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    Citrix ADC (Netscaler) Monitoring Module

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    Tier3
    • Updated

    Goliath’s ADC Module (previously known as Netscaler from Citrix) lets you monitor the health and performance of your Citrix ADC devices using alerts, dashboards, and reports available within the existing GPM interface.

     

    To obtain Goliath's Citrix ADC Monitoring Module, contact your sales representative

     

    What’s Monitored?

    Goliath's Citrix ADC Monitoring covers the following health, performance, and security areas for your ADC devices:

    • ADC device configuration changes
    • CPU, Disk, and Memory usage exceeding high thresholds
    • GSLB MEP flaps and synchronization failures
    • High Availability: secondary device is down/unresponsive, HA state changes from primary to secondary, version mismatches
    • Hard disk errors and IP conflicts
    • Login failures
    • Packet loss
    • An Interface, vserver, physical server or service group goes down
    • Power supply failures, restarts

    Prerequisites

    Before getting started, please makes sure to review the following for important configuration and support.

    • VPX (virtual) and MPX (physical) ADC devices are supported for this release.
    • Ensure SNMP traffic, UDP 162, is allowed outbound from the ADC devices inbound to the Goliath Server
    • Windows Server VMs on Microsoft Azure do not support SNMP services, which is required for the Netscaler module to operate. If your GPM Server is hosted on Azure, the module will not work as expected and is not supported. Review this Microsoft KB for details.
    1. Identify/assign the community string on the individual ADC devices (on the ADC device in System > SNMP > Community). Refer to your specific Citrix documentation for details
      1. (this will be needed later during configuration)
    2. On the individual ADC devices, add the GPM Server as a specific Destination (on the ADC device in System > SNMP > Traps). Refer to your specific Citrix documentation for details
      1. Be sure to note the "source ip" for the traps as that is what will be needed later

    Prepare Goliath for SNMP Monitoring

    1. Connect to the Goliath Server via RDP or a console session
    2. Open Server Manager and go to Manage>Add Roles & Features
    3. Proceed through the Add Roles & Features Wizard, on the Features pane, ensure the SNMP Service is installed
      1. If not, please check the box and install the feature
    4. Once the SNMP Service is installed, open Windows Services and go to the properties of the SNMP Service
    5. Navigate to the Traps tab of the SNMP Service properties
    6. Add the community string(s) you would like the technology to accept and click apply
    7. Navigate to the Security tab of the SNMP Service properties
    8. In the bottom section of the Security tab, ensure the radio button for accept SNMP packets from any host is selected
    9. Click Apply and restart the SNMP Service
    10. Close Windows Services

    Apply the Module

    To apply the Goliath Citrix ADC Module

    1. On the GPM Server, add the Citrix ADC MWA file to the WatchImExp folder within the Goliath Install Directory which is one of the following:
      1. C:\Program Files (x86)\MonitorIT\WatchImExp
      2. C:\Program Files\MonitorIT\WatchImExp
    2. Log in to GPM and ensure the Citrix ADC(s) are listed on the Management>Inventory>Manage Inventory page  
      1. Specifically, we need an inventory entry that matches the trap definition(s) "source ip"
        1. If not listed, click New at the top of the page to add the entry(s) by defining a hostname and IP Address to match the "source ip".
    3. Go to Management>Monitors
    4. If there is an existing monitoring rule named Monitor All Received SnmpTrap Messages, select and Delete it
    5. Click the menu button in the top right and then chose the submenu option Import/Export Rules.
    6. In the dialog that opens, select Import.
    7. In the resulting menu, you will see the option for Citrix ADC, select it and click Import (keeping all other default options checked).
    8. After about 2-3 mins, new rules are imported and added to the rules list. All prefaced with "Citrix ADC" (you may need to refresh page to see them). 
    9. Go to Management>Groups.
    10. Select and Edit the Citrix ADC Secondary Group and select the Add Servers tab.
    11. Select your ADC Devices and then click Apply to save.
    12. To enable alert notifications, see Configure Email and Text Alert Notifications

    Note: in some cases you may need to enable Alarms on the Netscaler devices.
    Required Alarms:
    • CONFIG-CHANGE
    • CPU-USAGE
    • DISK-USAGE-HIGH
    • ENTITY-STATE
    • GSLB-SITE-MEP-FLAP
    • GSLB-SYNC-STATUS-FLIP
    • HA-BAD-SECONDARY-STATE
    • HA-NO-HEARTBEATS
    • HA-PROP-FAILURE
    • HA-STATE-CHANGE
    • HA-VERSION-MISMATCH
    • HARD-DISK-DRIVE-ERRORS
    • IP-CONFLICT
    • LOGIN-FAILURE
    • MEMORY
    • PR-RL-PPS-PKTS-DROPPED
    • POWER-SUPPLY-FAILURE
    • RATE-LIMIT-THRESHOLD-EXCEEDED
    • WARM-RESTART-EVENT