View Upgrades VMware Horizon 6 Version 6.1 This document supports the version of each product listed and supports all subsequent versions until the document is replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
View Upgrades You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at: http://www.vmware.com/support/ The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates. If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to: docfeedback@vmware.com Copyright © 2009–2015 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information. VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com 2 VMware, Inc.
Contents View Upgrades 5 1 Component Compatibility Matrix 7 2 View Upgrade Overview 11 3 System Requirements for Upgrades 13 View Composer Requirements 13 View Connection Server Requirements 16 View Administrator Requirements 18 Horizon Client Requirements 18 Supported Operating Systems for View Agent 19 4 Preparing for a View Upgrade 21 Preparing vCenter Server and View Composer for an Upgrade Preparing View Connection Server for an Upgrade 23 Preparing View Security Server for an Upgrade 24 21 5 U
View Upgrades 9 Applying View Patches 63 Apply a Patch for View Composer 63 Apply a Patch for View Connection Server Apply a Patch for View Agent 65 Apply a Patch for Horizon Client 66 64 10 Upgrading vSphere Components Separately in a View Environment 67 Index 69 4 VMware, Inc.
View Upgrades View Upgrades provides instructions for upgrading from Horizon View 5.x (which includes 5.1.3, 5.2, and 5.3.3) or VMware Horizon™ 6.0.x (with View) to VMware Horizon 6 verison 6.1. You can also use this guide when you upgrade to View maintenance and patch releases. ® If you are also upgrading your version of VMware vSphere , this guide tells you which steps of that upgrade to do at various stages of the View upgrade.
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1 Component Compatibility Matrix Because large enterprises must often perform phased upgrades, components are designed to be somewhat forward and backward compatible, at least during upgrades. View Connection Server compatibility with View Agents is limited to interoperability during a View Connection Server upgrade. You must upgrade View Agents as soon as possible to match the version of the View Connection Server that manages them.
View Upgrades Table 1‑2. Compatibility Matrix for VMware Horizon 6 version 6.1 and Horizon View 5.3.x Components Connection Server 5.3.x Security Server 5.3.x (PCoIP and RDP) Connection Server 6.1 Only during upgrade Security Server 6.1 (PCoIP and RDP) View Composer 5.3 View Agent 5.3.x View Client (Windows) 5.x Only if paired before upgrade No Only during upgrade Yes No N/A No Only during upgrade Yes View Composer 6.
Chapter 1 Component Compatibility Matrix Table 1‑4. Compatibility Matrix for VMware Horizon 6 version 6.1 and Horizon View 5.1.x Components (Continued) Connection Server 5.1.3 Security Server 5.1.3 (PCoIP and RDP) View Composer 3.0 View Agent 5.1.3 View Client (Windows) 5.1.x View Agent 6.1 Only during upgrade No No N/A Only during upgrade Horizon Client 3.3 Yes Yes Yes Yes N/A CAUTION During an upgrade, View Composer provisioning and maintenance operations are not supported.
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2 View Upgrade Overview Upgrading an enterprise View deployment involves several high-level tasks. Upgrading is a multistage process in which procedures must be performed in a particular order. You upgrade View Composer before upgrading View Connection Server and the other View servers. During an upgrade, View does not support View Composer provisioning and maintenance operations.
View Upgrades 6 If you use security servers, upgrade each security server and its paired View Connection Server instance. If you upgrade these pairs one by one, removing each security server from the load-balanced group, upgrading the pair, and then adding the security server back to the group, you can achieve zero downtime. See “Upgrade View Security Servers and Their Paired View Connection Servers,” on page 36. 7 Upgrade the group policies used in Active Directory.
System Requirements for Upgrades 3 Hosts and virtual machines in a View deployment must meet specific hardware and operating system requirements.
View Upgrades Hardware Requirements for Standalone View Composer If you install View Composer on a different physical or virtual machine from the one used for vCenter Server, you must use a dedicated machine that meets specific hardware requirements. A standalone View Composer installation works with vCenter Server installed on a separate Windows Server machine or with the Linux-based vCenter Server appliance.
Chapter 3 System Requirements for Upgrades Table 3‑3. Supported Database Servers for View Composer (Continued) Database Service Packs/Releases Editions Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (32- and 64-bit) SP1, SP2, SP3 Express Standard Enterprise Datacenter Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (32- and 64-bit) SP4 Express Standard Enterprise Oracle 12c Release 1 (any release up to 12.1.0.2) Standard One Standard Enterprise Oracle 11g (32- and 64-bit) Release 2 (11.2.0.
