XCP-NG

Welcome to the XCP-NG Home Page on the MSLS Partner's BookStack Wiki!

Explore the world of XCP-NG, the powerful and open-source virtualization platform, right here on our dedicated home page. Whether you're a seasoned IT professional or a curious enthusiast, you'll find a wealth of information and resources to help you master virtualization, optimize your infrastructure, and enhance your virtualized environment.

Intro

XCP-ng is a high performance enterprise level virtualization platform with a rich ecosystem.

Intro

About XCP-NG

XCP-ng is a high performance enterprise level virtualization platform with a rich ecosystem.

Originally based on XenServer (opens new window)(now Citrix Hypervisor (opens new window)), it's the result of massive cooperation between individuals and companies, to deliver a product without limits. No restrictions on features and every bit available on GitHub!

Visit the main website to learn more: https://xcp-ng.org(opens new window)

#Overview

TIP

Those videos are made independently by Lawrence Systems / PC Pickup, thanks for bringing quality content like this! YouTube channel(opens new window)

Here is some content explaining XCP-ng in detail:

About the project itself, please see the project page.

#XCP-ng comparing to other products

#vs VMware

#vs Proxmox

#vs Xen vs XenServer vs KVM vs Proxmox

TIP

No flamewar! There are no miracle solutions, but only solutions adapted to your usage. We truly respect all other virtualization platforms!

Intro

Useful commands in the XCP-ng Command Line Interface (CLI)

XCP-NG Useful Commands

Here are some useful commands in the XCP-ng Command Line Interface (CLI) that can help you manage and interact with your virtualization environment:

 

 

1. Listing VMs and Hosts:

xe vm-list

List all hosts:

xe host-list

 

 

2. VM Operations:

xe vm-start vm=<VM UUID>

 

xe vm-shutdown vm=<VM UUID>

 

xe vm-reboot vm=<VM UUID>

 

xe vm-suspend vm=<VM UUID>

 

xe vm-reset-powerstate uuid=******* --force

 

 

3. Host Operations:

xe host-reboot host=<Host UUID>

 

xe host-shutdown host=<Host UUID>

 

xe host-disable host=<Host UUID>

 

 

4. Snapshot Management:

xe vm-snapshot vm=<VM UUID> new-name-label=<Snapshot Name>


 

xe vm-revert-to-snapshot snapshot=<Snapshot UUID>


 

xe snapshot-list vm=<VM UUID>

 


 

5. Storage Operations:

xe sr-list

 

xe sr-scan

 

 

6. Networking:

xe pif-list host=<Host UUID>


 

xe vif-list vm=<VM UUID>


 


 

7. Resource Pool Operations:

List resource pools:

xe pool-list

 

xe pool-create name-label=<Pool Name>

 

 

8. Performance Monitoring:

xe vm-param-list uuid=<VM UUID> | grep guest-metrics

 

 

9. Logs and Diagnostics:

less /var/log/xensource.log


 

less /var/log/xensource/vm-logs/<VM UUID>.log

 

 

These are just a few examples of the commands you can use to manage your XCP-ng environment. Be sure to refer to the official XCP-ng documentation for more details and command options specific to your version and setup. Always exercise caution when using CLI commands, especially in production environments.



 

 

 

 

Compute and GPU Passthough

This section is dedicated to compute related things, from Xen to GPU/vGPU or PCI passthrough

Compute and GPU Passthough

Compute and GPU

PCI Passthrough

 

 

#0. Prerequisites

WARNING

Ensure VT-d/IOMMU Support Is Enabled

 

In order to use PCI passthrough your host system must have VT-d/IOMMU functionality enabled. This should be more commonly enabled by default on enterprise hardware than on consumer hardware. It can be enabled in the BIOS/UEFI of systems with CPUs and chipsets which support it. For Intel platforms the feature is typically referred to as VT-d (Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O); on AMD platforms it is typically listed as IOMMU or AMD-Vi. Please note that this is not the same as VT-x/AMD-v virtualisation support, and so these options are often listed separately.

Consult your system or motherboard manual for instructions on where to find the setting in your BIOS/UEFI. In addition, system BIOS updates may reset the feature to its default state, which may require you to re-enable it.

If you attempt to perform PCI passthrough on a system which does not have VT-d/IOMMU enabled, you may encounter the following error when you start the target virtual machine:

Internal error: xenopsd internal error: Device.PCI.Cannot_add(_, _)

WARNING

You may not be able to passthrough USB controllers

Internal error: xenopsd internal error: Cannot_add(0000:00:1d.0, Xenctrlext.Unix_error(30, "1: Operation not permitted"))

and an error in /var/log/xen/hypervisor.log

[2020-08-22 10:09:03] (XEN) [  297.542134] [VT-D] It's disallowed to assign 0000:08:00.0 with shared RMRR at 7ba77000 for Dom32753.
[2020-08-22 10:09:03] (XEN) [  297.542136] d[IO]: assign (0000:08:00.0) failed (-1)

This indicates that your device is using RMRR (opens new window). Intel IOMMU does not allow DMA to these devices (opens new window)and therefore PCI passthrough is not supported.

 

 

#1. Find your devices ID (B/D/F (opens new window)) on the PCI bus using one of the following methods:

Method 1: List PCI Devices with lspci

This method is the easiest way to find devices.

