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Citrix Systems Server 5.6 User's Manual

1. ceeeeeeeeeeeeete tenet een eeeenenes 109 To start a virtual machine on the optimal server c cece eee eee eee eee eee eee tee e eee e en en ed 109 To resume a virtual machine on the optimal Server 6 ccecee cece cece ee ee ee eee eect ee nent eee eeea ed 109 Accepting Optimization Recommendations cccc eee e eee rtro troti orrn eect ett e eee eee eee ee eter eeneneneeea ed 110 To accept an optimization recommendation 6cccccee eee e eee eee eee e eee teen t tet e eect een rrn renen 110 Administering Workload Balancing cria nit 110 Disabling Workload BalanGing escindida AR Eaa 111 Reconfiguring a Pool to Use Another WLB Server occococcccoconcnconcnnononcononcnronnnnrnrnronenarrrnrnrenennnnrs 111 Updating Workload Balancing Credentials iii et etree netetnn neers 112 Uninstalling Workload Balance A 113 Gustomizing Workload Balancing rsrsrs rnoes raanei onia O A TO OEE EEEa 113 Entering Maintenance Mode with Workload Balancing Enabled ooooccococcccnconcnconnnnoroncncrnroronnnronrnrn renos 113 To enter maintenance mode with Workload Balancing enabled sssseeessrsrersririeieiererrererererrrrernis 114 Working with Workload Balancing Reports oococococccccccccononononononcncncncncncncnrnrnnnonenenenennnnnencnnrnanananinines 114 INTO ita A A N A E ia de 114 Subscribing to Workload Balancing Reports oocococcconconcnconcncnnnncoronanconnnnorenornrnrnrenencrnrnarrenanennss 114 U
2. xe pool param set uuid lt pool_uuid gt default SR lt sr_uuid gt Since the shared storage has been set as the pool wide default all future VMs will have their disks created on shared storage by default See Storage for information about creating other types of shared storage Removing a XenServer host from a resource pool When a XenServer host is removed ejected from a pool the machine is rebooted reinitialized and left in a state equivalent to that after a fresh installation It is important not to eject a XenServer host from a pool if there is important data on the local disks To remove a host from a resource pool using the CLI 1 2 Open a console on any host in the pool Find the UUID of the host by running the command xe host list Eject the required host from the pool xe pool eject host uuid lt host_uuid gt The XenServer host will be ejected and left in a freshly installed state Warning Do not eject a host from a resource pool if it contains important data stored on its local disks All of the data will be erased upon ejection from the pool If you wish to preserve this data copy the VM to shared storage on the pool first using XenCenter or the xe vm copy CLI command When a XenServer host containing locally stored VMs is ejected from a pool those VMs will still be present in the pool database and visible to the other XenServer hosts They will not start until the virtual disks associated with them hav
3. Upgrade is a one way operation so Citrix recommends only performing the upgrade when you are certain the storage will no longer need to be attached to a pool running an older software version LVM performance considerations The snapshot and fast clone functionality provided in XenServer 5 5 and later for LVM based SRs comes with an inherent performance overhead In cases where optimal performance is desired XenServer supports creation of VDIs in the raw format in addition to the default VHD format The XenServer snapshot functionality is not supported on raw VDIs Note Non transportable snapshots using the default Windows VSS provider will work on any type of VDI Warning Do not try to snapshot a VM that has t ype raw disks attached This could result in a partial snapshot being created In this situation you can identify the orphan snapshot VDIs by checking the snapshot of field and then deleting them VDI types In general VHD format VDIs will be created You can opt to use raw at the time you create the VDI this can only be done using the xe CLI After software upgrade from a previous XenServer version existing data will be preserved as backwards compatible raw VDIs but these are special cased so that snapshots can be taken of them once you have allowed this by upgrading the SR Once the SR has been upgraded and the first snapshot has been taken you will be accessing the data through a VHD format VDI To check if an SR has been
4. e Maximize Density Attempts to fit as many virtual machines as possible onto a physical host The goal is to minimize the number of physical hosts that must be online 7 Select the day of the week and the time when you want Workload Balancing to begin operating in this mode 8 Create more scheduled mode changes that is tasks until you have the number you need If you only schedule one task then Workload Balancing assumes that your starting mode is Maximize Performance 9 Optional If you do not want this schedule to go into effect clear the Enable Task check box 10Click OK To edit or delete an automatic optimization interval 1 Follow steps 1 to 4 in the previous procedure 2 Select a scheduled task and click one of the following Edit Modify the schedule or optimization mode for a task as described in step 4 to 8 of the previous procedure Delete Deletes the task Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically You can configure Workload Balancing to accept optimization recommendations automatically Automation and turn servers on or off automatically Power Management 100 e C TRIX Accepting Optimization Recommendations Automatically Workload Balancing lets you configure for it to accept optimization recommendations on your behalf and perform the optimization actions it recommends automatically This feature is required when you configure for hosts with light workloads to be powered down automatical
5. e Windows Server 2008 R2 e Windows Server 2008 e Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 e Windows 7 e Windows Vista Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3 Recommended Hardware Unless otherwise noted Workload Balancing requires the following hardware CPU 2GHz or faster 88 CITRIX Memory 2GB recommended 1GB of RAM required e Disk Space SQL Server Express 4GB SQL Server 20GB approximate amount consumed Citrix recommends that the Workload Balancing server have a minimum of a dual core processor Workload Balancing Data Store Requirements This topic provides information about the SQL Server versions and configurations that Workload Balancing supports It also provides information about additional compatibility and authentication requirements In addition to the prerequisites SQL Server and SQL Server Express require the data store requires the following Note In this topic the term SQL Server refers to both SQL Server and SQL Server Express unless the version is mentioned explicitly Database The 32 bit or 64 bit edition of e SQL Server 2008 Express The 32 bit edition of SQL Server 2008 Express SP1 is available on the Workload Balancing installation media in the sql folder To install it run en_sql_server_2008 express with_tools x86 SQL Server 2008 Standard edition or better SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 or higher Standard edition or better Note Windo
6. pool certificate list Lists all installed SSL certificates pool certificate install pool certificate install filename lt certificatefilename gt Run this command on the pool to install the certificate you specified during WLB installation on the pool master Before installing the certificate on the master it must be exported in either pem or crt format If you are exporting the certificate using Windows certificate management features select the Base 64 encoded X 509 format Typically when you installed WLB you may have named the certificate something like wlbcert cer Simply renaming the file wibcert crt is not sufficient You must export the certificate so the file formats is converted into a format XenServer is expecting to receive pool certificate sync pool certificate install Run this command on the pool after running the pool certificate install command to make sure the certificate and certificate revocation lists are synchronized from the pool master to all slaves on the pool 211 e C TRIX pool param set pool param set wlb verify cert lt true gt uuid lt uuid_of_pool gt Run this command on the pool after running the pool certificate sync command to make XenServer always verify the certificate when communicating with the Workload Balancing server Tip Pressing the Tab key automatically populates the UUID of the pool pool deconfigure wlb Permanently deletes all workload balancing configu
7. This report provides a line graph of resource utilization on all physical hosts in a pool over time It lets you see the trend of resource utilization if it tends to be increasing in relation to your thresholds Critical High Medium and Low You can evaluate the effectiveness of your performance thresholds by monitoring trends of the data points in this report Workload Balancing extrapolates the threshold ranges from the values you set for the Critical thresholds when you initialized Workload Balancing Although similar to the Pool Health report the Pool Health History report displays the average utilization for a resource on a specific date rather than the amount of time overall the resource spent in a threshold With the exception of the Average Free Memory graph the data points should never average above the Critical threshold line red For the Average Free Memory graph the data points should never average below the Critical threshold line which is at the bottom of the graph Because this graph displays free memory the Critical threshold is a low value unlike the other resources A few points about interpreting this report e When the Average Usage line in the chart approaches the Average Medium Threshold blue line it indicates the pool s resource utilization is optimum regardless of the placement strategy configured e Resource utilization approaching the Average Low Threshold green is not necessarily positive Whether Lo
8. Multipath support in Equallogic arrays does not encompass Storage IO multipathing in the traditional sense of the term Multipathing must be handled at the network NIC bond level Refer to the Equallogic documentation for information about configuring network failover for Equallogic SRs LVMoISCSI SRs Storage Repository Types The storage repository types supported in XenServer are provided by plugins in the control domain these can be examined and plugins supported third parties can be added to the opt xensource sm directory Modification of these files is unsupported but visibility of these files may be valuable to developers and power users New storage manager plugins placed in this directory are automatically detected by XenServer Use the sm list command see the section called Storage Manager commands to list the available SR types New storage repositories are created using the New Storage wizard in XenCenter The wizard guides you through the various probing and configuration steps Alternatively use the sr create command This command creates a new SR on the storage substrate potentially destroying any existing data and creates the SR API object and a corresponding PBD record enabling VMs to use the storage On successful creation of the SR the PBD is automatically plugged If the SR shared t rue flag is set a PBD record is created and plugged for every XenServer Host in the resource pool All XenServer SR types support VD
9. The snapshotting operation is a 2 step process Capturing metadata as a template e Creating a VDI snapshot of the disk s Three types of VM snapshots are supported regular quiesced and snapshot with memory Regular Snapshots Regular snapshots are crash consistent and can be performed on all VM types including Linux VMs Quiesced Snapshots Quiesced snapshots take advantage of the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service VSS to generate application consistent point in time snapshots The VSS framework helps VSS aware applications for example Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft SQL Server flush data to disk and prepare for the snapshot before it is taken Quiesced snapshots are therefore safer to restore but can have a greater performance impact on a system while they are being taken They may also fail under load so more than one attempt to take the snapshot may be required XenServer supports quiesced snapshots on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 for both 32 bit and 64 bit variants Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Vista are not supported For further detail on quiesced snapshots refer to the Advanced Notes for Quiesced Snapshots section later in this chapter Snapshots with memory In addition to saving the VMs memory storage and metadata snapshots with memory also save the VMs state RAM This can be useful if you are upgrading or patching software or want to test a new application but also want the option t
10. aggregate of one or more XenServer hosts up to a maximum of 16 The definition of homogeneous is the CPUs on the server joining the pool are the same in terms of vendor model and features as the CPUs on servers already in the pool e the server joining the pool is running the same version of XenServer software at the same patch level as servers already in the pool The software will enforce additional constraints when joining a server to a pool in particular e it is not a member of an existing resource pool e it has no shared storage configured e there are no running or suspended VMs on the XenServer host which is joining e there are no active operations on the VMs in progress such as one shutting down You must also check that the clock of the host joining the pool is synchronized to the same time as the pool master for example by using NTP that its management interface is not bonded you can configure this once the host has successfully joined the pool and that its management IP address is static either configured on the host itself or by using an appropriate configuration on your DHCP server XenServer hosts in resource pools may contain different numbers of physical network interfaces and have local storage repositories of varying size In practice it is often difficult to obtain multiple servers with the exact same CPUs and so minor variations are permitted If you are sure that it is acceptable in your environmen
11. e Maximize Density Workload Balancing attempts to fit as many virtual machines as possible onto a physical host The goal is to minimize the number of physical hosts that must be online When you select Maximize Density as your placement strategy you can specify rules similar to the ones in Maximize Performance However Workload Balancing uses these rules to determine how it can pack virtual machines onto a host When Maximize Density is your placement strategy Workload Balancing recommends optimization when a virtual machine reaches the Critical threshold Workload Balancing also lets you apply these optimization modes all of the time Fixed or switch between modes for specified time periods Scheduled Fixed Fixed optimization modes set Workload Balancing to a specific optimization behavior either to try to create the best performance or the highest density at all times Scheduled Scheduled optimization modes let you schedule for Workload Balancing to apply different optimization modes depending on the time of day For example you might want to configure Workload Balancing to optimize for performance during the day when you have users connected and then to save energy specify for Workload Balancing to optimize for Maximum Density at night When you configure Scheduled optimization modes Workload Balancing automatically changes to the optimization mode at the beginning of the time period you specified You can select to either c
12. 159 159 160 160 160 160 160 161 161 161 161 162 162 162 163 164 164 164 165 165 165 CITRIX patch precheck patch upload PBD commands pbd create 000 pbd destroy pbd plug eeee pbd unplug PIF Commands n s if if pi if p Pool commands n s UNI ooie POol deSiGnaie new MASISM asii A R AS pool dump database pool eject o o ooo pool emergency Teset Master oocoocccocnoconoconocononononononononnnonnnnnnnonononononnnnnnnnnnnnnnnanennnnnnnss pool emergency transition tO MaSter cece cece cece cece eee eee eee cent eee e een ea ea teeta teeeteee neers pool ha enable pool ha disable POOI jOIN o ocoocccccc co pool recover slaves pool restore database pool sync database Storage Manager commands SR commands n xvi 165 165 166 166 166 166 166 169 169 170 170 170 170 170 172 172 172 172 172 172 173 173 173 173 173 173 174 e CITRIX sr create sr destroy sr forget SEINTOd CE co oococcccnncnncnnonnrnno nar nn rn eE aa E aia rra rra rana AE EEEE sr probe SIFSCAN AA wer maa hd Raa MnRda E E E eRe RNAS ORS MANNE Raa ae MRE AGE RING KOR EE E EA TASK cOMMANAS acid dl catas E A
13. 166 e CITRIX The PIF objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe pif list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details PIF parameters PIFs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object reference for read only the PIF device machine readable name of the interface read only for example ethO MAC the MAC address of the PIF read only other config Additional PIF configuration name value read write map parameter pairs physical if true the PIF points to an actual read only physical network interface currently attached is the PIF currently attached on this host read only true or false MTU Maximum Transmission Unit of the PIF in read only bytes VLAN VLAN tag for all traffic passing through read only this interface 1 indicates no VLAN tag is assigned bond master of the UUID of the bond this PIF is the read only master of if any bond slave of the UUID of the bond this PIF is the slave read only of if any management is this PIF designated to be a read only management interface for the control domain network uuid the unique identifier object reference of read only the virtual network to which this PIF is connected network name label the name of the of the virtual network to read only which this PIF is connected host uuid the unique ident
14. 2 Introduce the existing SR UUID returned from the sr probe command The UUID of the new SR is returned xe sr introduce content type user name label lt Example Shared LVM over iSCSI SR gt shared true uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt type lvmoiscsi 3 Create a PBD to accompany the SR The UUID of the new PBD is returned xe pbd create type lvmoiscsi host uuid lt valid_uuid gt sr uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt device config target lt 192 168 0 1 gt device config targetlQN lt 192 168 1 10 filerl gt device config SCSIid lt 149455400000000000000000002000000b70200000 000000 gt 4 Plug the PBD to attach the SR xe pbd plug uuid lt pbd_uuid gt 5 Verify the status of the PBD plug If successful the current 1y attached property will be true xe pbd list sr uuid lt sr_uuid gt Note Steps 3 through 5 must be performed for each host in the resource pool and can also be performed using the Repair Storage Repository function in XenCenter 59 CITRIX Resizing an SR If you have resized the LUN on which a iSCSI or HBA SR is based use the following procedures to reflect the size change in XenServer 1 iSCSI SRs unplug all PBDs on the host that reference LUNs on the same target This is required to reset the iSCSI connection to the target which in turn will allow the change in LUN size to be recognized when the PBDs are replugged 2 HBA SRs reboot the host Note In previous versions of XenServer explicit comma
15. DMC Behaviour Automatic VM squeezing If DMC is not enabled when hosts are full new VM starts fail with out of memory errors If DMC is enabled even when hosts are full XenServer will attempt to reclaim memory by reducing the memory allocation of running VMs within their defined dynamic ranges In this way running VMs are squeezed proportionally at the same distance between the dynamic minimum and dynamic maximum for all VMs on the host When DMC is enabled When the host s memory is plentiful All running VMs will receive their Dynamic Maximum Memory level When the host s memory is scarce All running VMs will receive their Dynamic Minimum Memory level When you are configuring DMC remember that allocating only a small amount of memory to a VM can negatively impact it For example allocating too little memory Using Dynamic Memory Control to reduce the amount of physical memory available to a VM may cause it to boot slowly Likewise if you allocate too little memory to a VM it may start extremely slowly e Setting the dynamic memory minimum for a VM too low may result in poor performance or stability problems when the VM is starting How does DMC Work Using DMC it is possible to operate a guest virtual machine in one of two modes 64 CITRIX 1 Target Mode The administrator specifies a memory target for the guest XenServer adjusts the guest s memory allocation to meet the target Specifying a target
16. LVM based space utilization differs depending on whether an LVM SR is upgraded or created as anew SRin XenServer Upgraded LVM SRs will retain a base node that is fully inflated to the size of the virtual disk and any subsequent snapshot or clone operations will provision at least one additional node that is fully inflated For new SRs in contrast the base node will be deflated to only the data allocated in the VHD overlay When VHD based VDIs are deleted the space is marked for deletion on disk Actual removal of allocated data may take some time to occur as it is handled by the coalesce process that runs asynchronously and independently for each VHD based SR LUN based VDIs Mapping a raw LUN as a Virtual Disk image is typically the most high performance storage method For administrators that want to leverage existing storage SAN infrastructure such as Netapp Equallogic or StorageLink accessible arrays the array snapshot clone and thin provisioning capabilities can be exploited directly using one of the array specific adapter SR types Netapp Equallogic or StorageLink The virtual machine storage operations are mapped directly onto the array APIs using a LUN per VDI representation This includes activating the data path on demand such as when a VM is started or migrated to another host Managed NetApp LUNs are accessible using the NetApp SR driver type and are hosted on a Network Appliance device running a version of Ontap 7 0 or greater
17. Sets duplexing capability of the PIF either full or half 168 Type read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read write read write read write CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type other config ethtool rx set to on to enable receive checksum read write off to disable other config ethtool tx set to on to enable transmit checksum read write off to disable other config ethtool sg set to on to enable scatter gather off to read write disable other config ethtool tso set to on to enable tcp segmentation read write offload of to disable other config ethtool ufo setto on to enable udp fragment offload read write off to disable other config ethtool gso set to on to enable generic segmentation read write offload off to disable other config domain comma separated list used to set the read write DNS search path other config bond interval between link liveness checks in read write miimon milliseconds other config bond number of milliseconds to wait after link read write downdelay is lost before really considering the link to have gone This allows for transient link loss other config bond number of milliseconds to wait after the read write updelay link comes up before really considering it up Allows for links flapping up Default is 31s to allow for time
