VDA Registrations

DesktopServer\MaxRegistrationCompletionTimeSecs

DWORD

600
(secs)

Maximum time allowed for registration sequence of a single VDA to complete. If the registration fails to complete within this time, the VDA’s partial registration is discarded by the DDC.

DesktopServer\MaxLaunchRegistrationDelaySec

DWORD

180
(secs)

Period after which a session launch request that causes a power-managed Virtual Machine (VM) to be started, but where the VM does not subsequently register with a DDC, is considered to have failed.

See also settings MaxSessionEstablishmentTimeSecs and ExtraSpinUpTimeSecs; the timeout defined by these runs concurrently with that of MaxLaunchRegistrationDelaySec.

DesktopServer\MaxRegistrationDelayMin

DWORD

20
(mins)

Period after which a power-managed VM started by the broker service, but which does not subsequently register with a DDC, is shutdown.

This timeout applies irrespective of the reason for the startup, which might be to satisfy a launch request, maintain idle pool levels, or have been administrator requested through the SDK.

DesktopServer\HeartbeatPeriodMs

DWORD

600000
(milli-secs)

Controls both the interval and timeouts used for the keep-alive ‘pings’ from the VDA.

This value is sent from the DDC to VDA and causes the VDA to ping the DDC at an interval half that of the time specified by this setting. By default the DDC will consider contact to have been lost, and discard the VDA's registration if no ping is received within the full time specified (that is, the timeout is double the ping interval).

The maximum period over which no ping is received before contact is considered to have been lost can be controlled independently of the VDA ping interval itself using the MaxHeartbeatIntervalMs setting.

The default timeout is 10 minutes (with a corresponding ping internal of 5 minutes).

Note: Prior to XenDesktop 5 Service Pack 1 the default timeout and ping interval were 1 minutes, and 30 seconds, respectively.

DesktopServer\MaxHeartbeatIntervalMs

DWORD

None
(milli-secs)

Defines the maximum period between receipt of two pings from a VDA by the DDC before contact is considered to have been lost and the VDA's registration discarded. By default, where this setting is not specified, the value of the HeartbeatPeriodMs setting is used.

If specified, this value must be at least half that of the current HeartbeatPeriodMs value, otherwise the HeartbeatPeriodMs value overrides this setting.

This setting does not change the frequency at which a VDA sends out pings to a DDC.

DesktopServer\SupportMultipleForest

DWORD

0

Allows the DDC to accept registrations from VDAs in a different Active Directory forest to that containing the DDC itself. In this situation, the VDA must be authenticated using NTLM rather than the more secure Kerberos protocol, thus this feature is disabled by default.

Note: Multiple forest VDA registration support requires additional configuration changes as described in  https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134971

Set to 1 to enable cross-forest registration support.

DesktopServer\MaxWorkers

DWORD

10000

Maximum number of VDA registrations (both hard and soft) that a given DDC will accept.

Session Launch and Control

DesktopServer\PrepareSessionConnectionTimeoutSec

DWORD

None
(secs)

If set, overrides the configuration from Web Interface for the maximum time allowed before a launch is aborted if a connection from an endpoint client is not received.

DesktopServer\MaxSessionEstablishmentTimeSecs

DWORD

200(secs) for XenDesktop 7.x and onwards.

60
(secs)
for XenDesktop 5.x

Time after which a session launch is assumed to have failed by the DDC if no active session has been established on the target machine, or if a disconnected session has not returned to the active state following a reconnect operation.

See also the settings ExtraSpinUpTimeSecs and MaxLaunchRegistrationDelaySec.

DesktopServer\ExtraSpinUpTimeSecs

DWORD

120
(secs)

Additional time to allow for session establishment if the target power-managed VM must be started as part of a session launch.

This value is added to that specified by MaxSessionEstablishmentTimeSecs.

DesktopServer\DisableActiveSessionReconnect

DWORD

0

Indicates whether the ability to connect to an active desktop session from a different client is disabled. By default it is possible to connect to an active session from a different client without first disconnecting the session from the original client.

This setting does not apply to application sessions.

Set to 1 to disable reconnections to active session.

DesktopServer\MaxDisconnectWaitTimeSecs

DWORD

10
(secs)

Maximum time the DDC waits for a session disconnect to occur after a disconnect request has been issued.

Power Management

DesktopServer\MaxFailedRegistrationsAllowed

DWORD

2

Controls automatic placement of power-managed VMs into maintenance mode following repeated failures to register with a DDC.

If a VM is started-up by the broker service but fails to register after the period defined by the MaxRegistrationDelayMin setting (default 20 minutes), it is shutdown again.

The MaxFailedRegistrationsAllowed value defines the maximum number of times that this start-up, registration failure, shut down cycle is allowed to repeat before a subsequent registration failure causes the VM to be automatically placed into maintenance mode.

The default value of 2 means that if the VM fails to register 3 times in succession, it will be automatically placed into maintenance mode.

Setting MaxFailedRegistrationsAllowed to a negative value (0xFFFFFFFF) disables this behavior and prevents VMs from ever being automatically placed into maintenance mode.

XML Service

DesktopServer\XmlServicesEnableNonSsl

DWORD

1

Enables listening for http requests.

Set to 0 to disable http requests.

DesktopServer\XmlServicesEnableSsl

DWORD

1

Enables listening for https requests.

Set to 0 to disable https requests.

Database Access

DesktopServer\DataStore\Connections\Controller\
MaxConnectivityLossSecs

DWORD

300
(secs)

Maximum elapsed time over which an SQL command batch can be retried when database connectivity appears to have been lost.

This determines the maximum period that the broker service reports state ‘PendingFailure’ through the SDK before transitioning to ‘Failed’.

Active Directory Name Caching

DesktopServer\NameCache\NameRefreshPeriodMins

DWORD

1440
(mins)

Period after which cached Active Directory user/group account or machine name details are routinely refreshed where the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) name (domain\account) of the cached entity has been successfully obtained.

The default refresh period is 1 day.

DesktopServer\NameCache\
NameRefreshPeriodAfterErrorMins

DWORD

60
(mins)

Period after which a new attempt is made to refresh cached Active Directory user/group account or machine name details following a failed attempt to obtain the SAM name (domain\account) of the cached entity.

The cache might thus contain either no SAM name or a potentially out of date name during this period.

The default refresh period after a failure is 1 hour.

Data Logging

DesktopServer\CompletedActionRetentionPeriodSec

DWORD

3600
(secs)

Time for which completed power-managed VM power action entries are retained in the database before being purged.

The default retention period is 1 hour.

DesktopServer\Logging\ConnectionLogLifetimeHours

DWORD

48
(hours)

Time for which connection log entries are retained in the database before being purged.

The default retention period is 2 days.

DesktopServer\Logging\HypervisorAlertLifetimeHours

DWORD

168
(hours)

Time for which hypervisor alert records are retained in the database before being purged.

The default retention period is 1 week.

Active Directory based Controller Discovery

ADConfig\ControllersGroupGuid

String

None

Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) of an Active Directory security group object to be used as the 'Controllers' security group instead of the default one in the site Organizational Unit (OU).