What is LHC?

The IMA service running on each Presentation Server downloads the information it needs from the central data store into a local MDB database called the local host cache, or “LHC.” (The location of the local host cache is specified via a DSN referenced in the registry of the Presentation Server, at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Citrix\IMA\LHCDatasource\DataSourceName. By default this is a file called “Imalhc.dsn” and is stored in the same place as MF20.dsn.)
Each Presentation Server is smart enough to only download information from the data store that is relevant to it, meaning that the local host cache is unique for every server. Citrix created the local host cache for two reasons:

1. Permits a server to function in the absence of datastore connectivity.
2. Improves performance by caching information used by ICA Clients for enumeration and application resolution.

The LHC is an Access database (Imalhc.mdb) stored default in the path  “<ProgramFiles>\Citrix\Independent Management Architecture” folder.
LHC contained the following information:

1. All servers in the farm, and their basic information.
2. All applications published within the farm and their properties.
3. All Windows network domain trust relationships within the farm.
4. All information specific to itself. (product code, SNMP settings, licensing information)

The LHC is critical in a CPS environment. In fact, it’s the exclusive interface of the data store to the local server. The local server’s IMA service only interacts with the LHC. It never contacts the central data store except when it’s updating the LHC. If the server loses its connection to the central data store, there’s no limit to how long it will continue to function. (In MetaFrame XP, this is limited to 48 or 96 hours, but that was because the data store also store license information.) But today, the server can run forever from the LHC and won’t even skip a beat if the central connection is lost. In fact now you can even reboot the server when the central data store is down, and the IMA service will start from the LHC with out any problem. (Older versions of MetaFrame required a registry modification to start the IMA service from the LHC).

The LHC file is always in use when IMA service is running, so it’s not possible to delete it or anything. In theory it’s possible that this file could become corrupted, and if this happens I guess all sorts of weird things could happen to your server. If you think this is the case in your environment, you can stop the IMA service and run the command “dsmaint recreatelhc” to recreate the local host cache file, although honestly I don’t think this fixes anything very often. Local Host Cache is synchronised with the Data Store by the Zone Data Collector for every 30 minutes and it can also be configured through registry.

How to Refresh the Local Host Cache?
If the IMA service is currently running but published applications do not appear correctly in ICA Client application browsing, force a manual refresh of the local host cache by executing dsmaint refreshlhc from a command prompt on the affected server. This action forces the local host cache to read all changes immediately from the data store.
A discrepancy in the local host cache occurs only if the IMA service on a server misses a change event and is not synchronized correctly with the data store.