18. Template COMMANAS siria pa la Pa oda eaa ida Templates EXON ad al os Update COMIMANGS eccerre enen a Ei E Update UPA sa aeie da a di Dad da User Commands 1400 io USES WORMS road VBDCOMMANOS 1 ad ads NDCC Abe ze ao trtice trace tuts e A iat aa atm A E A VDOSG6SINOY 6 e dene Waa A een ee vbd eject vbd insert VDI commands vdi clone vdi copy vdi create VAIdESOY ni a ia vdi forget vdi import xvii 175 175 176 176 176 176 177 177 185 185 185 185 185 186 187 188 188 188 188 188 188 190 190 190 191 191 191 CITRIX VOIFINMOGUCES idad ae 191 VORTESIZO ci AAA A AA O AA 191 velesnapsiOt eri irradia ain 191 A e O A a aa 192 VIF commands soii a ias 192 VEE L OOIOPOPNOOo005 P E natant ni naadlan tae taainmagthmens 194 MESSI tt E 194 vi PU ena NRO 194 VUNU ct A S A eae a 194 VLAN COMMBNGS eeen dendea ea a Ei E TE aaae E e dlawettatiatec 195 yam erea E oiin nae a a O O E A a OE 195 Pooran creato eee e EE NE E E io EERE 195 vlan destroy a E 195 VIVIECO MAMAS o E E a a egal E E AEE E E R a E SES 195 Vme dada ER PA 202 veS METS A E A A NO 202 UMECAANS EA acia 203 MECA Toa sie ceria rs e ir E A AA A A aa iE 203 UMECISTE MOVE rd a 203 PA 203 VIM COMPUTE MAXIMUM MEMONY serite cs 203 WIM aC OD insta canectinatineintma tae cmnanconssenamanacdeatanprenmiaeciaanmena seaminciatat ont ecmtasoncinatonensamn aren canoe
19. Valid Host Elements name what to call the variable no default alarm_priority the priority of the messages generated default 5 alarm_trigger_level level of value that triggers an alarm no default alarm_trigger_sense high if alarm_trigger_level is a maximum value otherwise low if the alarm_trigger_level is a minimum value default high alarm_trigger_period number of seconds that values above or below the alarm threshold can be received before an alarm is sent default 60 alarm_auto_inhibit_period number of seconds this alarm disabled after an alarm is sent default 3600 consolidation_fn how to combine variables from rrd_updates into one value default sum other choice is average rrd_ regex regular expression to match the names of variables returned by the xe vm data source list uuid lt vmuuid gt command that should be used to compute the statistical value This parameter has defaults for the named variables cpu_usage and network_usage If specified the values of all items returned by xe vm data source list whose names match the specified regular expression will be consolidated using the method specified as the consolidation_fn Configuring Email Alerts Note Email alerts are only available in a pool with a is only available with XenServer Advanced edition or above To find out about XenServer editions and how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here 138 CITRIX Alerts generated from XenServer can also
20. Warning When configuring guest memory please be careful NOT to exceed the maximum amount of physical memory addressable by your operating system Setting a memory maximum that is greater than the operating system supported limit may lead to stability problems within your guest xe CLI commands Display the static memory properties of a VM 1 Find the uuid of the required VM xe vm list 2 Note the uuid and then run the command param name memory static xe vm param get uuid lt uuid gt param name memory static min max For example the following displays the static maximum memory properties for the VM with the uuid beginning ec77 xe vm param get uuid A ec77a893 bff2 aa5c Tef2 9c3acf0f83c0 param name memory static max 268435456 This shows that the static maximum memory for this VM is 268435456 bytes 256MB Display the dynamic memory properties of a VM To display the dynamic memory properties follow the procedure as above but use the command param name memory dynamic 66 e CITRIX 1 Find the uuid of the required VM xe vm list 2 Note the uuid and then run the command param name memory dynamic xe vm param get uuid lt uuid gt param name memory dynamic min max For example the following displays the dynamic maximum memory properties for the VM with uuid beginning ec77 xe vm param get uuid ec771a893 bff2 aa5c Tef2 9c3acf0f83c0 param name memory dynamic max 13
21. add a subject to RBAC 3 Assign or modify the subject s RBAC role See the section called To assign an RBAC role to a created subject Roles XenServer is shipped with the following six pre established roles Pool Administrator Pool Admin the same as being the local root Can perform all operations Note The local super user root will always have the Pool Admin role The Pool Admin role has the same permissions as the local root Pool Operator Pool Operator can do everything apart from adding removing users and modifying their roles This role is focused mainly on host and pool management i e creating storage making pools managing the hosts etc e Virtual Machine Power Administrator VM Power Admin creates and manages Virtual Machines This role is focused on provisioning VMs for use by a VM operator e Virtual Machine Administrator VM Admin similar to a VM Power Admin but cannot migrate VMs or perform snapshots Virtual Machine Operator VM Operator similar to VM Admin but cannot create destroy VMs but can perform start stop lifecycle operations Read only Read Only can view resource pool and performance data Note You cannot add remove or modify roles in this version of XenServer Warning You can not assign the role of pool admin to an AD group which has more than 500 members if you want users of the AD group to have SSH access For a summary of the perm
22. already created To use your own certificate the certificate must be in X 509 format If you want to import the certificate into XenServer s certificate store during Workload Balancing installation you must specify for WLB to use an existing certificate and export it Currently you must do this installing WLB with the Msiexec commands However following installation you need to export the certificate again When you export the certificate from Workload Balancing Workload Balancing exports it in Base64 encoded format You must convert the exported certificate into a Privacy Enhanced Mail PEM file or a crt format by exporting it from Windows using Windows certificate management features so that XenServer can import it Note To convert the exported certificate into a PEM pem file copy it to your XenServer pool master and run the following commands openssl enc base64 in lt exported_cert_name crt gt out lt certificate pem gt After converting the certificate into pem or crt you must load the certificate onto servers across the pool by doing the following 1 List any existing certificates on the pool using xe pool certificate list 2 Install the certificate you specified during WLB installation using pool certificate install 3 Synchronize the certificate on all hosts in the pool using pool certificate sync 4 Optional Instruct XenServer to require a certificate before connecting using pool certificate sync
23. and dedicating a NIC to storage traffic are covered in the following sections Managing networking configuration Some of the network configuration procedures in this section differ depending on whether you are configuring a stand alone server or a server that is part of a resource pool Creating networks in a standalone server Because external networks are created for each PIF during host installation creating additional networks is typically only required to 72 e CITRIX use an internal network support advanced operations such as VLANs or NIC bonding To add or remove networks using XenCenter refer to the XenCenter online Help To add a new network using the CLI Open the XenServer host text console 2 Create the network with the network create command which returns the UUID of the newly created network xe network create name label lt mynetwork gt At this point the network is not connected to a PIF and therefore is internal Creating networks in resource pools All XenServer hosts in a resource pool should have the same number of physical network interface cards NICs although this requirement is not strictly enforced when a XenServer host is joined to a pool Having the same physical networking configuration for XenServer hosts within a pool is important because all hosts in a pool share a common set of XenServer networks PIFs on the individual hosts are connected to pool wide networks based on device
24. desired VLAN tag The UUIDs and device names of all PIFs are returned including any existing VLANs xe pif list 4 Create a VLAN object specifying the desired physical PIF and VLAN tag on all VMs to be connected to the new VLAN A new PIF will be created and plugged into the specified network The UUID of the new PIF object is returned 73 CITRIX xe vlan create network uuid lt network_uuid gt pif uuid lt pif_uuid gt vlan 5 5 Attach VM VIFs to the new network See the section called Creating networks in a standalone server for more details Creating NIC bonds on a standalone host Citrix recommends using XenCenter to create NIC bonds For details refer to the XenCenter help This section describes how to use the xe CLI to create bonded NIC interfaces on a standalone XenServer host See the section called Creating NIC bonds in resource pools for details on using the xe CLI to create NIC bonds on XenServer hosts that comprise a resource pool Creating a NIC bond on a dual NIC host Creating a bond on a dual NIC host implies that the PIF NIC currently in use as the management interface for the host will be subsumed by the bond The additional steps required to move the management interface to the bond PIF are included Bonding two NICs together 1 Use XenCenter or the vm shutdown command to shut down all VMs on the host thereby forcing all VIFs to be unplugged from their current networks The existing VIF
25. meaning it is a member of a pool whose master has disappeared from the network and could not be contacted for some number of retries Note that this command may cause the password of the host to reset if it has been modified since joining the pool see the section called User commands pool ha enable pool ha enable heartbeat sr uuids lt SR_UUID_of_the_Heartbeat_SR gt Enable High Availability on the resource pool using the specified SR UUID as the central storage heartbeat repository 172 CITRIX pool ha disable pool ha disable Disables the High Availability functionality on the resource pool pool join pool join master address lt address gt master username lt username gt master password lt password gt Instruct a XenServer host to join an existing pool pool recover slaves pool recover slaves Instruct the pool master to try and reset the master address of all members currently running in emergency mode This is typically used after pool emergency transition to master has been used to set one of the members as the new master pool restore database pool restore database file name lt filename_to restore _from_ on_client gt dry run lt true false gt Upload a database backup created with pool dump database to a pool On receiving the upload the master will restart itself with the new database There is also a dry run option which allows you to check that the pool database can be restored witho
26. the CPU memory network and disk utilization on a host When you set Workload Balancing to maximize performance it recommends placing virtual machines to ensure the maximum amount of resources are available for each virtual machine Density refers to the number of virtual machines on a host When you set Workload Balancing to maximize density it recommends placing virtual machines to ensure they have adequate computing power so you can reduce the number of hosts powered on in a pool Workload Balancing does not conflict with settings you already specified for High Availability Citrix designed the features to work in conjunction with each other Workload Balancing Installation Overview Workload Balancing is typically deployed on the same computer as the data store or with the data store on a separate database server Installing Workload Balancing requires that you 1 Install SQL Server or SQL Server Express 2 Install Workload Balancing on physical computer or a virtual machine Typically you install and configure Workload Balancing after you have created one or more XenServer resource pools in your environment You can install Workload Balancing in one of two ways Installation Wizard Start the installation wizard from Setup exe Citrix suggests installing Workload Balancing from the installation wizard because this method checks your system meets the installation requirements 87 C TRIX Command Line If you
27. 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool 105 CITRIX 2 In the Properties pane click the WLB tab 3 In the WLB tab click Configure WLB 4 In the left pane select Excluded Hosts 5 In Excluded Hosts page select the hosts for which you do not want WLB to recommend alternate placements and optimizations Configuring Optimization Intervals Report Subscriptions and Data Storage Workload Balancing supplies some advanced features for you to fine tune your configuration including Historical Data Storage Time For environments using SQL Server 2005 or 2008 not SQL Server Express you can specify the number of weeks that Workload Balancing retains the data about your environment s workloads and optimizations After this period unless you move the data from the data store to another server archive it the data is deleted and is no longer available in reports For environments with SQL Express Workload Balancing automatically grooms archived data to keep the database size below the SQL Express limit of 4 GB To configure the data storage period e If you want to change the number of weeks this historical data should be stored for this resource pool type a new value in the Weeks box This option is not available if the data store is on SQL Server Express For SQL Express Workload Balancing controls how large your database can become and limits it to 4GB VM Optimization Criteria The
28. Configuring automatic Host Power On functionality in Workload Balancing See the section called Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically Note You must enable Host Power On and configure the Power Management feature in Workload Balancing before Workload Balancing can turn hosts on and off automatically Using the CLI to Manage Host Power On You can manage the Host Power On feature using either the CLl or XenCenter This topic provides information about managing it with the CLI Host Power On is enabled at the host level that is on each XenServer After you enable Host Power On you can turn hosts on using either the CLI or XenCenter After configuration you can configure and run the Workload Balancing Automation and Host Power Management features as described in the Workload Balancing chapter To enable Workload 27 CITRIX Balancing s Host Power Management feature use the pool send wlb configuration command with the ParticipatesInPowerManagement lt true gt config set_host_configuration lt true gt arguments To enable Host Power On using the CLI 1 Run the command xe host set power on host lt host uuid gt power on mode wake on lan iLO DRAC custom power on config key value For iLO and DRAC the keys are power_on_ip power_on_user power_on_password Use power_on_password to specify the password if you are using the secret feature To turn on hosts remotely using the CLI 1 R
29. Lets you search for a word in a report such as the name of a virtual machine Workload Balancing Report Glossary This topic provides information about the following Workload Balancing reports Host Health History This report displays the performance of resources CPU memory network reads and network writes on specific host in relation to threshold values The colored lines red green yellow represent your threshold values You can use this report with the Pool Health report for a host to determine how a particular host s performance might be affecting overall pool health When you are editing the performance thresholds you can use this report for insight into host performance You can display resource utilization as a daily or hourly average The hourly average lets you see the busiest hours of the day averaged for the time period To view report data grouped by hour expand Click to view report data grouped by house for the time period under the Host Health History title bar 118 CITRIX Workload Balancing displays the average for each hour for the time period you set The data point is based on a utilization average for that hour for all days in the time period For example in a report for May1 2009 to May 15 2009 the Average CPU Usage data point represents the resource utilization of all fifteen days at 12 00 hours combined together as an average That is if CPU utilization was 82 at 12PM on May st 88 at 12
30. Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the console vm uuid The unique identifier object reference of read only the VM this console is open on vm name label The name of the VM this console is open read only on protocol Protocol this console uses Possible read only values are vt 100 VT100 terminal r b Remote FrameBuffer protocol as used in VNC or rdp Remote Desktop Protocol location URI for the console service read only other config A list of key value pairs that specify read write map parameter additional configuration parameters for the console Event commands Commands for working with events Event classes Event classes are listed in the following table Class name Description pool A pool of physical hosts vm A Virtual Machine host A physical host network A virtual network vif A virtual network interface pif A physical network interface separate VLANs are represented as several PIFs sr A storage repository vdi A virtual disk image vbd A virtual block device pbd The physical block devices through which hosts access SRs event wait event wait class lt class_name gt lt param name gt lt param_value gt lt param name gt lt param_value gt 150 CITRIX Blocks other commands from executing until an object exists that satisfies the conditions given on the command line x y means wait for field x to take value y and x y means wai
31. Reattach Select the new SR in the tree view and then select the Storage tab to view the existing VDIs present on the SR 10 In xsconsole on the destination host select the Backup Restore and Update menu option select the Restore Virtual Machine Metadata option and select the newly re attached SR 11 The VDIs on the selected SR are inspected to find the metadata VDI Once found select the metadata backup you want to use 12 Select the Only VMs on this SR option to restore the VMs Note Use the All VM Metadata option when moving multiple SRs between hosts or pools or when using tiered storage where VMs to be restored have VDIs on multiple SRs When using this option ensure all required SRs have been reattached to the destination host prior running the restore 13 The VMs are restored in the destination pool in a shutdown state and are available for use Using Portable SRs for Manual Multi Site Disaster Recovery The Portable SR feature can be used in combination with storage layer replication in order to simplify the process of creating and enabling a disaster recovery DR site Using storage layer replication to mirror or replicate LUNs that comprise portable SRs between production and DR sites allows all required data to be automatically present in the DR site The constraints that apply when moving portable SRs between hosts or pools within the same site also apply in the multi site case but the production and DR sites are not
32. Release Notes for additional late breaking release specific requirements Internet Connectivity Workload Balancing requires Internet connectivity for digital signature verification If you do not have Internet connectivity see XenServer Workload Balancing Installation Fails Without Available Internet Connection CTX123074 Account for Workload Balancing During Setup you must specify the authorization type a single user or group and enter the user or group with permissions to make requests of the Web Service Host service For additional information see the section called Authorization for Workload Balancing The user can be either a domain account or an account local to the computer running Workload Balancing or the Web Service Host service Likewise groups can also be domain or local Before Setup you may want to create a user account or user group for XenServer to use to connect to Workload Balancing Important When you create this account in Windows Citrix suggests enabling the Password never expires option SSL TLS Certificate XenServer and Workload Balancing communicate over HTTPS Consequently during Workload Balancing Setup Workload Balancing automatically creates a self signed certificate on your behalf Group Policy If the server on which you are installing Workload Balancing is a member of a Group Policy Organizational Unit ensure that current or scheduled future policies do not prohibit Workload Balanci
33. STP Fast Link turned off or unsupported results in a period during which there is no traffic pif scan pif scan host uuid lt UUID of XenServer host gt Scan for new physical interfaces on a XenServer host pif unplug pif unplug uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt Attempt to bring down the specified physical interface Pool commands Commands for working with pools A pool is an aggregate of one or more XenServer hosts A pool uses one or more shared storage repositories so that the VMs running on one XenServer host in the pool can be migrated in near real time while still running without needing to be shut down and brought back up to another XenServer host in the pool Each XenServer host is really a pool consisting of a single member by default When a XenServer host is joined to a pool it is designated as a member and the pool it has joined becomes the master for the pool The singleton pool object can be listed with the standard object listing command xe pool list and its parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Pool parameters Pools have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the pool name label the name of the pool read write name description the description string of the read write pool 170 CITRIX Parameter Name Description master the unique identifier obj
34. The role of the host in the resource pool When making placement recommendations Workload Balancing considers only the pool master if no other virtual machine can accept the workload Likewise when a pool is operating in Maximum Density mode Workload Balancing considers the pool master last when determining the order in which to fill hosts with virtual machines The optimization recommendations display the name of the virtual machine that Workload Balancing recommends relocating the host it currently resides on and the host Workload Balancing recommends as the machine s new location The optimization recommendations also display the reason Workload Balancing recommends moving the virtual machine for example CPU to improve CPU utilization After you accept an optimization recommendation XenServer relocates all virtual machines listed as recommended for optimization Tip You can find out the optimization mode for a resource pool by selecting the pool in XenCenter and checking the Configuration section of the WLB tab To accept an optimization recommendation 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select the resource pool for which you want to display recommendations 2 In the Properties pane click the WLB tab If there are any recommended optimizations for any virtual machines on the selected resource pool they display on the WLB tab 3 To accept the recommendations click Apply Recommendations XenServer begins moving all virt
