The VmgIcaSessionTest auto-discovers the users connected to virtual desktops via ICA, and reports the latencies experienced by and the bandwidth used by each ICA session on the desktop. This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the VmgIcaSessionTest.

Note:

• This test is applicable to Windows VMs only.
• The VMs being monitored should be managed by XenDesktop Broker.
• The Virtual Desktop Agent software should have been installed on the VMs.
• The ICA Session performance object should be enabled on the VMs.

These parameters are as follows:

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed. 

• In order to enable the test to extract the desired metrics from a target ESX server, you need to configure the test with an ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD. The user credentials to be passed here depend upon the mechanism used by the eG agent for collecting performance statistics pertaining to the monitored ESX server. These monitoring methodologies and their corresponding configuration requirements have been discussed hereunder:

  • Monitoring using the web services interface of the ESX server: Starting with ESX server 3.0, a VMware ESX server offers a web service interface using which the eG agent collects performance statistics about an ESX server and the VMs it hosts. The VMware VI SDK is used by the agent to implement the web services interface. To use this interface for monitoring, this test should be configured with an ESX USER who has “Read-only” privileges to the target ESX server. By default, the root user is authorized to execute the test. However, it is preferable that you create a new user on the target ESX host and assign the “Read-only” role to him/her. The steps for achieving this have been elaborately discussed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

    ESX servers terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until ESX times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions before it opens new sessions, then you would have to configure all the tests with the credentials of an ESX user with permissions to View and stop sessions (prior to vSphere/ESX server 4.1, this was called the View and Terminate Sessions privilege). To know how to grant this permission to an ESX user, refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

  • Monitoring using the vCenter in the target environment: By default, the eG agent connects to each ESX server and monitors it. While this approach scales well, it requires additional configuration for each server being monitored. For example, separate user accounts may need to be created on each server for read-only access to VM details. While monitoring large virtualized installations however, the agents can be optionally configured to monitor ESX servers using the statistics already available with different vCenter installations in the environment. In this case therefore, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD that you specify should be that of an Administrator or Virtual Machine Administrator in vCenter. However, if, owing to security constraints, you prefer not to use the credentials of such users, then, you can create a special role in vCenter that allows users to View and Terminate sessions (from vCenter 4.1, this permission is called as View and stop sessions), and assign this role to a local/domain user. Refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document for the corresponding procedure.

    If the ESX server for which this test is being configured had been discovered via vCenter, then the eG manager automatically populates the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD text boxes with the vCenter user credentials using which the ESX discovery was performed.

    Like ESX servers, vCenter servers too terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until vCenter times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions before it opens new sessions, then you would have to configure all the tests with the credentials of a vCenter user with permissions to View and stop sessions (prior to vCenter 4.1, this was called the View and Terminate sessions permission). To know how to grant this permission to a user to vCenter, refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

    When the eG agent is started/restarted, it first attempts to connect to the vCenter server and terminate all existing sessions for the user whose credentials have been provided for the tests. This is done to ensure that unnecessary sessions do not remain established in the vCenter server for the session timeout period. Ideally, you should create a separate user account with the required credentials and use this for the test configurations. If you provide the credentials for an existing user for the test configuration, when the eG agent starts/restarts, it will close all existing sessions for this user (including sessions you may have opened using the Virtual Infrastructure client). Hence, in this case, you may notice that your VI client sessions are terminated when the eG agent starts/restarts.

• Confirm the ESX PASSWORD by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• By default, the ESX server is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the ESX server via HTTPS by default.

  Like the ESX sever, the vCenter is also SSL-enabled by default. If you have chosen to use the vCenter for monitoring, then you have to set the SSL flag to Yes.

• By default, in most virtualized environments, the vSphere/ESX server and vCenter listen on port 80 (if not SSL-enabled) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled). This implies that while monitoring an SSL-enabled vSphere/ESX server directly, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 443 of the vSphere/ESX server to pull out metrics, and while monitoring a non-SSL-enabled server, the eG agent connects to port 80. Similarly, while monitoring a vSphere/ESX server via an SSL-enabled vCenter, the eG agent connects to port 443 of vCenter to pull out the metrics, and while monitoring via a non-SSL-enabled vCenter, the eG agent connects to port 80 of vCenter. Accordingly, the WEBPORT parameter is set to 80 or 443 depending upon the status of the SSL flag. In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the WEBPORT parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the vSphere/ESX server or vCenter in your environment listens so that the eG agent communicates with that port.

• If the eG manager had discovered the target ESX server by connecting to vCenter, then the IP address of the vCenter server used for discovering this ESX server would be automatically displayed against the VIRTUAL CENTER parameter; similarly, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD text boxes will be automatically populated with the vCenter user credentials, using which ESX discovery was performed.

