Determine which physical machine connected to which vm?

[VentiAmericano]

Hello Everyone,

I set up view in a computer lab with about 20 physical machines that connects to a non-persistent linked clone pool. The machines are destroyed after each session. My boss would like me to develop a system for tracking the amount of use each physical machine gets as well as which physical machine is using which virtual machine. I have looked around the connection manager and vcenter and didn't find what I was looking for. Does anyone know where I would find this information?

Is there a way to use the PCoIP session variables to determine the physical machine? Any help/direction you can offer is greatly appreciated. Thanks

Regards,

Joe Chin

[manesh_manohar]

Hello Joe chin,

You would get the virtual machine hosted information from inventory  desktop  host column. (ie,which physical machine is using which virtual machine)

The host usage information, you would get from view administrator Dashboard ”datastores or ESX hosts “

I think this information will help you.

Regards,

Manesh Varissery Manoharan

[ChrisKubiak · Accepted solution]

We do this to a much lesser degree. We have a logon script that runs when the users session is started that logs the current time the VM name and the thinclient name. The VMName can be pulled from the Environment Variable or HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ActiveComputerName and the thinclient name can be retrieved from HKCU\Volitile Environment.

Simply make a login script that appends a log named either with the thinclients name or the VMs name to a network location and similarly make a logoff script that will append the time and a note signifying that its being logged off. If you don’t want to do the calculations by going through the logs by hand simply make the logon\logoff script write to a DB where you can get a little fancier with auto calculating session length. An alternative to that is to log the above info but also store the logon time in some regkey or file and on logoff make that script read that value and calculate overall session length which it then sends to the network log. Then you’re just adding up each over all session which may be easier than scripting the reading and calculating of each logon\logoff value.

[mittim12]

Check out this post for info that is stored in the registry of the Virtual guest. http://www.thatsmyview.net/2009/05/29/using-client-information-in-vmware-view/

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[VentiAmericano]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response. I tried to locate HKCU\Volitile Environment\ however it does not exist in the machines that I connected to. Do I need to adjust any settings in vCenter to have this information pass through the connection. Thanks.

Regards,

Joe Chin

[VentiAmericano]

Hi Mittim,

Thanks for your response. I am having a problem seeing the variables in regedit. Any ideas why they would not be showing up on the machines I connect to? When run 'set' they are completely missing. Thanks.

Regards,

Joe Chin

[mittim12]

Are you logged into a guest VDI machine through the View client when testing? No special setup was needed on my part.

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[VentiAmericano]

Yeah I was logged in through the view client. I went to regedit and didnt have the volitile variables.

Regards,

Joe Chin

[mittim12]

I would make sure both my agent and client are on the same version. I was logged in over RDP through a Security Server. I will not be in the office until next week so I can't verify PCOIP.

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[ChrisKubiak]

I never needed to do any special configuration for this so verifiying client\agent version is a good start. These settings are in HKEY_Current_User so the user account should have full access to read\edit these settings unless you have be ultra vigorous with your VM image lockdown. Are you sure you were looking in Current User rather than Local Machine? I believe the Volitile Environment section is a Microsoft default and VMWare just adds a few settings to it.

[VentiAmericano]

I am looking at it again right now and I am in HKEY_Current_User. This does work with PCoIP and not just RDP correct?

[mittim12]

I can't test PCOIP at the moment. Do the values show up if you connect via RDP?

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[ChrisKubiak]

The settings will come over regardless of RDP or PCoIP. The only thing that effects the values comming over is connecting via the portal (or via security server I believe).

So when you view the HKey_Current_User you do not have any entries for Volitile Environment? Or just not the view specific ones? It should contain certain environment variable values on ANY windows machine physical or VM (least as far as Ive been able to see).

[mittim12]

I can verify that it works through the security server since that is how I was connected last night.

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[ChrisKubiak]

Good to hear! We dont currently have a security server in place yet but I know not all values come over from the portal.

From the admin guide:

NOTE   The full set of client information is sent only when the desktop is launched using 

View Client. The following registry entries are not shown when the desktop  is launched 

using View Portal: 

-ViewClient_Machine_Name

-ViewClient_Machine_Domain

-ViewClient_IP_Address

-ViewClient_LoggedOn_Domainname

-ViewClient_LoggedOn_Username

-ViewClient_MAC_Address

-ViewClient_Type

[mittim12]

That must be the difference. I have the full client loaded on my laptop and just connect to the Security server from the client thus bypassing the portal launch. I'll logoff in a few and go straight to the portal.

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[mittim12]

Ok, I verified when connecting through the web portal the info does not come accross.

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[VentiAmericano]

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to say thanks. I did manage to get it working. Turns out we had a group policy that restricted the current user access to regedit which prevented view from writing the settings into the HKCU/VE.

On another note, do either of you know how to create scripts that would run on reconnect. If a user moves physical machines but still connects to the same VM I want to have that updated in our logging system.

Regards,

Joe Chin

[ChrisKubiak]

Yes, either on the local system policy or via group policy you can import the View Agent ADM template which will give you a bunch of new settings. When you load the template go to Computer settings -> Admin Templates -> VMWare View Agent Config -> Agent Config. Under there you will find and option to run a script on connect and also one to run on reconnect.

The ADM templates can be found on your View Server under program files\VMware\Vmware View\Server\Extras\GroupPolicyFiles.