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Zabbix Summit 2022 in Riga: Keeping hundreds of Windows Zabbix agents in sync across different customers

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be one of the speakers at Zabbix Summit 2022 in Riga. As moderator of the Zabbix Telegram and Zabbix reddit community, I was asked by Zabbix to present at the premier event about Zabbix monitoring.

The 10th Zabbix Summit is taking place in Riga, Latvia on October 7-8. My speech is titled:

Keeping hundreds of Windows Zabbix agents in sync across different customers

As a Managed Services Provider (MSP) we are responsible for dozens of customers, with hundreds of Windows Servers. Therefore, we introduced mechanisms to automatically deploy, configure, and sync Windows Zabbix agents across all these isolated environments. In this process, we leverage a tool set consisting of Azure DevOps, Git, PowerShell, and a publicly available Zabbix agent auto-updater, to provide all our customers’ servers with the latest Zabbix agent configuration possible.

Marco Hofmann is an IT-Systems Engineer with 15+ years worth of experience. He works at the german Managed Services Provider ANAXCO GmbH. His priority is the configuration and maintenance of the company’s central Zabbix environment, which is a key component in the fulfillment of the customers’ maintenance contracts. He also focuses on designing and configuring Citrix RDSH environments, fully automated with PowerShell.

Zabbix Telegram Community: https://t.me/ZabbixTech

Zabbix reddit Community: https://www.reddit.com/r/zabbix/

Zabbix website: http://www.zabbix.com/

All speeches from Zabbix Summit will be recorded and uploaded a few weeks later.

Install-Language breaks Citrix HDX Teams optimization on Azure Windows 10 Multi-User

While building a Citrix DaaS Standard for Azure environment, we made use of the new Install-Language PowerShell command. Sadly, this broke the Citrix HDX Teams optimization. In this article, I show you how to work around this issue.

Install-Language…

During this project, we decided to build our Citrix Master images through Packer of Microsoft marketplace images. These images are en-US only, and the administrator has to provide a language pack as needed. For this use-case, Microsoft has introduced a new PowerShell command in the latest builds of Windows 10 and Windows 11 multi-user: Install-Language

This command replaces everything from the past and can be used as a simple one-liner during your master image build process:

…breaks the OS

But as far as we know, this is currently bugged. Continue reading “Install-Language breaks Citrix HDX Teams optimization on Azure Windows 10 Multi-User”

Citrix NetScaler Gateway: NPS Extension for Azure MFA fails after introducing the Microsoft Domain Controller security baseline

Microsoft offers a nice set of security baseline GPOs, for direct use in your Active Directory environment. If you make use of the “MSFT Windows Server 2022 – Domain Controller” policy, your NPS installation might start to fail.

Introduction

Many of you probably have a Citrix NetScaler Gateway installation based on the following concept:

Manuel Winkel (deyda):

Microsoft Azure MFA Cloud Service in Citrix ADC

Thomas Preischl:

Citrix ADC / Netscaler Azure MFA Authentication

Those articles describe, how someone can implement Azure MFA with Microsoft Authenticator App pushOTP and an on-premises Microsoft NPS server, without making use of SAML, which is necessary, if you use the ICAProxy Gateway only license for Citrix NetScaler Gateway.
Continue reading “Citrix NetScaler Gateway: NPS Extension for Azure MFA fails after introducing the Microsoft Domain Controller security baseline”

Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image

Today I learned: Citrix Printer Redirection for Mac and Linux is not available Out-Of-The-Box on the Citrix Master Images I install. In this blog post, I will detail the steps I’ve taken to add this missing piece to all of my Master Images.

Introduction

Although quite rare in Germany, a few of our customers use MacBooks at home for the home office. Last week a customer created a ticket, that he couldn’t print on his home printer, although printer redirection was allowed for him in Citrix Studio. At first, I suggested the usual troubleshooting steps, like updating the Citrix Workspace app for Mac and checking the local preferences of the app. Obviously, both didn’t help. I then checked the problem myself and didn’t find an obvious problem. A quick search then led me to two Citrix KB articles, which revealed a knowledge gap on my side:

Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not available on Windows Server 2016 and 2019 (out of the box)

The following Citrix knowledge base articles explain what’s necessary to activate that feature:

  1. CTX283355: Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not working on Windows Server 2016 and 2019
  2. CTX140208: Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux fail to Redirect Local printer to Citrix Sessions

Summary of the knowledge base articles:

  1. Download the HP driver update for HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS driver from Microsoft Update Catalog.
  2. Inject the driver into the operating system.
  3. Add the printer driver to the printer driver store.
  4. The next time the user logs on, it will just work.

Continue reading “Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image”

Transition from BIS-F version 6.1.3 to 7.1912.x

With the release of the Base Image Script Framework (BIS-F) version 7.1912.x a few minor changes in the ADMX template files occurred.

We are going to outline the changes necessary to your current deployment.

Continue reading “Transition from BIS-F version 6.1.3 to 7.1912.x”