Part 1 | Installing VMware Horizon View 5.x Connection Server – Step-by-Step guide

VMware Horizon™ (with View) delivers virtualized and remote desktops and applications through a single platform and supports end users with access to all of their Windows and online resources through one unified workspace.

VMware Horizon View series:

• Part 1 – Install VMware View 5.x Connection Server
• Part 2 – Install  VMware View5.x Replica Server
• Part 3 – Install VMware View 5.x Security Server
• Part 4 – Install VMware View Composer
• Part 5 – Install VMware View 5.x Transfer Server
• Part 6 – Install VMware View Agent

View Connection Sever (CS) is the connection broker server in the Horizon View suite. Part of the CS is the View Administrator, which is the GUI management console used for the VDI management.
Before going for the step-by-step installation guide we should consider the minimum and recommended hardware requirements. At Table.1 you can find the requirements for View Connection server, View Replica server and View Security server. In different design scenarios you might want to deploy several servers for achieving high availability and load balancing.
Table.1

The recommended memory size for View CS is 10GB if you plan to deploy and manage more than 50 virtual desktops. This recommendation is coming from the JVM heap size. If you initially assigned less than 10GB of RAM to your connection server the JVM heap size will be 512 to 1024MB which is not enough for high number of managed virtual desktops. In that case you will have to remove your View CS, install more memory and install again the CS. Fortunately this has been changed in View 5.3 and higher, where the JVM heap size is automatically adjusted with the View CS start up. To avoid any performance and capacity issues we recommend installing at least 10GB of memory to your CS before installing Horizon View 5.x.

Supported Operation Systems

Table.2

Let’s begin with the installation

First of all you must have downloaded the installation media accessible from the View CS server. If you do not have it, you can download it from the VMware download page

1. Run the View Connection installer.In our case we are going to use VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-5.2.0-987719, but the guide is compatible also with installation of View 5.3.x and to some extends to VMware Horizon View 6.x.
2. Welcome Wizard where you can verify the version which you are going to install.Click Next to continue…
3. License Agreement. Read and select I accept to continue and click Next
4. Select the destination folder for the installation. We recommend to use the default unless you don’t have a good reason not to. Click Next to continue…
5. First installation in every View Pod must be the View Standard Server. We are going to cover all types of installation in our future blog articles. Choose the View Standard Server and click Next to continue…
6. Now you must enter a recovery password which is used to protect the regular backups which View CS is doing on a regular basis (every midnight by default). You will need this password in case you have to recover your View CS after a server crash or disaster recovery. Click Next to continue…
7. If you have Windows Firewall turned On, we recommend to leave the default option. You are also provided with information what modification will be made on the Windows Firewall settings. If you use physical firewalls and Windows Firewall is not in use, you should choose Do not configure Windows Firewall. Click Next to continue…
8. Two options here. If you want only your local View CS administrators group to be able to login and manage the View Administrator portal, then you must choose the first option – Authorize the local Administrator group. You can add a Domain group and assigne administrator rights at later point of time. If you have already prepared a Domain group you can simply specify it using the second option. You are also provided with information with the formats which you can use defining the administrator domain group or user. Using Groups instead of individual user is a general recommendation when you work with domain objects. Click Next to continue…
9. If your company’s security policy does not conflict with sharing encrypted and anonymous information with VMware, we recommend participating in the program and helping for improving the View products. For this purpose you will have to select the description which best describes your company. If you don’t want to participate, just Uncheck the box and click Next to Continue…
10. The last step before the installation begins is to confirm by clicking Install…

If the installation is successful you must get screen like that

We recommend reading the readme file. It doesn’t contain only information about the installation but for the version of Horizon View 5.x in general.

If you use Windows Firewall and chose the automatic Windows Firewall configuration after installation completes you can verify what is changed on its configuration. Here are the results:

Outbound rules

Inbound Rules

The newly installed services are:

Even it is not required, we recommend rebooting the server and verifying that all the services are being run automatically.

To be sure that the installation is fully successful you can login to the View Administrator console from the shortcut on the server desktop or using https://ViewCS_address/admin using an ID from member of the domain group defined during the installation (Point 8)

View Administrator supports the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer 8
• Internet Explorer 9
• Internet Explorer 10 (from a Windows 8 system in Desktop mode)
• Firefox 6 and later releases

With installed Adobe Flash Player 10 or newer.

References:

VMware Horizon View Installation

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Nikolay Nikolov

VDI Engineer

Nikolay has 9 years work experience in IT and 5 of them in the Virtualization technologies mainly based on VMware products. Currently works as VDI Engineer at MSD IT Global Innovation Center and he is an ex-member of VMware CoE at IBM. He holds VCIX6-DCV, VCIX6-DTM and VCP on DCV, DTM, NV and Cloud, Nutanix NPP certificate and also Master Degree of Computer Systems and Networks. Honored with vExpert 2015/2016 by VMware and Nutanix Technology Champion 2016/2017.

Latest posts by Nikolay Nikolov (see all)

• Build a vRealize Orchestrator 7 (vRO) Cluster - February 13, 2017
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 – Install and Configure - November 16, 2016
• Nutanix Upgrade fails at 93% - August 18, 2016