35. Using VLANs with dedicated storage NICs Dedicated storage NICs can be configured to use native VLAN access mode ports as described above for management interfaces or with trunk ports and XenServer VLANs as described above for virtual machines To configure dedicated storage NICs see the section called Configuring a dedicated storage NIC Combining management interfaces and guest VLANs on a single host NIC A single switch port can be configured with both trunk and native VLANs allowing one host NIC to be used for a management interface on the native VLAN and for connecting guest VIFs to specific VLAN IDs NIC bonds NIC bonds can improve XenServer host resiliency by using two physical NICs as if they were one If one NIC within the bond fails the host s network traffic will automatically be routed over the second NIC NIC bonds work in an active active mode with traffic balanced between the bonded NICs XenServer NIC bonds completely subsume the underlying physical devices PIFs In order to activate a bond the underlying PIFs must not be in use either as the management interface for the host or by running VMs with VIFs attached to the networks associated with the PIFs XenServer NIC bonds are represented by additional PIFs The bond PIF can then be connected to a XenServer network to allow VM traffic and host management functions to occur over the bonded NIC The exact steps to use to create a NIC bond depend on the number of NICs
36. VIF commands 192 VLAN commands 195 VM commands 195 xe command reference Console commands xe CLI 149 Constraints on XenServer hosts joining resource pool 19 Creating a resource pool 20 E Event commands xe CLI 150 F Fibre Channel storage area network SAN 53 Filer NetApp 43 FlexVol NetApp 43 H Hardware virtualization AMD V 19 Intel VT 19 HBA see Host bus adapter Host XenServer host commands xe CLI 151 Host bus adapter 53 Intel VT Intel hardware virtualization 19 iSCSI 47 L Log commands xe CLI 161 Logical Volume Management LVM 40 41 Logs XenServer host 140 Machine failures in a resource pool 133 Message commands xe CLI 162 N NAS see Network attached storage NFS NetApp Filer 43 Network attached storage NFS 52 Network bonding commands xe CLI 147 Network commands xe CLI 163 Networking VMs Networking XenServer hosts Initial configuration after installation 72 P Patch commands xe CLI 164 PBD commands xe CLI 165 PIF commands xe CLI 166 Pool commands xe CLI 170 Q QoS settings virtual disk 61 R Removing XenServer host from a resource pool 22 Requirements for creating resource pools 19 Resource pool constraints on XenServer hosts joining 19 coping with machine failures 133 creating 20 master 19 133 133 214 CITRIX member 133 133 removing XenServer host from 22 requirements for creating 19 S SAN see
37. VM to avoid reaching the timeout However there is a workaround to this problem The probability of taking a successful VSS based snapshot of a VM with more than 2 VBDs can be increased manifold if all the VDIs for the VM are hosted on different SRs VSS snapshot all the disks attached to a VM in order to store all data available at the time of a VSS snapshot the XAPI manager will snapshot all disks and the VM metadata associated with a VM that can be snapshotted using the XenServer storage manager API If the VSS layer requests a snapshot of only a subset of the disks a full VM snapshot will not be taken vm snapshot with quiesce produces bootable snapshot VM images To achieve this the XenServer VSS hardware provider makes snapshot volumes writable including the snapshot of the boot volume 132 CITRIX VSS snap of volumes hosted on dynamic disks in the Windows Guest The vm snapshot with quiesce CLI and the XenServer VSS hardware provider do not support snapshots of volumes hosted on dynamic disks on the Windows VM Coping with machine failures This section provides details of how to recover from various failure scenarios All failure recovery scenarios require the use of one or more of the backup types listed in the section called Backups Member failures In the absence of HA master nodes detect the failures of members by receiving regular heartbeat messages If no heartbeat has been received for 200 seconds the master
38. Warning Make absolutely sure you are certain which LUN you are removing Accidentally removing a LUN required for host operation such as the boot or root device will render the host unusable LVM over iSCSI The LVM over iSCSI type represents disks as Logical Volumes within a Volume Group created on an iSCSI LUN Creating a shared LVM over iSCSI SR using the software iSCSI initiator Ivmoiscsi Device config parameters for lvmoiscsi SRs Parameter Name Description Optional target the IP address or hostname of the iSCSI filer that hosts the yes SR targetlQN the IQN target address of iSCSI filer that hosts the SR yes SCSlid the SCSI bus ID of the destination LUN yes 49 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Optional chapuser the username to be used for CHAP authentication no chappassword the password to be used for CHAP authentication no port the network port number on which to query the target no usediscoverynumber the specific iscsi record index to use no To create a shared lvmoiscsi SR on a specific LUN of an iSCSI target use the following command xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example shared LVM over iSCSI SR gt shared true device config target lt target_ip gt device config targetlQN lt target_ign gt device config SCSIid lt scsci_id gt type lvmoiscsi Creating a shared LVM over Fibre Channel iSCSI HBA or SAS SR Ivmohba SRs of type lvmohba can be create
39. XenServer HostiSCsl COMIQUIATION imc a A ENa ea ta 48 Managing Hardware Host Bus Adapters HBAS 0 cccece cece eect escent eee ee ee ea ee eases eeteteteeeeeeeeees 48 Sample QLogic iSCSI HBA setup cc nnn eter renee teeta ened 48 Removing HBA based SAS FC or iSCSI device entries 0c ecee cece ec ee nent eee ee tees eeeeeeees 49 LVM over iSCSI iii a toa 49 Creating a shared LVM over iSCSI SR using the software iSCSI initiator lvmoiscsi 49 Creating a shared LVM over Fibre Channel SCSI HBA or SAS SR lvmohba 6 0eeeeee eee 50 O A eeuen ceaeance 52 Creating aJshared NFS SR MS canada eas earned 53 LVM over hardware HBA soii a ai EAE 53 Citrix StorageLink Gateway CSLG SRS cccccccecee eens cence ee eeeeeeeeeeeeaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeneneegs 54 Creating a shared StorageLink SR 00 rnin neat 54 Managing Storage RepOsitones virtro havea E EE dio 58 Destroying r forgetting a SR iiadiet oleate a oarn aa 59 IMTOdUCIAD AN SR rr rd A n 59 RESIZIND A Act ae a A bun statute A tdo 60 Converting local Fibre Channel SRs to shared SRS 000ccocococcnconcncocnoncnnnncoronanconcnro reno rnrnrnrenenrrnrnnnres 60 Moving Virtual Disk Images VDIs between SRS 0 0 cet er ntti EEEE EEEE nens 60 Copying all of a VM s VDIs to a different SR 0c cece eect eee e nett eee eee ee cana nanananines 60 Copying individual VDIs to a different SR cceceee cece eee t eee eee
40. XenServer host is live and part of the pool you should use xe pool eject instead host get system status host get system status filename lt name_for_status_file gt entries lt comma_separated_list gt output lt tar bz2 zip gt lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Download system status information into the specified file The optional parameter entries is a comma separated list of system status entries taken from the capabilities XML fragment returned by the host get system status capabilities command See the section called host get system status capabilities for 156 CITRIX details If not specified all system status information is saved in the file The parameter output may be tar bz2 the default or zip if this parameter is not specified the file is saved in tar bz2 form The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above host get system status capabilities host get system status capabilities lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Get system status capabilities for the specified host s The capabilities are returned as an XML fragment that looks something like this lt xml version 1 0 gt lt system status capabilities gt lt capability content type text plain default checked yes key xenserver logs max size 150425200 max time 1 min size 150425200 min time 1 pii ma
41. a persistent iSCSI target to port 0 of the HBA opt QLogic_Corporation SANsurferiCLI iscli pa 0 lt iscsi_target_ip_address gt 3 Use the xe sr probe command to force a rescan of the HBA controller and display available LUNs See the section called Probing an SR and the section called Creating a shared LVM over Fibre Channel iSCSI HBA or SAS SR Ilvmohba for more details Removing HBA based SAS FC or iSCSI device entries Note This step is not required Citrix recommends that only power users perform this process if it is necessary Each HBA based LUN has a corresponding global device path entry under dev disk by scsibus in the format lt SCSlid gt lt adapter gt lt bus gt lt target gt lt lun gt and a standard device path under dev To remove the device entries for LUNs no longer in use as SRs use the following steps 1 Use sr forget or sr destroy as appropriate to remove the SR from the XenServer host database See the section called Destroying or forgetting a SR for details 2 Remove the zoning configuration within the SAN for the desired LUN to the desired host 3 Use the sr probe command to determine the ADAPTER BUS TARGET and LUN values corresponding to the LUN to be removed See the section called Probing an SR for details 4 Remove the device entries with the following command echo 1 gt sys class scsi_device lt adapter gt lt bus gt lt target gt lt lun gt device delete
42. an ke AE a EE AE E EE A EEE E E EA ERE 98 CITRIX Configuring Workload Balancing SettingS sscce edseeid eri ie bes Ad eee 98 To display the Workload Balancing Configuration dialog DOX 0 0 0 iieceeee cee tee eter ene ee ee etnen teeta teeta tees 99 Adjusting the Optimization MOde psenice eee nner eee eae 99 A a thas etssatuntihate E aces adeoumahehatin 99 SCMEGUICD a A naga ran nee edad Meets A 99 To set an optimization mode for all time periods ooooocccoccocccononcnnoncncnnnnancnnonancnnonanannnnos 100 To specify times when the optimization mode will change automatically ooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnccccccnooo 100 To edit or delete an automatic optimization interval ooooonnnnncccccccococococococonnnnnncncn cnn nana ncnnnoos 100 Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically oooocococcccccncccccocococononononanoncncncncncnnnnnonanananananans 100 Accepting Optimization Recommendations Automatically 02 ccceeee ee ee ee ee ee eeeeeeeeeeaeaeaeaed 101 Enabling Workload Balancing Power Management ccceeteeeeeteeetet eee eenee eens teeta ee eea ees 101 Designing Environments for Power Management and VM Consolidation eeeeeeeee teens 102 To apply optimization recommendations automatically c ccee cece eee ee ee ee eset ee eee eaeaeaeaed 103 To select servers for pOWer MANAGEMENT eee ee teen eee tren te ne nent aniani ees 103 Changing the Critical Thresholds cia A ad
43. but if changed the following constraint must be obeyed memory_static_max gt memory_dynamic_max gt memory_dynamic_min gt memory_static_min 178 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type memory dynamic min dynamic minimum memory in read write bytes Currently unused but if changed the same constraints for memory dynamic max must be obeyed memory static max statically set absolute read write maximum memory in bytes This is the main value used to determine the amount of memory assigned to a VM memory static min statically set absolute read write minimum memory in bytes This represents the absolute minimum memory and memory static min must be less than memory static max This value is currently unused in normal operation but the previous constraint must be obeyed suspend VDI uuid the VDI that a suspend image read only is stored on has no meaning for a template 179 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type VCPUs params configuration parameters for read write map parameter the selected VCPU policy You can tune a VCPU s pinning with xe vm param set uuid lt vm_uuid gt VCPUs params mask 1 2 3 A VM created from this template will then run on physical CPUs 1 2 and 3 only You can also tune the VCPU priority xen scheduling with the cap and weight parameters for example xe vm param set uuid lt vm_uuid gt VCPUs params weight 512 xe vm param set uuid lt
44. capabilities gt lt ca lt syste lt protoc lt ca lt proto lt csl__s lt cs lt c lt cs lt c lt cs lt c lt csl__ lt csl__stor lt csl__storageS pabilities gt CLONE lt capabilities gt mCapabilities gt olSupport gt pabilities gt FC lt capabilities gt colSupport gt napshotMethodInfoList gt 1__snapshotMethodInfo gt lt name gt 5001 4380 013C 0240 lt name gt lt displayName gt lt displayName gt lt maxSnapshots gt 16 lt maxSnapshots gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt nodeType gt STORAGE_VOLUME lt nodeType gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt snapshotTypeList gt lt snapshotTypeList gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt sl__snapshotMethodInfo gt 1__snapshotMethodInfo gt lt name gt 5001 4380 013C 0240 lt name gt lt displayName gt lt displayName gt lt maxSnapshots gt 16 lt maxSnapshots gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt nodeType gt STORAGE_VOLUME lt nodeType gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt snapshotTypeList gt lt snapshotType gt DIFF_SNAPSHOT lt snapshotType gt lt snapshotTypeList gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt sl__snapshotMethodInfo gt 1__snapshotMethodInfo gt lt name gt 5001 4380 013C 0240 lt name gt lt displayName gt lt displayName gt lt maxSnapshots gt 16 lt maxSnapshots gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt nodeType gt STORAGE_VOLUME lt nodeType gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt snap
45. eee trO eet e teeter EEEn 60 vi e CITRIX Adjusting ihe disk O schedule Viviana bd o ie 61 Virtual ISK DOS SEUS vii a A A a ts 61 Configuring VM Memory s ssssssecccscssnseseseeccesnnesseseeeesenenssseesessnsassssessssesas OG What is Dynamic Memory Control DMC cion e daa EE 63 THES GONCEPE OF dynamic range e os 63 The concept OF statie HAM td ld ec 64 DMG Behavior 64 Flowsdoes DMG WOK ai A en ee ean 64 Memory CONSTA Sida beutas AEE aiaa E Tad EOE 65 SUpported Operating SYSTOMS secie a EE A AE cap E E E E E 65 XE CL GOMMAMNAS enai a aaa i a a A a a E O aa aE RE 66 Display the static memory properties Of a VM oococccccccncncncncncncncncoconononanananannnenencncncnananaraninanans 66 Display the dynamic memory properties Of a VM cecececee ee ee eect eee trot rnrn ttrt r eter EErEE nE Errn EErEE EEn 66 Updating memory properties ooooccccccccccoconcncncncncncncnnnnncnnnnnn nano nene r nr nr nn nr na nana nenrnrnrnrnanininininines 67 Update individual memory properties ooooococccocccococococococononononononinanananonananannnnnrnrnrncnrnnnnnncncnnnns 68 Upgrade ISSUES AA AA 68 Workload Balancing interaction vs cnica tai a a e A EEE aka E EEE cei veces onend 68 Networking sc 09 XenServer NS e cece EEE Eee e eee e eee eee eae e eee eenenenees 69 Network OE id 70 NE no o caries tap aed nemnn pram O auteanetes Umma damrnamen eects na menaenmb apes 70 MANS st td cement E uentecn uae 70 Using VLA
46. een ee eenee ran 210 VM FetrieVe WIb rECOMMENGALIONS casks centoincas eeteteanatag deat cone 210 poolscentificatedliSt tii dd e rd ada xi Waele a 211 poolecertificate InsStall rai lors dit iba ion Risas 211 POOl CEMtiCAle SYNC iii 211 POD PANAINHSOU tii ii A EA A R 212 pool decontigureWIb ici ida 212 pool retrieve wIb CONMQUIATION ivi iria ad eaha aiga de 212 xix e CITRIX pool retrieve wIb rECOMMENCALIONS sicc cc0 cieisaiadadsswne deena a nE E ENEE E EEE ETNE EEA E 212 p olretieve WBFEPO ivan ti eio e e E aa a EEE aci 212 PGOl Send wIb CONTIQUIATION erriarena a E E E E E 213 Index A XX CITRIX Document Overview This document is a system administrator s guide to XenServer the platform virtualization solution from Citrix It describes the tasks involved in configuring a XenServer deployment in particular how to set up storage networking and resource pools and how to administer XenServer hosts using the xe command line interface CLI This section summarizes the rest of the guide so that you can find the information you need The following topics are covered e XenServer hosts and resource pools e XenServer storage configuration e XenServer network configuration e XenServer workload balancing e XenServer backup and recovery e Monitoring and managing XenServer e XenServer command line interface XenServer troubleshooting e XenServer resource allocation guidelines How this Guide relates to othe
47. filtering the full list of hosts on the values of fields For example specifying enabled t rue will select all XenServer hosts whose enabled field is equal to t rue Where multiple XenServer hosts are matching and the operation can be performed on multiple XenServer hosts the option mult ip1e must be specified to perform the operation The full list of parameters that can be matched is described at the beginning of this section and can be obtained by running the command xe host list params all If no parameters to select XenServer hosts are given the operation will be performed on all XenServer hosts Host parameters XenServer hosts have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object read only reference for the XenServer host name label The name of the XenServer read write host name description The description string of the read only XenServer host 151 CITRIX Parameter Name enabled APl version major API version minor API version vendor APl version vendor implementation logging suspend image sr uuid crash dump sr uuid software version capabilities other config hostname address supported bootloaders memory total memory free Description false if disabled which prevents any new VMs from starting on them which prepares the XenServer hosts to be shut down or rebooted true if the host is currently enabled major version number minor
48. for switches to begin forwarding traffic disallow unplug True if this PIF is a dedicated storage read write NIC false otherwise Note Changes made to the other config fields of a PIF will only take effect after a reboot Alternately use the xe pif unplug and xe pif plug commands to cause the PIF configuration to be rewritten pif forget pif forget uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt Destroy the specified PIF object on a particular host pif introduce pif introduce host uuid lt UUID of XenServer host gt mac lt mac_address_for_pif gt device lt machine readable name of the interface for example eth0 gt Create a new PIF object representing a physical interface on the specified XenServer host 169 CITRIX pif plug pif plug uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt Attempt to bring up the specified physical interface pif reconfigure ip pif reconfigure ip uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt mode lt dhcp gt mode lt static gt gateway lt network_gateway_address gt P lt static_ip_for_this_pif gt netmask lt netmask_for_this_pif gt DNS lt dns_address gt Modify the IP address of the PIF For static IP configuration set the mode parameter to static with the gateway IP and netmask parameters set to the appropriate values To use DHCP set the mode parameter to DHCP and leave the static parameters undefined Note Using static IP addresses on physical network interfaces connected to a port on a switch using Spanning Tree Protocol with
49. have required arguments and most have some set of optional arguments Typically a command will assume default values for some of the optional arguments when invoked without them If the xe command is executed remotely additional connection and authentication arguments are used These arguments also take the form argument argument_value The server argument is used to specify the hostname or IP address The username and password arguments are used to specify credentials A password file argument can be specified instead of the password directly In this case an attempt is made to read the password from the specified file stripping CRs and LFs off the end of the file if necessary and use that to connect This is more secure than specifying the password directly at the command line The optional port argument can be used to specify the agent port on the remote XenServer host defaults to 443 142 o CITRIX Example On the local XenServer host xe vm list Example On the remote XenServer host xe vm list user lt username gt password lt password gt server lt hostname gt Shorthand syntax is also available for remote connection arguments u username pw password pwf password file P port S server Example On a remote XenServer host xe vm list u lt myuser gt pw lt mypassword gt s lt hostname gt Arguments are also taken from the environment variable XE_EXTRA_ARGS in the form of comma separated key v
50. host e The SR media itself such as a LUN for iSCSI and FibreChannel SRs must be able to be moved re mapped or replicated between the source and destination hosts e If using tiered storage where a VM has VDIs on multiple SRs all required SRs must be moved to the destination host or pool Any configuration data required to connect the SR on the destination host or pool such as the target IP address target IQN and LUN SCSI ID for iSCSI SRs and the LUN SCSI ID for FibreChannel SRs must be maintained manually The backup metadata option must be configured for the desired SR Note When moving portable SRs between pools the source and destination pools are not required to have the same number of hosts Moving portable SRs between pools and standalone hosts is also supported provided the above constraints are met Portable SRs work by creating a dedicated metadata VDI within the specified SR The metadata VDI is used to store copies of the pool or host database as well as the metadata describing the configuration of each VM As a result the SR becomes fully self contained or portable allowing it to be detached from one host and attached to another as a new SR Once the SR is attached a restore process is used to recreate all of the VMs on the SR from the metadata VDI For disaster recovery the metadata backup can be scheduled to run regularly to ensure the metadata SR is current The metadata backup and restore feature works at the
51. in your host and whether the management interface of the host is assigned to a PIF to be used in the bond XenServer supports Source Level Balancing SLB NIC bonding SLB bonding e is an active active mode but only supports load balancing of VM traffic across the physical NICs e provides fail over support for all other traffic types e does not require switch support for Etherchannel or 802 3ad LACP e load balances traffic between multiple interfaces at VM granularity by sending traffic through different interfaces based on the source MAC address of the packet is derived from the open source ALB mode and reuses the ALB capability to dynamically re balance load across interfaces Any given VIF will only use one of the links in the bond at a time At startup no guarantees are made about the affinity of a given VIF to a link in the bond However for VIFs with high throughput periodic rebalancing ensures that the load on the links is approximately equal API Management traffic can be assigned to a XenServer bond interface and will be automatically load balanced across the physical NICs XenServer bonded PIFs do not require IP configuration for the bond when used for guest traffic This is because the bond operates at Layer 2 of the OSI the data link layer and no IP addressing is used at this layer When used for non guest traffic to connect to it with XenCenter for management or to connect to shared network storage one IP configuratio
