NetScaler Console service

NetScaler telemetry program

The NetScaler telemetry program is a required data collection program that enables the upload of required license and feature usage data necessary for customers to remain compliant with their maintenance and support license obligations. Citrix collects basic license telemetry data and NetScaler deployment and feature usage telemetry data for its legitimate interests, including license compliance. NetScaler Console configuration and feature usage data is also collected to manage, measure, and improve Citrix products and services. We highly recommend adding NetScaler instances to NetScaler Console to improve and simplify your NetScaler operations overall and support the enhancement of our products and services by sending NetScaler feature usage data. Learn more. The NetScaler telemetry program is enabled automatically starting from 14.1-28.x build.

Prerequisites

Ensure that:

  • The agent is running on the latest version. By default, the agents are automatically upgraded. In some scenarios, the agents might still be running on an older version and you must manually upgrade the agent. For more information on how to manually upgrade the agent, see Upgrade agent manually.

  • The NetScaler agent must be able to communicate with NetScaler on port 22.

  • The port 5140 is allowed in the network to receive the NetScaler Gateway telemetry data. (Only applicable to the NetScaler instances that have VPN virtual server configuration).

Notes:

  • The telemetry upload happens every 24 hours automatically.

  • To collect and store the telemetry metrics in your NetScaler instances, the following configuration was pushed to your NetScaler instances through NetScaler Console as part of the NetScaler telemetry program released on 18th June 2024.

enable ns feature AppFlow
add analytics profile telemetry_metrics_profile -type timeseries -outputMode prometheus -metrics ENABLED -serveMode Pull -schemaFile "./telemetry_collect_ns_metrics_schema.json" -metricsExportFrequency 300
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  • If you see this configuration in your NetScaler instance and you are not using the Console analytics features and NetScaler Prometheus integration, you can use the following commands to remove the configuration:
rm analytics profile telemetry_metrics_profile
disable ns feature AppFlow
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  • The /nsconfig/.telemetry.conf file is updated with the following command for the Gateway telemetry. NetScaler Console checks for this command every hour and adds it, if this command is missing. This command is pushed only to the NetScaler instances that have VPN virtual server configuration:
ns_telemetry_server,<Console IP>,5140
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  • Some telemetry parameters are collected through scripts that are pushed from NetScaler Console to NetScaler instances. These scripts are read-only and do not change anything in NetScaler.

  • The information collected through telemetry, such as email addresses, user names, and IP addresses, is securely pseudonymised by hashing the information at the source using one-way hashing algorithms. As a result, Citrix cannot access or read these values. This telemetry data is used solely for logical asset-matching purposes.

The following table provides the parameter details that are collected as part of NetScaler telemetry program:

Categories Description What do we use it for
License, and NetScaler deployment and usage telemetry Information about license entitlement, allocation, usage, and high-level NetScaler deployment data, and NetScaler feature usage. License compliance and to manage, measure, and improve the service.
NetScaler Console deployment and feature usage telemetry Information about Console deployment and feature usage. To manage, measure, and improve the service.

For more information about the list of telemetry parameters, see Data governance.

NetScaler telemetry program