Configuration guide: Citrix CVAD essentials

The configuration opions on this page are only accessible to administrators.

Refer to the Usage guide: Citrix CVAD essentials to use library content as a standard user.

Prerequisites

This library pack contains content from the following required expansion products:

• Nexthink VDI Experience.

Some of these products offer default access to their respective content and can still be used without expansion products.

Refer to the Nexthink Infinity thresholds and limits overview documentation for more information about default thresholds for expansion products.

Included content and dependencies

This library pack contains the following content and dependencies:

Content type	Name	Description
Dashboards	Citrix CVAD virtual machine monitoring	Monitor the health and availability of Citrix virtual machines by identifying performance issues, stale VMs, or registration failures that impact user experience.
	Citrix CVAD infrastructure	Monitor the health and availability of Citrix delivery controller, license, and StoreFront servers by identifying offline devices, stopped critical services, and performance or stability issues.
Monitors	High percentage of disconnected sessions per desktop pool	Identifies frequent or unexpected drops.
	High CPU usage per desktop pool	Flags potential performance bottlenecks.
	High average latency per VDI client location	Highlights network-related delays by region.
	High number of sessions per virtual machine	Prevents resource overutilization.
Remote actions	Invoke restart of session host	Restarts the host machine, by effectively restarting all user sessions.
	Invoke update GPO computer policy	Refreshes Group Policy settings on the host machine by executing the gpupdate command at the system level.
	Invoke update GPO user policy	Triggers a user-level Group Policy refresh for the currently logged-in user using the command gpupdate /target:user /force.
	Invoke end process	Can be used to terminate a process which is running within a user session on a Windows device.
	Log off VDI session	Logs off an active Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) session on a Windows VDI.
	Get Citrix VDA registration details	Retrieves essential details about the Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA), providing administrators with a clear overview of the VDA's connection to the Citrix environment.
	Reset Citrix workspace app	Performs a complete reset of the Citrix Workspace app on a Windows endpoint. It clears all user configurations, accounts, and cached data, restoring the application to its default state.
	Get CVAD server status	Checks and reports the real-time status (Running / Stopped / Not Found) of crucial Delivery Controller, StoreFront, and license services on Citrix CVAD servers.
Custom fields	Citrix reboot health	Indicates the reboot health of a device based on the 'Days since last reboot'
	Citrix delivery controller	This custom field identifies and tags devices as Citrix delivery controllers by detecting key Citrix binaries running on the server
	Citrix license server	This custom field identifies and tags devices as Citrix license server by detecting key Citrix binaries running on the server
	Citrix server role	This custom field tags binaries to specific Citrix server roles
	Citrix StoreFront	This custom field identifies and tags devices as Citrix StoreFront servers by detecting key Citrix binaries running on the server

Configuring Citrix DaaS essentials

Adapt these suggested configuration steps to edit and customize content according to your organizational needs.

Follow these steps to install and configure content:

• Before configuration - Install library pack content from Nexthink Library

• Step 1 - Configure remote action(s)

• Step 2 - Configure monitors

• Step 3 - Configure custom fields

Step 1 - Configure remote action(s)

1. From the main menu, navigate to the Remote Actions > Manage remote action page.

2. Review and edit your remote actions.

Nexthink recommends the following configurations for these remote actions:

Name	Trigger Schedule	Parameters to edit
Invoke restart of session host	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Invoke update GPO computer policy	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Invoke update GPO user policy	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Invoke end process	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Log off VDI session	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Get Citrix VDA registration details	Scheduled locally on VMs	Device identification for schedule: devices | where virtualization.desktop_broker in [ citrix_cvad ]
Reset Citrix Workspace app	Triggered on demand to resolve issues
Get CVAD server status	Scheduled locally to run on the delivery controller, license, and StoreFront servers at 10 minutes frequency.	devices | where name = "CITRIX_SERVER_NAME"

Step 2 - Configure monitors

To install and (partially) configure content:

1. From the main menu, navigate to the Alerts & Diagnostics > Manage alerts page.

2. Review and edit your monitors.

3. For each monitor:

   • The Scheduling frequency cannot be modified, like many other configuration fields.

   • If required, set additional Trigger conditions and refine the VDI monitor thresholds within the monitor configuration page. Refer to the table below.

   • Additionally, customize Filters, Priority, and Notifications for each VDI monitor.

Name	Scheduling Frequency	Trigger conditions to edit
High average latency per VDI client location	Real time	Average network latency (Default - moderate increase) Percentage of events with high latency (Default >= 20%)
High CPU usage per desktop pool	Real time	Average CPU queue length (Default - moderate increase) Percentage high queue length (Default >= 20%)
High number of sessions per virtual machine	Scheduled, 15 minutes	Sessions per virtual machine (Default >= 20)
High percentage of disconnected sessions per desktop pool	Scheduled, 15 minutes	Percentage of disconnected sessions (Default >= 40%)

Step 3 - Configure custom field

1. From the main menu, navigate to the Administration > Custom fields page.

2. Check and customize the rule criteria for each custom field.

3. Edit the NQL queries if necessary to suit your environment and reboot policies.

4. Nexthink recommends the following settings:

Name	NQL ID	Rule name	Object	NQL query
Citrix reboot health	citrix_reboot_health	Good Average Poor	device	devices | where virtualization.desktop_broker in [ citrix_cvad , citrix_daas ] and ((virtualization.type in [shared, pooled] and boot.days_since_last_full_boot <= 1) or (virtualization.type in [personal] and boot.days_since_last_full_boot <= 5))
Citrix delivery controller	citrix_ddc	Computed	device	devices | include execution.events | where binary.name in ["brokerservice.exe", "ctxxmlss.exe"] | compute count_ = countif(execution_duration > 0) | list count_
Citrix license server	citrix_license_server	Computed	device	devices | include execution.events | where binary.name in ["Citrix.LicensingConfig.Service.exe", "CitrixWebServicesForLicensing.exe", "Citrix.Licensing.Service.exe", "CitrixLicensing.exe", "ctxcloudlicclient.exe", "ctxlicusagerecorder.exe"] | compute count_ = countif(execution_duration > 0) | list count_
Citrix server role	citrix_server_role	LicenseServer CloudConnector DesktopDeliveryController StoreFront	binaries	binaries | where binary.name in ["Citrix.LicensingConfig.Service.exe", "CitrixWebServicesForLicensing.exe", "Citrix.Licensing.Service.exe", "CitrixLicensing.exe"]
Citrix StoreFront	citrix_store_front	Computed	device	devices | include execution.events | where binary.name in ["citrix.storefront.exe","citrix.deliveryservices.servicemonitor.servicehost.exe","citrix.deliveryservices.configurationreplicationservice.servicehost.exe"] | compute count_ = countif(execution_duration > 0) | list count_

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