Citrix Essentials for XenServer
Citrix Lab Manager Quick Start Guide
Document Summary
This document details the process of configuring and installing Citrix Lab Manager for use with Citrix XenServer. Installation quick start information for Microsoft ® Hyper-V ™ 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 XenServer pools 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. Architectural Review of Lab Manager Lab Manager is implemented using a Lab Manager server, a Lab Manager host agent per managed pool, and a Lab Manager router VM for network isolation. 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 in the same XenServer pool managed by Lab Manager. The Lab Manager host agent (VMAgent) requires either a Windows Server 2003 or a Linux installation. The VMAgent can be installed on the same machine as the Lab Manager server, so for single pool installations the VMAgent should be installed on the Lab Manager server. The Lab Manager router VM must be installed in each XenServer pool to be managed.
Deployment Considerations There are some considerations to be aware of when Lab Manager is deployed to manage XenServer pools. The minimum supported XenServer version is 5.0. Customers wishing to use Lab Manager with XenServer 4.1 and below will need to upgrade their pools first. The minimum supported XenServer edition is Platinum. Lab Manager validates that the XenServer pool is licensed for either XenServer Platinum or Citrix Essentials Platinum before the pool can be added and used within Lab Manager. Evaluation licenses for Citrix Essentials Platinum and XenServer Platinum are supported, but new Lab Manager jobs cannot be deployed once the evaluation license expires. The XenServer 5.0 implementation of iSCSI and Hardware HBA (Fiber Channel) storage does not support the fast clone and sparse disk operations required for Lab Manager operation. NFS, NetApp OnTAP, and EqualLogic shared storage are supported options for Lab Manager use.
2 The XenServer 5.5 implementation iSCSI and Hardware HBA does support fast clone and sparse disk operations through the new LVHD feature. If the XenServer 5.5 pool was upgraded from XenServer 5.0, please ensure the storage upgrade was also performed. If the storage upgrade has yet to be performed, Lab Manager may under-perform until the upgrade is completed. 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 prior to Lab Manager job deployment. If network isolation is used, and VLAN trunking/tagging is not properly configured the job deployment will fail. If multiple networks are used in XenServer, the Lab Manager server requires access to each network to both interact with XenServer, and to interact with the deployed VMs.
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Lab Manager Server Installation
1 – Launch the LabManagerSetup.exe 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
4 5 – Lab Manager can run as either an application, or as a service. Change the installation option to Install LabManager As Service, and deselect the option to create a desktop icon. Press Next. 6 – Press Install to being the installation procedure
7 – Once the components are installed, the services are created.
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Lab Manager Host Agent Installation
The VMAgent installer can be obtained directly from the Lab Manager server installation, or downloaded from the Lab Manager user interface. For this document, we will obtain the VMAgent directly from the Lab Manager server in C:\Program Files\Citrix\LabManager\installers\VMAgent. You will need to install one host agent (VMAgent) for each XenServer pool to be managed. For the purposes of this document, a single pool is assumed and the host agent can be installed on the same computer as the Lab Manager server. 1 – Launch the LmVmAgent-Installer.exe 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
6 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
7 – Once the components are installed, the services are created.
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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_XenServer.zip. Inside the ZIP file is a XVA file containing the router. The router needs to be imported into each managed pool for network isolation to function. 1. Import the router VM into the XenServer pool.
2. Select the appropriate pool from the list. Do not select a home server as doing so may impose scalability limitations on the lab.
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3. Select the shared storage for the pool. If the router is installed in local storage, it will not function correctly.
4. Ensure that no network interfaces are defined for the VM. Lab Manager will map the correct network interfaces when jobs are deployed.
5. Ensure that the VM is not defined to automatically start. If the VM is defined to automatically start it will not function correctly. Note: Once the VM is imported, please convert it to a template. Lab Manager 3.6 SP1 requires the router VM to be in template form for proper operation.
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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. Define the host settings starting with the virtualization type. Supply the pool master IP address, user name and password and then save the information. As a safety check, the pool name must match that for the actual pool specified by the IP address.
4. Lab Manager uses the same default network names as within XenCenter, but those names may not be what are saved within the XenServer pool. In the event that one or more names have a mismatch, you will be prompted to bring them into consistency.
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5. Lab Manager provides network isolation through VLANs. If you have bound the lab switch ports to a specific NIC, select the appropriate NIC from the list. If port binding isn’t employed, select the NIC corresponding to the VM network.
6. Configure VMAgent to Lab Manager server communication. Select Edit from the menu displayed when hovering over the blue title arrow.
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7. 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. If the VMAgent is installed on the same computer as the Lab Manager server, you can enter localhost.
8. 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, and assign the VLAN tag range for use with this XenServer pool. Click Add. Note: The VLAN tag range must be a valid range on your network and 802.1q tagging or trunking must be enabled.
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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 the storage used in the lab is done from the Storage option in the left menu, and then selecting the Add option from the Additional Storage menu.
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7. Please give the storage a descriptive name, and specify the XenServer pool name for the storage 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 XenServer pool. 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 Essentials for XenServer, or a Lab Manager evaluation license to operate. To load the appropriate license, select the Server License menu option under Server Information.
Congratulations! Your Lab Manager environment is now ready for use.