View Upgrades View Connection Server Requirements View Connection Server acts as a broker for client connections by authenticating and then directing incoming user requests to the appropriate remote desktops and applications. View Connection Server has specific hardware, operating system, installation, and supporting software requirements.
Chapter 3 System Requirements for Upgrades n The domain user account that you use to install the new version of View Connection Server must have administrative privileges on the View Connection Server host. The View Connection Server administrator must have administrative credentials for vCenter Server. n When you run the installer, you authorize a View Administrators account. You can specify the local Administrators group or a domain user or group account.
View Upgrades For details about which versions of View are compatible with which versions of vCenter Server and ESXi, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php. View Administrator Requirements Administrators use View Administrator to configure View Connection Server, deploy and manage remote desktops and applications, control user authentication, initiate and examine system events, and carry out analytical activities.
Chapter 3 System Requirements for Upgrades Supported Operating Systems for View Agent The View Agent component assists with session management, single sign-on, device redirection, and other features. You must install View Agent on all virtual machines, physical systems, and RDS hosts. The following table lists the Windows operating system versions that are supported on virtual machines in a desktop pool. The virtual machine version must support the guest operating system. For example, to install Windows 8.
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Preparing for a View Upgrade 4 Before you start the upgrade process, you must review system requirements for the new version, back up databases, take snapshots of virtual machines that host server components, and document configuration settings.
View Upgrades View Composer supports a subset of the database servers that vCenter Server supports. If you are already using vCenter Server with a database server that is not supported by View Composer, continue to use that database server for vCenter Server and install a separate database server to use for View Composer and View database events. 8 Make a copy of the folder that contains SSL certificates. This folder is located at %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter.
Chapter 4 Preparing for a View Upgrade 8 If any desktop pools are set to refresh the OS disk on logoff, use View Administrator to edit the Desktop/Pools settings for that pool and set Delete or refresh machine on logoff to Never. This setting prevents an error from occurring when the newly upgraded View Composer attempts to refresh a desktop on which View Agent has not yet been upgraded.
View Upgrades Preparing View Security Server for an Upgrade Before you upgrade security servers, perform these tasks to create backups and record configuration settings. n Verify that the virtual or physical machine on which the current security server is installed meets the system requirements for the new version. See “View Connection Server Requirements,” on page 16. n If the security server is installed in a virtual machine, take a snapshot of the virtual machine.
Upgrading View Server Components 5 The server components that you must upgrade include View Connection Server, replicated servers, and security servers. Depending on the optional components you use, you might also need to upgrade View Composer. If you spread the upgrade tasks across multiple maintenance windows, you can verify success or discover issues at each phase of the process. VMware recommends upgrading all server components during the first maintenance window.
View Upgrades n Verify that the server on which View Composer is installed has a CA (certificate authority)-signed SSL server certificate installed and configured. After you upgrade View Connection Server, if View Composer does not use a CA-signed certificate, the default self-signed certificate is shown as invalid in View Administrator. n Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you will use to run the installer and perform the upgrade.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components Run SviConfig to Manually Upgrade the Database With the SviConfig command-line utility, you can upgrade the View Composer database separately from the View Composer software. This utility also creates a log file to simplify troubleshooting if the upgrade fails. IMPORTANT Only experienced View Composer administrators should use the SviConfig utility. This utility is intended to resolve issues relating to the View Composer service.
View Upgrades What to do next If the database upgrade fails, see “Troubleshooting a View Composer Database Upgrade Failure,” on page 28. If the result code is any number other than 0, which means success, see “Result Codes for a Manual Database Schema Update,” on page 28. Result Codes for a Manual Database Schema Update When you manually upgrade the View Composer database, the sviconfig databaseupgrade command displays a result code. Table 5-1 shows the sviconfig databaseupgrade result codes. Table 5‑1.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components 2 3 Examine the log records to identify the desktops that failed to upgrade. Option Action The desktop exists but is unavailable. Make the desktop available again. Depending on the cause of the failure, you might have to restart the ESXi host or vCenter Server, or take another action. The desktop does not exist. Ignore the log message.
