Combine Storefront and Web Interface on same server
Scenario:
Two storefront 2.5 servers running and delivering apps for our users via an external netscaler gateway services.
Internally however all users still have the PNAgent / Citrix Online Plug In verion 12.1 – connecting to a citrix Web interface 5.4 site.
The Storefront legacy support works – but each and every application the end user has access to is displayed regardless of the published app settings.
Other Services settings like the server shortcut management, session options, workspace control etc are all gone and non confgurable when usint the Storefront ‘Legacy’ support.
Web Interface (honouring Citrix Published Settings)
Storefront Legacy (Ignoring published settings and displaying ALL Apps the user has access too)
(some app names obviously edited out for privacy)
So we are unable to simply change the end users ICA Client to point to the https://storefront/Store/PNAgent/Config.xml as all their shortcuts in the start menu would appear and any icons published to the users desktop would disappear (this support just doesnt exist for storefront legacy support)
2 steps forward, 10 backward
Most tech geeks couldnt care less about shortcuts and end users will get used to it, but its these nice to have features and granularity of control that make the difference between a working solution and a great solution.
The end solution:
We decided to simply combine Storefront and Web Interface on the same server(s)
We wanted to use the new storefront servers as they were already load balanced behind an inside HA pair of netscalers
We wanted to retire the existing Web interface servers as they were running 2003 server, werent patched, running on ageing harwdare etc
The installations dont get in the way of each other, in fact you can run the storefront AND the webinterface services sites on the same server side by side! The only thing that doesn’t seem to work (once they are installed together) is setting the default store for the Storefront legacy site configuration (so if you have more than one store forget it)
Tested Versions: Storefront 2.5; Web Interface 5.4
Ollie
23 August 2015Hello there, nice article. I just wanted to ask, did you have to change the ports or are they both running on port 80? I configured LB in our Netscaler and when I call the LB from the browser it calls the Web Interface store, I realise WI is the default but I want it to call the Storefront interface, if I change the default website in IIS will it affect WI? Please clarify. Cheers