Ways to investigate and fix VMware View Connection Server issues
VDI admins can troubleshoot and fix problems in a VMware View Connection Server and its LDAP directory using just a few commands.
VMware View administrators can run into problems with View Connection Server, including uninstall errors and authentication...
Continue Reading This Article
Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including E-Guides, news, tips and more.
problems with its embedded LDAP directory. Command lines allow admins to troubleshoot and fix these three common VMware View Connection Server problems.
VMware View brokers virtual desktop client connections via the Connection Server or a group of Connection Servers, in concert with View's other components. View Connection Servers include an embedded Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory, which contains the View Manager services configuration information.
Removing a View Connection Server
How to maintain View performance
Catch View bottlenecks with AppSpeed
Pull off View migrations without a hitch
Disaster recovery with View VDI
If a Horizon View Connection Server is no longer available, virtual desktop admins cannot perform a normal uninstall of the application on the Windows Server where the Connection Server software is running. The application must be manually removed from the LDAP directory. In the folder C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\tools\bin on one of the working View Connection Servers, use the command vdm-admin.exe.
Execute the command with the parameters vdmadmin.exe -S -s <name-of-server-to-remove> -r
Once the command executes, wait a few minutes for the server to disappear from the LDAP directory on the Connection Servers.
Accessing the Horizon View LDAP directory
The View Connection Server runs on a Windows Server. Here, you can access the LDAP directory with the Microsoft Windows Active Directory Service Interfaces Editor (ADSIedit) component.
The entire Horizon View configuration is available in the LDAP directory, a springboard for deep dives into the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You can fix VMware View problems by accessing the configuration, but modifying the system directly is serious, and done at your own risk.
To access the LDAP directory, run the adsiedit executable from the command line. In the Action menu, select Connect to, then enter the naming context
dc=vdi,dc=vmware,dc=int. Enter the following name and port for the computer to connect to: localhost:389. Once connected, you can browse the directory (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. The LDAP directory in VMware Horizon View.
If you cannot connect to Horizon View, make sure you logged in to the Connection Server with the right credentials. In the connection dialog, click Advanced, then specify the administrator credentials for your domain.
Replicating the LDAP directory in Horizon View Connection Servers
Replicate View Connection Servers for load balancing or high availability in the VDI environment. VMware View servers replicate the LDAP directory in bi-directional rings. For example, with five servers in a ring, Server 1 sends updates to Server 2 and Server 5. Server 2 replicates to Server 1 and Server 3, and so on. When a server in one direction is down, updates will always arrive on the other servers in another direction. Though you can number the View Connection Servers with your own naming convention, the LDAP directory finds its own synchronization order.
VDI admins can check on the Connection Server replication process using the Windows repadmin command-line tool. Use this to see when Connection Server has replicated successfully or if there was a problem with replication
The syntax is repadmin /showrepl localhost:389 (see Figure 2 for an example of a successful replication).
Figure 2. The Horizon View Connection Server successfully replicated the LDAP directory.
Use the /syncall parameter to force replication. Try other parameters as well; check with þe command repadmin /help to find out what else is available.
