XenDesktop Logger

…is a free tool written in Powershell, which enables you to quickly and remotely configure logging of Citrix XenDesktop 5 Services from any server or workstation.

The Task                                               

When you need to troubleshoot Xendesktop 5, you might want to turn on the “controller service logging [to a file] feature” on one or more of your Desktop Delivery Controllers (DDCs). To accomplish that, you need to execute a series of tasks on every DDC, as described in CTX127492:
1. Log on to the DDC
2. Create a logging folder
3. Add the necessary permissions for the network service
4. Find the config-XML file for the service you like to log
5. Add some lines to the config-XML file
6. Repeat step 4. and 5. for each of the six services you want to log
7. Open the services mmc snap-in
8. Find and restart every service you’ve changed the configuration for.

If you have more than one DDC, you need to do that on every server.
As some of the logs can grow quite large, you might want to disable the logging feature after a while. So, you need to repeat step 1., 4., 5., 6., 7. and 8. Again, on every server.

Easy, isn’t it? :)
Seriously, this can be pretty annoying.

 

The Solution                                        

XDLogger does all the tasks described above for you, in a few seconds, remotely from any workstation or server.

Simply:
1. Run XDLogger with an account that has administrative permissions on the DDC
2. Add your DDCs or let XDLogger read them from an AD-Group
3. Enable or disable logging for any service you like by a click
4. Hit “Apply Changes”
Done.

You can access the server log folders simply via the context menu item “Open Logfolder” on any server in the list.

Video Tutorial                                      

4 min., HD-Version on Vimeo-Website

Download                                              

XDLogger is freeware under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
XDLogger was tested with XenDesktop 5 and Server 2008 R2. It won’t work with XD 4.
Needless to say, that although XDLogger was properly tested, there are no warranties what so ever. If you use it, you do that on your own risk.

Please note: If your DDCs are 64-bit machines, XDLogger needs to be started on a 64-bit machine and executed with the 64-bit powershell.exe.

You can download the latest version here: XDLogger.zip

If you never executed a Powershell script on your workstation before, you need to to configure Powershell to allow running scripts. Its simple: read here

If you have any comments, suggestions or problems, please send me an email.

Have a nice day, Denniver