Managing a Virtual App and Desktop Environment with Powershell

In the last blog article, my co-worker shared several nice tips using the Command Line (CLI) on the Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler). In this article, I thought I’d share a few CLI tips for Citrix Virtual App and Virtual Desktop (formerly Xen App and Xen Desktop). The CLI tips I will be sharing are more specifically Powershell cmdlets that are available to us from the Virtual App and Virtual Desktop environment. Depending on your version, there are about 820 +/- cmdlets available to us. Let’s dive in and check out just a few.

Tip #1

Frequently when I’m troubleshooting a behavior that seems to have appeared suddenly, I want to see if there have been any changes to the configuration. The Configuration Log is a great starting point. While it is easily available in the GUI, it is also a great candidate for accessing from the CLI. When we choose to export the Configuration Log from the GUI, it will prompt us with a choice of CSV, HTML, or both. With Powershell, we can easily request one or the other with the following cmdlets.

I’ve truncated the output for clarity, but here is an example of what I found.

This returns us some good information. In my case, it looks like a new administrator has been created recently. Seems a little odd that a user named HR1 would have been made an Administrator in my Citrix environment. That might not be the problem, but I will probably still want to follow up on that.

Exporting the same information in the HTML format requires a small change to the cmdlet.

This will give me slightly nicer formatting but essentially the same information.

Tip #2

Another item I frequently look for when troubleshooting is the load index on my servers. A lot of you probably remember the old QFARM /Load command but know we can do that with Powershell.

Output will look like this.

That’s great, but sure a lot of typing to replace QFARM so let’s make a Powershell alias for our old friend.

First, I will create a function called q, then I will create the Powershell alias.

Now I can just type qfarm. I don’t even need the /Load. Nice, even easier than before.

Tip #3

If the problem I’ve been experiencing revolves around a user and their inability to get connected to a Virtual Desktop, maybe I should quickly check the list of users for the Virtual Desktop in question.

This cmdlet provides me with the following output that I can use to see the included users, but also any potentially excluded users.

Well that’s enough for now. Just 816 +/- cmdlets left to explore!