So I have been wanting do some extra **training on a CAG. Unfortunatley I don’t have any spare CAG appliances to do so. I have a VMware Server 1.0.6 for Linux running on RedHat Enterprise Server 5. I searched and searched and found a couple of sites that do have instructions for CAG 4.2 on VMware Workstation. I tried that but I run into the issue of the express setup through VMWaregateway. There is no VMWaregateway for VMWare server for Linux!
After quite a bit of failures I finally got it and it is actually quite simple. Probably can use these same direction on VMWare Server for Windows.
Here we go!
Requirements:
VMWare Server 1.0.6
Citrix Access Gateway 4.5.6 CD or ISO (downloadable from mycitrix)
Serial port(DB9) on both the server and your client
Serial cable
40 GB hard drive space
512 MB of available memory
Installation Process:
1. Create new VM
2. Select “Custom”
3. “Guest Operating System” – Other & “Version” – Other
4. Name the VM anything you want (In this instance I’m going to name is CAG)
5. You decide whether you want it private
6. Again, decide how you want it to startup and shutdown
7. Select “One” for “Number of processors:”
8. As for memory I selected 512MB
9. Network connection doesn’t matter, just depends on what scenario you want. (I selected bridge)
10. Accept defaults for “I/O adapter types”
11. Now “Create a new virtual disk”
12. Select “IDE(Recommended)”
13. Disk Size is 40GB and “Allocate all disk space now.”
14. Name your “Disk File” – CAG.vmdk
15. Once that is done “Edit virtual machine settings”
16. Add a serial port – “Use physical serial port on the host”
17. Depending on your scenario Add what NICs and type you want
18. After that is done you need to edit the CAG.vmx or Other.vmx; add or replace these lines in the config:
ethernet0.virtualDev = e1000
ethernet1.virtualDev = e1000
19. Now you can boot to the CAG ISO or CD in your new VM
20. While that is running go ahead and connect your cable from client to server
21. Start your terminal emulation software (I used TeraTerm Pro):
9600-8-N-1 w/ no flow control
22. You should see the CAG Menu now.
23. Setup your IP and you are done!
Now these are the steps that I used that finally worked. You may be able to get different variations of settings to work for you.
**This is just for training. You cannot put this into production because you will violate Citrix EULA.
Have a Wonderful Day!
Citrix Access Gateway 4.5.6 on VMware Server, huh?
iSCSI, Switches and NICs Oh My!
A recent post by Marc Farley over at Equallogic brings to light an important fact, not all switches are created equal. In the fiber world, administrators are well aware of the cost of fiber switches, maybe painfully aware. Because iSCSI delivers the prospect of a lower TCO, some folks rush to the conclusion that any gigabit ethernet switch will do as they are not forced into a limited selection of vendors like on the fiber side, where Cisco, Brocade and McData seem to rule.
Unfortunately, many of them will come to the harsh realization that low end switches are not ready for production environments or environments which support a lot of IO. Couple the performance implications of switches with that of subpar NIC hardware and you have a recipe for disaster.
For example, the recommendations for iSCSI on an Equallogic device are to utilize flow control, jumbo packets and disable unicast storm control. In order for the switch settings to be effective, the NIC has to support the same options. Enabling jumbo packets on a switch does nothing if the NIC cannot support the setting. If the NIC does not support flow control, then again the flow algorithms will not be effective in controlling traffic from end-to-end. Additionally it is recommended that the NIC support a 2048 receive buffer, especially for applications like SQL, to ensure packets are not lost. If the NIC buffer is too small, packets may be lost during rapid network transitions.
XenServer - MPIO
Virtualization is a real hot topic as we all know but unless you do it right you can cause yourself a lot of grief that is all to real.
Using XenServer's native support for ISCSI you can have yourself a nice little robust virtual environment, with the use of Shared Resources if any hardware goes down you are but a click away to recovery (XenMotion).Dell's EqualLogic PS5000 Series
That is unless that hardware is your one and only NIC!
There is always an answer to IT woes however, and MPIO or Multipath for XenServer is the answer to NIC issues. Citrix's XenServer does natively support ISCSI but to get the Multipath to work it takes additional configurations, and I will help shine some light on this with some undisclosed documentation.
What you need:
- NIC for your XenCenter Management
- Redundant NICs for your ISCSI Data
- Some CLI experience
/etc/iscsi/iscsid.conf
Add a comment code out the line node.startup = manual
Remove the comment code to the line node.start = automatic
Save this file
Run the following commands to set the services (daemon) to start on startup
chkconfig open-iscsi on
chkconfig multipathd on
Next you will need to edit the following file:
/etc/multipath.conf
Add line under defaults {
path_checker readsector0
rr_min_io 100
Save this file
Run the service start commands
service open-iscsi start
service multipathd start
Run the following ISCSI discovery commands
Iscsiadm –m discovery –t st –p ipaddress of ISCSI device
Iscsiadm –m node –L all
multipath -l
*Noted the results for your wwid fields, yes it is a really long number
Open the following file
/etc/multipath.conf
Add iscsi device(s)
multipaths {
multipath{
wwid %multipath -l%
alias %friendlyname%
}
multipath{
wwid %multipath -l%
alias %friendlyname%
}
Save this file
Run the following command to confirm success
ls /dev/mapper
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On-site consultation
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Included in this High Level Assessment Report
Based on the initial on-site consultation, CNS will complete a High Level Assessment of your environment.
- Executive Overview - The Executive Overview provides an overview of our discussions, our findings from our analysis and our overall recommendations. This is a one page summary of our findings and our overall recommendations.
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