52. install Workload Balancing from the command line the prerequisites are not checked For Msiexec properties see CTX124480 When you install Workload Balancing Setup creates the data store by installing it across the network onto the database You do not need to run Workload Balancing Setup locally on the database server After installation you must set up Workload Balancing server communication settings before you can use Workload Balancing to optimize workloads For information see the section called Initializing Workload Balancing Note To install Workload Balancing on multiple servers see CTX124289 For information about System Requirements see the section called Workload Balancing System Requirements For installation instructions see the section called Installing Workload Balancing Workload Balancing System Requirements This topic lists the prerequisites for installing Workload Balancing or upgrading it to this release For information about data store requirements see the section called Workload Balancing Data Store Requirements Important Citrix recommends installing the Workload Balancing server on Windows Server 2008 R2 since it simplifies downloading and installing the recommended prerequisites Supported XenServer Versions e XenServer 5 6 Supported Operating Systems Unless otherwise noted Workload Balancing components run on the following operating systems 32 bit and 64 bit editions
53. interface on the host to enable the bond as follows 76 CITRIX a Use the host list command to find the UUID of the host being configured xe host list Use the pif list command to determine the UUID of bond PIF on the new host Include the host uuid parameter to list only the PIFs on the host being configured xe pif list network name label lt network_name gt host uuid lt host_uuid gt Use the pif reconfigure ip command to configure the desired management interface IP address settings for the bond PIF See Appendix A Command line interface for more detail on the options available for the pif reconfigure ip command This command must be run directly on the host xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt mode DHCP Use the host management reconfigure command to move the management interface from the existing physical PIF to the bond PIF This step activates the bond This command must be run directly on the host xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt Use the pif reconfigure ip command to remove the IP address configuration from the non bonded PIF previously used for the management interface This step is not strictly necessary but may help reduce confusion when reviewing the host networking configuration This command must be run directly on the host server xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt old_mgmt_pif_uuid gt mode None For each additional host you want to join to the pool repeat st
54. is considered to be an overhead It is separated from the normal memory calculations for accounting memory to a VM When this command is invoked the amount of free XenServer host memory will decrease according to the multiplier and the 4VM_shadow_multiplier field will be updated with the actual value which Xen has assigned to the VM If there is not enough XenServer host memory free then an error will be returned The VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors for more information vm migrate vm migrate host uuid lt destination XenServer host UUID gt host lt name or UUID of destination XenServer host gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt live lt true false gt 207 CITRIX Migrate the specified VMs between physical hosts The host parameter can be either the name or the UUID of the XenServer host By default the VM will be suspended migrated and resumed on the other host The live parameter activates XenMotion and keeps the VM running while performing the migration thus minimizing VM downtime to less than a second In some circumstances such as extremely memory heavy workloads in the VM XenMotion automatically falls back into the default mode and suspends the VM for a brief period of time before completing the memory transfer The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection
55. is managed read only xenstore data Data to be inserted into the xenstore tree read only map parameter sm config names and descriptions of storage read only map parameter manager device config keys is a snapshot True if this template is a CD snapshot read only snapshot_of The UUID of the CD that this template is read only a snapshot of snapshots The UUID s of any snapshots that have read only been taken of this CD snapshot_time The timestamp of the snapshot operation read only cd list cd list params lt param1 param2 gt parameter lt parameter_value gt List the CDs and ISOs CD image files on the XenServer host or pool filtering on the optional argument params If the optional argument params is used the value of params is a string containing a list of parameters of this object that you want to display Alternatively you can use the keyword a11 to show all parameters If params is not used the returned list shows a default subset of all available parameters Optional arguments can be any number of the CD parameters listed at the beginning of this section Console commands Commands for working with consoles The console objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe console list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Console parameters Consoles have the following parameters 149 CITRIX
56. list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details 188 CITRIX VDI parameters VDIs have the following parameters Parameter Name uuid name label name description allowed operations current operations sr uuid vbd uuids crashdump uuids virtual size physical Utilization type sharable read only storage lock parent missing other config sr name label location Description the unique identifier object reference for the VDI the name of the VDI the description string of the VDI a list of the operations allowed in this state a list of the operations that are currently in progress on this VDI SR in which the VDI resides a list of VBDs that refer to this VDI list of crash dumps that refer to this VDI size of disk as presented to the VM in bytes Note that depending on the storage backend type the size may not be respected exactly amount of physical space that the VDI is currently taking up on the SR in bytes type of VDI for example System or User true if this VDI may be shared true if this VDI can only be mounted read only true if this VDI is locked at the storage level references the parent VDI if this VDI is part of a chain true if SR scan operation reported this VDI as not present additional configuration information for this VDI name of the co
57. lt freeSpaceInMB gt 1273067 lt freeSpaceInMB gt lt isDefault gt No lt isDefault gt lt status gt 0 lt status gt lt provisioningOptions gt lt supportedRaidTypes gt lt raidType gt RAIDO lt raidType gt lt raidType gt RAID1 lt raidType gt lt raidType gt RAID5 lt raidType gt lt supportedRaidTypes gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt nodeType gt STORAGE_VOLUME lt nodeType gt lt supportedNodeTypes gt lt supportedProvisioningTypes gt lt supportedProvisioningTypes gt lt provisioningOptions gt lt csl__storagePoolInfo gt lt csl__storagePoolInfoList gt You can use grep to filter the sr probe output to just the storage pool IDs xe sr probe type cslg device config target 192 168 128 10 device config storageSystemId HP__EVA_ 50014380013C0240 grep storagePoolld lt storagePool11d gt 00010710B4080560B6AB08000080000000000400 lt storagePoolId gt 5 Create the SR specifying the desired storage system and storage pool IDs xe sr create type cslg name label CSLG_EVA_1 shared true device config target 192 168 128 10 device config storageSystemId HP__EVA__50014380013C0240 device config storagePoolId 00010710B4080560B6AB08000080000000000400 Managing Storage Repositories This section covers various operations required in the ongoing management of Storage Repositories SRs 58 CITRIX Destroying or forgetting a SR You can destroy an SR which actually
58. may limit the throughput of control operations Using the plugin will allow you to make use of the advanced array features however so will make backup and snapshot operations easier Warning There are two types of administration accounts that can successfully access the EqualLogic SM plugin e Agroup administration account which has access to and can manage the entire group and all storage pools e A pool administrator account that can manage only the objects SR and VDI snapshots that are in the pool or pools assigned to the account Creating a shared EqualLogic SR Device config parameters for EqualLogic SRs 41 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Optional target the IP address or hostname of the EqualLogic no array that hosts the SR username the login username used to manage the LUNs on no the array password the login password used to manage the LUNs on no the array storagepool the storage pool name no chapuser the username to be used for CHAP authentication yes chappassword the password to be used for CHAP authentication yes allocation specifies whether to use thick or thin provisioning yes Default is thick Thin provisioning reserves a minimum of 10 of volume space snap reserve percentage sets the amount of space as percentage of yes volume reserve to allocate to snapshots Default is 100 snap depletion sets the action to take when snapshot reserve yes space is exceeded volume offline sets the volu
59. mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm reboot vm reboot lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force lt true gt Reboot the specified VMs The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section Use the force argument to cause an ungraceful shutdown akin to pulling the plug on a physical server vm reset powerstate vm reset powerstate lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force true The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section This is an advanced command only to be used when a member host in a pool goes down You can use this command to force the pool master to reset the power state of the VMs to be halted Essentially this forces the lock on the VM and its disks so it can be subsequently started on another pool host This call requires the force flag to be specified and fails if it is not on the command line vm resume vm resume lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force lt true false gt on lt XenServer host UUID gt Resume the specified VM
60. name For example all XenServer hosts in a pool with an ethO NIC will have a corresponding PIF plugged into the pool wide Network 0 network The same will be true for hosts with eth1 NICs and Network 1 as well as other NICs present in at least one XenServer host in the pool If one XenServer host has a different number of NICs than other hosts in the pool complications can arise because not all pool networks will be valid for all pool hosts For example if hosts host and host2 are in the same pool and host has four NICs while host2 only has two only the networks connected to PIFs corresponding to ethO and eth1 will be valid on host2 VMs on host1 with VIFs connected to networks corresponding to eth2 and eth3 will not be able to migrate to host host2 All NICs of all XenServer hosts within a resource pool must be configured with the same MTU size Creating VLANs For servers in a resource pool you can use the pool vlan create command This command creates the VLAN and automatically creates and plugs in the required PIFs on the hosts in the pool See the section called pool vlan create for more information To connect a network to an external VLAN using the CLI 1 Open the XenServer host text console 2 Create a new network for use with the VLAN The UUID of the new network is returned xe network create name label network5 3 Use the pif list command to find the UUID of the PIF corresponding to the physical NIC supporting the
61. only set parameter for use represented by integers of the range 0 15 This list is informational only and other devices may be used but may not work HVM boot policy the boot policy for HVM read write guests Either BIOS Order or an empty string HVM boot params the order key controls read write map parameter the HVM guest boot order represented as a string where each character is a boot method d for the CD DVD c for the root disk and n for network PXE boot The default is dc 198 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type HVM shadow multiplier Floating point value which read write controls the amount of shadow memory overhead to grant the VM Defaults to 1 0 the minimum value and should only be changed by advanced users PV kernel path to the kernel read write PV ramdisk path to the initrd read write PV args string of kernel command line read write arguments PV legacy args string of arguments to make read write legacy VMs boot PV bootloader name of or path to bootloader read write PV bootloader args string of miscellaneous read write arguments for the bootloader last boot CPU flags describes the CPU flags on read only which the VM was last booted resident on the XenServer host on which read only a VM is currently resident affinity a XenServer host which read write the VM has preference for running on used by the xe vm start command to decide where to run the VM other config A list of key value
62. other config ethtool tx Description Type The unique identifier object reference for read only the network The name of the network read write The description text of the network read write A list of unique identifiers of the VIFs read only set parameter virtual network interfaces that are attached from VMs to this network A list of unique identifiers of the PIFs read only set parameter physical network interfaces that are attached from XenServer hosts to this network name of the bridge corresponding to this read only network on the local XenServer host comma separated list of read write lt subnet gt lt netmask gt lt gateway gt formatted entries specifying the gateway address through which to route subnets For example setting other config static routes to 172 16 0 0 15 192 168 0 3 172 16 causes traffic on 172 16 0 0 15 to be routed over 192 168 0 3 and traffic on 172 18 0 0 16 to be routed over 192 163 0 4 set to no to disable autonegotiation of read write the physical interface or bridge Default is MESE set to on to enable receive checksum read write off to disable set to on to enable transmit checksum read write off to disable 163 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type other config ethtool sg set to on to enable scatter gather off to read write disable other config ethtool tso set to on to enable tcp segmentation read write offload off to disable other config ethtool ufo
63. pairs read write map parameter that specify additional configuration parameters for the VM For example a VM will be started automatically after host boot if the other config parameter includes the key value pair auto_poweron true 199 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type start time timestamp of the date and read only time that the metrics for the VM were read in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT install time timestamp of the date and read only time that the metrics for the VM were read in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT memory actual the actual memory being read only used by a VM VCPUs number the number of virtual CPUs read only assigned to the VM For a paravirtualized Linux VM this number can differ from VCPUS max and can be changed without rebooting the VM using the vm vcpu hotplug command See the section called vm vcpu hotplug Windows VMs always run with the number of vCPUs set to VCPUs max and must be rebooted to change this value Note that performance will drop sharply if you set VCPUs number to a value greater than the number of physical CPUs on the XenServer host VCPUs Utilization a list of virtual CPUs and their read only map parameter weight os version the version of the operating read only map parameter sys
64. parameter read only read write read write read only read only read only read write map parameter read only read only read only CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type snapshot_time the timestamp of the read only snapshot operation that created this VM snapshot memory target the target amount of memory read only set for this VM blocked operations lists the operations that read write map parameter cannot be performed on this VM last boot record record of the last boot read only parameters for this template in XML format ha always run True if this VM will always read write restarted on another host in case of the failure of the host it is resident on ha restart priority 1 2 3 or best effort 1 is the read write highest restart priority blobs binary data store read only live True if the VM is running read only false if HA suspects that the VM may not be running vm cd add vm cd add cd name lt name_of_new_cd gt device lt integer_value_of_an_available_vbd gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Add a new virtual CD to the selected VM The device parameter should be selected from the value of the allowed VBD devices parameter of the VM The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm cd
65. read only reference for the VBD vm uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the VM this VBD is attached to vm name label the name of the VM this VBD read only is attached to vdi uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the VDI this VBD is mapped to vdi name label the name of the VDI this VBD read only is mapped to empty if true this represents an read only empty drive device the device seen by the guest read only for example hdal userdevice user friendly device name read write bootable true if this VBD is bootable read write mode the mode the VBD should be read write mounted with type how the VBD appears to the read write VM for example disk or CD currently attached True if the VBD is currently read only attached on this host false otherwise 186 CITRIX Parameter Name storage lock status code status detail qos_algorithm_type qos_algorithm_params qos_supported_algorithms io read_kbs io_write_kbs allowed operations current operations unpluggable attachable other config vbd create Description True if a storage level lock was acquired error success code associated with the last attach operation error success information associated with the last attach operation status the QoS algorithm to use parameters for the chosen QoS algorithm supported QoS algorithms for this VBD average read rate in kB per second for this VBD average writ
66. recommended values and ranges for properties of this VM data to be inserted into the xenstore tree local domain lt domid gt vm data after the VM is created True if this template is a VM snapshot the UUID of the VM that this template is a snapshot of the UUID s of any snapshots that have been taken of this template the timestamp of the most recent VM snapshot taken the target amount of memory set for this template 184 Type read only read write read write read only read write read only read only read write map parameter read only read only read only read only read only CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type blocked operations lists the operations that read write map parameter cannot be performed on this template last boot record record of the last boot read only parameters for this template in XML format ha always run True if an instance of this read write template will always restarted on another host in case of the failure of the host it is resident on ha restart priority 1 2 3 or best effort 1 is the read write highest restart priority blobs binary data store read only live only relevant to a running VM read only template export template export template uuid lt uuid_of_existing_template gt filename lt filename_for_new_template gt Exports a copy of a specified template to a file with the specified new filename Update commands Commands for working
67. required to have the same number of hosts This allows use of either dedicated DR facilities or non dedicated DR sites that run other production workloads Using portable SRs with storage layer replication between sites to enable the DR site in case of disaster 1 Any storage layer configuration required to enable the mirror or replica LUN in the DR site are performed An SR is created for each LUN in the DR site VMs are restored from metadata on one or more SRs Any adjustments to VM configuration required by differences in the DR site such as IP addressing are performed VMs are started and verified Traffic is routed to the VMs in the DR site VM Snapshots XenServer provides a convenient snapshotting mechanism that can take a snapshot of a VM storage and metadata at a given time Where necessary IO is temporarily halted while the snapshot is being taken to ensure that a self consistent disk image can be captured Snapshot operations result in a snapshot VM that is similar to a template The VM snapshot contains all the storage information and VM configuration including attached VIFs allowing them to be exported and restored for backup purposes Snapshots are supported on all storage types though for the LVM based 126 CITRIX storage types the storage repository must have been upgraded if it was created on a previous version of XenServer and the volume must be in the default format t ype raw volumes cannot be snapshotted
68. resource pool See the section called Creating a NIC bond on a dual NIC host for details on using the xe CLI to create NIC bonds on a standalone XenServer host 75 CITRIX Warning Do not attempt to create network bonds while HA is enabled The process of bond creation will disturb the in progress HA heartbeating and cause hosts to self fence shut themselves down subsequently they will likely fail to reboot properly and will need the host emergency ha disable command to recover Adding NIC bonds to new resource pools 1 Select the host you want to be the master The master host belongs to an unnamed pool by default To create a resource pool with the CLI rename the existing nameless pool xe pool param set name label lt New Pool gt uuid lt pool_uuid gt Create the NIC bond on the master as follows a Use the network create command to create a new pool wide network for use with the bonded NICs The UUID of the new network is returned xe network create name label lt network_name gt b Use the pif list command to determine the UUIDs of the PIFs to use in the bond xe pif list c Use the bond create command to create the bond specifying the network UUID created in step a and the UUIDs of the PIFs to be bonded separated by commas The UUID for the bond is returned xe bond create network uuid lt network_uuid gt pif uuids lt pif_uuid_1 gt lt pif_uuid_2 gt Note See the section called