View Upgrades Guidelines for Migrating View Composer The steps you take to migrate the VMware Horizon View Composer service depend on whether you intend to preserve existing linked-clone virtual machines. To preserve the linked-clone virtual machines in your deployment, the VMware Horizon View Composer service that you install on the new virtual or physical machine must continue to use the existing View Composer database.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components n Familiarize yourself with installing the VMware Horizon View Composer service. See "Installing View Composer" in the View Installation document. n Familiarize yourself with configuring an SSL certificate for View Composer. See "Configuring SSL Certificates for View Servers" in the View Installation document. n Familiarize yourself with configuring View Composer in View Administrator.
View Upgrades Migrate View Composer Without Linked-Clone Virtual Machines If the current VMware Horizon View Composer service does not manage any linked-clone virtual machines, you can migrate View Composer to a new physical or virtual machine without migrating the RSA keys to the new machine. The migrated VMware Horizon View Composer service can connect to the original View Composer database, or you can prepare a new database for View Composer.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components d Provide the new View Composer settings. If you are installing View Composer with vCenter Server on the new machine, select View Composer co-installed with the vCenter Server. If you are installing View Composer on a standalone machine, select Standalone View Composer Server and provide the FQDN of the View Composer machine and the user name and password of the View Composer user.
View Upgrades 4 5 On the destination machine, open a command prompt and navigate to the %windir %\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0xxxxx directory. Type the aspnet_regiis command to migrate the RSA key pair data. aspnet_regiis -pi "SviKeyContainer" "path\keys.xml" -exp where path is the path to the exported file. The -exp option creates an exportable key pair. If a future migration is required, the keys can be exported from this machine and imported to another machine.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components n Complete the tasks listed in “Preparing View Connection Server for an Upgrade,” on page 23. IMPORTANT If any Local Mode desktops are checked out at the time you run the View Connection Server installer to install the upgrade, the upgrade will fail. n Verify that you have a license for the new version. n Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you will use to run the installer and perform the upgrade.
View Upgrades 9 Repeat the previous steps to upgrade each View Connection Server instance in the group. IMPORTANT If you do not upgrade all View Connection Server instances in a replicated group, the health indicators in the View Administrator dashboard might show that one or more instances are in an error state. This situation arises because different versions supply different kinds of data. The solution is to upgrade all instances in the replicated group. 10 Use the vdmexport.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components Prerequisites n Determine when to perform this procedure. Choose an available desktop maintenance window. Budget 15 to 30 minutes for each security server and its paired View Connection Server instance. n If you use View Composer, verify that View Composer has been upgraded. See “Upgrade View Composer,” on page 25. After you upgrade View Connection Server, you must add View Composer using View Administrator.
View Upgrades 4 On the host of the security server, download and run the installer for the latest version of View Connection Server. The installer filename is VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-y.y.y-xxxxxx.exe, where xxxxxx is the build number and y.y.y is the version number. The installer determines that an older version is already installed and performs an upgrade. The installer displays fewer installation options than during a fresh installation.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components Accept the Thumbprint of a Default SSL Certificate When you add vCenter Server and View Composer instances to View, you must ensure that the SSL certificates that are used for the vCenter Server and View Composer instances are valid and trusted by View Connection Server. If the default certificates that are installed with vCenter Server and View Composer are still in place, you must determine whether to accept these certificates' thumbprints.
View Upgrades 4 Verify that the thumbprint in the Certificate Information window matches the thumbprint for the vCenter Server or View Composer instance. Similarly, verify that the thumbprints match for a SAML authenticator. 5 Determine whether to accept the certificate thumbprint. Option Description The thumbprints match. Click Accept to use the default certificate. The thumbprints do not match. Click Reject. Troubleshoot the mismatched certificates.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components In this example, server_name is the host name or IP address of the View Connection Server host. For more information about the vdmadmin command-line tool, see the View Administration document. A new instance of View Connection Server is added to a group and an old instance is removed. What to do next Upgrade the other View server components..
View Upgrades Upgrading View Servers in a Cloud Pod Architecture The Cloud Pod Architecture feature uses standard View components to provide cross-datacenter administration. All servers in all pods that are joined in a pod federation must be upgraded to the same version of View Connection Server as soon as possible. With the Cloud Pod Architecture feature, you link together multiple View pods to provide a single large desktop brokering and management environment.
