Citrix Lab Manager 3.6 SP 2 Quick Start Guide

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WHITE PAPER | Citrix Essentials for Microsoft® Hyper-V™

Citrix Lab Manager 3.6 SP 2

Quick Start Guide

www.citrix.com

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This document details the configuration and installation process for Citrix Lab Manager in a Microsoft ® Hyper-V™ R2 environment. Installation quick start information for Citrix XenServer is covered in a separate document. After following the instructions in this guide, you will have created a Lab Manager environment which is suitable for both small Hyper-V R2 installations and evaluations. This document does not replace the installation and/or users guides, nor does it cover advanced concepts, troubleshooting deployments, or the installation of the virtualized environment.

Note: Some of the recommendations contained in this document differ from the installation guide. Chief among those are the resource requirements. The installation guide is designed to provide a stable environment which will scale to large lab deployments.

Preparation

Citrix Lab Manager consists of three distinct software components, and the requisite virtualized environment. Preparation of the overall environment, including installation of operating systems and network configuration is vital to the success of Lab Manager. You will be required to install software components on each Hyper-V R2 server, and this document assumes that the Hyper-V R2 environment was configured prior to Lab Manager being evaluated.

Architectural Review of Lab Manager

Lab Manager is implemented using a Lab Manager server, a Lab Manager host agent per managed Hyper-V R2 host, and a Lab Manager router VM for network isolation per managed Hyper-V R2 host.

 The Lab Manager server requires a Windows Server 2003 installation with approximately 1GB RAM and at least 5 GB free disk space. The Lab Manager server can be installed in a virtual machine.

 The Lab Manager host agent (VMAgent) must be installed on each Hyper-V R2 host being managed.

 The Lab Manager router VM must be installed on each Hyper-V R2 host to be managed.

Deployment Considerations and Limitations

There are some considerations to be aware of when Lab Manager is deployed to manage Hyper-V R2 hosts.

 Hyper-V R2 or higher must be used. Lab Manager is not supported when deployed against Hyper-V R1or any pre-release version of Hyper-V R2.

 If Cluster Shared Volumes are used, Lab Manager will designate a “Master Storage”

VMAgent which is responsible for storage management. Best practices recommend installation of a single VMAgent, configuration of Lab Manager and then installing all remaining VMAgents.

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 If local storage is used for VM templates, the storage path must be unique on each Hyper-V R2 host.

 To use network isolation (IPZones) in Lab Manager, the underlying network must support VLAN tagging/trunks and have the Lab Manager VLAN ids defined on the network switch.

 If multiple networks are used in Hyper-V, the Lab Manager server requires access to each network to both interact with the Hyper-V host and to interact with the deployed VMs.

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Lab Manager Server Installation

1 – Launch the LabManagerSetup.msi installer. 2 – Your license to use Lab Manager is granted as part of the overall Essentials for XenServer Platinum agreement.

3 – Select the installation location. 4 – Select the start menu location

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5 – Lab Manager can run as either an application, or as a service. Change the

installation option to Install LabManager As a Service, and deselect the option to create a desktop icon. Press Next.

6 – Press Install to being the installation procedure

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Installing the Lab Manager Network Router

Lab Manager makes use of a dedicated router virtual machine to perform network isolation. This router VM is included on the installation media and is named VLA_Router_v20090209_Hyper- V.zip. Inside the ZIP file is a VHD file containing the router. The router needs to be imported into each managed host for network isolation to function.

Note: These instructions use the Hyper-V manager. If you are using System Center Virtual Machine Manager, please adjust the steps accordingly. The router can only be imported once per Hyper-V host.

1. From the Hyper-V manager, select Import Virtual Machine and specify the path to the router.

Note: If the Lab Manager

VMAgent is running on the Hyper- V host when the router is

imported, the import may show a warning and direct you to the Hyper-V event log. This error can safely be ignored.

2. Highlight the router VM and select Settings. In the first network adapter, ensure that the lab

network is connected. Do not connect a network to the second network adapter.

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3. Select the Processor option. If your Hyper-V R2 cluster contains CPUs from different processor steppings, select the option to Migrate to a physical computer will a different processor. Click OK.

4. To enable the router VM to start on any node of the Hyper-V R2 cluster, you will need to add it as a service in failover clustering.

5. From the list of options, select Virtual Machine.

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6. From the list of known virtual machines, select the router instance located in shared storage.

7. Click Next on the confirmation dialog.

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8. Once the virtual machine is configured for failover clustering, a green check will be displayed, with a success message.

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Lab Manager Host Agent Installation

The VMAgent installer can be obtained directly from the Lab Manager server installation media, the Lab Manager server installation folder, or downloaded from the Lab Manager user interface. You will need to install one host agent (VMAgent) for each Hyper-V host to be managed, and the VMAgent must be installed on the Hyper-V host.