[root@xen ~]# lspci
...
04:01.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 05)

Method 2: List System Device Classes with find

This method works best for finding the device ID by class. The example below the class is net and shows how to find the device ID of a specific network interface.

[root@xen ~]# find /sys/class/net -exec readlink {} +
../../devices/virtual/net/lo
../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:04:01.0/net/eth1

 

 

#2. Tell XCP-ng not to use this device ID for Dom0

Add the xen-pciback.hide parameter to the kernel boot parameters:

/opt/xensource/libexec/xen-cmdline --set-dom0 "xen-pciback.hide=(0000:04:01.0)"

You can hide multiple devices. If you wanted to add another device at 00:19.0 just append it to the parameter.

/opt/xensource/libexec/xen-cmdline --set-dom0 "xen-pciback.hide=(0000:04:01.0)(0000:00:19.0)"

To remove any passthrough devices from dom0:

/opt/xensource/libexec/xen-cmdline --delete-dom0 xen-pciback.hide

 

TIP

This kernel parameter is not retained when you upgrade an XCP-ng host using the installation ISO. Remember to re-do this step after the upgrade.

 

 

#3. Reboot the XCP-ng host

[root@xen ~]# reboot

 

 

#4. Check with xl pci-assignable-list on CLI

[root@xen ~]# xl pci-assignable-list
0000:04:01.0

 

#5. Put this PCI device 'into' your VM

[root@xen ~]# xe vm-param-setother-config:pci=0/0000:04:01.0uuid=<vm uuid>

You can also pass through multiple devices. If you wanted to pass through another device at 00:19.0 just append it to the parameter.

[root@xen ~]# xe vm-param-setother-config:pci=0/0000:04:01.0,0/0000:00:19.0uuid=<vm uuid>

 

#6. Start your VM and be happy 😃

[root@xen ~]# xe vm-start uuid=<vm uuid>

 

 

 

#GPU Passthrough

To passthrough a complete graphics card to a VM (not virtualize it into multiple virtual vGPUs, which is different, see the vGPU section below), just follow the regular PCI passthrough instructions, no special steps are needed. Most Nvidia and AMD video cards should work without issue.

TIP

Previously, Nvidia would block the use of gaming/consumer video cards for passthrough (the Nvidia installer would throw an Error 43 when installing the driver inside your VM). They lifted this restriction in 2021 with driver R465 and above, so be sure to use the latest driver. Details from Nvidia here.(opens new window)

#vGPU

#NVIDIA vGPU

WARNING

Due to a proprietary piece of code in XenServer, XCP-ng doesn't have (yet) support for NVIDIA vGPUs.

#MxGPU (AMD vGPU)

AMD GPU are trivial using industry standard.
Version 2.0 of the mxgpu iso should work on any 8.X version of XCP-ng

  1. Enable SR-IOV in the server's BIOS
  2. Install XCP-ng
  3. Download Citrix XenServer from AMD's Drivers & Support page. (Currently version 2.0.0 for XenServer 8.1)
  4. Copy the mxgpu-2.0.0.amd.iso to the host
  5. Install the supplemental pack:
cd /tmp
xe-install-supplemental-pack mxgpu-2.0.0.amd.iso

 

  1. Reboot the XCP-ng
  2. Assign an MxGPU to the VM from the VM properties page. Go to the GPU section. From the Drop down choose how big of a slice of the GPU you want on the VM and click OK

Start the VM and log into the guest OS and load the appropriate guest driver from AMD's Drivers & Support page.

Known working cards:

 

 

#USB Passthrough

TIP

There's no need to alter any files manually as some older guides suggest

It's fairly easy using the xe CLI. First use xe pusb-list to list all the physical USB devices on your host available for passthrough:

[root@xenserver ~]# xe pusb-list
uuid ( RO)            : 10fbec89-4472-c215-5d55-17969b473ee6
            path ( RO): 2-1.1
       vendor-id ( RO): 0781
     vendor-desc ( RO): SanDisk Corp.
      product-id ( RO): 5591
    product-desc ( RO):
          serial ( RO): 4C530001151223117134
         version ( RO): 2.10
     description ( RO): SanDisk Corp._4C530001151223117134

Find your USB device there, and note the uuid. Then use that uuid to enable passthrough for it:

[root@xenserver ~]# xe pusb-param-set uuid=10fbec89-4472-c215-5d55-17969b473ee6 passthrough-enabled=true

This will create a usb-group containing this USB device. We need to find the uuid of that group, so we use the usb-group-list command, specifying the physical USB uuid we got in step one:

[root@xenserver ~]# xe usb-group-list PUSB-uuids=10fbec89-4472-c215-5d55-17969b473ee6
uuid ( RO)                : 1f731f6a-6025-8858-904d-c98548f8bb23
name-label ( RW): Group of 0781 5591 USBs
name-description ( RW):

Note the uuid of this usb-group, then use it in the following command to attach this USB device to your desired VM. Remember to first shut down the target VM as hot-plug for USB passthrough is not supported:

xe vusb-create usb-group-uuid=<usb_group_uuid> vm-uuid=<vm_uuid>

So using the examples above, it would look like:

xe vusb-create usb-group-uuid=1f731f6a-6025-8858-904d-c98548f8bb23 vm-uuid=4feeb9b2-2176-b69d-b8a8-cf7289780a3f

