As a consultant I perform a lot of VMware Horizon View implementations and I find several of the implementation tasks repetitive.

One of those tasks is the creation of a role within vCenter to give the service account used by View Administrator to connect to vCenter server a role with only the required permissions.

While some people use the Administrator role this is wrong and the correct permissions VMware state in the View documentation should be used.

There are two sets of permissions, there are the default required permissions for View to create full clones and power off/on desktops etc, and there are additional permissions required if View Composer is being used to create linked clones.

I created the PowerCLI script below which can be used to create a role for "Horizon View (inc Composer)" and add the required permissions documented by VMware to save myself time.

Today I received an email from a customers supplier along the lines of..

We installed an IIS feature, restarted the server and now all we get is a command prompt when connecting via RDP.

Being the first time I'd heard of this happening, I interestingly connected to see what they had managed to break this time (nuff said there)!

Upon logging in via RDP I ended up with a black screen and a command prompt, which somewhat baffled me with this server being a full GUI server install for the last 2 months up until this point!

Recently I was in the process of deploying and configuring VMware Horizon Workspace 2.1, which is now a single virtual appliance and came across and strange and unfathomable error.

The error itself was "Error Incorrect issuer in SAML AuthnRequest" and was displayed right after I had ran through the initial configuration wizard such as setting the passwords and database.

After finding very little information about this error on the internet and nothing useful in the appliance log files as to why this was happening I started to feel a little lost.

After deleting snapshots on a VM either by deleting an individual snapshot or selecting "Delete All" snapshots, you may see the following warning for the VM, stating that disk consolidation is needed.

"Virtual machine disks consolidation is needed"

 

 This can occur when a snapshot has been deleted and removed from snapshot manager, but the consolidation of the VMDKs on disk have failed.

 

In a VDI environment users may experience delays, hangs, freezes and pauses when using the Microsoft Office suite of applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.

I've also heard this described as "lumpy" performance!

This can be seen in Office versions 2007, 2010 and the latest 2013 (including Office 365 click to run) with all updates applied for both Office and Windows.

 

While this can be caused by a number of factors, such as insufficient vCPU/vRAM in the guest OS or resource contention at the host level, it could also be due to a setting within Office to disable hardware acceleration.

 

esxcli storage vflash device list
Name                    Size  Is Local  Is Used in vflash  Eligibility
--------------------  ------  --------  -----------------  ---------------------------------
naa.500a07510d7fe78  457862      true               true  It has been configured for vflash


esxcli storage vflash module stats get
 Num Active VMDKs: 14

I recently noticed an error within the Horizon View events database I had not seen before. This error was in a new environment I was configuring and testing at the time.

The specific error was:

"Failed to perform space reclamation on machine VDI-WIN81-137 in Pool WIN81-POOL1"

 

The error was occurring ever hour and failing to reclaim disk space from the linked clone virtual desktops. If you have a blackout period configured for specific days and times then the space reclamation process will not run during these times.

It is often standard practice to install the server operating system on C: and then applications and data on additional drives such as E:, F: and so on.

However vSphere Web Client since its 5.0 release though 5.1 and including the latest version at time of writing 5.5 U2, if you install vSphere Web Client to any directory other than the default installation directory you will get the following error when browsing to the vSphere Web Client page.

 

"HTTP Status 404

The requested requested resource is not available"

Here is a simple but handy PowerCLI one liner which can output the VM name and it's IP address.

 

Connect-VIServer localhost
Get-VM | Select Name, @{N="IP Address";E={@($_.guest.IPAddress[0])}}

 

VMware Horizon View provides different methods of provisioning and assigning users to virtual desktops. It is important to fully understand what benefits and limitations each method provides so that a solution can correctly be designed. The correct solution may encompass several desktop pools with a mixture of provisioning methods and user assignment.

If you are looking for a less technical explanation of Persistent vs Non Persistent desktops, please read the following article:

Persistent vs Non Persistent Virtual Desktops (Non Technical Explanation)

 

There are 2 desktop pool types available, ignoring the terminal services pool, which are; Automated pool and Manual pool.

  • With an Automated pool, vCenter Server is used to create the virtual machines automatically from a master image. An automated pool will almost always be used in every deployment. View will then use vCenter to manage the VMs, such as power them on, delete them re-create them and so on as required.
  • With a Manual pool, the desktop(s) already exist and could be a virtual machine both managed and unmanaged by vCenter or even a physical desktop. This pool type would not normally be used unless for a very specific reason as it would require another method to provision the desktops.

If you are looking for a more technical explanation of persistent vs non persistent desktops and how this applies to VMware Horizon View, please read the following article: Persistent vs Non Persistent Virtual Desktops (Horizon View Technical Explanation)

 

What is a non-persistent virtual desktop?

Pros: Storage utilisation/costs, desktop update/management, increased security

Cons: User installed applications not possible

A non-persistent virtual desktop does not retain any data on the desktop itself after a logoff or reboot. This includes any data such as user settings, application settings, internet bookmarks and so on. Instead this data is retained using another method such as folder redirection to store user settings in a central location and applied to any desktop they logon to.

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All advice, installation/configuration how to guides, troubleshooting and other information on this website are provided as-is with no warranty or guarantee. Whilst the information provided is correct to the best of my knowledge, I am not reponsible for any issues that may arise using this information, and you do so at your own risk. As always before performing anything; check, double check, test and always ensure you have a backup.

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