Citrix Netscaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization

In this blog post I want to share with you some great resources and how to do Citrix Netscaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization.

There is lots of blog post around, but not one that cover both customizations. Let’s get started.

At Citrix Synergy 2014 I attended the session of Web Interface / StoreFront guru Sam Jacobs. He has created some awesome source code which let you heavily customize StoreFront. Those CSS examples is also used by Netscaler Gateway, so the same user experience can be applied on both sides. You’ll find the link to the presentation and the source code at the end of this blog post.

Citrix Netscaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization

First off make a backup of C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\StoreWeb\contrib.

Then download my Citrix Netscaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization code and extract the files to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\StoreWeb\contrib.

Now head over to http://localhost/Citrix/StoreWeb and take a look at what we have achieved:

• Custom background color
• Custom font color
• Custom logos
• Custom plus sign to add apps
• Custom menu text
• Custom favicon
• Custom tag line
• Custom Copyright

So now that the configuration is done for StoreFront we want to customize Netscaler Gateway so we get the same user experience there.

Head over to your Netscaler Gateway – Change Global settings – Client Experience and change UI Theme to Green Bubble.

Now connect to your Netscaler with WinSCP. Copy the files bg_bubbles.jpg (background) and logo_notagline.png (logo) to \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\media and ctxs.authentication.css to \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\css.

Head over the external URL of your Netscaler Gateway and check the customization. When you’re happy with it connect to your Netscaler with Putty.

Run the following commands:

This creates the file customtheme.tar.gz which are used by Netscaler Gateway and also makes sure the Netscaler Gateway Customization is retained after reboot. The final step is to change UI Theme from Green Bubble to Custom in Netscaler Gateway – Change Global settings – Client Experience.

Netscaler Upgrade:

When you do a Netscaler firmware upgrade you need to switch back to Default or Green Bubble, upgrade the firmware and than redo your customzations as shown above. The reason are that sometimes the AdminUI and EPA files changes together with the firmware upgrade.

Resources:

• Migrating WI Customizations to StoreFront
• Customizing Receiver for Web in StoreFront 2.0
• Customizing Receiver for Web 2.5
• Customize Netscaler Gateway Logon Page

If you want to learn more about Citrix Netscaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization make sure you follow the blog posts from Feng Huang over at Citrix blogs.