Capturing and analyzing launch.ica

Just a short one. I thought I’d post this because recently I had to do this exact task to troubleshoot a Citrix connection issue. It made me again realise how important it can be to get a look at the launch.ica file and view connection details to help diagnose a fault.

The launch.ica file can be saved (logged) to a location of your choice by:

1. Launch RegEdit.
2. Navigate to:
   • 64bit – HKLM -> Software -> Wow6432Node-> Citrix -> ICA Client -> Engine -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Modules -> Logging.
   • 32bit – HKLM -> Software -> Citrix -> ICA Client -> Engine -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Modules -> Logging.
3. Set string value LogICAFile=true
4. Set string value LogFile=C:\ICA\ica.log

Alternatively you can find the launch.ica file in your Temporary Internet files folder. Copy this file to an alternate location and replace the .ica extension with .log.

Now on opening the captured file, you can view the IP address the client uses to attempt connecting to a session. In environments where connections are proxied etc. this can be useful to determine where traffic is going.

In the event that firewalls were blocking ports inbound or outbound, we now have an IP to test against with telnet. We can then attempt to telnet to the IP noted above using ports 1494/2598.

You can even identify that the generated ICA file contains the wrong IP address, which explains the failures.