Install a Citrix ADC VPX instance on Microsoft Hyper-V server

To install Citrix Citrix ADC VPX instances on Microsoft Windows Server, you must first install Windows Server, with the Hyper-V role enabled, on a machine with adequate system resources. While installing the Hyper-V role, be sure to specify the network interface cards (NICs) on the server that Hyper-V will use to create the virtual networks. You can reserve some NICs for the host. Use Hyper-V Manager to perform the Citrix ADC VPX instance installation.

Citrix ADC VPX instance for Hyper-V is delivered in virtual hard disk (VHD) format. It includes the default configuration for elements such as CPU, network interfaces, and hard-disk size and format. After you install Citrix ADC VPX instance, you can configure the network adapters on virtual appliance, add virtual NICs, and then assign the Citrix ADC IP address, subnet mask, and gateway, and complete the basic configuration of the virtual appliance.

After the initial configuration of the VPX instance, if you want to upgrade the appliance to the latest software release, see Upgrade a Citrix ADC VPX standalone appliance

Note:

Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (ISIS) protocol is not supported on the Citrix ADC VPX virtual appliance hosted on the HyperV-2012 platform.

Prerequisites for installing Citrix ADC VPX instance on Microsoft servers

Before you begin installing a virtual appliance, do the following:

• Enable the Hyper-V role on Windows Servers . For more information, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee344837(WS.10).aspx.
• Download the virtual appliance setup files.
• Obtain Citrix ADC VPX instance license files. For more information about Citrix ADC VPX instance licenses, see the Citrix ADC VPX Licensing Guide at https://support.citrix.com/s/article/CTX255959-how-to-allocate-and-install-citrix-netscaler-vpx-licenses?language=en_US.

Microsoft server hardware requirements

The following table describes the minimum system requirements for Microsoft Servers.

Table 1. Minimum system requirements for Microsoft servers

The following table lists the virtual computing resources for each Citrix ADC VPX instance.

Table 2. Minimum virtual computing resources required for running a Citrix ADC VPX instance

Download the Citrix ADC VPX setup files

The Citrix ADC VPX instance for Hyper-V is delivered in virtual hard disk (VHD) format. You can download the files from the Citrix website. You need a Citrix account to log in. If you do not have a Citrix account, access the home page at http://www.citrix.com, click Sign In > My account > Create Citrix Account, and follow the instructions to create a Citrix account.

To download the Citrix ADC VPX instance setup files, follow these steps:

1. In a web browser, go to http://www.citrix.com/.

2. Sign in with your user name and password.

3. Click Downloads.

4. In Select a Product drop-down menu, select Citrix ADC (NetScaler ADC).

5. Under Citrix ADC Release X.X > Virtual Appliances, click Citrix ADC VPX Release X.X

6. Download the compressed file to your server.

Install the Citrix ADC VPX instance on Microsoft servers

After you have enabled the Hyper-V role on Microsoft Server and extracted the virtual appliance files, you can use Hyper-V Manager to install Citrix ADC VPX instance. After you import the virtual machine, you need to configure the virtual NICs by associating them to the virtual networks created by Hyper-V.

You can configure a maximum of eight virtual NICs. Even if the physical NIC is DOWN, the virtual appliance assumes that the virtual NIC is UP, because it can still communicate with the other virtual appliances on the same host (server).

Note:

You cannot change any settings while the virtual appliance is running. Shut down the virtual appliance and then make changes.

To install Citrix ADC VPX instance on Microsoft Server by using Hyper-V Manager:

1. To start Hyper-V Manager, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.
2. In the navigation pane, under Hyper-V Manager, select the server on which you want to install Citrix ADC VPX instance.
3. On the Action menu, click Import Virtual Machine.

4. In the Import Virtual Machine dialog box, in Location, specify the path of the folder that contains the Citrix ADC VPX instance software files, and then select Copy the virtual machine (create a new unique ID). This folder is the parent folder that contains the Snapshots, Virtual Hard Disks, and Virtual Machines folders.

   Note:

   If you received a compressed file, make sure that you extract the files into a folder before you specify the path to the folder.

5. Click Import.
6. Verify that the virtual appliance that you imported is listed under Virtual Machines.
7. To install another virtual appliance, repeat steps 2 through 6.

Important:

Make sure that you extract the files to a different folder in step 4.

Auto-provision a Citrix ADC VPX instance on Hyper-V

Auto-provisioning of Citrix ADC VPX instance is optional. If auto-provisioning is not done, the virtual appliance provides an option to configure the IP address and so on.

To auto-provision Citrix ADC VPX instance on Hyper-V, follow these steps.

1. Create an ISO9660 compliant ISO image using the xml file as depicted in the example. Make sure that the name of the xml file is userdata.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?\>

  <Environment xmlns:oe=`"http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/environment/1`"

    xmlns:xsi=`"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance`"

    oe:id=""

    xmlns=`"http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/environment/1`"\>

  <PlatformSection\>

  <Kind\>HYPER-V\</Kind\>

  <Version\>2013.1\</Version\>

  <Vendor\>CISCO\</Vendor\>

  <Locale\>en\</Locale\>

  </PlatformSection\>

  <PropertySection\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.ovf.version" oe:value="1.0"/\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.platform" oe:value="NS1000V"/\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.orch\_env" oe:value="cisco-orch-env"/\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.mgmt.ip" oe:value="10.102.100.122"/\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.mgmt.netmask" oe:value="255.255.255.128"/\>

  <Property oe:key="com.citrix.netscaler.mgmt.gateway" oe:value="10.102.100.67"/\>\</PropertySection\>

  </Environment\>
<!--NeedCopy-->

2. Copy the ISO image to hyper-v server.

3. Select the virtual appliance that you imported, and then on the Action menu, select Settings. You can also select the virtual appliance and then right click and select Settings. The Settings window for the selected virtual appliance is displayed.

4. In the Settings window, under the hardware section, click on IDE Controller.

5. In the right window pane, select DVD Drive and click on Add. The DVD Drive is added under the IDE Controller section in the left window pane.

6. Select the DVD Drive added in step 5. In the right window pane, select the Image file radio button and click on Browse and select the ISO image that you copied on Hyper-V server, in step 2.

7. Click Apply.

Note:

The virtual appliance instance comes up in the default IP address, when:

• The DVD drive is attached and the ISO file is not provided.
• The ISO file does not inculde the userdata file.
• The userdata file name or format is not correct.

To configure virtual NICs on the Citrix ADC VPX instance, follow these steps:

1. Select the virtual appliance that you imported, and then on the Action menu, select Settings.
2. In the Settings for <virtual appliance name> dialog box, click Add Hardware in the left pane.
3. In the right pane, from the list of devices, select Network Adapter.
4. Click Add.
5. Verify that Network Adapter (not connected) appears in the left pane.
6. Select the network adapter in the left pane.
7. In the right pane, from the Network drop-down list, select the virtual network to connect the adapter to.
8. To select the virtual network for additional network adapters that you want to use, repeat steps 6 and 7.
9. Click Apply, and then click OK.

To configure the Citrix ADC VPX instance:

1. Right-click the virtual appliance that you previously installed, and then select Start.
2. Access the console by double-clicking the virtual appliance.
3. Type the Citrix ADC IP address, subnet mask, and gateway for your virtual appliance.

You have completed the basic configuration of your virtual appliance. Type the IP address in a Web browser to access the virtual appliance.

Note:

You can also use virtual machine (VM) template to provision Citrix ADC VPX instance using SCVMM.

If you use Microsoft Hyper-V NIC teaming solution with NetScaler VPX instances, see article CTX224494 for more information.