Finally, start the target guest VM:

[root@xenserver ~]# xe vm-start uuid=<vm_uuid>

Note: If you get a message containing internal error when trying to start the VM after assigning it a USB device, try the following command to ensure its platform:usb parameter is set correctly:

xe vm-param-set uuid=<vm_uuid> platform:usb=True

In the future if you ever need to unplug the virtual USB device from your VM, or remove and unassign it completely, find the uuid of the virtual USB device by running xe vusb-list. Then use the uuid of the virtual USB device in one or both of the following commands:

xe vusb-unplug uuid=<vusb_uuid>
xe vusb-destroy uuid=<vusb_uuid>

 

 

#Passing through Keyboards and Mice

xcp-ng host uses usb-policy.conf at /etc/xensource/usb-policy.conf with ALLOW and DENY rules for different classes of usb devices. The default file contains Mice and Keyboards with DENY rules. You can edit this file to allow these devices (and any other ones similarly).

Once edited, run the following command to refresh:

/opt/xensource/libexec/usb_scan.py -d

Then run

xe pusb-scan host-uuid=<host_uuid>

VM & Guest Tools

This section guides you through installing an agent on the VM for a better integration with XC-NG

VM & Guest Tools

VM & Guest Tools

VM

#All VMs

#Dynamic Memory

Using Dynamic Memory Control (DMC) can be a good way to reduce your memory consumption, but you have to be careful: during live migration of a VM, XCP-ng will automatically reduce the VM memory to it's minimal settings and this can cause VM crash if it's not ready to function with this smaller amount of RAM.

We recommand you check your VM settings to verify if dynamic memory has been enabled. In Xen Orchestra, the Advanced tab of your VM will display the memory limits, in the "VM limits" section:

If dynamic min is equal to dynamic max - as displayed in the screenshot - then dynamic memory is disabled. If dynamic min < dynamic max, then make sure your VM is able to fully function with as little RAM as defined in dynamic min.

#Use a VNC client

  1. Connect to a XCP-ng server using SSH, then execute this command with the VM UUID to join:
xe vm-list params=dom-id,resident-on uuid=<VM_UUID>

For example:

xe vm-list params=dom-id,resident-on uuid=b2632c6a-8c0c-2fcc-4f1f-5b872733f58c
resident-on ( RO)    : 888254e8-da05-4f86-ad37-979b8d6bad04
         dom-id ( RO): 2
  1. Then, check you are on the host where the VM is currently running using the host UUID:
xe pif-list management=true params=IP host-uuid=888254e8-da05-4f86-ad37-979b8d6bad04
IP ( RO)    : 172.16.210.15

If not, use this IP to create an SSH connection to the right host.

  1. Ensure socat is installed and execute this command with the DOM ID got earlier and a free TCP port:
socat TCP-LISTEN:<TCP_PORT_TO_USE> UNIX-CONNECT:/var/run/xen/vnc-<DOM_ID>

What have we done? We exposed a UNIX domain socket (which allows us to connect to the VM using VNC) directly over TCP.

  1. Fine, now open a new shell, and on your local machine create a SSH tunnel with a free TCP port:
ssh -L <LOCAL_PORT>:localhost:<REMOTE_PORT> root@<HOST_IP>
  1. Finally, start the client, for example vncviewer:
vncviewer localhost:<LOCAL_PORT>

#Windows VMs

#Manage screen resolution

#Bios VM

For a Bios VM, screen resolution can be managed directly through the OS:

#UEFI VM

For a UEFI VM, you will need to set up your resolution in the UEFI settings of the VM. For that you first will need to enter the VM UEFI setup:

#Guest tools

XCP-ng needs guest tools to be installed in the VMs in order to communicate with the guest operating system. This brings better performance and is required for various features.

In short: always install the guest tools to your VMs.

The tools are made of two main components:

#Linux

Xen guest drivers have been built-in in the Linux kernel for many years. All currently supported Linux distributions include them.

So all we need is to install the management agent, which comes either as a systemd or as a sysvinit service, depending on the Linux distribution. The service is usually named xe-linux-distribution.

Those guest tools can be installed:

#Install from the distro's online repositories

Distros may provide guest tools for XCP-ng and Citrix Hypervisor in their own repositories. When they don't, or when the packages are outdated, we enjoin you to contact them to ask for new packages. Upstream sources are available at https://github.com/xenserver/xe-guest-utilities.

Distros often have policies that forbid enabling new services by default, so most of the time the steps are:

#CentOS and Fedora

Enable the EPEL repository in the VM, then:

yum install xe-guest-utilities-latest

The service is not enabled by default, so enable it and start it:

systemctl enable xe-linux-distribution
systemctl start xe-linux-distribution
#Alpine

Enable the community repository in /etc/apk/repositories, then:

apk add xe-guest-utilities

The service is not enabled by default, so enable it and start it:

rc-update add xe-guest-utilities
rc-service xe-guest-utilities start
#Ubuntu
apt install xe-guest-utilities

The last known package was published for the LTS release Focal Fossa. It was dropped from more recent releases. We enjoin you to contact ubuntu packagers for them to start packaging it again. In the meantime you can install the guest tools from our guest tools ISO image, as explained below.

Feel free to add other distros to the above list if they provide the tools in their repositories.