  If this ESX server has not been discovered using vCenter, but you still want to monitor the ESX server via vCenter, then select the IP address of the vCenter host that you wish to use for monitoring the ESX server from the VIRTUAL CENTER list. By default, this list is populated with the IP address of all vCenter hosts that were added to the eG Enterprise system at the time of discovery. Upon selection, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD that were pre-configured for that vCenter server will be automatically displayed against the respective text boxes.

  On the other hand, if the IP address of the vCenter server of interest to you is not available in the list, then, you can add the details of the vCenter server on-the-fly, by selecting the Other option from the VIRTUAL CENTER list. This will invoke the ADD VCENTER SERVER DETAILS page. Specify the following details in this page to add a new vCenter server:

  • Provide the IP or hostname of the vCenter server being added in the vCenter Identity (IP or Host name) text box.
  • Then, indicate whether the eG manager is to connect to vCenter using SSL or not by selecting the Yes or No option from the Use SSL to connect to vCenter list.
  • By default, in most virtualized environments, vCenter listens on port 80 (if not SSL-enabled) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled) only. This implies that while discovering ESX servers using vCenter, eG Enterprise communicates with vCenter via the default ports 80 or 443, depending upon the SSL-enabled status of vCenter. Accordingly, the Web Port parameter is set to 443 by default, if the SSL flag is set to Yes, and displays the default value 80 if the SSL flag is set to No.In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, in the Web Port text box, specify the exact port at which vCenter in your environment listens.
  • If the vCenter being added is to be used for ESX discovery as well, set the Discover ESX hosts using this vCenter flag to Yes. Otherwise, set this flag to No.
  • In order to be able to discover ESX servers using a vCenter server, the eG manager needs to connect to vCenter using the credentials of a valid user to vCenter. Provide the user name and password of such a user in the Username to connect to vCenter and Password for the user text boxes. This user typically requires Administrator or Virtual Machine Administrator privileges. However, if you cannot expose the credentials of such a user owing to security constraints, then, you can use the credentials of a user with ‘Read-only’ privileges to vCenter. If such a user pre-exists, then, provide the name and password of that user in the text boxes mentioned above. Otherwise, assign the ‘Read-only’ role to a local/domain user to vCenter, and provide the name and password of this user in the Username to connect to vCenter and Password for the user text boxes. The steps for achieving this are detailed in Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.
  • Confirm the password of the user by retyping it in the Comfirm password for the user text box.
  • You can then click the Update button to save the vCenter configuration.

  On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to behave in the default manner - i.e., communicate with each ESX server for monitoring it - then set the VIRTUAL CENTER parameter to ‘none’. In this case, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD parameters can either be set to none or can be configured with the credentials of a user who has at least ‘Read-only’ privileges to the target ESX server.

• By default, this test communicates with every VM remotely and extracts “inside view” metrics. Therefore, by default, the INSIDE VIEW USING flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows).

  Typically, to establish this remote connection with Windows VMs in particular, eG Enterprise requires that the eG agent be configured with domain administrator privileges. In high-security environments, where the IT staff might have reservations about exposing the credentials of their domain administrators, this approach to extracting “inside view” metrics might not be preferred. In such environments therefore, eG Enterprise provides administrators the option to deploy a piece of software called the eG VM Agent on every Windows VM; this VM agent allows the eG agent on the service console to collect “inside view” metrics from the Windows VMs without domain administrator rights. To ensure that the “inside view” of Windows VMs is obtained using the eG VM Agent, set the INSIDE VIEW USING flag to eG VM Agent (Windows). Once this is done, you can set the DOMAIN, ADMIN USER, and ADMIN PASSWORD parameters to none.

• By default, this test connects to each virtual guest remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. In order to obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with user privileges that allow remote communication with the virtual guests. The first step towards this is to specify the DOMAIN within which the virtual guests reside. The ADMIN USER and ADMIN PASSWORD will change according to the DOMAIN specification. Discussed below are the different values that the DOMAIN parameter can take, and how they impact the ADMIN USER and ADMIN PASSWORD specifications:

  • If the VMs belong to a single domain : If the guests belong to a specific domain, then specify the name of that domain against the DOMAIN parameter. In this case, any administrative user in that domain will have remote access to all the virtual guests. Therefore, an administrator account in the given domain can be provided in the ADMIN USER field and the corresponding password in the ADMIN PASSWORD field. Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.
  • If the guests do not belong to any domain (as in the case of Linux/Solaris guests) : In this case, specify “none” in the DOMAIN field, and specify a local administrator account name in the ADMIN USER below.

