The new Citrix Receiver theme on NetScaler/Access Gateway 10 is not enabled by default.  The theme is on the appliance, but the old Black theme will be used by default.  I looked and searched the NetScaler 10 and Access Gateway 10 release notes, admin guides, and eDocs on the Citrix support  only to find that it can be done but there were no easily found instructions on how to do it.

From the Release notes for NetScaler 10 and Access Gateway 10:

Apply the Citrix Receiver theme to the logon page. You can use the command line to overwrite the original Access Gateway logon page with the Citrix Receiver theme.

That is all you get in the release notes, admin guides, and eDocs.  Ok, so now what?  Well, after upgrading the firmware to 10 from 9.3.x, I did some looking around on the appliance (connected using WinSCP to browse and search for files) and finally found the Citrix Receiver theme by doing a search for receiver*.  Now that I found the theme, how do I apply it?

Before applying the Citrix Receiver Theme

Tools needed to apply the Citrix Receiver Theme:

• WinSCP or any other secure file transfer tool
• Putty or any other SSH client

Apply the Citrix Receiver Theme

1. Connect to your NetScaler/Access Gateway appliance using WinSCP

2. Browse to netscaler > ns_gui and backup to the entire contents of the folder

3. Connect to your NetScaler/Access Gateway appliance using Putty

4. Once authenticated type the following commands pressing enter after each command:

1.  shell

2.  cd /var/netscaler/gui/vpns/customization/receivertheme

3.  tar -xvzf receivertheme.tar.gz

*Edit /var/netscaler/gui/vpns/customization/receivertheme/ns_gui/epa/epa.html and /var/netscaler/gui/vpns/customization/receivertheme/ns_gui/vpns/postepa.html

Change nsversion one line 19 from 1,1,1,1 to the NetScaler/Access Gateway version you are using.

To apply the Citrix Receiver Theme immediately.

4.  cp -r /var/netscaler/gui/vpns/customization/receivertheme/ns_gui/* /netscaler/ns_gui

To reapply the theme after the NetScaler/Access Gateway appliance reboots.

5.  mkdir /var/customizations

6.  cp -r /var/netscaler/gui/vpns/customization/receivertheme/ns_gui/* /var/customizations

Only do step 7 if rc.netscaler does not already exist.  If rc.netscaler exists, goto step 8.

7.  touch /nsconfig/rc.netscaler

8.  echo cp –r /var/customizations/* /netscaler/ns_gui >> /nsconfig/rc.netscaler

5. Make sure to copy files/make directory structure on both appliances if you have a NetScaler/Access Gateway high availability pair setup.

After applying the Citrix Receiver Theme

Thanks to Henny Louwers and his post on Citrix NetScaler 10: Apply Citrix Receiver Theme for verifying after my post in the Citrix Forums: Apply the Citrix Receiver theme to the AGEE logon page – How?

Update – This is now in the Citrix eDocs – Applying the Citrix Receiver Theme to Logon Page.  Even though the method above works, there is another way to reapply theme after the NetScaler/Access Gateway appliance reboots.  I have updated the instructions above to edit the epa.html and postepa.html pages for the Citrix Receiver Theme change.

Update – There is now another theme for Access Gateway Enterprise, see The Citrix Blog – Green Bubble Theme for Citrix NetScaler.  This new theme has more modifications than the default Citrix Receiver theme in the NetScaler 10/Access Gateway Enterprise firmware.

If you have found this article interesting or if you have any other insights, please feel free to leave comments on this article.

What is a NetScaler VPX virtual appliance?

A NetScaler VPX virtual appliance is a 32-bit virtual NetScaler system that is hosted on a Citrix XenServer or VMware ESX hypervisor.  NetScaler VPX can distribute, optimize, and secure Layer 4 to Layer 7 network traffic.  It can also perform application specific traffic analysis.  NetScaler VPX has features such as:

• Load Balancing 
• Compression
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) offload
• Application Firewall
• Dynamic content caching

Benefits of using a NetScaler VPX are that it can be deployed on any XenServer or ESX hypervisor installation in your environment, leverage dynamic data center processes, respond automatically during high demand periods and dynamically provision more capacity for existing web applications, and has a very flexible licensing model.

NetScaler VPX has a free express version that includes a NetScaler Standard Edition license and is limited to 1 Mbps throughput.  For more information on NetScaler VPX Express see my previous blog posts – NetScaler VPX Express is a must for all XenServer environments and NetScaler VPX Express is a must for all VMware environments.  NetScaler VPX Express is great for smaller environments, PoC environments, and Test/Development environments.

The NetScaler VPX Express can be upgraded for more throughput and to NetScaler Enterprise or Platinum Edition – pay as you grow with NetScaler VPX.  See the table below for NetScaler VPX offerings.

 The NetScaler VPX does have some performance limitations that are based on the hypervisors hardware.  The performance limitations are:

• Maximum HTTP throughput – 1Gbps
• Maximum compression – 750 Mbps
• Maximum Application Firewall – 500 Mbps
• Maximum SSL transactions/second – 500 Mbps
• Maximum SSL through put – 1Gbps

For more information on the NetScaler VPX see the NetScaler VPX Release 9.1 FAQ and the NetScaler VPX Getting Started Guide – Release 9.1. 

What are the differences between NetScaler MPX and NetScaler VPX?

The two main difference between NetScaler MPX and NetScaler VPX are system capacity and performance.  The NetScaler VPX virtual appliance doesn’t include hardware specifically designed to support SSL acceleration.  The NetScaler VPX virtual appliance can terminate sessions, but unlike NetScaler hardware appliances, the associated processing isn’t offloaded to dedicated hardware.  For more differences between NetScaler MPX and NetScaler VPX see NetScaler MPX vs. VPX – the finer differences  a very nice blog post by Rick Davis, a Citrite Application Networking Engineer and one of The Generation V bloggers.

When to use a NetScaler hardware appliance?

A NetScaler hardware appliance should be use when:

• High throughput and performance is needed
• A high volume of SSL Offload is needed
• More than 100 concurrent SSL VPN connections are needed
• FIPS is required
• Physical device security is needed

When to use a NetScaler VPX virtual appliance?

A NetScaler VPX virtual appliance should be for:

• Lab/test environments
• Development environments
• Datacenter in a box projects
• Processor intensive workloads
• Frequently moved applications
• Fast/remote deployments

Can NetScaler MPX hardware appliances and NetScaler VPX  virtual appliances be used together?

Yes they can.  NetScaler MPX hardware appliances and NetScaler VPX virtual appliances can be deployed together for centrally managed web application delivery.  NetScaler MPX hardware appliances can be used for deployments at the datacenter edge to handle demanding network-wide tasks.  NetScaler VPX virtual appliances can be used for deployments for app-by-app basis that are optimized for application specific demands.

As you can see there are uses for NetScaler hardware appliances, NetScaler virtual appliances, or a combination of both.  Every environment is different and performance of the NetScaler VPX virtual appliance can vary with the underlying hypervisor hardware.  All I can say is test and see what works for you.

If you have found this article interesting or if you have any other insights, please feel free to leave comments on this article.