Citrix – Page 4 – XenApplePie

Good Ole Proxy Top, Forward Style

On April 25, 2022

In Citrix, Gateway formerly known as Netscaler, Netscaler

So you want to get that sweet, sweet forward proxy all up there for some kiosks? Well… Have I got a deal for you! If you happen to have the licensing (Premium license requirement), you too can be the proud owner of this actually wonderful product. I have been using this for years now and it works extremely well if you don’t have to constantly add sites to the allowed list. Now… First things first. This is for defining your OWN allow list that YOU have to maintain. Getting Gmail to work will take some effort as there are a LOT of sites you have to add for images. This is not using the URL Threat Intelligence which is a line item purchase. This was completed with the help of Kevin Lofy from Citrix. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkevinlofy/. This also is the GUI way of configuring this. Hope that this is of help. It REALLY solved a couple issues and allowed a good bit of control with using AppLocker on the VDA hosting server that was publishing the Firefox browser that linked to the proxy address.

Logon to Citrix ADC.

You will need to select “System” > “Settings” > “Configure Basic Features.”

If “Integrated Caching” is not enabled, you will need to enable the feature. This WILL require a reboot.

Select “Settings” > “Configure Advanced Features.”

You will need to select “SSL Interception” and “Forward Proxy.”

Navigate to “Traffic Management” > “DNS” > “Name Servers” and select “Add.”

Select “IP Address.”

Enter “IP Address.”

Select “UDP” from “Protocol.”

Click “Create.”

Navigate to “Security” > “SSL Forward Proxy.”

Select “Certificate Bundles.”

Select “SSL Forward Proxy Wizard.”

Click “Get Started.”

Click “Continue.”

Enter “Name” for Proxy.

Select “Explicit” from “Capture Mode.”

Click “Continue.”

Click “Continue.”

Select “SSL Sessions Interception.”

Select “Add.”

Select “Bind.”

Select “Add.”

I used an Ubuntu machine and hosted the text file there and reference it as http://ip/something.txt

This will set it to go to next line.

Click “OK.”

HTTP.REQ.HOSTNAME.APPEND(HTTP.REQ.URL).URLSET_MATCHES_ANY(“urlsetname”) || HTTP.REQ.URLSET_MATCHES_ANY(“urlsetname”)

Click “Close.”

Click “OK.”

You will need to set a policy to set the IP and Port defined for the proxy (typically 8080) and apply to the machine that will be using the proxy. Using AppLocker with it will make it harder to pivot out of for machine security.

I’ll gather up a blog post of AppLocker and a way to use it with SSL Forward Proxy.

Windows Terminal On Citrix VDI Keyboard No Worky

By Kris Davis

On April 20, 2022

In Citrix, XenApp

So ran into this fun on Citrix VDI with Windows Terminal. You get it installed. You start it up. It’s all shiny. You press a button….. And…… NOTHING! So we saw this issue on Windows Terminal on Windows 10 20H2 running CVAD 1912 CU5 VDA. A little bit of searching and this article pointed to part of what was up. https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/4448

The fix that had to be done to resolve it in our case was to set the “Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service” to “Manual” in Services. Then rebooting. After that, it fired right up and worked!

If You Could Get Those User Counts Today, That Would Be Great.

By Kris Davis

On April 12, 2022

In Citrix, PowerShell, XenApp

So you like your reports fresh off the press!? We do too! A quick little script to grab a daily report, running as a scheduled task, and send out some user information. Just in case someone likes to know how many people using the platform.

Gets you this nice little emailed report:

# Get Citrix Daily Users reporting. This requires Powershell, Studio SDK, access rights to the license server.
# This gets the unique users, current sessions, connected and disconnected VDI, and license counts.
# This was tested with 11.17.2.0 build 37000 License Server with 1 license file. Running this as a scheduled task you will need an AD account
# to run this under. A service account works well for this.

asnp Citrix*

$adminAddress = "deliverycontroller.fqdn:80"

$licenseServerAddress = "https://licenseserveraddress:8083"

$licenseServerName = "licenseserver.fqdn"

$cert = Get-LicCertificate -AdminAddress $licenseServerAddress

# This section was gotten from https://lalmohan.co.nz/2015/10/09/citrix-license-usage-monitoring-using-powershell/ and modified for my use.
$licenseInfo = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "ROOT\CitrixLicensing" Citrix_GT_License_Pool -ComputerName $licenseServerName
$licenseModel = ($LicenseInfo | Where-Object{($_.pld -like "XDT*") -or ($_.pld -like "MPS*")}|Select-Object pld -unique).pld
$totalLicenses = ($licenseInfo | Where-Object PLD -like "$licenseModel" | Select-Object count).count
# End section.