#Install from the guest tools ISO

#"Supported" Linux distributions

For distros that are supported by the install.sh script (Debian, CentOS, RHEL, SLES, Ubuntu...), the process is:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh
umount /dev/cdrom
#Derived Linux distributions

If your Linux distribution is not recognized by the installation script but derives from one that is supported by the script, you can override the detection and force the tools to install by using:

bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh -d $DISTRO -m $MAJOR_VERSION

Examples:

## derived from debian 10
bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh -d debian -m 10
## derived from RHEL or CentOS 8
bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh -d rhel -m 8

The likeliness for the installation to work correctly will depend on how much those distros differ from their "parent".

#Other Linux distributions

For the remaining Linux distributions, mount the guest tools ISO as described above, then look for the xe-guest-utilities_*_all.tgz archive. Copy its contents on the system in /etc and /usr. It contains a System V init script by default but there's also a systemd unit file available on the ISO (xe-linux-distribution.service).

See also Contributing below.

#Specific cases
#openSUSE Leap 15.2 with transactional-updates

For the xe-daemon to start it is necessary that insserv is installed on the system. To make sure that is the case run

sudo transactional-uptdates pkg install insserv-compat

and as good measure reboot if they weren't already installed.

To install the guest tools open up the chroot environment with

sudo transactional-updates shell

and mount the ISO like with every other derived distro

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh -d sles -m 15
umount /dev/cdrom

To exit the chroot cleanly you have to kill the xe-daemon process that may have been automatically started. Otherwise you end up with a corrupted snapshot and transactional-updates will fail.

And again reboot the system to go to your newest snapshot.

After the reboot enable the service and start it with

systemctl enable xe-linux-distribution.service
systemctl start xe-linux-distribution.service

#Update the guest tools

It's a good habit, and may be even required in some cases (that would then be described in the Release Notes, to update the guest tools to their latest version when your XCP-ng hosts are updated.

Depending on the situation, just update from your distribution's online repositories, or follow the above installation process again.

#FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a 30-year-old operating system used widely to run all sorts of systems and has served as the basis for a number of operating systems, including MacOS, pfSense, and FreeNAS. The Xen kernel modules are built and distributed in the GENERIC kernel, so if you haven't customised or recompiled your kernel, the drivers will be present.

To communicate with the hypervisor, you need to install two ports (opens new window):

The install.sh script on the guest tools ISO does not yet support FreeBSD, so there is no point in mounting the guest tools ISO on a FreeBSD VM.

To manually install xe-guest-utilities from a package (opens new window)you can run:

pkg install xen-guest-tools xe-guest-utilities
service xenguest start

By default the xe-daemon will run if FreeBSD detects the Xen hypervisor at boot. If that autodetection fails for some reason, you can force it to try by putting xenguest_enable=YES in your rc.conf file: sysrc xenguest_enable=YES.

Run service xenguest [stop|start|restart] to respectively stop, start, or restart the xe-daemon.

#OpenBSD

On OpenBSD, the xen drivers are also already part of the kernel. The install.sh script doesn't support OpenBSD, but there are ways to install the management agent anyway.

TIP

For OpenBSD search the forum (opens new window). See for example this thread (opens new window).

#FreeNAS/TrueNAS

FreeNAS is a locked-down version of FreeBSD, with many packages disabled to ensure a more stable environment for the fileserver. xe-guest-utilities is part of the packages that are not available in FreeNAS. But because it's based on FreeBSD, the packages from that OS can be installed, at your own risk. This is not a big issue for this particular package, because it's a leaf in the chain of dependencies - nothing in FreeNAS depends on it.

To install it on versions 11 or higher, until version 12.0-U1 of TrueNAS that includes it as default, follow these steps.

  1. Enable the FreeBSD repo first:

    # sed -i '' 's/enabled: no/enabled: yes/' /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf

    If you are using FreeNAS v11.2 or higher, you also have to disable the local package repository to avoid an issue in that particular release and that may affect later versions (opens new window)before running pkg install:

    # sed -i '' 's/enabled: yes/enabled: no/' /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/local.conf

  2. Create a temporary directory and move into it:

    # mkdir /tmp/repo
# cd /tmp/repo

  3. Fetch the required packages. A directory All will be created and you will find the packages with their current versions under there:

    # pkg fetch -o /tmp/repo/ xen-guest-tools
# pkg fetch -o /tmp/repo/ xe-guest-utilities

  4. Add the downloaded packages, without their dependencies:

    # pkg add -M All/xen-guest-tools-4.14.0.txz
# pkg add -M All/xe-guest-utilities-6.2.0_3.txz

    The versions reported here are just the current version and they maybe different in your installation.

  5. Revert the repos to their original settings to avoid surprises down the road. The second command should be run just if you disabled the local repo in step 1:

    # sed -i '' 's/enabled: yes/enabled: no/' /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
# sed -i '' 's/enabled: no/enabled: yes/' /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/local.conf

    A restart of the VM will perform a reset of these files to their original settings too.

  6. Once the package is installed, you need to tell FreeNAS to start the xe-daemon process when starting:

    1. Go to Tasks -> Init/Shutdown Script
    2. Create a new task with the following settings:
      • Type: Command
      • Command: /usr/local/sbin/xe-daemon -p /var/run/xe-daemon.pid &
      • When: Pre Init
      • Enabled: Checked

  7. Reboot. If you do not plan to reboot the VM, you can start the daemon manually running the command /usr/local/sbin/xe-daemon -p /var/run/xe-daemon.pid &. After you'll see a FreeBSD icon in your VM list on Xen Orchestra, and you can restart/shutdown the VM properly from the Web UI.