Chapter 5 Upgrading View Server Components Procedure 1 Upgrade vCenter Server as described in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide. IMPORTANT If your clusters contain Virtual SAN datastores, also see the chapter about upgrading the Virtual SAN cluster, in the Administering VMware Virtual SAN document. This chapter contains a topic about upgrading vCenter Server. 2 If View Composer is installed on the same host, restart the View Composer service.
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Upgrade ESXi Hosts and Their Virtual Machines 6 Upgrading ESXi hosts and virtual machines is the most time-consuming aspect of this middle phase of a View upgrade. This procedure provides an overview of the tasks you must perform during the second and subsequent maintenance windows. To complete some of these tasks, you might need step-by-step instructions found in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide and the View Administration document.
View Upgrades Procedure 1 Upgrade ESXi hosts, cluster by cluster. For instructions, see the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide. If your clusters contain Virtual SAN datastores, also see the chapter about upgrading the Virtual SAN cluster, in the Administering VMware Virtual SAN document. This chapter contains a topic about upgrading ESXi hosts. If you have many clusters, this step could take several maintenance windows to complete.
Upgrading Remote Desktops and Horizon Client 7 The remote desktop and the client components that you can upgrade include Horizon Client for any of the supported desktop and mobile client platforms, thin clients provided by VMware partners, and the View Agent, which runs inside the operating systems of remote desktops and Microsoft RDS hosts.
View Upgrades n Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you will use to run the installer and perform the upgrade. Procedure 1 In View Administrator, edit the desktop pool settings for the pool to disable the pool. Go to Catalog > Desktop Pools, select the pool, and click Edit. 2 On the RDS host, download and run the installer for the new version of View Agent. You can download the installer from the VMware Web site.
Chapter 7 Upgrading Remote Desktops and Horizon Client n Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you will use to run the installer and perform the upgrade. Procedure 1 If you use View Composer, upgrade the View Agent on a parent virtual machine and create a desktop pool for testing purposes. a Download and run the new version of the View Agent installer on a parent virtual machine. You can download the installer from the VMware Web site.
View Upgrades 6 If you use physical PCs or virtual machines as Microsoft RDS hosts, to provide remote desktops or applications, download and run the installer for the new version of View Agent on these machines. You can download the installer from the VMware Web site. 7 If you use physical PCs as desktop sources, download and run the installer for the new version of View Agent on these physical machines. You can download the installer from the VMware Web site.
Chapter 7 Upgrading Remote Desktops and Horizon Client n Plan maintenance windows carefully so that recreating and recomposing desktop pools will not overwhelm the storage array and ESXi hosts. Procedure 1 If you disabled provisioning of new virtual machines in preparation for the upgrade, enable provisioning again. 2 To turn on the 3D rendering feature, edit the pool to configure the following settings: n Set the pool to use the PCoIP display protocol. n Set Allow users to choose protocol to No.
View Upgrades n Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you will use to run the installer and perform the upgrade. n Verify that the client desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone meets the operating system requirements and hardware requirements of Horizon Client. See the "Using Horizon Client" document for the specific type of desktop or mobile client device. Go to https://www.vmware.com/support/viewclients/doc/viewclients_pubs.html.
Post-Upgrade Tasks to Enable New Features in Your View Setup 8 After you finish upgrading the servers, virtual machines, and agent software for desktop and application pools, you can configure your setup to take advantage of certain new features. In addition to the tasks described in the topics in this chapter, if applicable, you can use View Administrator to edit advanced storage options for desktop pools, and change the scope of transparent page sharing.
View Upgrades 3 Manually restart the VMware Horizon View Message Bus Component service on all View Connection Server hosts in the pod, or restart the View Connection Server instances. After the services are restarted, the View Connection Server instances reconfigure the message security mode on all desktops and security servers, changing the mode to Enhanced. 4 To monitor the progress in View Administrator, go to View Configuration > Global Settings.
Chapter 8 Post-Upgrade Tasks to Enable New Features in Your View Setup 4 Use View Administrator to edit the vCenter Server settings, navigate to the Storage tab, and select Reclaim VM disk space. For instructions on editing server settings, click the Help button in View Administrator. 5 Use View Administrator to edit the pool settings, navigate to the Advanced Storage section, select Reclaim VM disk space, and set the threshold for space reclamation to 1GB.