# This section was assisted from http://notesofascripter.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-ruehrwein-56835869/
# This will run differently for Monday since you are getting data from the last 24 hours and weekends are usually lower use.
$Today = Get-Date
if(($Today.DayOfWeek) -eq 'Monday')
{$when = $Today.AddDays(-3)}
else{$when = $Today.AddDays(-1)}
# End section.

$connections = Get-BrokerConnectionLog -AdminAddress $adminAddress -Filter {BrokeringTime -gt $when} -MaxRecordCount 100000 | Select-Object BrokeringUserName

$licenseCount = (Get-LicUsageDetails -AdminAddress $licenseServerAddress -ProductEditionModel $licenseModel -CertHash $cert.CertHash).count


$ctxUsers = [PSCustomObject] @{

  UniqueCitrixUsers      = ($connections.BrokeringUserName | Select-Object -Unique).count
  CurrentSessions        = (Get-BrokerSession -AdminAddress $adminAddress -MaxRecordCount 100000 | Select-Object BrokeringUserName).count
  CitrixVDIConnected     = (Get-BrokerSession -AdminAddress $adminAddress -MaxRecordCount 100000 | Where-Object SessionSupport -eq "SingleSession" | Where-Object SessionState -eq "Active").count
  CitrixVDIDisconnected  = (Get-BrokerSession -AdminAddress $adminAddress -MaxRecordCount 100000 | Where-Object SessionSupport -eq "SingleSession" | Where-Object SessionState -eq "Disconnected").count
  CitrixLicensesUsed     = $licenseCount
  CitrixTotalLicenses    = $totalLicenses
  CtxLicenseFreePercent  = ((($totalLicenses - $licenseCount) / $totalLicenses ) * 100).ToString("#.##")

}

# HTML Formatting
$style = "<style>BODY{font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;}"
$style = $style + "TABLE{border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;}"
$style = $style + "TH{border: 1px solid black; background: #dddddd; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "TD{border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "</style>"

# HTML Email Body
$body = $ctxUsers | ConvertTo-Html -Head $style
 

# Generates email with attachment
$date = Get-date -Format "MM-dd-yyyy"
$emailFrom = "someemail@place.com"
$emailto = "someemail@place.com"
#$emailtwo = "someemail@place.com"
#$emailCC = "someemail@place.com"
$subject="Daily Citrix User Report | $date" 
$email = New-object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage 
$email.to.Add($emailto)
#$email.to.Add($emailtwo)
#$email.CC.Add($emailCC)
$Email.From = New-Object system.net.Mail.MailAddress $emailFrom
$email.Subject = $subject
$email.IsBodyHtml = $true
#$attachment = $Reports[1]
#$email.Attachments.add($attachment)
$email.body = $body
 

$smtpserver="stmp.someplace.com" 
$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)
$smtp.Send($email)

That One Time, You Got SMAPP’d!

By Kris Davis

On April 8, 2022

In Citrix, PowerShell, Uncategorized, XenApp

So you run SiteManager. And somebody done decided they want to make a new server that will host the security.dat file. And… You already did the work to create custom .ini file locations for the users. NOW you have to change all those smapp.ini files with the updated location of the security.dat file. How dare they?! Well. That could be some fun if you have a lot of users. Wait…. Powershell for the rescue! If you happen to use a profile server to host the user files, you can easily replace it with the new location of the security.dat file.

Update: Not sure what happened, but the code paste didn’t take evidently. I blame gremlins. It has been corrected.

# Replace a line / value in .ini file stored in Citrix UPM folder location when a change to the application is made.
# An example is for SiteManager, if you change the location of the .dat file for security.dat file and you are using a custom .ini
# created and stored with the user profile.

$filePath = "e:\locationofupmfolders"

$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $filePath -Recurse -File -force -Include "smapp.ini"

foreach($file in $files)
    {
        $find = "value-you-want-to-change"
        
        $replace = "value-you-want-to-change-to"
        
        $content = Get-Content $($file.FullName) -Raw
        
        #write replaced content back to the file
        $content -replace $find,$replace | Out-File $($file.FullName) | write-output
        
        
    }

Easy peasy. Now they have the new location of the security.dat file!

Change That Deprecated HTTP.REQ.USER

By Kris Davis

On April 6, 2022

In Gateway formerly known as Netscaler, Linux, Netscaler, nFactor, XenApp

Get rid of it! In the How To Create The Wow nFactor part one (https://xenapplepie.com/2022/03/13/how-to-create-the-wow-nfactor/), there is a section where you get a popup after configuring your LDAPS authentication. This outlines resolving that by logging into your handy, dandy Netscaler ADC with the power of SSH or putty. I’ll also link from that location the changes listed here to resolve that. This example will use putty as getting in the door. After that point of connection, the commands are the same from an SSH session.

Open up Putty and enter the host name / IP.

Login with your nsroot privilege.

Enter “shell” to drop to the Linux shell.

At the prompt, enter “cd /nsconfig/loginschema/LoginSchema.”

