New solution for installing/using on Citrix/Terminal Servers

wgi · General User Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

Here's what I have been doing to get OpenOffice.org working
on our Citrix Farm using a Win2K/Win2K3 mixed-mode domain.

These were the goals:

- Give any user who wants/has to work with an Office Suite
access to OpenOffice.org by simply putting him into a
group.

- The installation *must* work in a way the user does not have
to interact (read: I do not want to allow his interaction
because he is definitely going to make the wrong choices)

The painful way to the goal (as far as I got now):

Note 1: While most files are included here, some are missing
(like 100kb registry settings) but can be requested
from the author.

Note 2: Some of the scripting is ugly and may be useless.
It has evolved quite a bit since I started it, so
it's kinda messy. Nevertheless it works quite well
here, so I wouldn't want to touch it...

PREREQUISITES
-------------

For some reason someone here had decided to use kixtart (www.kixtart.org)
for various purposes, such as the domain logon script(s). The nice thing
about kix is that it's just an executable you drop in your Domain Controllers'
NETLOGON and are done for. Other than that I don't particularly like it
and wished we could use something more powerful like perl. Well. Kixtart is
CareWare, meaning it's free to download and use, but you ought to donate
something to a non-profit charitable organisation.

To make the following solution work, you would need your users have either
roaming profiles (which we don't use) or terminal service profiles. We use the
latter so users get the same environment regardless of the server in the farm they
connect to. Should be pretty much the default for a Citrix environment.

You would also need a home drive (we map user's homes to Z: ) or modify the
scripts to put the OpenOffice.org workstation files into user's profiles
(not so easyly done as you cannot simply use the same home drive, but have
to work with paths generated as a function of user's loginname).

Last not least you need to know German if you want to be able to understand
all the comments in the scripts Wink

I translated most of the stuff, though.

OVERVIEW
--------

This solution consists of the following parts:

- modified setup file (optional)
- responsefiles für base and workstation (=user) installation
- installation script
- domain logon (sub)script

I modified the setup file (setup.inf) to stop the installer from giving me things
I don't want. I have tried numerous ways to do this with StarBasic but failed.
I tried the forums, I had contact with Sun developers - it simply wouldn't work
the way it was supposed to.

The installation script is simple. It's just there to make life a little easier
for the sorry guy who has to install a new machine. I tried to use a packager
to do the base installation and it horribly barfed, but then again that was in
the days before 1.1.x. It works like this so I left it untouched.

The major part is the domain logon script. There, we check if the user has access
to OpenOffice.org, check for the presence of various files and try to build his
environment as needed, taking various quirks and problems into account.

The logon script needs a connection to a share on a fileserver/SAN/NAS. For us,
it's still a fileserver, but it's the one holding the profiles, too, so if this
one wouldn't be available login would be broken, anyway. I did this so I could
slipstream newer files to the users' workstation installation if I needed to, later on.

INSTALLATION
------------

In my installation folder, I have the following files:

wgi · General User Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

I forgot: Be sure to roll out the Citrix "Program Neighbourhood Agent" if you want to use content redirection (opening OpenOffice.org from Citrix server when doubleclicking a file on local machine). I was wondering for days why it wouldn't work with Program Neighbourhood Wink

You need an NFuse web portal, too, in this case, because ist holds the "config.xml" file that is needed by PN Agent.

TechFan · Newbie Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 3

Did anyone try this out? I was hoping to be able to get the modded common.xcu so I can figure out how to set my other settings. . .like the default save format. Is it possible to get this whole package as a zip?

wgi · General User Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

Of course it is. I can mail it to you if you like.

I lately changed the default save format, too - but that is in "TypeDetection.xcu"!

gama · Newbie Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 3

9point9 · Moderator Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 3875 Location: UK

This thread is old and relates to OOo 1.x so the same thing may not be appropriate with OOo 2.0. Neither of these posters has visited for a long time so I doubt you'll get any response from them. I think you'll have to follow the instructions instead.
_________________
Arch Linux
OOo 3.2.0

OOoSVN, change control for OOo documents:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooosvn/

gama · Newbie Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 3

wgi · General User Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

Uhm, I'm sorry, but I think I don't have the old files left, since we switched to 2.0. I might try to help you with some questions regarding the described method, though, I hope.

gama · Newbie Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 3

wgi · General User Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

Hm, I guess. I'm not really a Citrix guy (actually no Windows guy at all), but it _might_ be related to the problem I encountered on 1.1 (can't confirm since we don't use 2.0 on Terminal Servers with content redirection as of now).

*** BEWARE: UNTESTED AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS - DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON ANY PRODUCTIVE MACHINE ***

Basically (in 1.1 days, mind that!) the problem was that the installer made registry entries for file associations in the HKEY_USERS branch where Citrix wouldn't know about them. I solved it at that time (see above in my first post) by installing with InCtrl (use any registry tracer you like) to see where the entries were created. Then I exported that bunch of registry keys to a file and imported them back into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch. From there Citrix would read them and actually present them in the management console.

If you have like a VMware or other virtual Citrix machine, you might want to give that approach a try. That's basically what I can provide you. Other than that, there are probably a lot of users around here that actually *know* what to do (as opposed to me).

dacow · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:16 am Post subject:

Do you have the list of Reg entries that you changed.

I am about to try installing while watching with InCtrl to see if I cant get the Content Redirection working on our Citrix PS4 servers.

I want to double check that I have the correct keys that you used.

If its successfull you'll see my list of keys here soon.

Mooooooo

bartcrommen · Newbie Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2

I'm planning an installation of OpenOffice onto my citrix servers.
Did anyone tried out the above instructions?
Do they also apply to the latest OpenOffice versions (2.x)?
Is it possible to install OpenOffice next to Office on the same citrix server?

TechFan · Newbie Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 3

Yes, you can put both on the same server. I setup a custom installer back when I first installed 2.0 on our 2000 TS's a couple years ago. Unfortunately, I have forgotten what it was I customized. Open Office Entreprise seems to be the easiest way to really manage the newest versions. We plan to implement it in the next month or so.