Removing the Entry for an Horizon Connection Server Instance Using the ‑S Option

You can use the vdmadmin command with the -S option to remove the entry for a Horizon Connection Server instance from the Horizon configuration.

Syntax

vdmadmin -S [-b authentication_arguments] -r -s server

Usage Notes

To ensure high availability, Horizon allows you to configure one or more replica Horizon Connection Server instances in a Horizon Connection Server group. If you disable a Horizon Connection Server instance in a group, the entry for the server persists within the Horizon configuration.

To make the removal permanent, perform these tasks:

1. Uninstall the Horizon Connection Server instance from the Windows Server computer by running the Horizon Connection Server installer.
2. Remove the ADAM Instance VDMDS program from the Windows Server computer by running the Add or Remove Programs tool.
3. If the Horizon Connection Server belongs to a CPA federation, remove the ADAM Instance VDMDSG program from the Windows Server computer by running the Add or Remove Programs tool.
4. On another Horizon Connection Server instance, use the vdmadmin command with the -S option to remove the entry for the uninstalled Horizon Connection Server instance from the configuration.
5. If needed, reassign the Active Directory schema master role on the cluster. The schema master role is required for future Horizon Connection Server upgrades and installations.

   1. First, identify the node with the schema master role on the cluster. For instructions, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/identity/find-servers-holding-fsmo-role#determine-the-schema-fsmo-holder-in-a-forest.

      • If the Horizon Connection Server instance that you removed did not have the schema master role, skip the remaining steps of this procedure. You do not need to reassign the role and the removal procedure is now complete.
      • If the Horizon Connection Server instance that you removed had the schema master role, proceed to the next steps of this procedure.

   2. If the removed Horizon Connection Server instance had the schema master role, reassign the role to another node in the cluster.

      • To make the current node the schema master node on the cluster for a local LDAP instance, execute the following command.

        vdmadmin -X -seizeSchemaMaster
        

      • To make the current node the schema master node on the cluster for a global LDAP instance in a Cloud Pod Architecture federation, enter the following command.

        vdmadmin -X -seizeSchemaMaster -global
        

      For more information about the vdmadmin -X command, see Detecting and Resolving LDAP Entry and Schema Collisions Using the -X Option.

If you want to reinstall Horizon on the removed systems without replicating the Horizon configuration of the original group, restart all the Horizon Connection Server hosts in the original group before performing the reinstallation. This prevents the reinstalled Horizon Connection Server instances from receiving configuration updates from their original group.

Note: If you remove the Horizon Connection Server instance with the vdmadmin -S command without reassigning the schema master role and performing a clean uninstallation of LDAP instances on the server as described earlier, then you might accidentally remove the schema master node, which blocks future upgrades and installations of Horizon Connection Servers.

For information on recovering the Horizon Global AD LDS database from a backup, see KB 70906.

Options

The -soption specifies the NetBIOS name of the Horizon Connection Server instance to be removed.

Examples

Remove the entry for the Horizon Connection Server instance connsvr3.

vdmadmin -S -r -s connsvr3