DDC Installation (on-prem)

Last updated on 09/11/2022 Citrix infrastructure

DDC Installation Prerequisites:

  • Windows Server only!
  • Windows Server has to be domain joined!
  • Administrative account used for installation has to be a domain user and a member of local admin group.
  • For POC, following components can be installed on same server, however it is not recommended to have such configurations in productive environment due to lack of redundancy.
    • DDC
    • SQL
    • License server
    • Storefront
    • ServerOS VDA can be installed as well to check functionality. NEVER in PROD!

DB Prerequisites

  • DDC communicates to SQL server to store site information. DB has to be in place before setting up the DDC
  • SQL Express can be used for POC but not in PROD due to lack of HA and scalability

DB Considerations:

  • Site DB can be set up during site setup from Citrix Studio console. If no DB exists, account used to create the DB has to have the following permissions:
    • Local Administrator
    • Domain User
    • SQL Server dbcreator
    • SQL Server sysadmin
  • If the admin account does not have the proper DB permissions, scripts can be generated from Studio and passed to a DB admin to be executed.
  • During runtime, DDC Services use the DDC machine account to access the DB and need READ/WRITE/EXECUTE permissions
  • Communication from DDC to DB Server is done over port TCP 1433 (so firewall rules must exist to allow the traffic between these 2 components)

DDC installation Process:

  • Installation of DDC can be done either via CLI or GUI

CLI:

  • Navigate to installation media and execute „XenDesktopServerSetup.exe /components CONTROLLER”

Additional parameters can be added to the command as follows:

  • /nosql (prevents installation of SQLExpress)
  • /quiet (suppresses the GUI)

Example: „XenDesktopServerSetup.exe /components CONTROLLER /nosql /quiet”

GUI:

  • Start the installation from the installation media
  • Select „Delivery Controller” from the left hand side (please note that if you were to do this from a Desktop OS, this option would not be available/grayed out)

  • License Server and Storefront should be installed on separate servers.

  • If a fully-fledged SQL server is already installed, uncheck the „SQL Express” Installation

  • DDC default needed open ports are 80 & 443. This can be done automatically or manually