View Upgrades 2 Upgrade the desktop pool to the latest version, as described in “Upgrade View Composer Desktop Pools,” on page 50. This process includes installing the latest version of View Agent on the parent virtual machine and taking a snapshot. 3 Recompose the pool on the non-Virtual SAN datastore using the snapshot of the parent virtual machine you just created. For instructions on recomposing pools, click the Help button in View Administrator.
Chapter 8 Post-Upgrade Tasks to Enable New Features in Your View Setup Procedure 1 Upgrade vCenter Server and your ESXi hosts to vSphere 6 or later, as described in the chapter about upgrading the Virtual SAN cluster in the Administering VMware Virtual SAN document, available in the vSphere 6.0 documentation center. At this point, the desktop pool is still using Virtual SAN disk format 1, and the virtual machines and VMware Tools have not yet been upgraded to vSphere 6.0 virtual hardware version 11.
View Upgrades n Use the procedure described in this topic so that the desktop pool uses the new default storage policies. This procedure involves rebalancing the desktop pool to a non-Virtual SAN datastore and then upgrading and rebalancing back to the Virtual SAN datastore. IMPORTANT The tasks outlined in this procedure describe upgrading from a View 5.3.1 desktop pool using a Virtual SAN datastore on a VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 1 cluster. Upgrading from Virtual SAN datastore on a VMware vSphere 5.
Chapter 8 Post-Upgrade Tasks to Enable New Features in Your View Setup Configure the VMware Horizon Web Portal Page for End Users You can configure this Web page to show or hide the icon for downloading Horizon Client or the icon for connecting to a remote desktop through HTML Access. You can also configure other links on this page. By default, the portal page shows both an icon for downloading and installing the native Horizon Client and an icon for connecting through HTML Access.
View Upgrades Option Property Setting Change the URL of the Web page for downloading Horizon Client link.download=https://url-of-web-server Use this property if you plan to create your own Web page. Create links for specific installers The following examples show full URLs, but you can use relative URLs if you place the installer files in the downloads directory, which is under the C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\broker\webapps\ directory on View Connection Server, as described in the next
Chapter 8 Post-Upgrade Tasks to Enable New Features in Your View Setup 5 VMware, Inc. Restart the View Web Component service.
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Applying View Patches 9 Patch releases can include installer files for the following View components: View Composer, View Connection Server, View Agent, and various clients. The patch components that you must apply depend on the bug fixes that your View deployment requires.
View Upgrades Procedure 1 On the virtual machine that hosts View Composer, download the installer file for the patch version of View Composer. Your contact at VMware will provide instructions for this download. 2 Use the Windows Add/Remove Programs utility to remove your previously installed View Composer. 3 Run the installer that you downloaded for the patch release of View Composer. 4 Verify that the VMware Horizon View Composer service restarts after the installer wizard closes.
Chapter 9 Applying View Patches 4 Run the installer that you downloaded for the patch release of View Connection Server. For information about running the installer, see the View Installation document. 5 Follow the installation wizard prompts and click OK when asked to continue the installation with the existing ADAM instance. 6 Verify that the VMware Horizon View Connection Server service restarts after the installer wizard closes.
View Upgrades Apply a Patch for Horizon Client On desktop client devices, applying a patch involves uninstalling the current version and then installing the patch version of Horizon Client. On mobile clients, applying a patch involves simply installing the update from the Web site that sells apps, such as Google Play, Windows Store, or the Apple App Store. Procedure 1 On each client system, download the installer file for the patch version of Horizon Client.
Upgrading vSphere Components Separately in a View Environment 10 If you upgrade vSphere components separately from View components, you must back up some View data and reinstall some View software. Instead of performing an integrated upgrade of View and vSphere components, you can choose to first upgrade all View components and then upgrade vSphere components, or the reverse. You might also upgrade only vSphere components when a new version or update of vSphere is released.
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Index A ADM template files, View components 43 ASP.
View Upgrades S security servers operating system requirements 16 upgrading 34, 36 services VMware Horizon View Connection Server 34, 36 VMwareVDMDS 34, 36 space reclamation feature 54 space-efficient disk format 54 SQL Server databases 14 SSL, accept a certificate thumbprint 39 SSL certificate backups 21 sviconfig utility 26–28 system requirements for upgrades 13 T Technical Support, VMware 5 Terminal Services host 47 thin clients 47, 51 thumbprint, accept for a default certificate 39 U upgrade check li