69. s disallow unplug parameter to true xe pif param set disallow unplug true uuid lt pif uuid gt xe pif param set other config management_purpose Storage uuid lt pif uuid gt If you want to use a storage interface that can be routed from the management interface also bearing in mind that this configuration is not recommended then you have two options After a host reboot ensure that the storage interface is correctly configured and use the xe pbd unplug and xe pbd plug commands to reinitialize the storage connections on the host This will restart the storage connection and route it over the correct interface Alternatively you can use xe pif forget to remove the interface from the XenServer database and manually configure it in the control domain This is an advanced option and requires you to be familiar with how to manually configure Linux networking Controlling Quality of Service QoS Citrix XenServer allows an optional Quality of Service QoS value to be set on VM virtual network interfaces VIFs using the CLI The supported QoS algorithm type is rate limiting specified as a maximum transfer rate for the VIF in Kb per second For example to limit a VIF to a maximum transfer rate of 100kb s use the vif param set command xe vif param set uuid lt vif_uuid gt qos_algorithm_type ratelimit xe vif param set uuid lt vif_uuid gt qos_algorithm_params kbps 100 Changing networking configuration options Thi
70. scan manually vdi forget vdi forget uuid lt uuid_of_vdi gt Unconditionally removes a VDI record from the database without touching the storage backend In normal operation you should be using vdi destroy instead vdi import vdi import uuid lt uuid_of_vdi gt filename lt filename_of_raw_vdi gt Import a raw VDI vdi introduce vdi introduce uuid lt uuid_of_vdi gt sr uuid lt uuid_of_sr_to_import_into gt name label lt name_of the_new_vdi gt type lt system user suspend crashdump gt location lt device_location_ varies_by_storage_type gt name description lt description_of_vdi gt sharable lt yes no gt read only lt yes no gt other config lt map_to_store_misc_user_specific_data gt xenstore data lt map_to_of_additional_xenstore_keys gt sm config lt storage_specific_configuration_data gt Create a VDI object representing an existing storage device without actually modifying or creating any storage This command is primarily used internally to automatically introduce hot plugged storage devices vdi resize vdi resize uuid lt vdi_uuid gt disk size lt new_size_for_disk gt Resize the VDI specified by UUID vdi snapshot vdi snapshot uuid lt uuid_of the_vdi gt driver params lt params gt 191 C TRIX Produces a read write version of a VDI that can be used as a reference for backup and or template creation purposes You can perform a backup from a snapshot rather than inst
71. state will be removed To do this 1 Use the commandsnapshot copy and specify a new name label for the template xe snapshot copy new name label lt vm template name gt snapshot uuid lt uuid of the snapshot gt For example xe snapshot copy new name label example_template_1 snapshot uuid b3c0f369 5 a1 ddl6 ecd4 al1211df29886 Note This creates a template object in the SAME pool This template exists in the XenServer database for the current pool only 2 To verify that the template has been created run the command template list xe template list 130 e CITRIX This will list all of the templates on the XenServer host Exporting a snapshot to a template When you export a VM snapshot a complete copy of the VM including disk images is stored as a single file on your local machine with a xva file extension To do this 1 Use the command snapshot export to template to create a new template file xe snapshot export to template snapshot uuid lt snapshot uuid gt filename lt templat filename gt For example xe snapshot export to template snapshot uuid b3c0f369 5 a1 ddl6 ecd4 al211df29886 filename example_template_export The VM export import feature can be used in a number of different ways Asa convenient backup facility for your VMs An exported VM file can be used to recover an entire VM in the event of disaster e As a way of quickly copying a VM for example a speci
72. subsequent ones to be slow Defaults to 30 seconds if unspecified or if the setting cannot be parsed xe pool param set other config wlb_timeout lt 0 01 gt uuid lt 3156882 f 5741 cc4d 9046 3b9cea716f69 gt host retrieve wlb evacuate recommendations host retrieve wlb evacuate recommendations uuid lt host_uuid gt Returns the evacuation recommendations for a host and a reference to the UUID of the recommendations object vm retrieve wlb recommendations Returns the workload balancing recommendations for the selected VM The simplest way to select the VM on which the operation is to be performed is by supplying the argument vm lt name_or_uuid gt VMs can also be specified by filtering the full list of VMs on the values of fields For example specifying power state halted selects all VMs whose power state is halted Where multiple VMs are matching specify the option multiple to perform the operation The full list of fields that can be matched can be obtained by the command xe vm list params all If no parameters to select VMs are given the operation will be performed on all VMs 210 e C TRIX pool certificate list XenServer s Workload Balancing component lets you use certificates to secure communication between XenServer pools and the Workload Balancing server You can either use the default certificate which is created automatically during Workload Balancing installation or you can specify a certificate you have
73. the snapshots on a XenServer POO cceceeee cece cece ee eee eee rttr ttnt ee ee et eeeeeeeeeeateteeaes To list the snapshots on a particular VMs issi cece cence eee eee te ee eee AE EE e eden eden E EEE xii 126 126 127 127 127 127 128 128 128 CITRIX Restoring a VM toits previous State es isa rr sa ac 129 Deleting a SMADSNOL urna ai fasta juste dai 129 snapshot Templates arca tiara E 130 Creating a template from a SnapShot ooocccccccccncncncncncncncncncnnnnnnnnnnnananancncnnnnnnoncncnnncnnanors 130 Exporting a snapshot toa template unica cita 131 Advanced Notes for Quiesced Snapshots ooococcccccncncncncocncncncncncnnnanancnnnno nono noncncncnnnnanenoss 131 COPING With machine Talle casa 133 Menbertalres sita osea cie naaa 133 Master tallUres aid A A AAA 133 Pool failures A a 134 Coping with Failure due to Configuration Errors cccececee ec ee cece cette eee ee ee ee eset ee ee ee nents eaeaeaeaees 134 Physical Machine failure 0 0 0 cece cece eee cence eee eee eee eA EEE EEE rr rn nr nr nr nn EG EOE DE EASE DASE EOE SSSA SESE EA EEE SS 134 Monitoring and managing XenServer cccccoccccccacoononanannananonennnnaaannanonmnnanaa 100 AMS reset arcanriacrs E E E E E E N 136 CUSTOMIZING ASS se asic e E E S EE aca A 137 Configuring Emal Al iii DA 138 CUSTOM Fields TAGS siii e A iia 139 GUSTOM SECAS rain a a ts 139 Determining throughput of physical bus adapters oooooccc
74. time your resource usage was green Workload Balancing might not be fitting the maximum number of virtual machines possible on that host or pool If this is the case you should adjust your performance threshold values until the majority of your resource utilization falls into the Average Medium blue threshold range e Resource utilization in the Average Critical Threshold Percent red indicates the amount of time average resource utilization met or exceeded the Critical threshold value If you double click on a pie chart for a host s resource usage XenCenter displays the Host Health History report for that resource for example CPU on that host Clicking the Back to Parent Report toolbar button returns you to the Pool Health history report If you find the majority of your report results are not in the Average Medium Threshold range you probably need to adjust the Critical threshold for this pool While Workload Balancing provides default threshold settings these defaults are not effective in all environments If you do not have the thresholds adjusted to the correct level for your environment Workload Balancing s optimization and placement recommendations might not be appropriate For more information see the section called Changing the Critical Thresholds 120 CITRIX Note The High Medium and Low threshold ranges are based on the Critical threshold value you set when you initialized Workload Balancing Pool Health History
75. to refer to Active Directory and user account features CITRIX XenCenter Term XenServer CLI Term Users Subjects Add users Add subjects Understanding Active Directory authentication in the XenServer environment Even though XenServers are Linux based XenServer lets you use Active Directory accounts for XenServer user accounts To do so it passes Active Directory credentials to the Active Directory domain controller When added to XenServer Active Directory users and groups become XenServer subjects generally referred to as simply users in XenCenter When a subject is registered with XenServer users groups are authenticated with Active Directory on login and do not need to qualify their user name with a domain name Note By default if you did not qualify the user name for example enter either mydomain myuser or myser mydomain com XenCenter always attempts to log users in to Active Directory authentication servers using the domain to which it is currently joined The exception to this is the LSU account which XenCenter always authenticates locally that is on the XenServer first The external authentication process works as follows 1 The credentials supplied when connecting to a server are passed to the Active Directory domain controller for authentication 2 The domain controller checks the credentials If they are invalid the authentication fails immediately 3 If the credentials are valid the Active Directory
76. user is authenticated they will have access to the server until they end their session or another user terminates their session Removing a user from the subject list or removing them from a group that is in the subject list will not automatically revoke any already authenticated sessions that the user has this means that they may be able to continue to access the pool using XenCenter or other API sessions that they have already created In order to terminate these sessions forcefully XenCenter and the CLI provide facilities to terminate individual sessions or all currently active sessions See the XenCenter help for more information on procedures using XenCenter or below for procedures using the CLI Terminating all authenticated sessions using xe Execute the following CLI command xe session subject identifier logout all Terminating individual user sessions using xe 1 Determine the subject identifier whose session you wish to log out Use either the session subject identifier list or subject list xe commands to find this the first shows users who have sessions the second shows all users but can be filtered for example using a command like xe subject list other config subject name xendt user1 depending on your shell you may need a double backslash as shown 2 Use the session subject logout command passing the subject identifier you have determined in the previous step as a parameter for example xe session sub
77. values for any required parameters 2 Create the SR to initialize the SR object and associated PBD objects plug the PBDs and activate the SR These steps differ in detail depending on the type of SR being created In all examples the sr create command returns the UUID of the created SR if successful 33 CITRIX SRs can also be destroyed when no longer in use to free up the physical device or forgotten to detach the SR from one XenServer host and attach it to another See the section called Destroying or forgetting a SR for details Note When specifying StorageLink configuration for a XenServer host or pool supply either the default credentials of username admin and password storagelink or any custom credentials specified during installation of the StorageLink Gateway service Unlike StorageLink Manager XenCenter does not supply the default credentials automatically Upgrading LVM storage from XenServer 5 0 or earlier See the XenServer Installation Guide for information on upgrading LVM storage to enable the latest features Local LVM on iSCSI and LVM on HBA storage types from older XenServer 5 0 and before product versions will need to be upgraded before they will support snapshot and fast clone Warning SR upgrade of SRs created in version 5 0 or before requires the creation of a 4MB metadata volume Please ensure that there are at least 4MB of free space on your SR before attempting to upgrade the storage Note
78. vm_uuid gt VCPUs params cap 100 A VM based on this template with a weight of 512 will get twice as much CPU as a domain with a weight of 256 on a contended XenServer host Legal weights range from 1 to 65535 and the default is 256 The cap optionally fixes the maximum amount of CPU a VM based on this template will be able to consume even if the XenServer host has idle CPU cycles The cap is expressed in percentage of one physical CPU 100 is 1 physical CPU 50 is half a CPU 400 is 4 CPUs etc The default 0 means there is no upper cap VCPUs max maximum number of VCPUs read write VCPUs at startup boot number of VCPUs read write 180 CITRIX Parameter Name actions after crash console uuids platform allowed operations current operations allowed VBD devices allowed VIF devices HVM boot policy HVM boot params PV kernel PV ramdisk PV args PV legacy args Description action to take if a VM based on this template crashes virtual console devices platform specific configuration list of the operations allowed in this state list of the operations that are currently in progress on this list of VBD identifiers available for use represented by integers of the range 0 15 This list is informational only and other devices may be used but may not work list of VIF identifiers available for use represented by integers of the range 0 15 This list is informational only and othe
79. which prevents any new VMs from starting on them This prepares the XenServer hosts to be shut down or rebooted The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section host dmesg host dmesg lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Get a Xen dmesg the output of the kernel ring buffer from specified XenServer hosts The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section host emergency management reconfigure host emergency management reconfigure interface lt uuid_of management_interface_pif gt 155 CITRIX Reconfigure the management interface of this XenServer host Use this command only if the XenServer host is in emergency mode meaning that it is a member in a resource pool whose master has disappeared from the network and could not be contacted for some number of retries host enable host enable lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Enables the specified XenServer hosts which allows new VMs to be started on them The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors ab
80. which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm data source query vm data source query data source lt name_description_of data source gt lt vm selector gt lt vm selector value gt Display the specified data source for a VM The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm data source record vm data source record data source lt name description _of data source gt lt vm selector gt lt wm selector value gt Record the specified data source for a VM This will write the information from the data source to the VM s persistent performance metrics database This database is distinct from the normal agent database for performance reasons Data sources have the true false parameters standard and enabled which can be seen in the output of the vm data source list command If enabled t rue the data source metrics are currently being recorded to the performance database if enabled false they are not Data sources with standard t rue have enabled true and have their metrics recorded to the performance database by default Data sources which have standard false have enabled fal
81. would lead to severe disk corruption If you are sure that the machines and VMs are offline you can reset the VM power state to Halted xe vm reset powerstate vm lt vm_uuid gt force VMs can then be restarted using XenCenter or the CLI Replacing a failed master with a still running member 1 Run the commands 134 CITRIX 2 xe pool emergency transition to master xe pool recover slaves If the commands succeed restart the VMs To restore a pool with all hosts failed 1 4 Run the command xe pool restore database file name lt backup gt Warning This command will only succeed if the target machine has an appropriate number of appropriately named NICs If the target machine has a different view of the storage for example a block mirror with a different IP address than the original machine modify the storage configuration using the pbd destroy command and then the pbd create command to recreate storage configurations See the section called PBD commands for documentation of these commands If you have created a new storage configuration use pbd plug or Storage gt Repair Storage Repository menu item in XenCenter to use the new configuration Restart all VMs To restore a VM when VM storage is not available 1 Run the command xe vm import filename lt backup gt metadata If the metadata import fails run the command xe vm import filename lt backup gt metadat
82. 103 Default Settings Tor Critical Threshold evitan a ia 104 Jo change the cfitical threshold iaa tds 104 MUAING Metric WeightinNgS tecnica ic dra dl dina Aide ia 104 To edlt Metric weighting TaCtorS peri 105 Excluding Hosts from ReCOMIMENdatiONS sisenedes aaeoa rer aaa EENDE 105 To exclude hosts from placement and optimization recommendations o ooocccccconcncnnnncnnnnnnanos 105 Configuring Optimization Intervals Report Subscriptions and Data Storage oocococcccnccncnnononcnnnnannns 106 Historical Data Storage Time cece cece e tenet eee eee eee teeter nana nana nenrnrnnneninnnaninines 106 To configure the data Storage PEO simio tiles cet 106 VM Optimization Criteria seess acc a art id 106 Length of Time Between Optimization Recommendations After VM MOVES 0oooocccccccccoc ooo 106 Number of Times an Optimization Recommendation is Made ocooccccccconcncnncnancnnnncnnnnns 107 Setting the Minimum Optimization Severity ccecece eect cece eee tees tees eter eee eeneeeeeneaed 107 CITRIX Modifying the Aggressiveness Setting ccccceeeec cence eee ee ease ee ee este tees eset ee erereeeeeees 107 Receiving Reports by Email Automatically Report Subscriptions e ce cecee ee eeeeeeeeeeeee ees 108 To configure report subscriptions oocococccccocococonononononanananananananoncncncncncnnnnnncnaninanes 109 Choosing an Optimal Server for VM Initial Placement Migrate ANd RESUME
83. 173 Storage repository SR commands 174 task commands 176 Template commands 177 update commands 185 user commands 185 VBD commands 186 VDI commands 188 VIF commands 192 VLAN commands 195 VM commands 195 xe commands command line interface CLI xen bugtool 140 XenServer host constraints on joining resource pool 19 joining in resource pools logs 140 networks requirements for joining resource pools 19 XenServer host troubleshooting 215 logs 140 xen bugtool 140
84. 204 Wine ChASMCMMIOHISE esta data 204 ym data Source forget sera cing a 1a tua caves ian E wale a PaRa 204 vmedata Solrco Ear 204 vm data SOUCOQUIV nrdia in asin 205 Md atar SOUTO TECONO tir airne a a wen o a a endo ung eieawiw pout nap aman awe 205 VIMIPOSSUOY ira di ali o ina 205 xviii CITRIX VIMIFOISK AOG A AA de Wels cape eee ieee eee 205 MMS Ei ii beset aie A EA OAE Dene A ba 206 VIMIFCISK PEMOVE rar ar ai tt ondaa 206 NOXD E astas drid uns E pod E E EE 206 AA ALO Al O OOOO CNO no E E 206 VIMIFINSTAll gescande ga a a O e AE EE aint dase Hueke EN A O A 207 vm memory shadow multiplier Set ooococococcccccncccncncncncococonoconononoronononononononanananananananes 207 WINIAIMIQVALG is cca sien ideas a aa a a a sist a a O n A a E 207 O anos rnaen anaa E wed E A AA E R EE 208 WIM FESCT OOWSISTALC ri A A A E T EES 208 UNOS iii A o aa 208 AIT ASU O Wills ee oasa e vals ace ature ous abel sata elo ateo tea aeasas 208 O 209 A agaaciey anduniedan satidsnd navnnmidtebanginamat T E eo pedeuet nce 209 MAIS Teall ences erste dra do Did 209 VO VCpU NOU tai dolce ando dorada tite bean Nodo 209 MOS Galva eae ne Beta greed Aaa aap naa eee ae cee eee 210 Workload Balancing COMIMANAS roo somero dci Rese dae A A divs ENA a 210 DOOlIalZE WIb 0 in dad 210 pool param set OtherConfY essercene eini en eee eee nee eee nee tenet teeta Rana 210 host retrieve wlb evacuate recommMendati0NS ssssisisisiskttttrtrs inttr ititi ee tenet
85. 4217728 This shows that the static maximum memory for this VM is 134217728 bytes 128MB Updating memory properties Warning lt is essential that you use the correct ordering when setting the static dynamic minimum maximum parameters In addition you must not invalidate the following constraint 0 lt memory static min lt memory dynamic min lt memory dynamic max lt memory static max Update the static memory range of a virtual machine xe vm memory static range set uuid lt uuid gt min lt value gt max lt value gt Update the dynamic memory range of a virtual machine xe vm memory dynamic range set uuid lt uuid gt min lt value gt max lt value gt Specifying a target is particularly useful in virtual server environments and in any situation where you know exactly how much memory you want a guest to use XenServer will adjust the guest s memory allocation to meet the target you specify For example xe vm target set Update all memory limits static and dynamic of a virtual machine xe vm memory limits set uuid lt uuid gt static min lt value gt dynamic min lt value gt dynamic max lt value gt static max lt value gt Note e Toallocate a specific amount memory to a VM that won t change set the Dynamic Maximum and Dynamic Minimum to the same value e You cannot increase the dynamic memory of a VM beyond the static maximum e To alter the static maximum of a VM you wil
86. 75972eb gt Networking Troubleshooting If you are having problems with configuring networking first ensure that you have not directly modified any of the control domain ifcfg files directly These files are directly managed by the control domain host agent and changes will be overwritten Diagnosing network corruption Some network card models require firmware upgrades from the vendor to work reliably under load or when certain optimizations are turned on If you are seeing corrupted traffic to VMs then you should first try to obtain the latest recommended firmware from your vendor and apply a BIOS update If the problem still persists then you can use the CLI to disable receive transmit offload optimizations on the physical interface Warning Disabling receive transmit offload optimizations can result in a performance loss and or increased CPU usage First determine the UUID of the physical interface You can filter on the device field as follows xe pif list device eth0 Next set the following parameter on the PIF to disable TX offload xe pif param set uuid lt pif_uuid gt other config ethtool tx off 83 CITRIX Finally re plug the PIF or reboot the host for the change to take effect Recovering from a bad network configuration In some cases it is possible to render networking unusable by creating an incorrect configuration This is particularly true when attempting to make network configurati
