Daily TechnoTips: Installing and Configuring Citrix XenApp 6.5

This step-by-step blog describes the installation of the Citrix XenApp 6.5 installation including the database setup, the configuration of the licensing server and XenApp Farm. Before starting the installation you have to do some preparations. First of all you have to setup a Citrix Licensing server as described here.

For this installation I will use my current Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 which is installed on a separate server. To create the database and configure it for use with a Service Account walk right through following steps.

XenApp 6.5 Database setup

Create a Service Account with Domain User rights
Within the SQL Server Management Studio add this Service Account to the Logins
Create the XenApp database and make the Service Account the owner

Prerequisites

Citrix XenApp 6.5 has the following prerequisites. You don’t have to install this prerequisites by yourself. If one of the following prerequisites is not already installed on the server the Citrix XenApp 6.5 will install it automatically for you.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Features:

–        .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features > .NET Framework 3.5.1
–        Desktop Experience
–        Group Policy Management
–        XPS Viewer

Windows Server 2008 R2 Roles:

– Application Server
– Remote Desktop Services

Remote Desktop Session Host

– Web Server (IIS)

Common HTTP Features > Default Document
Application Development > ASP.NET
Application Development > ISAPI Extensions
Application Development > ISAPI Filters
Security > Windows Authentication
Security > Request Filtering
Management Tools > IIS 6 Management Compatibility

Other:

–         Microsoft Primary Interoperability Assemblies 2005
–         Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable (x86 en x64)
–         Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable (x86 en x64)

Installing Citrix XenApp 6.5 – Step-By-Step

Start the Citrix XenApp 6.5 setup.

Click on Install XenApp Server

Click on Add server roles

Choose the license which is applicable

Select “I accept the terms of this license agreement” and click Next

For this installation select only “XenApp” and click Next

Under “Default Components” select “XenApp Management” if the server will be a controller, select “Windows Desktop Experience Integration” if the server will be in Session host mode only. Select both if the server will be in Controller and Session host mode. Click on Next

The Citrix XenApp installation shows an installation summary. If there are prerequisites that has to be installed first, it will pop up in this summary and it will be installed automatically. In that case it may happen that a few server reboots are needed. Click on Install

Click on Finish

Configuring Citrix XenApp 6.5 – Step-By-Step

Click on Specify Licensing

Fill in the requested information and click Test connection

Click on Close

Fill in the requested information and click Apply

Click on Configure

If this is the first XenApp server in the XenApp farm click on Create a new server farm

Fill in the requested information and click Next

Select Existing Microsoft SQL Server database and click on Next

Fill in the requested information and click Next

Click on Enter Credentials to enter the credentials of the Service Account created during the preparations of this installation and click Test Connection

Click OK

Click Next

Fill in the requested information and click Next

In this dialog you can configure the Controller and/or Session-host modes, if this is the first server in the XenApp farm these options are grayed out. Click on XML Service

In this dialog you have the option the change the default XML Service TCP/IP port. By default this port is 80. Click on Receiver

In this dialog you can configure the Web Interface server/StoreFront server address. You can leave this empty and configure it later if needed. Click Remote Desktop Users