What You Need to Know About XenServer

olivier

@BRRABill I like use refurb parts for that, like https://www.servershop24.de/en/components/controller/sas/hp-smart-array-p400-raid-controller-256-mb-sas-pci-e-447029-001-low-profile/a-105422/

Unbeatable price/perf ratio.

wirestyle22

@BRRABill I did run into complications while trying to create an ISO Library. It seems pretty unintuitive to me.

mkdir -p /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

xe sr-create name-label=LocalISO type=iso device-config:location=/var/opt/xen/ISO_Store device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

cd /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

I then ran into issues locating the actual link so I could wget

I found this one eventually: http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/7/5/E/75EC4E54-5B02-42D6-8879-D8D3A25FBEF7/7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso?lcid=1033&cprod=WinSvr2

I didn't see any failure notifications. However, there was also no ISO's listed in the library.

I ran df -h to find disk usage and it didn't have enough space so I switched to my 8 TB GPT Partition.

cd /var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/

Then I went through the process of creating another directory. I moved it to the new ISO_Lib folder and ran this:

xe sr-create name-label=ISO_Lib type=iso device-config:location=/var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/ISO_Storage device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

To make it an ISO library. Nothing is listed in there. Is it me or this so much just to create local storage?

DustinB3403

@wirestyle22 said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@BRRABill I did run into complications while trying to create an ISO Library. It seems pretty unintuitive to me.

mkdir -p /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

xe sr-create name-label=LocalISO type=iso device-config:location=/var/opt/xen/ISO_Store device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

cd /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

I then ran into issues locating the actual link so I could wget

I found this one eventually: http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/7/5/E/75EC4E54-5B02-42D6-8879-D8D3A25FBEF7/7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso?lcid=1033&cprod=WinSvr2

I didn't see any failure notifications. However, there was also no ISO's listed in the library.

I ran df -h to find disk usage and it didn't have enough space so I switched to my 8 TB GPT Partition.

cd /var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/

Then I went through the process of creating another directory. I moved it to the new ISO_Lib folder and ran this:

xe sr-create name-label=ISO_Lib type=iso device-config:location=/var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/ISO_Storage device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

To make it an ISO library. Nothing is listed in there. Is it me or this so much just to create local storage?

The reason being that LOCAL repo's aren't supported, is that it literally takes nothing to share out a drive from a windows desktop and connect to it via XenCenter (or XO).

It's a 5 minute process.

olivier

@wirestyle22 You need to rescan the SR to find freshly downloaded ISOs.

edit: local share are not officially supported by Citrix, so you can do it but if you can use a NFS/SMB share somewhere, that's even better

wirestyle22

@DustinB3403 said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@wirestyle22 said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@BRRABill I did run into complications while trying to create an ISO Library. It seems pretty unintuitive to me.

mkdir -p /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

xe sr-create name-label=LocalISO type=iso device-config:location=/var/opt/xen/ISO_Store device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

cd /var/opt/xen/ISO_Lib

I then ran into issues locating the actual link so I could wget

I found this one eventually: http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/7/5/E/75EC4E54-5B02-42D6-8879-D8D3A25FBEF7/7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso?lcid=1033&cprod=WinSvr2

I didn't see any failure notifications. However, there was also no ISO's listed in the library.

I ran df -h to find disk usage and it didn't have enough space so I switched to my 8 TB GPT Partition.

cd /var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/

Then I went through the process of creating another directory. I moved it to the new ISO_Lib folder and ran this:

xe sr-create name-label=ISO_Lib type=iso device-config:location=/var/run/sr-mount/etc etc etc code/ISO_Storage device-config:legacy_mode=true content-type=iso

To make it an ISO library. Nothing is listed in there. Is it me or this so much just to create local storage?

The reason being that LOCAL repo's aren't supported, is that it literally takes nothing to share out a drive from a windows desktop and connect to it via XenCenter (or XO).

