Determining a Machine Catalog’s master image, snapshot and VMware vSphere datacenter with PowerShelll for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

One of the most common administration questions I get asked for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is how to determine the master image currently being used for a Machine Catalog. Those familiar with the Web Studio will be familiar that you can select the Machine Catalog in the administration console:

Then click on the Template Properties tab, then review the name under Disk Image to determine the snapshot being used. In the example below, the snapshot being used is named Citrix_XD_Dev Desktops. However, this does not tell the administrator the actual virtual machine name that is being used:

To retrieve the details of the master image currently being used for the Machine Catalog, launch the PowerShell console and connect to Citrix Cloud with:

asnp citrix*

Get-XDAuthentication

Then proceed to use the follow cmdlet to display the details of the Machine Catalog:

Get-ProvScheme -ProvisioningSchemeName “Dev Desktops”

**We have used the Dev Desktops as the Machine Catalog for this example.

The virtual machine used for the machine catalog is provided in the MasterImageVM setting:

MasterImageVM : XDHyp:HostingUnitsWorkspaceSTGMasterImage Feb 2020 v1.vmCitrix_XD_Dev Desktops.snapshot

With the details of the virtual machine determined, we can look for the VMware vSphere datacenter it is located in by further drilling into the details of the virtual machine by using the CD command as such:

CD “XDHyp:HostingUnitsWorkspaceSTGMasterImage Feb 2020 v1.vm”

Then use the DIR command to list the details:

The setting that provides the datacenter is ObjectPath:

ObjectPath: /TechHall.datacenter/Desktops.cluster/MasterImage Feb 2020 v1.vm/Citrix_XD_Dev Desktops.snapshot

The datacenter in this example is named TechHall.

Hope this helps anyone looking for how to retrieve the details of a machine catalog within Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.