More insights and options are available in this issue (opens new window)or this issue (opens new window).

#Windows

Windows guests need both the device drivers and the management agent.

#Citrix tools vs XCP-ng tools

There exists two different set of tools that you can use on your VMs: the official tools from Citrix Hypervisor, or the fully open-source tools from XCP-ng. Both work well. The important point is not to mix them in the same VM.

Citrix tools:

XCP-ng tools:

It's now up to you to choose.

#XCP-ng Windows Guest Tools

Drivers built by the XCP-ng community.

Download: https://github.com/xcp-ng/win-pv-drivers/releases(opens new window)

Stability and testing status: Windows guest tools community testing (opens new window).

#How to know if tools are already installed and working

The VM needs to be running for this test.

#From Xen Orchestra

You can see this information in the General tab of the VM view.

More detailed information can also be found in the Advanced tab.

#From command line
#Installing on fresh installed Windows
#Prerequisite: Disable "Windows Update tools"

The first step, before the VM creation and first start, is to make sure than Windows Update is not going to install Citrix tools automatically at first boot. This behaviour is governed by the "Windows Update tools" parameter in a VMs advanced view. It must be off.

Before creating the VM:

Before starting the VM:

If you already started the VM with the option on, then the Citrix drivers have been installed automatically. Restart from scratch or see below how to remove them.

Tip: you can also check the value of the parameter from the command line.

xe vm-param-get param-name=has-vendor-device uuid={VM-UUID}

True means that it's active, False that it isn't. It needs to be False.

#Install the XCP-ng drivers
  1. snapshot before just in case
  2. unpack the ZIP file
  3. start setup.exe
  4. follow the install wizard

Note: Restart can take a while if your windows is currently updating. Restart only occurs after windows has the updates finished.

  1. after restart one of two messages should pop up
    • request for restart <- just restart!
    • Management Agent installed successfully <- enjoy 😃
#Upgrade from Citrix ®️ XenServer ®️ client tools

Our installer is not able currently to cleanly uninstall Citrix tools. Citrix tools' uninstaller itself isn't either: it leaves various things behind.

So we need to perform a complete manual clean-up of the tools:

⚠️ In any case, first disable "Windows Update tools" for the VM (Xen Orchestra, advanced tab) and reboot it.

Following is the manual process.

#The confident option

You can try a simple process first with some chances of success.

  1. Make a snapshot so you can rollback. Windows can get unstable/unbootable if things go wrong.
  2. Uninstall Citrix ®️ XenServer ®️ Client Tools
  3. Reboot
  4. Uninstall XenServer PV-Drivers in Device Manager in following order (reboots may be needed):
    • XenServer PV Network Device (one ore more Devices)
    • XenServer PV Storage Host Adapter
    • XenServer PV Network Class
    • XenServer Interface
    • XenServer PV Bus (c000) (if present)
    • XenServer PV Bus (0002) or XenServer PV Bus (0001)
  5. Reboot
  6. Check that you see this unknown device in Device Manager:
    • SCSI-Controller - PCI-Device ID 5853:0002
  7. Unpack ZIP file
  8. Start setup.exe
  9. Follow the install wizard

Note: Restart can take a while if your windows is currently updating. Restart only occurs after windows has the updates finished.

#The nuclear option

If the confident option above didn't yield the expected results, then we switch to a more aggressive attitude towards the old tools.

TIP

What follows works in many cases, but some users occasionally still meet the following issues: XCP-ng tools not installing (but Citrix tools install well, so that is a solution to have working tools), and occasional BSODs in some cases or versions of Windows.

Through many tests, a user came up with a similar yet slightly different procedure that allowed them to avoid Blue Screens Of Death in their situation: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/27602.

Help is welcome to help us reconcile both procedures into one.

Note: Also have a look at our Troubleshooting Guide - Windows PV-Tools.

#VMs with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error

You can try to manually inject the missing drivers in recovery mode.

dism /image:d:\ /add-driver /driver:e:\Drivers\xenbus\x64\xenbus.inf
dism /image:d:\ /add-driver /driver:e:\Drivers\xenvbd\x64\xenvbd.inf

#Using the Windows guest tools from Citrix

Tools from Citrix are not included in the guest tools ISO distributed with XCP-ng for legal reasons.

#A reminder

As written above:

#Management agent + device drivers

The only way to get the management agent is from Citrix. It can be freely downloaded from the Citrix Hypervisor download page (opens new window), provided you create an account on their site. Name of the item: "Citrix VM Tools for Windows". The installer will install both the management agent and the device drivers.

Update (2022-02-02)

Since Citrix released their 8.2 CU1 version of Citrix Hypervisor, the Express edition is not available anymore for download. However, you can still get the Windows tools from the previous releases that are still available under "Citrix Hypervisor and XenServer Legacy Versions". You will also find present and past releases of the tools at: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235403 (opens new window).

#Automated installation via Windows Update: device drivers alone

If you are using Xen Orchestra, you can switch the "Windows Update tools" advanced parameter on from the "Advanced" tab of the VM view. This will install the device drivers automatically at next reboot ⚠️ but not the management agent which still needs to be installed from Citrix tools' installer.