87. B metadata volume Stores pool master metadata to be used in the case of master failover If you are using a NetApp or EqualLogic SR manually provision an iSCSI LUN on the array to use as the heartbeat SR A XenServer pool this feature provides high availability at the server level within a single resource pool Enterprise licenses on all hosts Static IP addresses for all hosts Warning Should the IP address of a server change while HA is enabled HA will assume that the host s network has failed and will probably fence the host and leave it in an unbootable state To remedy this situation disable HA using the host emergency ha disable command reset the pool master using pool emergency reset master and then re enable HA For a VM to be protected by the HA feature it must be agile This means that e it must have its virtual disks on shared storage any type of shared storage may be used the iSCSI or Fibre Channel LUN is only required for the storage heartbeat and can be used for virtual disk storage if you prefer but this is not necessary e it must not have a connection to a local DVD drive configured e jt should have its virtual network interfaces on pool wide networks Citrix strongly recommends the use of a bonded management interface on the servers in the pool if HA is enabled and multipathed storage for the heartbeat SR If you create VLANs and bonded interfaces from the CLI then they may not be plugged in and active d
88. C TRIX Citrix XenServer 5 6 Administrator s Guide Published June 2010 1 1 Edition e CITRIX Citrix XenServer 5 6 Administrator s Guide Copyright 2009 Citrix All Rights Reserved Version 5 6 Citrix Inc 851 West Cypress Creek Road Fort Lauderdale FL 33309 United States of America Disclaimers This document is furnished AS IS Citrix Inc disclaims all warranties regarding the contents of this document including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose This document may contain technical or other inaccuracies or typographical errors Citrix Inc reserves the right to revise the information in this document at any time without notice This document and the software described in this document constitute confidential information of Citrix Inc and its licensors and are furnished under a license from Citrix Inc Citrix Systems Inc the Citrix logo Citrix XenServer and Citrix XenCenter are trademarks of Citrix Systems Inc in the United States and other countries All other products or services mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies Trademarks Citrix XenServer XenCenter 1 1 Edition C TRIX Table of Contents Document OvVervieW ccccccsceccsceceececcececcececnececnecsceecsceenececnececnenseeensceenecsanenens T How this Guide relates to other documentation ooooococccccnnconc
89. Citrix Roaming XenCenter logs XenCenter log To quickly locate the XenCenter log files for example when you want to open or email the log file click on View Application Log Files in the XenCenter Help menu Troubleshooting connections between XenCenter and the XenServer host If you have trouble connecting to the XenServer host with XenCenter check the following e Is your XenCenter an older version than the XenServer host you are attempting to connect to The XenCenter application is backward compatible and can communicate properly with older XenServer hosts but an older XenCenter cannot communicate properly with newer XenServer hosts To correct this issue install a XenCenter version that is the same or newer than the XenServer host version e Is your license current You can see the expiration date for your License Key in the XenServer host General tab under the Licenses section in XenCenter Also if you upgraded your software from version 3 2 0 to the current version you should also have received and applied a new License file For details on licensing a host see the chapter XenServer Licensing in the XenServer Installation Guide e The XenServer host talks to XenCenter using HTTPS over port 443 a two way connection for commands and responses using the XenAPI and 5900 for graphical VNC connections with paravirtual Linux VMs If you have a firewall enabled between the XenServer host and the machine running the client softw
90. Controlling the MAC address of the bond for details on controlling the MAC address used for the bond PIF d Use the pif list command to determine the UUID of the new bond PIF xe pif list network uuid lt network_uuid gt e Use the pif reconfigure ip command to configure the desired management interface IP address settings for the bond PIF See Appendix A Command line interface for more detail on the options available for the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt mode DHCP f Use the host management reconfigure command to move the management interface from the existing physical PIF to the bond PIF This step will activate the bond xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt g Use the pif reconfigure ip command to remove the IP address configuration from the non bonded PIF previously used for the management interface This step is not strictly necessary but might help reduce confusion when reviewing the host networking configuration xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt old_management_pif_uuid gt mode None Open a console on a host that you want to join to the pool and run the command xe pool join master address lt hostl gt master username root master password lt password gt The network and bond information is automatically replicated to the new host However the management interface is not automatically moved from the host NIC to the bonded NIC Move the management
91. I resize fast cloning and snapshot SRs based on the LVM SR type local iSCSI or HBA provide thin provisioning for snapshot and hidden parent nodes The other SR types support full thin provisioning including for virtual disks that are active Note Automatic LVM metadata archiving is disabled by default This does not prevent metadata recovery for LVM groups Warning When VHD VDIs are not attached for example in the case of a VDI snapshot they are stored by default thinly provisioned Because of this it is imperative to ensure that there is sufficient disk space available for the VDI to become thickly provisioned when attempting to attach it VDI clones however are thickly provisioned 39 CITRIX The maximum supported VDI sizes are Storage type Maximum VDI size EXT3 2TB LVM 2TB Netapp 2TB EqualLogic 15TB ONTAP NetApp 12TB Local LVM The Local LVM type presents disks within a locally attached Volume Group By default XenServer uses the local disk on the physical host on which it is installed The Linux Logical Volume Manager LVM is used to manage VM storage A VDI is implemented in VHD format in an LVM logical volume of the specified size XenServer versions prior to 5 6 did not use the VHD format and will remain in legacy mode See the section called Upgrading LVM storage from XenServer 5 0 or earlier for information about upgrading a storage repository to the new format Creating a local LVM SR I
92. LUNs are allocated and mapped dynamically to the host using the XenServer host management framework EqualLogic storage is accessible using the EqualLogic SR driver type and is hosted on an EqualLogic storage array running a firmware version of 4 0 or greater LUNs are allocated and mapped dynamically to the host using the XenServer host management framework For further information on StorageLink supported array systems and the various capabilities in each case please refer to the StorageLink documentation directly Storage configuration This section covers creating storage repository types and making them available to a XenServer host The examples provided pertain to storage configuration using the CLI which provides the greatest flexibility See the XenCenter Help for details on using the New Storage Repository wizard Creating Storage Repositories This section explains how to create Storage Repositories SRs of different types and make them available to a XenServer host The examples provided cover creating SRs using the xe CLI See the XenCenter help for details on using the New Storage Repository wizard to add SRs using XenCenter Note Local SRs of type lvm and ext can only be created using the xe CLI After creation all SR types can be managed by either XenCenter or the xe CLI There are two basic steps involved in creating a new storage repository for use on a XenServer host using the CLI 1 Probe the SR type to determine
93. Legal weights range from 1 to 65535 and the default is 256 The cap optionally fixes the maximum amount of CPU a VM will be able to consume even if the XenServer host has idle CPU cycles The cap is expressed in percentage of one physical CPU 100 is 1 physical CPU 50 is half a CPU 400 is 4 CPUs etc The default 0 means there is no upper cap VCPUs max maximum number of virtual read write CPUs VCPUs at startup boot number of virtual CPUs read write 197 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type actions after crash action to take if the VM read write crashes For PV guests valid parameters are preserve for analysis only coredump_and_ restart record a coredump and reboot VM coredump_and_destroy record a coredump and leave VM halted restart no coredump and restart VM and destroy no coredump and leave VM halted console uuids virtual console devices read only set parameter platform platform specific configuration read write map parameter allowed operations list of the operations allowed read only set parameter in this state current operations a list of the operations that read only set parameter are currently in progress on the VM allowed VBD devices list of VBD identifiers read only set parameter available for use represented by integers of the range 0 15 This list is informational only and other devices may be used but may not work allowed VIF devices list of VIF identifiers available read
94. M Admin VM Read Only permissions Operator Operator VM change X X X X X CD media View VM x x x X X consoles XenCenter X X X X X view mgmt ops Cancel own X X X X x x tasks Read audit X X X X X X logs Configure X X Initialize Enable Disable WLB Apply WLB X X Optimization Recommenda Modify WLB X X Report Subscriptions Accept WLB X X X Placement Recommenda Display X X X X X X WLB Configuration Generate X X X X X WLB Reports Connect to X X X X X X pool and read all pool metadata Definitions of permissions The following table provides additional details about permissions 10 CITRIX Table 2 Definitions of permissions Permission Allows Assignee To Rationale Comments Assign modify roles e Add remove users This permission lets the user grant himself or herself any permission or perform any task Add remove roles from users Enable and disable Active Directory integration being Warning This role lets the user joined to the domain disable the Active Directory integration and all subjects added from Active Directory Log in to server consoles Server console access Warning With access to a through ssh root shell the assignee could arbitrarily reconfigure the entire system including RBAC Server console access through XenCenter Server backup restore VM create destroy operations Back up and restore servers The ability to restore a backup lets the assignee re
95. Ns with host management interfaces 1 0 0 iceee teeter etree uturi titit r nent ne ented 70 Using VLANs with virtual Machines sirsenis a E EEE ENa a 70 Using VLANs with dedicated storage NICS s ssssssssrsisrsrurttttt rtint ttit i ttunttun EnEn EEEE nuur ennenen 71 Combining management interfaces and guest VLANs on a single host NIC scsccscccrrereere 71 NIC DONS tac td id OEN 71 vii CITRIX Initial networking COMMGUIALION azccisicditebsonosdieiaeiePaht oodiciehaniel wheawniddcdagddaah antic hetanda bolo 72 Managing networking Configuration cacon o de iiai a uio E A ti 72 Creating networks in a standalone Server ss s sssssisisisisttttttt itinin nent tener ntnea 72 Greating networks in TESQUICS POO S ecos ai iD eat 73 Crealing VLANS sensoria aa 73 Creating NIC bonds on a standalone hOSt 0 0 0 anen onan i 74 Greating a NIC bond On a qualeNIO NOS asian ac aida 74 Controlling the MAC address Of the DONC v ciooonici na soria tn 75 Reverting NIDOS ii 75 Greating NIC bonds iN resource Pools cinco das 75 Adding NIC bonds to new resource POOIS sssini cece eee teeter teeter teen tent tenets a E 76 Adding NIC bonds to an existing POO ce cece eee teen e eee rttr trn e eee eet et et ee eeeeeea es 77 Configuring a dedicated storage NIC ccceceece cence eee e eee rene eee e eee ttrt eee eee Artnr Errr EnEn E ernn 79 Controlling Quality Of Service QOS 20 eee ener renee teense neta ea terrre en
96. PM on May 2nd and 75 on all other days the average displayed for 12PM is 76 3 Note Workload Balancing smooths spikes and peaks so data does not appear artificially high Pool Optimization Performance History The optimization performance report displays optimization events that is when you optimized a resource pool against that pool s average resource usage Specifically it displays resource usage for CPU memory network reads and network writes The dotted line represents the average usage across the pool over the period of days you select A blue bar indicates the day on which you optimized the pool This report can help you determine if Workload Balancing is working successfully in your environment You can use this report to see what led up to optimization events that is the resource usage before Workload Balancing recommended optimizing This report displays average resource usage for the day it does not display the peak utilization such as when the system is stressed You can also use this report to see how a resource pool is performing if Workload Balancing is not making optimization recommendations In general resource usage should decline or be steady after an optimization event If you do not see improved resource usage after optimization consider readjusting threshold values Also consider whether or not the resource pool has too many virtual machines and whether or not new virtual machines were added or removed
97. S setting is applied to VBDs accessing the LUN from the same host QoS is not applied across hosts in the pool Before configuring any QoS parameters for a VBD ensure that the disk scheduler for the SR has been set appropriately See the section called Adjusting the disk IO scheduler for details on how to adjust the scheduler The scheduler parameter must be set to cfq on the SR for which the QoS is desired Note 61 CITRIX Remember to set the scheduler to cf q on the SR and to ensure that the PBD has been re plugged in order for the scheduler change to take effect The first parameter is gos_algorithm_type This parameter needs to be set to the value ionice which is the only type of QoS algorithm supported for virtual disks in this release The QoS parameters themselves are set with key value pairs assigned to the qos_algorithm_param parameter For virtual disks gos_algorithm_param takes a sched key and depending on the value also requires a class key Possible values of gos_algorithm_param sched are e sched rt Or sched real t ime sets the QoS scheduling parameter to real time priority which requires a class parameter to set a value sched idle sets the QoS scheduling parameter to idle priority which requires no class parameter to set any value sched lt anything gt sets the QoS scheduling parameter to best effort priority which requires a class parameter to set a value The possible values for class are e O
98. Storage Area Network Shared network attached storage NFS 52 Shared storage 21 Storage Area Network 47 Storage Manager commands xe CLI 173 Storage repository SR CD ROM 41 commands xe CLI 174 DVD ROM 41 Fibre Channel storage area network SAN 53 local disk 40 local hotplug devices 41 NetApp Filer 43 overview 30 shared iSCSI storage area network SAN 47 shared network attached storage NFS 52 USB read write device 41 T Task commands xe CLI 176 Template commands xe CLI 177 Troubleshooting xen bugtool XenCenter logs 141 XenServer host logs 140 140 U Update commands xe CLI 185 User commands xe CLI 185 V VBD commands xe CLI 186 VDI commands xe CLI 188 VIF virtual interface 70 VIF commands xe CLI 192 Virtual network 70 VLAN commands xe CLI 195 VM commands xe CLI 195 networking Virtual disk QoS settings 61 VT Intel hardware virtualization 19 X xe command reference basic xe syntax 142 Bonding commands 147 CD commands 148 command types 144 console commands 149 event commands 150 host XenServer host commands 151 log commands 161 low level list commands 146 low level parameter commands 145 message commands 162 network commands 163 parameter types 145 patch commands 164 PBD commands 165 PIF commands 166 Resource pool commands 170 shorthand xe syntax 143 special characters and syntax 143 Storage Manager commands
99. The optional parameter approximate reserves sufficient extra memory in the calculation to account for adding extra vCPUs into the VM at a later date 203 CITRIX For example xe vm compute maximum memory vm testvm total xe host list params memory fre minimal This command uses the value of the memory free parameter returned by the xe host list command to set the maximum memory of the VM named testvm The VM or VMs on which this operation will be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm copy vm copy new name label lt name_for_copy gt new name description lt description_for_copy gt sr uuid lt uuid_of_sr gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Copy an existing VM but without using storage level fast disk clone operation even if this is available The disk images of the copied VM are guaranteed to be full images that is not part of a copy on write CoW chain Specify the name and the optional description for the resulting copied VM using the new name label and new name description arguments Specify the destination SR for the resulting copied VM using the sr uuid If this parameter is not specified the destination is the same SR that the original VM is in The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selecti
100. VMs on which to perform the operation The simplest way is by supplying the argument vm lt name_or_uuid gt An easy way to get the uuid of an actual VM is to for example execute xe vm list power state running The full list of fields that can be matched can be obtained by the command xe vm list params all For example specifying power state haltedwill select all VMs whose power state parameter is equal to halted Where multiple VMs are matching the option mu1t iple must be specified to perform the operation The full list of parameters that can be matched is described at the beginning of this section and can be obtained by the command xe vm list params all The VM objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe vm list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details VM parameters VMs have the following parameters 195 H 2 CITRIX Note All writable VM parameter values can be changed while the VM is running but the new parameters are not applied dynamically and will not be applied until the VM is rebooted Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the VM name label the name of the VM read write name description the description string of the read write VM user version string for creators of VMs read write and templates to put version information is a template F
101. VMs that have restart priorities 1 2 or 3 are guaranteed to be restarted given the stated number of server failures VMs with a best effort priority setting are not part of the failover plan and are not guaranteed to be kept running since capacity is not reserved for them If the pool experiences server failures and enters a state where the number of tolerable failures drops to zero the protected VMs will no longer be guaranteed to be restarted If this condition is reached a system alert will be generated In this case should an additional failure occur all VMs that have a restart priority set will behave according to the best effort behavior If a protected VM cannot be restarted at the time of a server failure for example if the pool was overcommitted when the failure occurred further attempts to start this VM will be made as the state of the pool changes This means that if extra capacity becomes available in a pool if you shut down a non essential VM or add an additional server for example a fresh attempt to restart the protected VMs will be made which may now succeed Note No running VM will ever be stopped or migrated in order to free resources for a VM with always run t rue to be restarted Enabling HA on a XenServer pool HA can be enabled on a pool using either XenCenter or the command line interface In either case you will specify a set of priorities that determine which VMs should be given highest restart priority
102. WLB Server dialog appears 3 In the Address box type the IP address or NetBIOS name of the new Workload Balancing server You can also enter a fully qualified domain name FQDN 4 Reinitialize the resource pool and specify the new server s IP address in the Connect to WLB Server dialog If either the Workload Balancing credentials have changed as a result of specifying a different WLB server you must also update these credentials Note 111 CITRIX You must enter all the information that you would normally enter when you initially configure a resource pool for use with Workload Balancing For information see the section called Initializing Workload Balancing or the section called Updating Workload Balancing Credentials Updating Workload Balancing Credentials After initial configuration if you need to update the credentials XenServer and the Workload Balancing server use to communicate you can do so without reconfiguring all settings by using the Update Workload Balancing Credentials feature Situations when you may want to use this feature include If you need to change the user account XenServer uses to communicate with Workload Balancing If you receive an error message that the Workload Balancing credentials are no longer valid e If the service is unavailable If you want to modify settings for thresholds and change the priority given to specific resources see the section called Configuring Workload Balanc
103. XenCenter Workload Balancing server including the Web Service Host 97 e 2 C TRIX Configuring Antivirus Software By default most antivirus programs are configured to scan all files on the hard disk If an antivirus program scans the frequently active Workload Balancing database it impedes or slows down the normal operation of Workload Balancing Consequently you must configure antivirus software running on your Workload Balancing servers to exclude specific processes and files Citrix recommends configuring your antivirus software to exclude these folders before you initialize Workload Balancing and begin collecting data To configure antivirus software on the servers running Workload Balancing components e Exclude the following folder which contains the Workload Balancing log On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 C Documents and Settings All Users Application Data Citrix Workload Balancing Data Logfile log On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 C Program Data Citrix Workload Balancing Data Logfile log Exclude the SQL Server database folder For example On SQL Server C Program Files Microsoft SQL Server MSSQL Data On SQL Server Express C Program Files Microsoft SQL Server MSSQL10 SQLEXPRESS MSSQL Data These paths may vary according to your operating system and SQL Server version Note These paths and file names are for 32 bit default installations Use the values that apply to your installation For examp
104. a force This command will attempt to restore the VM metadata on a best effort basis Restart all VMs 135 CITRIX Monitoring and managing XenServer XenServer and XenCenter provide access to alerts that are generated when noteworthy things happen XenCenter provides various mechanisms of grouping and maintaining metadata about managed VMs hosts storage repositories and so on Note Full monitoring and alerting functionality is only available is only available with XenServer Advanced edition or above To find out about XenServer editions and how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here Alerts XenServer generates alerts for the following events Configurable Alerts e New XenServer patches available New XenServer version available New XenCenter version available Alerts generated by XenCenter Alert Description XenCenter old the XenServer expects a newer version but can still connect to the current version XenCenter out of date XenCenter is too old to connect to XenServer XenServer out of date XenServer is an old version that the current XenCenter cannot connect to License expired alert your XenServer license has expired Missing IQN alert XenServer uses iSCSI storage but the host IQN is blank Duplicate IQN alert XenServer uses iSCSI storage and there are duplicate host IQNs Alerts generated by XenServer e ha_host_failed e ha_host_was_fenced e ha_network_bonding_error e ha_pool_drop_in_plan_exi
