Case Study: Using the Citrix Program Neighborhood Client as a Troubleshooting Utility

Summary

The following steps are provided to leverage the Program Neighborhood client in a problem area isolation methodology.

Background

The Program Neighborhood client can use Citrix XML Service (protocol HTTP/HTTPS) queries to discover farm published Application Sets and to launch those applications. However, the Program Neighborhood client is not dependent on the XML Brokers or the Web Interface Web servers.

Therefore, when experiencing a server farm outage problem scenario the Program Neighborhood client can help confirm where troubleshooting should occur by either confirming or eliminating the XML Broker Servers, Web Interface servers, the Data Collector, and Least Loaded farm servers as a source of the problem.

Procedure

1. Open the full Program Neighborhood client.

2. Choose the Find New Application Set option.

3. Click Next as the Local Area Network setting does not apply for this exercise.

4. Click the Server Location button.

5. Click the Add button.

6. Add an XML Broker Server’s IP address or name and the XML port number. The default port is 80.

7. Now click the down arrow to enumerate the Citrix Presentation Server Farm name.

8. Click Next. An icon for the specified farm will be available.

9. Double-click on the specified farm name and enter the test user’s credentials.

10. The published applications that are available to the user will be displayed. If applications are not enumerated this could indicate a problem with the XML Broker’s XML Service or IMA Service. To confirm repeat step 6 with a different farm server (non-XML Broker) IP address or server name and retest steps 7-10. If this new test still fails, it eliminates the XML Broker and Web Interface servers as potential problems and it is an indication that either the Network, the Authentication mechanism for example, AD Domain Controllers, or the Zone Data Collector should be checked.

11. If the applications available to the test user are enumerated the next step is to launch a test application. If the application fails to launch repeat step 6 with a different farm server (non-XML Broker) IP address or server name and retest steps 7-10. If this new test still fails, it eliminates the Web Interface and the XML Broker servers as potential problems, and it is an indication that the Data Collector and least loaded servers for the application tested should be checked.

This document applies to:

• Presentation Server 4.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000
• Presentation Server 4.0 for Microsoft Windows 2003
• Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003
• Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition
• Web Interface 4.5 for Presentation Server
• Web Interface 4.6 for Presentation Server
• XenApp Plug-in for Windows (32/64 Bit)

Source: Case Study: Using the Citrix Program Neighborhood Client as a Troubleshooting Utility