... So the "Windows Update tools" option is not a complete solution if you need the guest metrics from the management agent. However it may be a convenient way to get future driver updates if you wish so.

#Switching from XCP-ng tools to Citrix tools

If your VM already has XCP-ng tools and you wish to switch to Citrix tools, then you need to do the same kind of clean-up as described higher in this document for the opposite situation.

#Contributing

#Linux / xBSD

If you would like to contribute improvements to the install.sh script so that it supports your distro, create a pull request against: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xe-guest-utilities/tree/master/mk. Relevant files are usually xe-linux-distribution and install.sh.

#Windows

The XCP-ng team is looking for help in improving the guest tools installer, build process, and clean-up tools.

Networking

XCP-ng is using Open vSwitch as its core, and supports various features from it.

Networking

Networking

XCP-ng is using Open vSwitch as its core, and supports various features from it.

Tip :
Even if one NIC can be enough for your host, having a dedicated NIC for storage will be really important to get consistent performances (especially if you use shared storage like iSCSI or NFS).

#Concepts

This section describes the general concepts of networking in XCP-ng.

XCP-ng creates a network for each physical NIC during installation. When you add a server to a pool, the default networks are merged. This is meant to be sure that all physical NICs with the same device name are attached to the same network, authorizing seamless VM flexibility on any host of the pool.

Typically, you add a network to create a new external network (bridge), set up a new VLAN using an existing NIC, or create a NIC bond.

You can configure four different types of networks in XCP-ng:

#Network objects

This section uses three types of server-side software objects to represent networking entities. These objects are:

xe CLI, Xen Orchestra or XCP-ng center allow you to configure networking options. You can control the NIC used for management operations, and create advanced networking features such as VLANs and NIC bonds.

#Networks

Each XCP-ng server has one or more networks, which are virtual Ethernet switches. Networks that are not associated with a PIF are considered internal. Internal networks can be used to provide connectivity only between VMs on a given XCP-ng server, with no connection to the outside world. Networks associated with a PIF are considered external. External networks provide a bridge between VIFs and the PIF connected to the network, enabling connectivity to resources available through the PIF’s NIC.

#VLANs

VLANs, as defined by the IEEE 802.1Q standard, allow a single physical network to support multiple logical networks. XCP-ng hosts support VLANs in multiple ways.

#VLANs for VMs

Switch ports configured as 802.1Q VLAN trunk ports can be used with XCP-ng VLAN features to connect guest virtual network interfaces (VIFs) to specific VLANs. In this case, XCP-ng server performs the VLAN tagging/untagging functions for the guest, which is unaware of any VLAN configuration.

XCP-ng VLANs are represented by additional PIF objects representing VLAN interfaces corresponding to a specified VLAN tag. You can connect XCP-ng networks to the PIF representing the physical NIC to see all traffic on the NIC. Alternatively, connect networks to a PIF representing a VLAN to see only the traffic with the specified VLAN tag. You can also connect a network such that it only sees the native VLAN traffic, by attaching it to VLAN 0.

To use VLANs for your network logical isolation, it's really easy. You'll create a new network with a VLAN ID, and all virtual interfaces created on this network will transparently have traffic tagged in this VLAN. No need to configure anything inside your VM.

First step, go in Xen Orchestra menu, "New" then "Network":

Then, select a pool where you want to create this network, and fill what's required, like physical interface selection, name and description and also VLAN number:

Finally, click on "Create network":

That's it!

#Bonds

It's same as previous section, just check the "Bonded Network" and select multiple PIFs in the Interface selector. You can either use VLANs or not, it doesn't matter!

#Manage physical NICs

#Add a new NIC

After physically installing a new NIC, you'll need to run a xe pif-scan command on the host to get this NIC added as an available PIF. xe pif-scan host-uuid=<HOST UUID> Check new NIC by UUID: xe pif-list Plug new NIC: xe pif-plug uuid=<NIC UUID>

#Renaming NICs

In a pool, all NICs across your hosts should match up exactly. So if your management is NIC 0 and your 10Gbit storage interface is NIC 4 on host 1, it should be the same on host 2.

If for some reason the NIC order between hosts doesn't match up, you can fix it with the interface-rename command.

TIP
These commands are meant to be done on non-active interfaces. Typically this will be done directly after install, before even joining a pool.

interface-rename --help

This will display all available options.

interface-rename --list

This will display the current interface mapping/assignments.

Interfaces you wish to rename need to be downed first:

ifconfig eth4 down
ifconfig eth8 down

The most common use will be an update statement like the following:

interface-rename --update eth4=00:24:81:80:19:63 eth8=00:24:81:7f:cf:8b

This example will set the mac-address for eth4 & eth8, switching them in the process.

The XAPI database needs the old PIFs removed. First list your PIFs for the affected NICs:

xe pif-list
xe pif-forget uuid=<uuid of eth4>
xe pif-forget uuid=<uuid of eth8>

Reboot the host to apply these settings.

The interfaces by their new names need to be re-enabled:

ifconfig eth4 up
ifconfig eth8 up

The new interfaces need to be introduced to the PIF database:

xe host-list

Make note of the host uuid. Then introduce the interfaces:

xe pif-introduce device=eth4 host-uuid=<host uuid> mac=<mac>
xe pif-introduce device=eth8 host-uuid=<host uuid> mac=<mac>

By renaming/updating interfaces like this, you can assure all your hosts have the same interface order.

