass-Through client. When you do that, you can then launch the Pass-Through client as an application and authenticate to it. You can then take advantage of all its features, and you would have created only one manual connection. Granted, when you launch an application from within the Pass-Through client, you launch a session within a session, but Citrix has tweaked the ICA protocol to sustain and perform adequately under these circumstances.

Creating or Joining a Server Farm

Next, you arrive at the Create or Join a Server Farm screen. Because this is the first server in the example, choose Create a New Farm. If this was the second server in your farm, you would select the second option, Join an Existing Farm. Click Next to continue.

The next screen is very important because you have to make three choices here. The first is to name your new server farm. For this example, call it Elinet . The second choice is to select between direct or indirect mode for access to your IMA Data Store. By now, you should have made a decision about how you will host your IMA Data Store and, as such, should choose accordingly . If your choice is to host the Data Store on a dedicated database server, you should select the second choice, Use the Following Database on a Separate Database Server, which takes you through the steps to configure your ODBC connection to point to your database on your server.

For the purposes of this example and because you are running a small farm, select the first option, Use a Local Database on This Server. Now that you have made your choice, select between Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) Database. We chose Microsoft Access.

The final decision you have to make on this screen is the zone name. You may choose to accept the default zone name, which is the subnet address where this server is configured. You can always rename the zone later from within the Management Console. For now, accept the default and click Next.

Selecting the Farm Administrator

You now have to select a user account that will be the first Citrix Farm Administrator account. This step is necessary because you will use this account later to log on through the Management Console. Later, you can add more Citrix Farm Administrators from within the Management Console. Enter the local Administrator account of the server you are on, and for the Domain field, enter the name of the server that you are on, as shown in Figure 5.3. Click Next to continue.

Identifying the Citrix License Server

The next window that pops up requires you to enter information about the Citrix License server. You are presented with two choices. First, you can choose Enter the Hostname of the Machine Hosting Your Citrix License Server and specify which port it is configured to operate on. Then if you did not change the default port number, you can simply check the box next to Use Default Port. The second choice is Enter the Correct Host Name Later. You can always correct the hostname later from the Management Console. For the purposes of this example, enter the host name Elinet and click OK to continue.

Note

Citrix recommends that during the installation of the first MPS server in the farm, you always manually enter the correct hostname of the license server. This is important because during the installation of MPS, you can skip this step and use the Management Console later to specify a server.

Configuring Microsoft Remote Desktop Web Authentication

With the introduction of Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0, administrators can now publish applications for users of Microsoft's Remote Desktop Web Connection software. Because the application is no longer limited to ICA, you can also publish Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) applications. At this point in the installation process, you are asked whether you want to allow users of RDP-published applications to enter a password when launching applications or to pass their credentials through. Usually, when you deploy applications using the Citrix Web Interface, you log on to the web server, which prompts you for a username and password.

The web server uses this username and password combination to query the farm for the published applications that you have access to. When it knows which applications you are allowed to use, it displays them for you. Now when you attempt to launch a published application, users of the ICA protocol are not prompted again to enter credentials. However, RDP users are prompted by the server that is hosting the application for a second authentication. This setting allows you to control that behavior. The default setting is No, which always prompts users for a second authentication. For the purposes of this example, choose Yes, as shown in Figure 5.4. This setting passes the credentials that the user submits at the web server and thus does not prompt him or her a second time. Click Next to continue through the installation wizard.

Alert

With the introduction of Remote Desktop Web client support, Citrix now assigns a Presentation Server client access license (CAL) to any RDP-based connection. Even direct RDP connections will now consume a Citrix CAL.

Note

Microsoft Remote Desktop Web Authentication is supported only on Windows 2000 Terminal Services. It is not supported with Windows Server 2003.

Note

Even though selecting Yes on this wizard screen does not prompt users for a username and password to launch applications, users are still prompted to enter the proper credentials when logging in to the Web Interface.

Configuring Shadowing

It is crucial that you make the proper choice on the next installation wizard screen because the choices you make here can be undone or modified only by reinstalling MPS 3.0. This screen configures the shadowing permissions on this server. Shadowing is a fancy name for remote control of user sessions. You are offered two options. You can choose either Prohibit Shadowing of User Sessions on This Server, which means no shadowing of any sort will occur on this server, or you can choose Allow Shadowing of User Sessions on This Server, at which point you can select from three choices to further configure this second option.

For the purposes of this example, choose the second option. You can now further customize the permissions by selecting one of the three choices shown in Figure 5.5.

The Prohibit Remote Control option allows the administrator or user to shadow another session, but this user cannot control the mouse or use the keyboard to input data.

The second choice, Force a Shadow Acceptance Popup, means that the administrator or any user with shadow capabilities cannot shadow another user's session without that user's consent . This is a great setting that prevents the misuse of this tool. Select this option for now.

The third option, Log All Shadow Connections, is also a great feature that keeps a record of all sessions shadowed in the event that you need to refer back to them. Select this option as well and click Next to continue.

Installing the Citrix XML Service

You next arrive at the Citrix XML Service Port window. This window prompts you to enter a port number on which the XML services will listen. The default is port 80. The XML port is used in conjunction with the Web Interface (WI) and is the method by which the WI queries the MPS server for a list of published applications to which the user has access. So when a user enters credentials at the WI portal, the web server queries a server in the server farm on the configured XML port and returns a list of published applications the user has access to. Accept the defaults and click Next to continue.

Note

To modify the Citrix XML Service Port after you have installed MPS 3.0, stop the Citrix XML Service, open a command prompt, and enter the command

ctxxmlss /r xx

where xx is the number you wish to change it to. So if you want to change it to port 90, the command would look like this:

ctxxmlss /r90

Wrapping Up!

The final installation wizard window is a review window that gives you one summarized look at the options you selected before the wizard starts the installation. Ensure everything is the way you want and click Finish to begin the installation.

Installation is under way, and when it's finalized, you are presented with a window that offers two check boxes. The first is to launch the ICA Client Distribution Wizard, which we cover in Chapter 13. The second option is to view the Readme file. For this example, leave both check boxes unchecked and click Close to exit the wizard.

You are then presented with a window that summarizes what was installed on this server. Click Finish. When you are finally prompted to reboot the server, click Yes or No.