Recovery Of Citrix 1.8 servers 1

[javon7065]

Hello. I am being asked to recover my Citrix metaframe 1.8, runnning on Windows terminal server 4, at the next disaster recovery test. Has anyone ever brought a Citrix box back from tape? is it easier, in the long run, to just rebuild it? I have never tried to do this. I run a full backup every night using Veritas Netbackup. I am also considering ghosting it and trying that method of recovery

Any feedback is appreciated

Thanks

Joe

 

[wlpsyp]

I have tried several times with no luck. I get to a point during the backup from tape and it has always hicupped. So now all I do is just the data drives for backup and if something happens to my TSE or 1.8 I just rebuild. I have gotten it down to where I can start from scratch.. formatting installing TSE, patches etc and 1.8 in about 3 hours. I find it much easier in the long run just to rebuild. Big thing is the data if there is any (I place all my data info on other drives or linked to other servers) so that my 1.8 box is just that, TSE and 1.8 and just the normal junk installed.

 

[gbiello]

For what it's worth, I agree with wlpsyp. Keep your Citrix servers simple so a rebuild can be done.

If you've got an Access data store, back up the "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture" directory so you won't have to reregister all your licenses.

hope this helps,
-gbiello

 

[OzDog]

Joe,

I use Ghost quite extensively at the moment for our 12 NT4/MF1.8 servers. It works really well. There are obviously problems that can come about from Ghost (as with any Disk Imaging apps) such as machine name duplication, IP addresses etc.

The (abbreviated) process we use is
1. Clean up server (temp files/profiles etc)
2. Clean Registry (use RegClean)
3. Test everything still works and fix if necessary (thanks to regclean).
4. Stop Citrix Browser and Installer and set to Manual
5. Rename to GHOST (so it's not the same as production server names)
6. Change IP
7. Build ghost image
8. Deploy image to other server
9. Go backwards from 6 to bring back to prod status.

Now there are many references to the server name on our site, some is software dependant, some isn't, so you may need to run some .reg files to update appropriately.

Have fun! Cheers,
Sam

Please let members know if you found their posts helpful.

 

[javon7065]

Everyone, thanks for your suggestions. these will give me a base to go on.

Thanks again

Joe