#Remove a physical NIC

Before removing it, just be sure to remove its associated networks, so it won't cause trouble. Then, shutdown, remove the NIC and finally boot. After the boot, do a xe pif-forget uuid=<OLD PIF UUID> to get rid of the object record.

#SDN controller

An SDN controller is provided by a Xen Orchestra plugin. Thanks to that, you can enjoy advanced network features.

#GRE/VXLAN tunnels

Private network (using tunnels) are very handy when you want to access resources in a secure manner, that are not in the same physical network.

So we want a network that is:

That's exactly what you can have thanks to XO SDN controller (here via GRE tunnels):

To create a private network, go in Xen Orchestra, New/Network and select "Private Network":

#Encryption

To be able to encrypt the networks, openvswitch-ipsec package must be installed on all the hosts:

More information available on XO official documentation for SDN controller (opens new window).

#OpenFlow rules

TIP
This feature is coming very soon!

#Common errors

#TLS connection issue

The error would look like this:

Client network socket disconnected before secure TLS connection was established

It means the TLS certificate, used to identify a SDN controller, on the host doesn't match the one of the plugin, to solve it:

The issue should be fixed.

#Static routes

Sometimes you need to add extra routes to an XCP-ng host. It can be done manually with an ip route add 10.88.0.0/14 via 10.88.113.193 (for example). But it won't persist after a reboot.

To properly create persistent static routes, first create your xen network interface as usual. If you already have this network created previously, just get its UUID with an xe network-list. You're looking for the interface you have a management IP on typically, something like xapi0 or xapi1 for example. If you're not sure which one it is, you can run ifconfig and find the interface name that has the IP address this static route traffic will be exiting. Then get that interfaces UUID using the previous xe network-list command.

Now insert the UUID in the below example command. Also change the IPs to what you need, using the following format: <network>/<netmask>/gateway IP>. For example, our previous ip route add 10.88.0.0/14 via 10.88.113.193 will be translated into:

xe network-param-set uuid=<network UUID> other-config:static-routes=10.88.0.0/14/10.88.113.193

TIP
You must restart the toolstack on the host for the new route to be added!

You can check the result with a route -n afterwards to see if the route is now present. If you must add multiple static routes, it must be in one command, and the routes separated by commas. For example, to add both 10.88.0.0/14 via 10.88.113.193 and 10.0.0.0/24 via 192.168.1.1, you would use this:

xe network-param-set uuid=<network UUID> other-config:static-routes=10.88.0.0/14/10.88.113.193,10.0.0.0/24/192.168.1.1

#Removing static routes

To remove static routes you have added, stick the same network UUID from before in the below command:

xe network-param-remove uuid=<network UUID> param-key=static-routes param-name=other-config

A toolstack restart is needed as before.

TIP

XAPI might not remove the already-installed route until the host is rebooted. If you need to remove it ASAP, you can use ip route del 10.88.0.0/14 via 10.88.113.193. Check that it's gone with route -n.

#Full mesh network

This page describes how to configure a three node meshed network (see Wikipedia (opens new window)) which is a very cheap approach to create a 3 node HA cluster, that can be used to host a Ceph cluster, or similar clustered solutions that require 3 nodes in order to operate with full high-availability.

Meshed network requires no physical network switches, the 3 physical nodes are interlinked with each other using multiple network interfaces.

Example with 3 nodes that each has 3 NIC, 1 is for WAN connection and 2 are used to interlink with remaining 2 nodes:

Meshed network example

WARNING
Right now only known-to-work option is to use bridge network backend, but hopefully in future it should be possible to setup meshed network using Open vSwitch as well (should you know how, please update this wiki)

#Using bridge backend

WARNING
These steps will require reboot of all 3 nodes multiple times. They will also require you to use bridge network backend instead of Open vSwitch, which will result in loss of some functionality and is not commercially supported

#Switch to bridge mode on all nodes

SSH to dom0

# on dom0 on each hypervisor as root user
xe-switch-network-backend bridge
# reboot the hypervisor
reboot

#Create a bond on all nodes

In XCP-ng Center go to NICs tab and create a bond, selecting eth1 and eth2 as bond devices, leave all options as default

#Reconfigure the bond device to broadcast mode

Again, ssh to dom0 on all nodes and execute

xe pif-list
# Example output
uuid ( RO)                  : f1580a37-6726-6479-d399-635e2cb719b6
                device ( RO): eth2
    currently-attached ( RO): false
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): b33187c0-b231-0c69-6ee9-3ad2dcefa6f8


uuid ( RO)                  : 63abf866-890d-79bb-d276-8a50e8e4a94b
                device ( RO): eth0
    currently-attached ( RO): true
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): 7404e9f7-7dfe-b666-d6f2-1fe9886498cd


uuid ( RO)                  : 77826c83-4b60-8137-c00f-3027d89b86b2
                device ( RO): eth1
    currently-attached ( RO): false
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): ae9847e4-5587-2e61-4870-365143837aba


uuid ( RO)                  : 65380308-0c53-3d96-f564-06a724a792be
                device ( RO): bond0
    currently-attached ( RO): true
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): b7e4d20b-64ed-bf38-c56f-4d740b579005

# Replace the UUID with the bond ID and execute following command
xe pif-param-set uuid=65380308-0c53-3d96-f564-06a724a792be other-config:bond-mode=broadcast
reboot

#Configure the interface in XCP-ng center

Go to tab Networking, rename bond1+2 device to something more memorable such as "MeshLAN", then add IP to all dom0 VMs to test it out, click "Configure" in IP configuration, add IP address and insert following addresses (you can use different addresses and range if you prefer to):

On each node respectively

Netmask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: leave empty

Now SSH to each dom0 and try if you can ping all 3 IP addresses. If you can, you successfully created a meshed network. This network is going to provide interconnection between all 3 nodes and even if some node die, connectivity between remaining 2 nodes will remain operational.

