Driving the Citrix Cloud REST API with PowerShell Guy Leech Freelance Consultant-cum-Developer Date 1 

Who is this Guy Leech person anyway? • 25+ years of hands-on working with Citrix & other EUC products • C/C++ developer prior to that • 1st ever code (BASIC on Commodore PET) written in 1980 (age 13)! • Vendor awards from Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Parallels • Wannabe comedian • @guyrleech 

Citrix Cloud CVAD REST API • Automate deployment, changes, etc using code to CVAD running in Citrix Cloud • If you can do it in the web console, you can do it via REST (and more) • REST API usage workflow • Authenticate • Get API client & store securely (once) • Generate bearer token (OAuth 2.0) • Do stuff • Get/Set/New/Remove • Not available on-premises • Use PowerShell cmdlets with CVAD ISO or Studio (not Remote PoSH SDK) 

Getting the Bearer Token • Create API Client in Identity & Access Management in cloud.com portal • Save csv file or client id and secret (securely!) • POST https://trust.citrixworkspacesapi.net//tokens/clients • Body contains ClientId & ClientSecret in JSON • JSON response contains 'token' • Add to headers for subsequent calls • Authorization = "CwsAuth Bearer " • Citrix-CustomerId = • Pass –SessionVariable and pass returned variable via –WebSession (cookies) 

Performing Operations aka Doing Stuff • RTFM • Form your URL • Form your body • Is a body required – generally not needed for queries • Hashtable | ConvertTo-Json • Invoke-RestMethod • Assign result to variable (if expecting output as per documentation) • Wrap in try/catch and catch exception – report & remediate – retry ? • Repeat previous steps as required • Watch for bearer token expiring (default 1 hour) • Respect rate limits (10 per second per customer) 

Using REST API instead of Citrix Remote PowerShell SDK • No pre-requisites such as the PowerShell SDK • Platform & coding language independent • Need to know the API calls, headers and parameters • Documentation is comprehensive • Calls may change but should be backwardly compatible • Keep the base URL in a variable so only needs changing in one place • No versioning like with Azure REST API calls • Easy to reuse code/knowledge for other REST APIs • Authentication is often different • Can use with PowerShell 7.x 

API Client Scope and Permissions • API clients in Citrix Cloud are always tied to one administrator and one customer • API client details are not visible to other administrators • To access more than one customer create API clients within each customer • API client gets same permissions as user creating it • Q. What happens when the person who set up your automation leaves? 

Potentially Useful Stuff • https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2021/10/18/announcing-remote-powershell-sdk-record-limits/ • https://developer.cloud.com/citrixworkspace/virtual-apps-and-desktops/cvad-rest-apis/docs/overview • https://github.com/guyrleech/Citrix/blob/master/CVAD%20REST.ps1 • Call rates are limited to 10 launches per second per customerId • Web search engines* *Unlikely to be Bing🙂 

No content