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JHC Technology is a Service Disabled, Veteran-Owned, Small Business based in the Washington, DC Metro area. Our primary focus is to offer customized solutions and IT consulting to our Commercial and Government clients. Our experts have a broad experience delivering and managing Microsoft Enterprise applications and Cloud and Virtualization Solutions, as well as mobilizing Enterprise data.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Why use the Configuration Logging feature in XenApp 6.5?

The Configuration Logging feature allows you to keep track of administrative changes made to your server farm environment. By generating the reports that this feature makes available, you can determine what changes were made to your server farm, when they were made, and which administrators made them. This is especially useful when multiple administrators are modifying the configuration of your server farm. It also facilitates the identification and, if necessary, reversion of administrative changes that may be causing problems for the server farm.

Below I have provided step by step instructions on how to configure this feature in XenApp 6.5.

Step 1: Left click on "Start (push button)" in "Start"

Step 2: Left click on "Citrix AppCenter (menu item)" in "Start menu"



Step 3: Left click on "SOC Farm (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter" 


Step 4: Right click on "SOC Farm (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"



Step 5: Left click on "Farm properties (menu item)"



Step 6: Left click on "Configuration Logging (outline item)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"



Step 7: Left click on "Configure Database... (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"




Step 8: Left click on "Server name: (This will be the name of your SQL server)" in "Configuration Logging Database"


Step 9: The username specified must have db_owner permissions over the database in SQL.

Citrix recommended to use Windows authentication as it’s more secure than SQL authentication.


Step 10: Left click on "password (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"




Step 11: Left click on "password (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"



Step 12: Enter the password for the Windows account.




 Step 13: Left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"





Step 14: Left click on "specify the database (editable text)" in "Configuration Logging Database"



Step 15: Specify the database created in SQL





Step 16: Left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"




Step 17: Left click on "Open (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"



Step 18: left click on "No (list item)"


 Step 19: left click on "Next > (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"



Step 20: left click on "Test Database Connection (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database"



Step 21: left click on "OK (push button)" in "AppCenter"



Step 22: left click on "Finish (push button)" in "Configuration Logging Database (4/4)" 



Step 23: left click on "Apply (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"



Step 24: left click on "OK (push button)" in "SOC Farm - Farm Properties"


Step 25: left click on "History (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"




Step 26: User left click on "History (outline item)" in "Citrix AppCenter"





Step 27: User left click on "Yes (push button)" in "No Filters Specified"


Step 28: Once History is selected, choose “Get Log” under the Action column on the right hand side of the window.



Step 29: As you can see, now that Configuration Logging has been enabled changes made within the AppCenter, such as the publishing of Apps or changes to the permissions of applications or policies will be logged under the History option located within your Farm under XenApp.


David Cuevas is a Jr. Citrix Engineer for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at dcuevas (at) jhctechnology.com.