ESXi 6.0 Update 1 Breaks Horizon View prior to 6.2

ESXi 6.0 Update 1 Breaks Horizon View prior to 6.2

Whilst out on a customer site, I had an unusual error in Horizon View 6.11. One of the pools just had “ViewCompsoer Fault:” and failed all compose jobs. Looking at the VMs in the Admin console, they all showed up as Deleting (Missing). The VMs in the vCenter didn’t exist so I had to manually delete them from the Adam Database using the VMware KBs

After trawling through the SQL Composer database to remove the Composer database entries I started to look at the error logs for View Composer. In Composer the logs had errors relating to failing to initialize the disks as it couldn’t find the path of the cloned disk. After checking the UFA logs in the View Composer log bundle, I came across an error “sslv3 Handshake Alert Error”. After a bit of digging I came across this article from VMware.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2133018

So it appears ESXi 6.0 Update 1 disables SSLv3 which is how the View Composer connects to the hosts in all versions of Horizon View prior to 6.2. Installing this update will cause the View Composer to fail on recompose tasks. This was disabled due to a vulnerability but you can re enable this as a workaround, you only need to re-enable port 902 as I have described below. .http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2121021 )

Note: to edit a file in ESXI you can use the command VI in front of the file name, to insert text once in the editor, press the insert ley on the keyboard, once finished editing press escape to exit from insert mode, then type :wqto save and exit, to save without exiting instead use :q!

1. Create a backup copy of the /etc/vmware/config file
2. Edit the /etc/vmware/config file to append the following line at the end of the file:
   
   vmauthd.ssl.noSSLv3 = false
   
   Note: If you have the line vmauthd.ssl.noSSLv3 = true in the file, change it to vmauthd.ssl.noSSLv3 = false
   
   For Example:
   
   [root@w1-fiqabj-003:~] cat /etc/vmware/config
   libdir = "/usr/lib/VMware"
   authd.proxy.nfc = "vmware-hostd:ha-nfc"
   authd.proxy.nfcssl = "vmware-hostd:ha-nfcssl"
   authd.proxy.vpxa-nfcssl = "vmware-vpxa:vpxa-nfcssl"
   authd.proxy.vpxa-nfc = "vmware-vpxa:vpxa-nfc"
   authd.fullpath = "/sbin/authd"
   vmauthd.ssl.noSSLv3 = false
3. Restart the rhttpproxy service with the command:
   
   /etc/init.d/rhttpproxy restart

Taken from VMware article here - http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2121021 )

The fix from VMware is to upgrade to Horizon View 6.2 which no longer uses SSLv3 

APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

I have been recently been working on a project deliver applications with VMware Appvols to View VDI Desktops. User Environment Manager (UEM) is also employed to roam the user preferences and predefined settings for those apps, these technologies are working really well and offer a significant improvement over using ThinApp alone and View Persona Management.

UEM

AppVols

The application capture process with AppVols is fairly straightforward. Below I will give you a basic run though of the process. 

Capturing the App

•  Provision an Appstack and attach it to a capture VM.

Step One

Step Two

Step Three

• Install your applications natively on the capture VM and test that they work.

• Finish the provisioning and assign to an AD object be it user /group /computer /OU etc.

**As the apps are installed as if natively installed it drastically simplifies the process from some virtualisation/packaging procedures.

Capturing the application settings with UEM

• Launch the application through the UEM profiler on a UEM capture machine.

• Set any predefined settings in the app.

• Save the configuration file(s).

• Apply the settings as required.

• This enables the environment to provide the user with their applications and associated settings/preferences that follow them across non-persistent floating VDI sessions.

• I have set the personalised application settings to load on launch of the app executable so UEM is very efficient by only loading the settings when the app is in use.

UEM also comes with some built in templates for common applications (such as Office and Adobe Reader) saving time with deployment.

The predefined settings are loaded on demand on the first launch of the app and subsequent user changes are then added to the settings files and persist.

I am really impressed with what I have seen so far so stay tuned for some further articles!

Further Reading

 https://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/tag/uem-application-profiler

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/appvolumes/vmware-appvolumes-datasheet.pdf

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/user-environment-manager/vmware-user-environment-mngr-datasheet.pdf