It's a 5 minute process.

Yeah but there isn't a single use case for local storage? Ever?

wirestyle22

@olivier said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@wirestyle22 You need to rescan the SR to find freshly downloaded ISOs.

edit: local share are not officially supported by Citrix, so you can do it but if you can use a NFS/SMB share somewhere, that's even better

How do you handle permissions? This is my first time

olivier

@wirestyle22 If you made the wget with root, no problem, XAPI is running as root too (and default perms in here should be OK). So after you Wget is done, just ls to be sure your ISO is here. Then, rescan the SR with the appropriate interface (Xen Orchestra or XenCenter).

wirestyle22

@olivier said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@wirestyle22 If you made the wget with root, no problem, XAPI is running as root too (and default perms in here should be OK). So after you Wget is done, just ls to be sure your ISO is here. Then, rescan the SR with the appropriate interface (Xen Orchestra or XenCenter).

I attempted a rescan with XC and nothing popped up. I'm not home right now to really go through it unfortunately. Maybe I'll configure remote access tonight so I can tinker. Everything for me currently is being run in root. Not trying to complicate my life too much yet

Francesco Provino

@wirestyle22 in truth, you can just create an LVM volume with a filesystem upon it, store the ISOs there and mount it as a SR. The real issue is that at the reboot XS7 will stop doing consistency check of LVM. That's totally repeatable.

olivier

That sound really overcomplicated to serve just some ISOs. I wonder if I won't offer a "public" NFS in read only with most popular ISO, a kind of ISO as a service

Francesco Provino

@olivier I think that the right way to provide a "templatized" VM is to customize a cloud OS image via libguestfs or similar tools, going through the whole installation process is just nonsense for VMs. Poor windows users…

olivier

@Francesco-Provino Solution is creating a template with CloudInit process, then Xen Orchestra can do the rest. See https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/full-cloudinit-power-in-xenserver/

BRRABill

My new take on XS is to not touch XS. It's like Fight Club.

The easy way for ISOs I found was...

a) set up a new Linux Mint VM
b) set up an anonymous share
c) add ISOs
d) done

Windows works, but it;s hard to do anonymous shares, I've always found. You could create a user, which I did initially, but I've since moved to a small Mint instance and haven't looked back.

Francesco Provino

@olivier or via cloudinit, exactly, I just forgot to add it.

olivier

@Francesco-Provino said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@olivier or via cloudinit, exactly, I just forgot to add it.

The thing is we already have CloudInit support, so it would be a shame to not using it

olivier

@BRRABill said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

My new take on XS is to not touch XS. It's like Fight Club.

The easy way for ISOs I found was...

a) set up a new Linux Mint VM
b) set up an anonymous share
c) add ISOs
d) done

Windows works, but it;s hard to do anonymous shares, I've always found. You could create a user, which I did initially, but I've since moved to a small Mint instance and haven't looked back.

That's a way to do it also yes. In general, I've got always a physical machine (eg for backup) with enough space to do that. Doesn't require much bandwidth and power to simply share ISOs.

wirestyle22

Thoughts @scottalanmiller ?

BRRABill

@olivier said

That's a way to do it also yes. In general, I've got always a physical machine (eg for backup) with enough space to do that. Doesn't require much bandwidth and power to simply share ISOs.

Yeah, just giving options.

There are many.

Anything that can share files would work. I just find sharing files anonymously through Windows maddening.

olivier

@BRRABill said in What You Need to Know About XenServer:

@olivier said

That's a way to do it also yes. In general, I've got always a physical machine (eg for backup) with enough space to do that. Doesn't require much bandwidth and power to simply share ISOs.

Yeah, just giving options.

There are many.

Anything that can share files would work. I just find sharing files anonymously through Windows maddening.

I have no idea, last time I tried it was 10 years ago.

BRRABill

@olivier said

I have no idea, last time I tried it was 10 years ago.

It's probably why you moved on!