    Prior to this, you need to ensure that the same local administrator account is available or is explicitly created on each of the virtual machines to be monitored. Then, proceed to provide the password of the ADMIN USER against ADMIN PASSWORD, and confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box. If key-based authentication is implemented between the eG agent and the SSH daemon of a Linux guest, then, in the ADMIN USER text box, enter the name of the user whose <USER_HOME_DIR> (on that Linux guest) contains a .ssh directory with the public key file named authorized_keys. The ADMIN PASSWORD in this case will be the passphrase of the public key; the default public key file that is bundled with the eG agent takes the password eginnovations. Specify this as the ADMIN PASSWORD if you are using the default private/public key pair that is bundled with the eG agent to implement key-based authentication. On the other hand, if you are generating a new public/private key pair for this purpose, then use the passphrase that you provide while generating the pair. For the detailed procedure on Implementing Key-based Authentication refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

  • If the guests belong to different domains - In this case, you might want to provide multiple domain names. If this is done, then, to access the guests in every configured domain, the test should be configured with the required user privileges; this implies that along with multiple DOMAIN names, multiple ADMIN USER names and ADMIN PASSWORDS would also have to be provided. To help administrators provide these user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page. To access this page, simply click on the Click here hyperlink that appears just above the parameters of this test in the test configuration page.In the page that appears next, specify the following:
    • First, provide the name of the Domain to which the VMs belong. If one/more VMs do not belong to any domain, then, specify ‘none’ here.
    • The eG agent must be configured with user privileges that will allow the agent to communicate with the VMs in a particular domain and extract statistics. If ‘none’ is specified against Domain, then a local administrator account can be provided against Admin User. On the other hand, if a valid Domain name has been specified, then a domain administrator account can be provided in the Admin User text box.
    • The password of the specified Admin User should be mentioned in the Admin Pwd text box.
    • Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Pwd text box.
    • To add more users, click on the circled ‘+’ button in the page. This will allow you to add one more user specification.
    • In some virtualized environments, the same Domain could be accessed using multiple Admin User names. For instance, to login to a Domain named ‘egitlab’, the eG agent can use the Admin User name labadmin or the Admin User name jadmn. You can configure the eG agent with the credentials of both these users by adding two separate specifications - one for the labadmin and another for jadmn in our example - for the same domain name using this page. When this is done, then, while attempting to connect to the domain, the eG agent will begin by using the first Admin User name of the specification. If, for some reason, the agent is unable to login using the first Admin User name, then it will try to login again, but this time using the second Admin User name of the specification - i.e., jadmn in our example. If the first login attempt itself is successful, then the agent will ignore the second Admin User name.
    • To clear all the user specifications, simply click the Clear button.
    • To remove the details of a particular user alone, just click the circled ‘-’ button corresponding to the user specification.
    • To save the specification, just click on the Update button. This will lead you back to the test configuration page, where you will find the multiple domain names, user names, and passwords listed against the respective fields.
  • If the INSIDE VIEW USING flag is set to ‘eG VM Agent (Windows)’ - In this case, the inside view can be obtained without domain administrator privileges. Therefore, set the DOMAIN, ADMIN USER, and ADMIN PASSWORD parameters to none.

• While monitoring a VMware ESX server, the REPORT BY USER flag is set to NO by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the ESX server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, while monitoring VMware Desktop environments, this flag is set to YES by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS'.

• In case of both the ESX and VDI models, the REPORT POWERED OS flag is set to Yes by default. This flag is closely related to the REPORT BY USER flag. As already mentioned, the REPORT BY USER flag is set to No by default for a VMware ESX server. As long as the REPORT BY USER flag is set to No, the eG Enterprise system will disregard the status of the REPORT POWERED OS flag (be it Yes or No), while monitoring the VMware ESX server. In other words, for the VMware ESX model, this test will continue to report measures for every powered-on VM on the server.

  In case of the VMware VDI model however, the REPORT BY USER flag is set to Yes by default. In this case therefore, the default Yes status of the REPORT POWERED OS flag implies that this test this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in, as long as the VM is powered-on. Such guests will be identified by their virtual machine name and not the user name. If the status of this flag is changed to No instead, then this test will not report measures for those powered-on VMs to which no users are logged in currently.

• Administrators of some high security VMware environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the ‘inside view’ of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on an ESX host by default.

  Note:

  While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW text box.

• Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from ‘outside’ and from ‘inside’. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the EXCLUDE VMS text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your EXCLUDE VMS specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separted list of VMs/VM name patterns in the EXCLUDE VMS text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ view metrics for a configured set of VMs.

• By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the IGNORE WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.