This setup will save you costs of 2 network switches you would otherwise have to purchase and use instead to achieve HA connectivity.

#References
Forum post: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/1897/mesh-network(opens new window)

Proxmox wiki: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Full_Mesh_Network_for_Ceph_Server(opens new window)

 

#DNS Search Domains

When XCP-ng is configured for static IP configuration there are no DNS search domains added. It is possible to add search domains into /etc/resolv.conf, however those won't persist across reboots. Use xe pif-param-set to add search domains that should persist across reboots.

# xe pif-list host-name-label=xcpng-srv01 management=true
uuid ( RO)                  : 76608ca2-e099-9344-af36-5b63c0022913
                device ( RO): bond0
    currently-attached ( RO): true
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): cc966455-d5f8-0257-04a7-d3d7c671636b

# xe pif-param-set uuid=76608ca2-e099-9344-af36-5b63c0022913 other-config:domain=searchdomain1.com,searchdomain2.com,searchdomain3.com

This procedure has to be done for all hosts in the same pool.

 

#Network Troubleshooting

#Network corruption

Disabling TX offload might help to diagnose NIC issues:

xe pif-param-set uuid=<PIF UUID> other-config:ethtool-tx=off

#Disabling FCoE

If you are using bonds on FCoE capable devices, it's preferable to disable it entirely:

systemctl stop fcoe
systemctl stop xs-fcoe
systemctl disable fcoe
systemctl disable xs-fcoe

See https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/issues/138 (opens new window).

#Emergency Network Reset

Incorrect networking settings can cause loss of network connectivity. When there is no network connectivity, XCP-ng host can become inaccessible through Xen Orchestra or remote SSH. Emergency Network Reset provides a simple mechanism to recover and reset a host’s networking.

The Emergency network reset feature is available from the CLI using the xe-reset-networking command, and within the Network and Management Interface section of xsconsole.

Incorrect settings that cause a loss of network connectivity include renaming network interfaces, creating bonds or VLANs, or mistakes when changing the management interface. For example, typing the wrong IP address. You may also want to run this utility in the following scenarios:

WARNING
If a Pool master or host in a resource pool is unable to contact with other hosts.

Use the xe-reset-networking utility only in an emergency because it deletes the configuration for all PIFs, bonds, VLANs, and tunnels associated with the host. Guest Networks and VIFs are preserved. As part of this utility, VMs are shut down forcefully. Before running this command, cleanly shut down the VMs where possible. Before you apply a reset, you can change the management interface and specify which IP configuration, DHCP, or Static can be used.

If the pool master requires a network reset, reset the network on the pool master first before applying a network reset on pool members. Apply the network reset on all remaining hosts in the pool to ensure that the pool’s networking configuration is homogeneous. Network homogeneity is an important factor for live migration.

TIP

#Verifying the network reset

After you specify the configuration mode to be used after the network reset, xsconsole and the CLI display settings that will be applied after host reboot. It is a final chance to modify before applying the emergency network reset command. After restart, the new network configuration can be verified in Xen Orchestra and xsconsole. In Xen Orchestra, with the host selected, select the Networking tab to see the new network configuration. The Network and Management Interface section in xsconsole display this information.

#SR-IOV

TO have SR-IOV enabled, you need:

WARNING
You can't live migrate a VM with SR-IOV enabled. Use it only if you really need it!

#Setup

Then, you can enable and configure it with xe CLI:

xe network-create name-label=SRIOV
xe network-sriov-create network-uuid=<network_uuid> pif-uuid=<physical_pif_uuid>
xe network-sriov-param-list uuid=<SR-IOV Network_uuid>

The last command will tell you if you need to reboot or not.

Assign the SR-IOV network to your VM:

xe vif-create device=<device index> mac=<vf_mac_address> network-uuid=<sriov_network> vm-uuid=<vm_uuid>

If you want to disable it:

xe network-sriov-destroy uuid=<network_sriov_uuid>

TIP
You can read a Citrix guide here: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235044(opens new window)

#Intel i218/i219 slow speed

With kernel version 4.15 a fix in the e1000e driver has been introduced (opens new window). However, this fix slightly slows down DMA access times to prevent the NIC to hang up on heavy UDP traffic. This impacts the TCP performance. A workaround to regain full transfer speeds, you can turn off TCP segmentation offloading via the following command:

ethtool -K <interface> tso off gso off

There is currently no fix available / announced that allows offloading TCP segmentation to the NIC without sacrificing performance.

TIP
The following error message can be ignored: Cannot get device udp-fragmentation-offload settings: Operation not supported