105. a enable heartbeat sr uuid lt sr_uuid gt Shutting down a host when HA is enabled When HA is enabled special care needs to be taken when shutting down or rebooting a host to prevent the HA mechanism from assuming that the host has failed To shutdown a host cleanly in an HA enabled environment first disable the host then evacuate the host and finally shut down the host using either XenCenter or the CLI To shutdown a host in an HA enabled environment on the command line xe host disable host lt host_name gt xe host evacuate uuid lt host_uuid gt xe host shutdown host lt host_name gt Shutting down a VM when it is protected by HA When a VM is protected under a HA plan and set to restart automatically it cannot be shut down while this protection is active To shut down a VM first disable its HA protection and then execute the CLI command 26 CITRIX XenCenter offers you a dialog box to automate disabling the protection if you click on the Shutdown button of a protected VM Note If you shut down a VM from within the guest and the VM is protected it is automatically restarted under the HA failure conditions This helps ensure that operator error or an errant program that mistakenly shuts down the VM does not result in a protected VM being left shut down accidentally If you want to shut this VM down disable its HA protection first Host Power On Powering on hosts remotely You can use the XenServer Host Power On
106. al purpose server configuration that you use many times You simply configure the VM the way you want it export it and then import it to create copies of your original VM e As a simple method for moving a VM to another server For further information on the use of templates refer to the Creating VMs chapter in the XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide and also the Managing virtual machines section in the XenCenter Help Advanced Notes for Quiesced Snapshots Note Do not forget to install the Xen VSS provider in the Windows guest in order to support VSS This is done using the install XenProvider cmd script provided with the Windows PV drivers More details can be found in the Virtual Machine Installation Guide in the Windows section In general a VM can only access VDI snapshots not VDI clones of itself using the VSS interface There is a flag that can be set by the XenServer administrator whereby adding an attribute of snapmanager true to the VM s other config allows that VM to import snapshots of VDIs from other VMs Warning This opens a security vulnerability and should be used with care This feature allows an administrator to attach VSS snapshots using an in guest transportable snapshot ID as generated by the VSS layer to another VM for the purposes of backup VSS quiesce timeout the Microsoft VSS quiesce period is set to a non configurable value of 10 seconds and it is quite probable that a snapshot may not be able to
107. al to halted Where multiple VMs are matching the option multiple must be specified to perform the operation The full list of fields that can be matched can be obtained by the command xe vm list params all Locate the required VM and then enter the following xe snapshot list snapshot of lt vm uuid gt For example xe snapshot list snapshot of 2d1d9108 e479 2f0a 69e7 24a0e062dd35 This lists the snapshots currently on that VM uuid RO d7eefb03 39 bc 80f8 8d73 2calbabIdcff name label RW Regular name description RW snapshot_of RO 2d1d9108 e479 2f0a 69e7 24a0e062dd35 snapshot_time RO 20090914T15 37 002 uuid RO 1760561d a5d1 5d5e 2be5 d0dd9 a3blef name label RW Snapshot with memory name description RW snapshot_of RO 2d1d9108 e479 2f0a 69e7 24a0e062dd35 snapshot_time RO 20090914T15 39 452Z Restoring a VM to its previous state Ensure that you have the uuid of the snapshot that you want to revert to and then run the snapshot revert command To do this 1 Run the snapshot list command to find the UUID of the snapshot or checkpoint that you want to revert to xe snapshot list 2 Note the uuid of the snapshot and then run the following command to revert xe snapshot revert snapshot uuid lt snapshot uuid gt For example xe snapshot revert snapshot uuid b3c0f369 59a1 ddl6 ecd4 al211df29886 After reverting to a checkpoint the VM will be suspended Not
108. alancing Reports The Workload Reports window lets you generate reports for physical hosts resource pools and virtual machines Report Generation Features To generate a report select a report type the date range the host if applicable and click Run Report For more detail see the section called To generate a Workload Balancing report Toolbar Buttons The following toolbar buttons in the Workload Reports window become available after you generate a report To display the name of a toolbar button hold your mouse over toolbar icon 117 CITRIX Table 4 Report Toolbar Buttons Document Map Lets you display a document map that helps you navigate through long reports Kal Jas Page Forward Back Lets you move one page ahead or back in the report Back to Parent Report Lets you return to the parent report when working with drill through reports Stop Rendering Cancels the report generation Refresh Lets you refresh the report display Es Print Lets you print a report and specify general printing options such as the printer the number of pages and the number of copies kl Print Layout Lets you display a preview of the report before you print it m Page Setup Lets you specify printing options such as the paper size page orientation and margins z Export Lets you export the report as an Acrobat PDF file or as an Excel file with a XLS extension Find Find
109. alling and running backup software inside the VM The VM can continue running while external backup software streams the contents of the snapshot to the backup media Similarly a snapshot can be used as a gold image on which to base a template A template can be made using any VDIs The optional driver params map parameter can be used for passing extra vendor specific configuration information to the back end storage driver that the VDI is based on See the storage vendor driver documentation for details A clone of a snapshot should always produce a writable VDI vdi unlock vdi unlock uuid lt uuid_of_vdi_to_unlock gt force true Attempts to unlock the specified VDIs If force t rue is passed to the command it will force the unlocking operation VIF commands Commands for working with VIFs Virtual network interfaces The VIF objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe vif list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details VIF parameters VIFs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the VIF vm uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the VM that this VIF resides on vm name label the name of the VM that this read only VIF resides on allowed operations a list of the operations read only set parameter allowed in th
110. alse unless this is a read write template template VMs can never be started they are used only for cloning other VMs Note that setting is a template using the CLI is not supported is control domain True if this is a control read only domain domain 0 or a driver domain power state current power state read only memory dynamic max dynamic maximum in bytes read write memory dynamic min dynamic minimum in bytes read write memory static max statically set absolute read write maximum in bytes If you want to change this value the VM must be shut down memory static min statically set absolute read write minimum in bytes If you want to change this value the VM must be shut down suspend VDI uuid the VDI that a suspend image read only is stored on 196 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type VCPUs params configuration parameters for read write map parameter the selected VCPU policy You can tune a VCPU s pinning with xe vm param set uuid adn VCPUs params mask 1 2 3 The selected VM will then run on physical CPUs 1 2 and 3 only You can also tune the VCPU priority xen scheduling with the cap and weight parameters for example xe vm param set uuid lt template_uuid gt VCPUs params weight 512 xe vm param set uuid lt template UUID gt VCPUs params cap 100 A VM with a weight of 512 will get twice as much CPU as a domain with a weight of 256 on a contended XenServer host
111. although the behavior will be the same unless disambiguation is required Removing access for a user using the CLI 1 Identify the subject identifier for the subject you wish to revoke access This would be the user or the group containing the user removing a group would remove access to all users in that group providing they are not also specified in the subject list You can do this using the subject list command a C TRIX xe subject list You may wish to apply a filter to the list for example to get the subject identifier for a user named user1 in the testad domain you could use the following command xe subject list other config subject name lt domainluser gt 2 Remove the user using the subject remove command passing in the subject identifier you learned in the previous step xe subject remove subject identifier lt subject identifier gt 3 You may wish to terminate any current session this user has already authenticated See Terminating all authenticated sessions using xe and Terminating individual user sessions using xe for more information about terminating sessions If you do not terminate sessions the users whose permissions have been revoked may be able to continue to access the system until they log out Listing subjects with access e To identify the list of users and groups with permission to access your XenServer host or pool use the following command xe subject list Removing access for a user Once a
112. alue gt Reconfigure the syslog daemon on the specified XenServer hosts This command applies the configuration information defined in the host logging parameter The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section Log commands Commands for working with logs log get keys log get keys List the keys of all of the logging subsystems log reopen log reopen Reopen all loggers Use this command for rotating log files log set output log set output output nil stderr file lt filename gt syslog lt sysloglocation gt key lt key gt level debug info warning error 161 CITRIX Set the output of the specified logger Log messages are filtered by the subsystem in which they originated and the log level of the message For example send debug logging messages from the storage manager to a file by running the following command xe log set output key sm level debug output lt file tmp sm log gt The optional parameter key specifies the particular logging subsystem If this parameter is not set it will default to all logging subsystems The optional parameter level specifies the logging level Valid values are e debug e info warning e error Message commands Commands for working with messages Messages are created to no
113. alue pairs For example in order to enter commands on one XenServer host that are run on a remote XenServer host you could do the following export XE_EXTRA_ARGS server jeffbeck port 443 username root password pass This command means that you will not need to specify the remote XenServer host parameters anymore in each xe command you execute Using the XE_EXTRA_ARGS environment variable also enables tab completion of xe commands when issued against a remote XenServer host which is disabled by default Special characters and syntax To specify argument value pairs on the xe command line write argument value Unless the value includes spaces do not use quotes There should be no whitespace in between the argument name the equals sign and the value Any argument not conforming to this format will be ignored For values containing spaces write argument value with spaces If you use the CLI while logged into a XenServer host commands have a tab completion feature similar to that in the standard Linux bash shell If you type for examplexe vm land then press the TAB key the rest of the command will be displayed when it is unambiguous If more than one command begins with vm 143 CITRIX pressing TAB a second time will list the possibilities This is particularly useful when specifying object UUIDs in commands Note When executing commands on a remote XenServer host tab com
114. ame the filename of the SR driver read only SR commands Commands for controlling SRs storage repositories The SR objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe sr list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details SR parameters SRs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object reference for read only the SR name label the name of the SR read write name description the description string of the SR read write allowed operations list of the operations allowed on the SR in read only set parameter this state current operations list of the operations that are currently in read only set parameter progress on this SR VDIs unique identifier object reference for the read only set parameter virtual disks in this SR PBDs unique identifier object reference for the read only set parameter PBDs attached to this SR physical Utilization physical space currently utilized on this read only SR in bytes Note that for sparse disk formats physical utilization may be less than virtual allocation 174 C TRIX Parameter Name Description Type physical size total physical size of the SR in bytes read only type type of the SR used to specify the SR read only backend driver to use content type the type of the SR s content Used to read only distinguish ISO libraries from oth
115. ample Intel R Xeon TM CPU 3 00GHz stepping the CPU revision number read only flags the flags of the physical CPU a decoded read only version of the features field Utilization the current CPU utilization read only host uuid the UUID if the host the CPU is in read only model the model number of the physical CPU read only family the physical CPU family number read only Crash dumps on XenServer hosts have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the crashdump host XenServer host the crashdump read only corresponds to timestamp Timestamp of the date and time that read only the crashdump occurred in the form yyyymmdd hhmmss ABC where ABC is the timezone indicator for example GMT size size of the crashdump in bytes read only host backup host backup file name lt backup_filename gt host lt host_name gt Download a backup of the control domain of the specified XenServer host to the machine that the command is invoked from and save it there as a file with the name file name While the xe host backup command will work if executed on the local host that is without a specific hostname specified do not use it this way Doing so would fill up the control domain partition with the 154 e C TRIX backup file The command should only be used from a remote off host machine where you have space to hold the backup file host bugreport upload host bugre
116. an e E S MOSH OMESG nronu ea E E EEE host emergenc y managementreconfig re E R E ER OE OSEA iaa NOSE vacation i NOSE Tac A A a host getesystomsstatUS iii Rieke Aiba diane A E EE OE EERE host get system status CapabilitieS 2 0 0 ccc ee eee entree teed host is in EMergeNnCy MOE 6 cee ce eee ee eee eee eee eee eee dense nett eee ened ea eden eae A A RO xiv 144 145 145 146 147 147 147 147 148 149 149 150 150 151 154 155 155 155 155 155 155 156 156 156 156 157 158 e CITRIX license server address license server port host license add host license view host logs download host management disable ccc eee eee eee eee eet nents host manageMent reCOnfiQure cce cece e eee eee ee eee eee eee eee eee teeter eae host power 0N host set power on host reboot 4 host restore host set hostname live MOST SHUT WIN dd host syslog reconfigure Log commands 0 6065 log get keyS lOg reopen cocino log set output Message commands message create message list NTRA 1 lt 00 sp MELWONK CIEOTS tr cite network destroy Pateh update commands oi A patch apply patch clean patch pool apply XV 158 158 159 159
117. ancing for the pool Important If you want to disable Workload Balancing permanently for this resource pool click the Remove all resource pool information from the Workload Balancing Server check box XenServer disables Workload Balancing for the resource pool either temporarily or permanently depending on your selections e If you disabled Workload Balancing temporarily on a resource pool to reenable Workload Balancing click Enable WLB in the WLB tab e If you disabled Workload Balancing permanently on a resource pool to reenable it you must reinitialize it For information see Initializing Workload Balancing Reconfiguring a Pool to Use Another WLB Server You can reconfigure a resource pool to use a different Workload Balancing server However to prevent old data collectors from remaining inadvertently configured and running against a pool you must disable Workload Balancing permanently for that resource pool before pointing the pool to the other data collector After disabling Workload Balancing you can re initialize the pool and specify the name of the new Workload Balancing server To use a different Workload Balancing server 1 On the resource pool you want to point to a different Workload Balancing server disable Workload Balancing Specify to delete the pool information when you disable it For instructions see the section called Disabling Workload Balancing 2 In the WLB tab click Enable WLB The Connect to
118. anges Note Dynamic Memory Control is only available for XenServer Advanced or higher editions To learn more about XenServer Advanced or higher editions and to find out how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here The concept of dynamic range For each VM the administrator can set a dynamic memory range this is the range within which memory can be added removed from the VM without requiring a reboot When a VM is running the administrator can adjust the dynamic range XenServer always guarantees to keep the amount of memory allocated to the VM within the dynamic range therefore adjusting it while the VM is running may cause XenServer to adjust the amount of memory allocated to the VM The most extreme case is where the administrator sets the dynamic min max to the same value thus forcing XenServer to ensure that this amount of memory is allocated to the VM If new VMs are required to start on full servers running VMs have their memory squeezed to start new ones The required extra memory is obtained by squeezing the existing running VMs proportionally within their pre defined dynamic ranges DMC allows you to configure dynamic minimum and maximum memory levels creating a Dynamic Memory Range DMR that the VM will operate in 63 CITRIX e Dynamic Minimum Memory A lower memory limit that you assign to the VM e Dynamic Higher Limit An upper memory limit that you assign to the VM For example if the Dynamic Minimum M
119. another location before reimaging the server and installing the new operating system Initializing Workload Balancing Following Workload Balancing Setup you must enable that is initialize Workload Balancing on each resource pool you want to monitor before Workload Balancing can gather data for that pool Initializing Workload Balancing requires that you Specify the Workload Balancing server you want the resource pool to use and its port number e Specify the credentials for communications including the credentials XenServer will use to connect to the Workload Balancing server and Workload Balancing will use to connect to XenServer as described in the section called Authorization for Workload Balancing When you first enable Workload Balancing it uses the default configuration settings for optimizing workload Automatic features such as Automated Optimization Mode Power Management and Automation are disabled by default Important 95 CITRIX After Workload Balancing is running for a period of time if you do not receive optimal placement recommendations Citrix strongly recommends you evaluate your performance thresholds as described in the section called Using Workload Balancing Reports for Tasks It is critical to set Workload Balancing to the correct thresholds for your environment or its recommendations might not be appropriate Before initializing Workload Balancing configure your antivirus software to exc
120. are make sure that it allows traffic from these ports 141 CITRIX Appendix A Command line interface This chapter describes the XenServer command line interface CLI The xe CLI enables the writing of scripts for automating system administration tasks and allows integration of XenServer into an existing IT infrastructure The xe command line interface is installed by default on XenServer hosts and is included with XenCenter A stand alone remote CLI is also available for Linux On Windows the xe exe CLI executable is installed along with XenCenter To use it open a Windows Command Prompt and change directories to the directory where the file resides typically c Program Files XenSource XenCenter or add its installation location to your system path On Linux you can install the stand alone xe CLI executable from the RPM named xe cli 5 6 BUILD_NUMBER i386 rpmon the Linux Pack CD as follows rpm ivh xe cli 5 6 BUILD_NUMBER i386 rpm Basic help is available for CLI commands on host by typing xe help command A list of the most commonly used xe commands is displayed if you type xe help or a list of all xe commands is displayed if you type xe help all Basic xe syntax The basic syntax of all XenServer xe CLI commands is xe lt command name gt lt argument value gt lt argument value gt Each specific command contains its own set of arguments that are of the form argument value Some commands
121. as the VDI snapshot operation for backup purposes There are two constraints to consider when mapping the virtual storage objects of the XenServer host to the physical storage To maintain space efficiency it makes sense to limit the number of LUNs per FlexVol yet at the other extreme to avoid resource limitations a single LUN per FlexVol provides the most flexibility However because there is a vendor imposed limit of 200 or 500 FlexVols per filer depending on the NetApp model this creates a limit of 200 or 500 VDIs per filer and it is therefore important to select a suitable number of FlexVols taking these parameters into account Given these resource constraints the mapping of virtual storage objects to the Ontap storage system has been designed in the following manner LUNs are distributed evenly across FlexVols with the expectation of using VM UUIDs to opportunistically group LUNs attached to the same VM into the same FlexVol This is a reasonable usage model that allows a snapshot of all the VDIs in a VM at one time maximizing the efficiency of the snapshot operation An optional parameter you can set is the number of FlexVols assigned to the SR You can use between 1 and 32 FlexVols the default is 8 The trade off in the number of FlexVols to the SR is that for a greater number of FlexVols the snapshot and clone operations become more efficient because there are fewer VMs backed off the same FlexVol The disadvantage is that more Fle