Press “Enter.”

Enter “ls” to list folder contents. You are looking for the PrefilUserFromExpr.xml file.

Enter “cp PrefilUserFromExpr.xml /nsconfig/loginschema/PrefilUserFromExpraaa.xml.” You can change the file name to whatever you wish. I just used this name for the example. This copies the xml file that is the template for the xml file you are going to modify.

Press “Enter.”

Type “cd..” to go up a folder level.

Type “ls” to list folder contents. This is to confirm the file copied correctly.

Type “vi PrefilFromUserExpraaa.xml.” This will open the file in vi editor so that you can make changes to the file.

Press “Enter.”

Use your arrow keys to navigate to the ${http.req.user.name}.

Highlight the first “h.”

Press the “Del” key to delete the text until you have just “{}.”

Press the “i” key to “Insert” and enter “AAA.USER.NAME” in the area so that it looks like ${AAA.USER.NAME}.

Press the “Esc” key and enter “:w!” This will write the file.

Press the “Esc” key and enter “:q” This will quit the vi session.

Type “exit” and press “Enter.” This exits the shell session.

Type “exit” and press “Enter.” This will exit your putty session.

Now you will need to go back to the section for the LDAP schema in your nFactor flow and edit. You will choose the LDAPS_Auth_Test Login Schema.

Click “Edit.”

Click the pencil icon.

Click on the “PrefilFromUserExpraaa.xml.”

Click “Select.” If you do not do this part, you won’t see the change reflected. You will see the ${AAA.USER.NAME} in the “User name” field.

Click “OK.”

Click “Done.”

You have completed the change to the custom XML file to move from the deprecated setting!

How To Load Balance Your Oven!

By Kris Davis

On April 1, 2022

In Citrix

MAKE A XENAPPLEPIE! And feed it to your belly! APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!

EDT / DTLS Insight!?

By Kris Davis

On March 28, 2022

In Citrix, Gateway formerly known as Netscaler, Netscaler

So ran into something fun with the 13.0-84.11 firmware for the ADC. After moving to this version, we noticed the packet engine crashed and failed over. Then it did it again a few days later. After a call with Citrix, looks like there is a known bug in there that is to be remediated in the next month with a new firmware release. The recommendation to do the fix is to run this command on each node of an HA pair: nsapimgr -ys enable_ica_edtinsight=0. There was a CTX article that was referenced (https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX341028), but I was unable to view it. There is a caveat if you happen to be using EDT that it won’t show in ADM after you make this change, so you would need to disable HDX Adaptive Transport if you want to see session information in ADM.

What’s New In 2203!? Check It Out!

By Kris Davis

On March 23, 2022

In Citrix, XenApp

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/whats-new.html

CVAD 2203!!! It Is Here!!

By Kris Davis

On March 23, 2022

In Citrix, XenApp

https://www.citrix.com/downloads/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops/product-software/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops-2203.html

Get on over and get it downloaded!

How To Create The Wow nFactor Part 2!

By Kris Davis

On March 22, 2022

In Citrix, Gateway formerly known as Netscaler, Netscaler, nFactor, XenApp

nFactor Flow

This is part 2 of the nFactor setup that outlines how to setup the AAA-TM server and the Authentication Profile that you need in order to implement the nFactor flow you created in part 1. Link to Part 1 below.

Part 1: https://xenapplepie.com/2022/03/13/how-to-create-the-wow-nfactor/

This section outlines setting up the AAA-TM server to replace basic authentication on Citrix Gateway. If you want to make this accessible to things other than just Citrix Gateway, you will need an IP address, a certificate, and a DNS entry to point to said IP address. If you want to ONLY use it for Citrix Gateway, there is an option under the configuration for IP Address Type to select “Non Addressable.” In this example, an IP address will be used.

Login to you Citrix ADC and navigate to Security > AAA – Application Traffic > Authentication Virtual Servers. Select “Add.”

You can do two different assignments with this setting. Under “IP Address Type,” you can select “Non Addressable” if you only wish to use for Citrix Gateway.

Enter “Name.”

Select “IP Address Type” as “IP Address.”

Enter IP address.

Click “OK.”

Click on “No Server Certificate.”

Select the certificate you wish to bind to the AAA-TM server.

Click “Select.”

Select “Bind.”

Select “Continue.”

Click “nFactor Flow.”

Click “Add Binding.”

Select the nFactor flow you created previously and click “Select.”

Enter “true” for the “Expression.”

Click “Bind.”

In the upper-right, select “Portal Themes.”

Select “Add.”

Here you can change the look of the theme. Accepting the defaults, click “OK.”

Click “Done.”

Click “OK.”

Click “Done.”

This completes the setup of the AAA-TM vserver. The next step is to create the Authentication Profile that will be used on Citrix Gateway to utilize the AAA-TM vserver.