1 – Launch the LmVmAgent-Installer.msi

installer. 2 – Your license to use Lab Manager is granted

as part of the overall Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V Platinum agreement.

3 – Select the installation location. 4 – Select the start menu location

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5 – The VMAgent can run as either an application, or as a service. Change the installation option to Install VMAgent As Service, and deselect the option to create a desktop icon. Press Next.

6 – Press Install to being the installation procedure

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Configuring the Host Agent (VMAgent)

The Lab Manager VMAgent is responsible for monitoring and interacting with the virtual

infrastructure. The VMAgent must be configured to communicate with the Lab Manager server for proper operation. The configuration can only be performed on the VMAgent computer.

1. Launch the administration console for the VMAgent by navigating to

http://localhost:35110. Upon installation, no agent password is defined. Please supply a strong password and confirm it.

Note: The VMAgent user interface can only be accessed from the machine running the VMAgent.

2. Login to the VMAgent console

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3. Select a virtualization type of

„Microsoft Hyper-V‟

4. Lab Manager VMAgents can automatically discover Lab Manager servers over UDP. In order to ensure that the agent communicates with the correct Lab Manager server in a large

environment, you can enter the IP address of the Lab Manager server.

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5. After the VMAgent is configured, it will restart and initiate communication with the defined Lab Manager server. You can view the status by clicking on the VMAgent icon in the

navigation bar. A successful configuration will result in the status message of „Not registered to discovered servers‟

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Configuring the Lab Manager Server

The Lab Manager server is the centralized management and configuration console for the lab. It is accessible via a web console over SSL at https://servername:8443. By default the Lab Manager server will use a self-signed SSL certificate for the host of „LabManager-HTTPS-Server‟. Please consult the installation guide for how to replace that certificate with one dedicated to your installation.

1. When you first launch the Lab Manager server console, you will be prompted to enter a password for the admin account.

2. After the password is stored, please login.

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3. When you configured the

VMAgent, you indicated which Lab Manager server was appropriate for that agent. You now need to configure the Lab Manager server to accept information from the VMAgent and complete the registration process. Click on the Hosts option to begin the process.

4. Select the host to register. Click Add.

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5. When the host has completed its registration handshake, it will be listed as a registered host.

6. Configuration of Lab Manager for image storage used by the host is done from the Storage option in the left menu, and then selecting the Add option from the

Additional Storage menu.

Note: Repeat this process for any ISO storage locations.

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7. Please give the storage a descriptive name, and specify the drive location of the desired clustered shared volume and press Save.

Note: It may take several minutes for Lab Manager to scan your storage. The length of time will depend on the speed of your storage solution, and the number of items stored on it.

8. Lab Manager configurations are built from VM templates stored on the Hyper-V host. These templates represent fully configured VMs which are not running at the time of the import and form the base for most activities in Lab Manager. To import templates, select the

„Import Templates‟ option from the Machine Templates menu.

Select the desired templates from the list and press Add.

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9. Lab Manager can create new templates and load software ISO packages into running

configurations if an ISO library is specified. To import ISO files, select the Import ISOs option from the Media Library menu.

10. Lab Manager requires a valid Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, or a Citrix Lab Manager evaluation license to operate. To load the appropriate license, select the Server License menu option under Server Information.

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11. Since Hyper-V ships with no default networks, Lab Manager requires that you add the Hyper-V networks. Select Networking from the left menu, and then New Public Network from the options.

12. Give the network a name, and for the Virtual Switch input, supply the exact network name from the Hyper-V host.

If this is the network virtual machines should use by default, select the Mark as Default Public Network option.

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13. Lab Manager will automatically ensure that VMs running in the Hyper-V environment have unique MAC addresses, and will assign a MAC from a Lab Manager managed pool. To add MAC addresses to the pool, select the Virtual MACs tab, and then the Add MACs option.

14. Select a VM type of Microsoft Hyper-V, and indicate the qualtity of MAC addresses to create. Press Save.

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15. The network names also need to be associated with the Lab Manager host. From the Hosts menu in left navigation, select the Hyper-V host and then Edit it‟s settings.

16.In the Bridged Virtual

Networks on Host section, enter as a comma separated list, each of the switch names entered in step 12 above.

Congratulations! Your Lab Manager environment is now ready for use.

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Page 24 About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the leading provider of virtualization, networking and software as a service technologies for more than 230,000 organizations worldwide. Its Citrix Delivery Center, Citrix Cloud Center (C3) and Citrix Online Services product families radically simplify computing for millions of users, delivering applications as an on-demand service to any user, in any location on any device. Citrix customers include the world‟s largest Internet companies, 99 percent of Fortune Global 500 enterprises, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers worldwide. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies worldwide in more than 100 countries. Founded in 1989, annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.

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Citrix Lab Manager 3.6 SP 2 Quick Start Guide