use xe.exe to start/shutdown vm’s on XenServer

Posted on July 27th, 2010

I also wanted to see the IOPS passed to back end storage where the virtual machine hard drives are stored.

Rather than manually selecting the machine in XenCenter and shutting down or starting I wrote a script to perform the same action which made it a little quicker and easier when performing this task many times.

I wanted to perform the actions on a specific list of vm’s listed in a text file

List of VM’s – vm.txt

Name-of-VM1

Name-of-VM2

Name-of-VM3

Remember they are case sensitive and the same name you see in XenCenter. It can also be acheived with UUID’s of the VM’s but this is less friendly, so the names were used.

Startup VM’s

This is a simply dos batch script

set XenServer=[server name or IP]
set XenUser=[username]
set XenUserPwd=[password]

for /F %%1 in (vm.txt) do (
start “start %%1″ “c:\program files (x86)\Citrix\XenCenter\xe.exe” -s %XenServer% -u %XenUser% -pw %XenUserPwd% vm-start name-label=%%1
)

I have used the start command to open a seperate dos box for each VM so they are done in parallel. Without this the command waits for each VM to start before starting the next one. Running them all in parallel is *much* better for a stress test of a boot storm simulation!

Shutdown VM’s

set XenServer=[server name or IP]
set XenUser=[username]
set XenUserPwd=[password]

for /F %%1 in (vm.txt) do (
start “shutdown %%1″ “c:\program files (x86)\Citrix\XenCenter\xe.exe” -s %XenServer% -u %XenUser% -pw %XenUserPwd% vm-shutdown name-label=%%1
)

I will no doubt be working on some updates to these scripts in the near future and will share them soon.

Tags: Citrix XenServer, cli, script, xe, xe.exe, xe.exe cli, xencenter
Filed under Citrix XenServer, Scripts/Reg | No Comments »

Customize Page title & favicon on Citrix Web Interface 5.x

Posted on July 13th, 2010

Shown here:

It is possible to replace the logo with your own one and change the text to be more appropriate.

Logo

The logo is:  ..\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\{site name}\media\IcaComboAll.ico

replace with your own .ico file but keep the same file name

Browser Title text

This is picked up from the following file:

..\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\{site name}\languages\common_strings.properties

Near the top of the file look for the sections:

DefaultProductName=Citrix XenApp
DesktopProductName=Citrix XenDesktop

and change to your own name.

the bit after the common name cannot be changed in the same way (i.e. the -Applications bit in the above screen grab). This changes depending on the screen you are in from the WI site (Applications, Messages, Preferences, session settings etc)

Tags: browser, customisation, customization, favicon.ico, title, web interface, web interface 5.x
Filed under Citrix Web Interface | 3 Comments »

Customize logos on Citrix Web Interface 5.x

Posted on July 13th, 2010

White theme

This is detailed in several places but most notably here: CTX119509

This gives the default logon screen in white.

Identify the images used

Here is a screen shot of the default view and list of the associated images & resolutions

There are 3 main images:

These are similar, but not the same, as the images for the Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise. The similar names are also listed. I have found it best to simply use the same images for both sites but just saved as different filetypes.

There is also the one moment please screen to consider

Simply open the ProgressWindow images and change the colour

File Locations

The Images are located in

..\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\{site name}\media

Simply copy the new images to this location and overwrite the old ones.

There are other ways to ammend these image details, by selecting the web site appearance options within the Web Interface console, but I find it easier and quicker to just overwrite the files.

Just make sure you keep the same dimensions for each image as this means you don’t need to edit any other files.

Tags: Citrix, customisation, customization, customize, header, images, logo, watermark, web interface, web interface 5.x
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Customize Page title & favicon on Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition

Posted on July 13th, 2010

Shown here:

It is possible to replace the logo with your own one and change the text to be more appropriate.

Logo

The logo is:  /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/AccessGateway.ico

replace with your own .ico file but keep the same file name

Browser title text

The title text is in two places

First: /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/index.html

Search for the section:

<TITLE>Citrix Access Gateway</TITLE>

and change to your text

<TITLE>My CAG Text</TITLE>

Second: /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/resources/en.xml

Search for the multiple sections:

<Title>Citrix Access Gateway</Title>

and change all of them to your text

<Title>My CAG Text</Title>

Keep changes after reboot

Copy the modified files to /var/mods and add the following lines to the /nsconfig/rc.netscaler file

cp /var/mods/images/AccessGateway.ico /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/AccessGateway.ico
cp /var/mods/index.html /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/index.html
cp /var/mods/en.xml /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/resources/en.xml

New look and feel

Now it will look how you want.

Tags: CAG, CAG EE, CAG Enterprise, CAG Enterprise Edition, CAGEE, Citrix Netscaler, customisation, favicon.ico, modification, title
Filed under Citrix Access Gateway, Citrix Netscaler | 1 Comment »

Customize logos on Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition Logon Screen

Posted on July 12th, 2010

Change to a white theme

This is detailed in several places but most notably here: CTX123607

This gives the default logon screen in white.

Identify the images used

Here is a screen shot of the default view and list of the associated images & resolutions

There are five main images used in this page and they are:

I have found it better to stick to the same dimensions when replacing these images as sometimes the style sheets need to be modified to allow larger image sizes. If you can, stick to the same dimensions.

The background for image 1 & 2 is in the image itself. If you want to keep the same shading and blue bar, then edit the existing image and keep the background.The same applies for the logon logo (image 3) as the shading is part of the image.

To modify the border glow it is best to open up the existing image and use the dropper tool to fill the line in the desired colour.

File locations

These image files need to be copied to the /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn_images location on the Netscaler device. However, when the netscaler is rebooted the changes are lost so they must be copied here at every startup.

Copy all the images to a folder under the /var/ folder (I use /var/mods/) and this can be the store for all modifications.

Startup script

The /nsconfig/rc.netscaler file runs at every boot, so add entries to this file to copy the modified files from the /var/mods/ folder to the correct location. For example,

tar -zxvf /var/mods/AGEEwhite.gz -C /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images
cp /var/mods/images/ctxHeader01.gif /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/ctxHeader01.gif
cp /var/mods/images/ctxHeader02.gif /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/ctxHeader02.gif
cp /var/mods/images/CitrixWatermark.gif /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/CitrixWatermark.gif
cp /var/mods/images/LoginIcon.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginIcon.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneCenterLeftBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneCenterLeftBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneCenterRightBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneCenterRightBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneFooterLeftBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneFooterLeftBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneFooterMidBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneFooterMidBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneFooterRightBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneFooterRightBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneTopLeftBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneTopLeftBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneTopMidBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneTopMidBorderGlow.png
cp /var/mods/images/LoginPaneTopRightBorderGlow.png /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/LoginPaneTopRightBorderGlow.png

Final steps

Ensure you boot the netscaler device to confirm the start up script is running correctly and make the same changes to the secondary device if running in an HS pair.

The web page can now look how you want it to!

enjoy

Tags: CAG, CAG EE, CAG Enterprise, CAG Enterprise Edition, CAGEE, Citrix Access Gateway, Citrix Netscaler, color, colour, header image, image, look and feel, modification, watermark
Filed under Citrix Access Gateway, Citrix Netscaler | No Comments »