Walter Hofstetter
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XenClient Enterprise Best Practices: Re-using your XenClient 2.x (Express) VM’s
Preface I didn’t write a blog for a long time, but thought it’s time to start sharing some technical information around XenClient Enterprise. The ones who know me, are well aware of my excitement about XenClient (Express), however I’m even more excited about the enterprise product which is based on Citrix recent acquisition - Virtual Computer. Many people are approaching me and indicate, they would love to convert the exiting XenClient Express virtual machine ...
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XenClient Best Practices Series – Assign a 2nd VHD to your VM
Preface To be honest I'm not feeling too good writing this blog... And believe me, I have frequent discussions around "How can I add a second VHD to my VM?" Multiple drives on a endpoint dont make sense to me, I want one large spindle (except if they're in a RAID to provide speed or redundancy). I also dont like drive letters, I had enough drive letters for the rest of my life ...
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XenClient Best Practices Series – Get rid of the “XenClient Tools not installed” alert
Preface Do you know this icon? If you hoover over the icon, a message will tell you that the XenClient tools are not installed in this VM. I don't want to encourage you to not install the XenClient tools in the VM - these tools are great they will enable your VM to work in full speed by installing paravirtualized drivers and service to allow USB management and much more. In ...
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XenClient Best Practices Series – Keep on top of your VHD chains
Preface If you're one if these people looking under the cover of XenClient or probably have read an earlier blog regarding how XenClient leverages VHD chaining, you may wonder if there's any way how you can manage some of your vhd chains. The answer is (Choose one): Kind of - Depends - Sure! From the technical point of view, you can modify all aspects of the VHD files and chains. However, there ...
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XenClient – Painless Ubuntu usage with XenClient II
Preface I personally ran into some issues after my 1st XenClient two installation when I tried to install my existing Ubuntu VM i've created with the TechPreview code. So I thought I'm sharing my experience, so it might save you some time.... Ubuntu and XenClient 2 Designed to work with Ubuntu 11.04 32Bit Experimental as for version 2.0 XenClient Tools on the XC-Tools CD/ISO contain the following debian packages /xenclient-linuxtools.deb (for actual 2.6.38 Kernel) /ubuntu-drivers/2.6.32/xenclient-linuxtools_i386.deb /ubuntu-drivers/2.6.37/xenclient-linuxtools_i386.deb XenClient Tools for Ubuntu ...
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XenClient – Auto Join VM’s to the ActiveDirectory
Preface If you're serious about adapting new technologies to create a single image architecture, in order to simplify OS deployment and management, you probably are aware Dynamic Image Mode. This is one of the image modes offered by XenClient and allows you to "layer" an image and separate the system, profile / data and applications into easy to manage entities. As a result you got an efficient way to deploy, update ...
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XenClient – Create your own XenClient ESD environemt
Preface Wat's the best way to deploy XenClient? That's pretty much up to YOU, which way you prefer and you might have answered this before. As you know typically you'll get access to the XenClient installer by downloading the ISO image form the Citrix website. After that you have the choice to: Burn a CD and boot form the optical media Create a USB stick and boot from the ...
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XenClient – Using SMB as an image repository (Synchronizer)
Preface I had be in several discussions during the last month where some folks asked: I wanted to use a network storage for a Synchronizer POC, but unfortunately I only have windows SMB/CIFS shares available. Can't I just use my windows shares to tore the managed images? Unfortunately, I used one of my standard sayings: Technically this is possible... ;-) And I mentioned that I might write a ...
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XenClient 2 – Cached Image Mode
Preface One of the big challenges with managed local virtual desktops is the initial deployment of the OS image. Regardless how such a technology and its management is being designed, there's no way around getting the basic Image somehow being delivered to the hyper visor. That is specifically painful for remote locations with very limited bandwidth, in case the endpoint can't be pre-installed and delivered ...