When a managed desktop (virtual or physical) is added to a managed desktop group, the Provision Networks Data Collector Service must be installed to allow the managed desktop to communicate properly with Provision Networks Connection Brokers. The process that accomplishes this is called the Initialize Computer task and is one of the responsibilities of the Connection Broker.

This Initialize Computer task is very important. When it does not complete successfully the connect broker will consider the desktop unusable and mark it as “offline”, thus making it unavailable to users. The failure to successfully complete the Initialize Computer task can have lots of different causes. Some of the common causes are:

• Firewalls that are blocking the communications between the Connection Broker and the Managed Desktop (read this post for all the ports used in these communications)
• Name resolution issues (the Managed desktop can not resolve the name of the Connection Broker or vice versa)
• Insufficient privileges held on the Managed Desktop. These privileges boil down to being able to connect to the administrator file shares (C$, D$, etc) and the privilege to create a service on the Managed Desktop. A local admin typically has these privileges. The account used here is the “Computer Administrative Account” that is set in the properties of the Computer Group.

Depending on where the cause of the computer initialization failure lies, it might help to enable debug logging. We already showed you how to enable logging on the Connection Broker. You can also enable logging on the Managed Desktop itself. To enable logging, do the following.

• In the registry on the Managed Desktop, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Provision Networks\Provision-IT
• Create a new “String Value” with the name “DCServerLog” (case sensitive) and a value of “C:\DCserverlog.txt”.
• Next restart the Provision Networks Data Collector Service. Either open a command prompt and type net stop pndcsvc followed by net start pndcsvc or, alternatively, use service.msc to restart the service.

After the service has been restarted you will find a file in the root on the C:\ drive called “DCServerlog.txt” that holds all the logging for the Provision Networks Data Collector Service. This log has all the information you will ever need to troubleshoot Provision Networks Data Collector Service issues.

It is important to note that this logging is recommended only for troubleshooting purposes and should be disabled in production environments, when possible.

The Provision Networks Connection Broker is the most advanced connection broker yet it is very simple to set up. We feel that an advanced product should not have to complicated. Every once in a while some troubleshooting is however necessary. This especially is the case when first setting up the Provision Networks connection broker. If you need to troubleshoot the connection broker it is a good idea to set up logging for the connection broker. Here is how you do it:

Select the properties of the connection broker in the Provision Management Console:

Next, click the configuration button in the following screen:

Finally, select the trace logging as in the following screen:

After that, restart the Provision Networks Connection Broker service. This yields a very detailed log that has tons of information in it. Be sure to deactivate the trace logging once you are done troubleshooting because the log file can grow large pretty quickly. Happy troubleshooting!

Internet seems to be everywhere these days and so do smartphones. Browsing the Internet while on the move is a very compelling thought. I have found however, that even with the coming of devices like the iPhone, the Internet experience isn’t very good to put it gently. This is of course largely because of the tiny screen of a mobile phone compared to “normal” browser screens.

Some sites however look great on a mobile phone. Try CNN.com for example. This is because these sites can detect when a mobile browser is connecting and display a version of the website that is optimized for a mobile phone.

This is really cool so this is exactly what we did to the Official Provision Networks Blog! Now when you browse to this blog using your mobile phone (just the normal URL) you should automatically get redirected to the mobile browser-friendly version of this blog. So far this has been tested with a Windows mobile-based phone and a iPhone. The iPhone proof is below, courtesy of yours truly.

Is our blog also displaying the mobile browser-friendly version on your phone? Let us know in the comments!

Huy (pronounced “we”) Nguyen, our Sr. Technical Support Engineer has put together a document that details “one way” of how to configure Smart Card Integration (with smooth roaming) for XPe Thin Clients.  Here is the intro:

An End-user walks up to XPe Thin Client, slides Smart Card into card reader.  The End-user enters his/her PIN, gets authenticated against AD and logins to the thin client.  Provision Networks Virtual Access client will automatically launch, authenticate the user against the Connection Broker and based on what the ACL is set to automatically launch the end-user’s Virtual Desktop.  If the End-user’s Virtual Desktop was in a Disconnection State, the End-user will reconnect to that Virtual Desktop.  Once the End-user is done with his/her Virtual Desktop session, all he or she needs to do is unplug the Smart Card from the card reader.

Based on Microsoft GPOs set on the Thin Client OU and VDI OU, the Virtual Desktop will enter into a Disconnected State and the thin client will Log Off.

The End-user can then walk up to a new Thin client, slide in their card and the session will be reconnected and the end-user can continue their session.

The full document can be found here:

Provision Networks Connection Broker SmartCard Integration with Smooth Roaming

Configuration of the Wyse Thin OS (WTOS) is completely controlled via DHCP and ini files on the connection broker, so these devices can literally be taken out of the box, plugged in and they will automatically boot, download new firmware (if available), contact a connection broker, then launch a desktop.

So what needs to be configured in DHCP:

DHCP Option 188 is used to list the addresses of each connection broker, and the XML Communication Port. DHCP Option 161 lists the servers that hold updated WTOS Firmware. Since Provision Networks Connection Brokers can do both of these, once may configure either or both options. In the screenshot above, only option 188 is configured.

On the connection broker(s) browse to %ProgramFiles%\Provision Networks\Wyse. Create a sub-directory named “WNOS” (case sensitive). In the WNOS directory, create two sub-directories, “ini” and “bitmap“

Use notepad to create the two ini files listed in the WNOS directory.

wnos.ini contents:

signon=1
autoload=1
autosignoff=yes
privilege=High
Domainlist=YourDomainName

————————————————–

rdp.ini contents:

Fullscreen=yes
Colors=high
Encryption=128
Experience=15
Lowband=no
Autoconnect=1

————————————————–

To update the WTOS Firmware, copy the new firmware (RCA_wnos) to the WNOS directory, and set “autoload=1″ on the wnos.ini file.

At this point, the basic configuration is completed to connect a WTOS Thin Client to a Provision Networks Connection Broker. If one has multiple connection brokers, list them in the DHCP options and copy the contents of the Wyse Directory to each additional connection broker. There are many options available in the ini files, so detailed instructions are in the documents listed below:

Enhanced Support for WYSE Thin OS

WTOS 6.1 Admin Guide

In a previous post we talked about how you could configure the Quest vWorkpspace client to automatically get configured. The actual configuration is stored in a file called CONFIG.XML. Basically every single client setting can be controlled trough CONFIG.XML. Our support engineer Stephen Yorke provided us with a ton of infomation so this post describes all the different settings that are available, what they mean and what possible values they can have. Use this document as a guideline to create your own CONFIG.XML. Do not use it as a source CONFIG.XML. Use the sample CONFIG.XML located on each vWorkspace Connection Broker at C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Provision-IT as the source for your customer CONFIG.XML.

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The Virtual Access Suite is a product that contains many different sub products that all communicate with one another. This article discusses all the ports used in the Virtual Access Suite and how they are used. I guess it goes without saying that these ports should be open for smooth sailing. The image below shows what components can exist in a VAS infrastructure and how they interact.

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