Updated Post: Citrix NetScaler Gateway 11.1 and StoreFront 3.6 Customization
In my last post Securing Citrix X1 StoreFront with Powershell I showed you how to use Powershell to import and bind your certificate to all your Citrix Delivery Controllers and StoreFront Servers. This is a requirement to enable SSL in all moving parts of your Citrix environment.
As explained in my post Citrix NetScaler Gateway and StoreFront Customization, it’s very hard to find information online that cover both parts of the customization. So let me show you how to customize the new X1 look on NetScaler and StoreFront.
The main files you want to start working with are located in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\StoreWeb\receiver\images\1x and 2x.
- ReceiverFullScreenBackground_46E559C0E6B5A27B.jpg = Background Image
- CitrixReceiver_WebScreen_CBE548FB8FEE049E.png = Login Page Logo
I don’t understand why Citrix name these files in this incredible strange way, but that’s probably another story. I could of course use CSS to change those, but I’m awaiting more information from Citrix instead of wasting my time digging into CSS classes.
The site Pexels provides a lot of great looking images that you can use without any complicated licenses.
In this example, I’m going to use the image below. The file has been downloaded, re-sized to 2560 x 1600 px and the size optimized.
Before you start, make sure to make a copy of C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix.
Let’s see how the new X1 StoreFront design look like out of the box.
Now let’s rename the above background image to ReceiverFullScreenBackground_46E559C0E6B5A27B.jpg and copy/paste it into C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\StoreWeb\receiver\images\2x.
That looks nice. Let’s change the Citrix Receiver logo to something else.
The login page logo is a 130 x 52 px transparent image. Rename your logo image to CitrixReceiver_WebScreen_CBE548FB8FEE049E.png and copy/paste it into C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\StoreWeb\receiver\images\1x.
The new X1 StoreFront let’s you customize some parts inside the console – Receiver for Web – Customize Website Appearance and Manage Featured App Groups.
Let’s change the logo and the background color.
The new Feature Apps Groups are pretty cool. I’m going to create 3 of those using the Application Category.
Now for the apps to show up I need to open Citrix Studio and edit the application properties.
Let’s take a look.
Since I used Application Category they also shows up as Folders.
Now that the internal StoreFront is customized, it’s time to to change the look of our NetScaler Gateway.
To complete the next step I need Putty and WinSCP so let us let Chocolatey install those automatically. Read more about in the post How To Use Chocolatey with MDT 2013.
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@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin |
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choco install putty choco install winscp |
Connect to the Netscaler GUI and navigate to NetScaler Gateway – Global Settings – Change Global Settings – Client Experience and set UI Theme to Green Bubble.
Now connect to your NetScaler with WinSCP. Copy the files bg_bubbles.jpg and logo_notagline.png to \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\media and ctxs.authentication.css to \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\css.
- bg_bubbles.jpg = Background Image
- logo_notagline.png = Login Page Logo
The new X1 Custom Login page will look like this. It’s not identical but close enough!
If you pay very good attention you’ll see that the green bar all the way at the left has been removed by my custom ctxs.authentication.css.
When you’re happy with your design connect to your NetScaler with Putty.
Run the following commands:
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cd /nsconfig cp ns.conf ns.conf.save mkdir /var/ns_gui_custom cd /netscaler tar -cvzf /var/ns_gui_custom/customtheme.tar.gz ns_gui/* |
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 then redo your customzations as shown above. The reason is that sometimes the AdminUI and EPA files changes together with the firmware upgrade.
Download:
Click here to download my sample files for Citrix NetScaler Gateway and X1 StoreFront Customization.
Resources:
For more X1 StoreFront Customization check out Richard Hayton on the Citrix blogs.
Great post thanks for that, While the inclusions of the title graphics etc are great in X1, Citrix do need to do is make this a whole lot easier as its still a big problem as far as I’m concerned.
I know EUC bods wear many hats and thats all part of the fun but customising the background images etc especially when this is as common a request as your ever going to get from a customer is still too time consuming. Especially when upgrading the NetScaler firmware or StoreFront/Web Interface software risks trashing it all and with Storefront often the small shading gif/JPG’s etc just look odd without a lot of work when customisations are applied. What I’ve always thought was needed small WYSIWYG editor thats released and updated with each new version of storefront or receiver and it just ties into the customisable bit of the GUI.
This might just say more about my ability with HTML/CSS than anything else but it just seems a basic request that is asked to be customised by 99% of customers and it still requires digging about in HTML/CSS files and obscure graphics file names in 2015!
Dale, you said it all, couldn’t agree more. All this was something we had in Web Interface, now maybe in StoreFront 3.0 !
Hi,
A friendly suggestion, set margin-left: to 0px on the #logonbox-innerbox { in ctxs.authentication.css to get rid of the greenbar hidden space that it looks on your screenshot that you got.
This will remove the size scroll on Chrome and IE as well.
Cheers
Awesome, gonna give it a shot and update the sample files.
Hello Eric,
Thanks for the post really helpful. Can you please let me know how can I create a custom logo like yours pointing to my domain?
Hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks,
Pavan
Just send me an email and I’ll get you in contact with my designer.
In regards to the green bar, you can also rename the file “VerticalGreenBarOnly.png” in the media folder. This will remove the green stuff, and just show a bar in the background color you selected.
However, that still leaves the scroll bar, so css adujstement is still needed
Thanks for sharing bar. Yeah you still need CSS for the scroll bar, but some might live with it.
These instructions do not seem to reflect the NetScaler 11 Structure.
ctxs.authentication.css to \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\css <– Does not exist on the new release of NetScaler 11
var\netscaler\gui\vpn only has Images,JS or Media
please update a solution for NS 11
How would you get this to work on the new NS version 11. it doesn’t have a \var\netscaler\gui\vpn\css folder only media, JS or images
Thanks, I’ll take a look, you might check this : http://blog.itvce.com/2015/06/29/configuring-unique-portal-themes-per-virtual-server-vserver-in-netscaler-11-unified-gateway-guest-blog-post-by-john-meek/
I’m also trying to create an ns_gui_custom theme on NetScaler 11 (in the same way I have done on 10.1 and 10.5).
Unfortunately, other than making customisations within the NetScaler admin GUI, which are somewhat limited, I can’t establish a way to create custom theme. Any pointers appreciated 🙂
Thanks Phil, I’ve not had time yet to dig into this, but we’ll talk to Jesse at Techsture in the Ask Eric podcast very soon.
After every netscaler upgrade I have experience problems with the NS Gateway layout.
I have removed the customization before I upgrade.
How will this be with the new customization feuture?
Is it possible to use some sort of iframe to put the logon box on a corporate web site? That way we vill not need to cusomize.
I guess that’s because you went from 10.x to the new 11.x. Let’s hope it stay more stable in feature releases in terms of customization.
upload your changes via a custom.css file into your theme. Save that file for future upgrades and then re-upload after an upgrade along with any other custom media on v11.
Thanks for sharing Alex.
Trond,
Perhaps you’ve come across this. NetScaler 11 and StoreFront 3.0 are released now, and they help you customize logo’s and custom themes.
I’ve got a great theme going on the NetScaler and SF, custom colors and logos, BUT, when I click logout when accessing via the NS Gateway URL, it sends me to the X1 default logout page which i can’t find. This happens no matter what theme you choose on the NetScaler.
When accessing StoreFront directly, logout redirects you to the logout page on the StoreFront. I was able to find the background image and change it to my theme. It doesn’t make any sense.