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AVFT
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Horizon 6.0 to 7.12: a Gordian Knot of issues

I have inherited a problem and I’m not sure where to start.  A client tried to upgrade their infrastructure. They are on vSphere 5.5 and want to upgrade to 6.5 and then to 6.7 eventually (better late than never.) They are the latest/last rev of 5.5. Hosts are on 9911214 and the vCenter is vCenter Update 3k.  They also use Horizon 6.0.  Prior to upgrading their vCenter to 6.5, they installed Horizon 7.12 on a new server and tried to move their terminals to the new server.  They created desktop pools and moved over some of the VMs.  They rekeyed the certificate for the old server to the new server as well.  There are a handful of terminals that look to be working on the new Horizon server; the updated agent is installed on them and the new Horizon 7 server can communicate with them.   FYI, there is only one vCenter currently, the v5.5 one.  I stopped any further “updates” until we got a handle on what’s going on. Also, the Horizon 7 server is sitting on a host that isn’t managed by the vCenter. That host is supposed to be adopted by the upgraded vCenter after it updates to 6.5.

However, the remaining terminals show as “Waiting for agent communication” on the Horizon 7 admin console (they’ve been removed from the 6 admin console.)  I checked the registry on the ones that aren’t communicating and the Broker entry in the registry is blank where it has the name of the new server on the ones that work. 

I tried connecting to it via the desktop client and received the following message: “The Connection Server authentication failed. The tunnel server presented a certificate that didn’t match the expected certificate.”.  When I disable SSL checking, I can connect and log into one of the functioning terminals normally.  

I’m in the lucky position of trying to unravel this gordian knot of problems: 

I’d like to make sure the current terminals can all transfer over and work with the new Horizon server and retired/remove the old one. 

I’d like to make sure the certificate works correctly (should I just remove the rekeyed cert and create a new one?) 

Finally, proceed with the upgrades to 6.5. 

Can any of this be done?

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nburton935
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Upgrading the Horizon 6.x environment might be your only choice unless you plan to build a new vCenter for the 7.12 environment versus in-place upgrading the VC.

If it were me, I would spin up a dedicated vCenter 6.7 or 7.0 VC just for the new Horizon 7.x environment. It is best practice for a dedicated VC anyway, and you can keep your Horizon/ESXi/VC versions in line without worrying about the rest of your non-Horizon infrastructure.

-Nick

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nburton935
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- Are these all manual desktop pools?

- Horizon 7.12 does not support vCenter 5.x, so no surprise you're running into intermittent agent connection issues:

- Which version of Horizon 6.x are you on? There are some VC 6.x builds that Horizon 6.x supports; check the product interoperability matrix here.

- For the certificate issue, is tunneling necessary through the Connection Server? If not, turn it off. It's likely trying to tunnel through the IP found in the Server settings. The certificate name must match the Connection Server or VIP you're connecting to as well.

-Nick

AVFT
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Yes, they are all manual desktop pools.

Though the matrix was something I checked on after I started looking into it, sadly it was not one of the first things on the list when they started.

They're on version 6.0.0 of Horizon. Best I can tell that version doesn't support anything past the latest rev of vC 5.5.  Horizon 6.2.9 looks to be compatible with vC 6U3. Horizon 7.12 is as well.  Would you recommend upgrading Horizon 6.0.0 to 6.2.9 and then the vCenter they have (v5.5) to 6.0 U3?

Thanks, I'll check on the certificate issue as well.

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nburton935
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Upgrading the Horizon 6.x environment might be your only choice unless you plan to build a new vCenter for the 7.12 environment versus in-place upgrading the VC.

If it were me, I would spin up a dedicated vCenter 6.7 or 7.0 VC just for the new Horizon 7.x environment. It is best practice for a dedicated VC anyway, and you can keep your Horizon/ESXi/VC versions in line without worrying about the rest of your non-Horizon infrastructure.

-Nick

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AVFT
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Thanks again.  We were able to get things working.  Updating 6.0.0 to the 6.2.9 and then moving all the terminals back to it has everything working normally again.  The next step is the overall update of the environment.

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