122. assumes the member is dead There are two ways to recover from this problem e Repair the dead host e g by physically rebooting it When the connection to the member is restored the master will mark the member as alive again Shutdown the host and instruct the master to forget about the member node using the xe host forget CLI command Once the member has been forgotten all the VMs which were running there will be marked as offline and can be restarted on other XenServer hosts Note it is very important to ensure that the XenServer host is actually offline otherwise VM data corruption might occur Be careful not to split your pool into multiple pools of a single host by using xe host forget since this could result in them all mapping the same shared storage and corrupting VM data Warning e f you are going to use the forgotten host as a XenServer host again perform a fresh installation of the XenServer software e Do not use xe host forget command if HA is enabled on the pool Disable HA first then forget the host and then re enable HA When a member XenServer host fails there may be VMs still registered in the running state If you are sure that the member XenServer host is definitely down and that the VMs have not been brought up on another XenServer host in the pool use the xe vm reset powerstate CLI command to set the power state of the VMs to halted See the section called vm reset powerstate for more details War
123. ating system on its server do the following 1 Temporarily disable Workload Balancing as described in the section called Disabling Workload Balancing 2 Install any upgrades to system requirements that are new in this release 3 Restart the VM or server where Workload Balancing is installed 4 Run the Workload Balancing Installation Wizard The Workload Balancing Installation Wizard automatically detects the presence of an existing installation of Workload Balancing and prompts you to upgrade that installation During upgrade the installation wizard displays a subset of the pages it displays during a new installation For information about the pages in the installation wizard see the section called To install Workload Balancing server Upgrading SQL Server If you want to upgrade the SQL Server version for example move from SQL Server Express 2005 to SQL Server Express 2008 you can use the SQL Management Studio tools to migrate your data Upgrading Workload Balancing and the Operating System If you want to migrate to a newer version of Windows for example from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 R2 you cannot upgrade Workload Balancing using the Upgrade mode in the installation wizard Instead you must reimage the server with the new operating system and then install Workload Balancing If your data store is on the same server as Workload Balancing use SQL Management Studio tools to save your data to
124. atures that work together to facilitate reducing power during off peak work hours This includes functionality that automatically adjusts your Workload Balancing placement strategy during off peak periods automatically rebalances virtual machines to compress workloads onto hosts as densely as possible and automatically turns off power on those lightly loaded machines after their workloads have been relocated This functionality is provided through the following features Power Management Power Management lets you configure Workload Balancing to consolidate workloads on the lowest possible number of physical servers hosts and turn the power off on unused hosts automatically when their capacity is not required It can also turn the power back on for hosts that it has previously turned off when their capacity is needed This feature can be useful for example if you want to power off unused servers at night to save energy See also the section called Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically Automation You can configure Workload Balancing to apply optimization recommendations automatically so that you do not need to accept recommendations manually See also the section called Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically Schedule Different Optimization Modes for Different Times of Day You can now schedule optimization modes to switch automatically between Maximum Density to Maximum Performance for the time periods you specify The
125. be automatically e mailed to the resource pool administrator in addition to being visible from the XenCenter GUI To configure this specify the email address and SMTP server pool other config mail destination lt joe bloggs domain tld gt pool other config ssmtp mailhub lt smtp domain tld port gt You can also specify the minimum value of the priority field in the message before the email will be sent pool other config mail min priority lt level gt The default priority level is 5 Note Some SMTP servers only forward mails with addresses that use FQDNs If you find that emails are not being forwarded it may be for this reason in which case you can set the server hostname to the FQDN so this is used when connecting to your mail server Custom Fields and Tags XenCenter supports the creation of tags and custom fields which allows for organization and quick searching of VMs storage and so on See the XenCenter online help for more information Custom Searches XenCenter supports the creation of customized searches Searches can be exported and imported and the results of a search can be displayed in the navigation pane See the XenCenter online help for more information Determining throughput of physical bus adapters For FC SAS and iSCSI HBAs you can determine the network throughput of your PBDs using the following procedure To determine PBD throughput 1 List the PBDs on a host 2 Determine which LUNs are routed ove
126. bject name example03 user_pool_op subject upn user_pool_op XENDT NET subject uid 1823475906 subject gid 1823474177 subject s id S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2242 subject gecos user_pool_op subject displayname user_pool_op subject is group false subject account disabled false subject account expired false subject account locked false subject password expired false roles SRO pool operator To add a subject to RBAC In order to enable existing AD users to use RBAC you will need to create a subject instance within XenServer either for the AD user directly or for one of their containing groups 1 Run the command xe subject add subject name lt AD user group gt This adds a new subject instance To assign an RBAC role to a created subject Once you have added a subject you can assign it to an RBAC role You can refer to the role by either its uuid or name 1 Run the command xe subject role add uuid lt subject uuid gt role uuid lt role_uuid gt or xe subject role add uuid lt subject uuid gt role name lt role_name gt For example the following command adds a subject with the uuid b9b3d03b 3d10 79d3 8ed7 a782c5ea13b4 to the Pool Administrator role xe subject role add uuid b9b3d03b 3d10 79d3 8ed7 a782c5ea13b4 role name pool admin 16 e C TRIX To change a subject s RBAC role To change a user s role it is necessary to remove them fr
127. bled Before using this command host set power on must be enabled on the host host set power on host set power on host lt host uuid gt power on mode lt gt lt wake on lan gt lt iLO gt lt DRAC gt lt custom gt power on config lt power_on_ip gt lt power_on_user gt lt power_on_password_secret gt Use to enable Host Power On functionality on XenServer hosts that are compatible with remote power solutions Workload Balancing requires Host Power On functionality is enabled for it to turn off underused hosts in Maximum Density mode When using the host set power on command you must specify the type of power management solution on the host that is the lt power on mode gt Then specify configuration options using the lt power on config gt argument and its associated key value pairs To use the secrets feature to store your password specify the key power_on_password_secret host reboot host reboot lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Reboot the specified XenServer hosts The specified XenServer hosts must be disabled first using the xe host disable command otherwise a HOST_IN_USE error message is displayed The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section Ifthe specified XenServer hosts are memb
128. cate with the Active Directory servers Consequently XenServer does not support communicating with Active Directory servers that do not utilize Kerberos For external authentication using Active Directory to be successful it is important that the clocks on your XenServer hosts are synchronized with those on your Active Directory server When XenServer joins the Active Directory domain this will be checked and authentication will fail if there is too much skew between the servers Warning Host names must consist solely of no more than 63 alphanumeric characters and must not be purely numeric Once you have Active Directory authentication enabled if you subsequently add a server to that pool you are prompted to configure Active Directory on the server joining the pool When you are prompted for credentials on the joining server enter Active Directory credentials with sufficient privileges to add servers to that domain Enabling external authentication on a pool e External authentication using Active Directory can be configured using either XenCenter or the CLI using the command below xe pool enabl xternal auth auth type AD service name lt full qualified domain gt config user lt username gt config pass lt password gt The user specified needs to have Add remove computer objects or workstations privileges which is the default for domain administrators Note If you are not using DHCP on the network that A
129. cation in parentheses that defines whether they can be read and written to or are read only For example the output of xe vm param list on a specified VM might have the lines user version RW 1 is control domain RO false The first parameter user version is writable and has the value 1 The second is control domain is read only and has a value of false The two other types of parameters are multi valued A set parameter contains a list of values A map parameter is a set of key value pairs As an example look at the following excerpt of some sample output of the xe vm param list on a specified VM platform MRW acpi true apic true pae true nx false allowed operations SRO pause clean_shutdown clean_reboot hard_shutdown hard_reboot suspend The plat form parameter has a list of items that represent key value pairs The key names are followed by a colon character Each key value pair is separated from the next by a semicolon character The M preceding the RW indicates that this is a map parameter and is readable and writable The allowed operations parameter has a list that makes up a set of items The S preceding the RO indicates that this is a set parameter and is readable but not writable In xe commands where you want to filter on a map parameter or set a map parameter use the separator colon between the map parameter name and the key value pair For example to set the value of the foo key of the o
130. ccccccncncncncncncncncncnnnananannnnnnn none ncncncncnrnnnnnnnnnnns 139 Troubleshooting sceccnsnseeccnenseeccnseneeesnenseeesneaeesesenasessneesesssseseesssessessssssses 140 XenServer POSTIO S ti 140 Sending host log messages to a central SEVEN micci n dad dd dd en aa 140 Xen enter OJS a dias 141 Troubleshooting connections between XenCenter and the XenServer hOSt sssssssessrssrerrsrrerrerrrrnrrerrene 141 A Command line interface cocccnnnnnonnnncanennonnnanoncancnnnanona canon noncanoza nar enz za 142 BASIC XO Syma rr di dit ind 142 Special characters MASNOU ties 143 xiii e CITRIX COMMAnd TY DOS sssr isla la di aid P rametor TWP OS iia aa A A A had ia deawuladadanl an tsage ana aites Low level param COMMAMNAS ccccecc eee e eee e ee a a eA EEE EDAD EEA EE E none r rr ron SE SG EE SE SESE EEE E EEE ES Low level list COMMANAS cccccc eee ee cece eee e tent eee e eee eae rn rra EEG E GEE EGE EEE EEE EEES O BOINA COMIMANAS aronsson oora OOE E TE aan dient OE E EO T OEA Pond crbalo esida aea A a Hond OSO enina tide tare A testa N E I E S CD COMMANA S ai EVENE WAE na E A E a A E N Host XenServer host COMMAMNAS ococcccconcncncncnnncnnncncncncncncnnncnnnnnnona ESERE EEEENEE EEEE EEES EREE EEEE EEEE NOSF DACKUD cta doo host D grepor pload sien nana od sa Sie EA E host CrashaduMp GeStrOy viaria lava e MOSt CrASNAUIMP UDIOM sanador ai ea o ii ie ii NOSt AISAD S meres
131. cense to a host server Optionally use with the license server port command You only need to set the license server address once and the information is retained until you change it license server port license server port license server port license_server_port host uuid XenServer lt _host_UUID gt For XenServer Advanced Edition and higher specifies the port the host is to use to communicate with the Citrix License Server The default port is 27000 which is the port the license server uses by default for communications with Citrix products If you changed the port on the Citrix License Server specify the new port number using this command Otherwise you do not need to run this command For more information about changing port numbers due to conflicts see the licensing topics in Citrix eDocs host license add host 1license adad license file lt path license_filename gt host uuid lt XenServer_host_UUID gt For XenServer free edition use to parses a local license file and adds it to the specified XenServer host Note This command only applies to free XenServer XenServer 5 6 Advanced edition and higher use the host apply edition license server address and license server port commands For these editions licensing has changed They now use the licensing model described in the Citrix XenServer 5 6 Installation Guide 158 e CITRIX host license view host license view host uuid lt XenServer_host_UUID gt For XenServer free ed
132. ch this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm import vm import filename lt export_filename gt metadata lt true false gt preserve lt true false gt sr uuid lt destination_sr_uuid gt Import a VM from a previously exported file If preserve is set to true the MAC address of the original VM will be preserved The sr uuid determines the destination SR to import the VM into and is the default SR if not specified 206 CITRIX The filename parameter can also point to an XVA format VM which is the legacy export format from XenServer 3 2 and is used by some third party vendors to provide virtual appliances This format uses a directory to store the VM data so set filename to the root directory of the XVA export and not an actual file Subsequent exports of the imported legacy guest will automatically be upgraded to the new filename based format which stores much more data about the configuration of the VM Note The older directory based XVA format does not fully preserve all the VM attributes In particular imported VMs will not have any virtual network interfaces attached by default If networking is required create one using vif create and vif plug If the metadata is true then a previously exported set of metadata can be imported without their associat
133. cially ones with existing SQL Server Reporting Services it may be advantageous to configure Reporting Services as the report delivery mechanism Environments with large amounts of Workload Balancing data achieve better reporting performance and faster report generation times with Reporting Services Note 108 e xX CITRI If you want to use the default report delivery mechanism no additional component installations or configurations are required To configure report subscriptions In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab In the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane click Advanced ao A O N gt In the Report Subscriptions section in the SMTP box type the IP address or fully qualified domain name FQDN of the email server that Workload Balancing will use to email the reports 6 Optional If you want to use Reporting Services as your report delivery mechanism select the Use Reporting Services for Report Delivery check box Choosing an Optimal Server for VM Initial Placement Migrate and Resume When Workload Balancing is enabled and you restart a virtual machine that is offline XenCenter provides recommendations to help you determine the optimal physical host in the resource pool on which to start the virtual machine Workload Balancing makes these placement recommendations by using performance metrics it previously gathered for t
134. ck box If you have assigned a role to this account using the Access Control feature RBAC be sure the role has sufficient permissions to configure Workload Balancing See the section called WLB Access Control Permissions 7 After initialization if you want to modify advanced settings for thresholds and change the priority given to specific resources see the section called Configuring Workload Balancing Settings Authorization for Workload Balancing When you are configuring a XenServer resource pool to use Workload Balancing you must specify credentials for two accounts e User Account for Workload Balancing to connect to XenServer Workload Balancing uses a XenServer user account to connect to XenServer You provide Workload Balancing with this account s credentials when you run the Connect to WLB Server dialog Typically you specify the credentials for the pool that is the pool master s credentials e User Account for XenServer to Connect to Workload Balancing XenServer communicates with the Web Service Host using the user account you created before Setup During Workload Balancing Setup you specified the authorization type a single user or group and the user or group with permissions to make requests from the Web Service Host service During initialization you must provide XenServer with this account s credentials when you configure the connection settings in the Connect to WLB Server dialog XenServer
135. command line level and the same functionality is also supported in xsconsole It is not currently available through XenCenter Backup and restore using xsconsole When a metadata backup is first taken a special backup VDI is created on a SR This VDI has an ext 3 filesystem that stores the following versioned backups A full pool database backup e Individual VM metadata backups partitioned by the SRs in which the VM has disks SR level metadata which can be used to recreate the SR description when the storage is reattached 124 CITRIX On the XenServer host menu driven text console under the Backup Update and Restore menu there are options which provide a more user friendly interface to these scripts The operations should only be performed on the pool master You can use these menu options to perform 3 operations e Schedule a regular metadata backup to the default pool SR either daily weekly or monthly This will regularly rotate metadata backups and ensure that the latest metadata is present for that SR without any user intervention being required e Trigger an immediate metadata backup to the SR of your choice This will create a backup VDI if necessary and attach it to the host and backup all the metadata to that SR Use this option if you have made some changes which you want to see reflected in the backup immediately Perform a metadata restoration operation This will prompt you to choose an SR to restore from and the
136. complete in time If for example the XAPI daemon has queued additional blocking tasks such as an SR scan the VSS snapshot may timeout and fail The operation should be retried if this happens Note 131 CITRIX The more VBDs attached to a VM the more likely it is that this timeout may be reached Citrix recommends attaching no more that 2 VBDs to a VM to avoid reaching the timeout However there is a workaround to this problem The probability of taking a successful VSS based snapshot of a VM with more than 2 VBDs can be increased manifold if all the VDIs for the VM are hosted on different SRs VSS snapshot all the disks attached to a VM in order to store all data available at the time of a VSS snapshot the XAPI manager will snapshot all disks and the VM metadata associated with a VM that can be snapshotted using the XenServer storage manager API If the VSS layer requests a snapshot of only a subset of the disks a full VM snapshot will not be taken vm snapshot with quiesce produces bootable snapshot VM images To achieve this the XenServer VSS hardware provider makes snapshot volumes writable including the snapshot of the boot volume VSS snap of volumes hosted on dynamic disks in the Windows Guest The vm snapshot with quiesce CLI and the XenServer VSS hardware provider do not support snapshots of volumes hosted on dynamic disks on the Windows VM Note Using EqualLogic or NetApp storage requires a Citrix XenServer Advanced E
137. controller is queried to get the subject identifier and group membership associated with the credentials 4 If the subject identifier matches the one stored in the XenServer the authentication is completed successfully When you join a domain you enable Active Directory authentication for the pool However when a pool is joined to a domain only users in that domain or a domain with which it has trust relationships can connect to the pool Note Manually updating the DNS configuration of a DHCP configured network PIF is unsupported and might cause Active Directory integration and consequently user authentication to fail or stop working Upgrading from XenServer 5 5 When you upgrade from XenServer 5 5 to the current release any user accounts created in XenServer 5 5 are assigned the role of pool admin This is done for backwards compatibility reasons in XenServer 5 5 all users had full permissions to perform any task on the pool As a result if you are upgrading from XenServer 5 5 make sure you revisit the role associated with each user account to make sure it is still appropriate Configuring Active Directory authentication XenServer supports use of Active Directory servers using Windows 2003 or later Active Directory authentication for a XenServer host requires that the same DNS servers are used for both the Active Directory server configured to allow for interoperability and the XenServer host In some CITRIX config
138. copy of the data If the new volume is a VHD volume it is important to use a tool that can avoid writing empty sectors to the disk so that space is used optimally in the underlying storage repository in this case a file based copy approach may be more suitable Probing an SR The sr probe command can be used in two ways 1 To identify unknown parameters for use in creating a SR 2 To return a list of existing SRs In both cases sr probe works by specifying an SR type and one or more device config parameters for that SR type When an incomplete set of parameters is supplied the sr probe command returns an error message indicating parameters are missing and the possible options for the missing parameters When a complete set of parameters is supplied a list of existing SRs is returned All sr probe output is returned as XML For example a known iSCSI target can be probed by specifying its name or IP address and the set of IQNs available on the target will be returned xe sr probe type lvmoiscsi device config target lt 192 168 1 10 gt Error code SR_BACKEND_FAILURE_96 Error parameters The request is missing or has an incorrect target ION parameter lt xml version 1 0 gt lt iscsi target iqns gt lt TGT gt lt Index gt 0 lt Index gt lt IPAddress gt 192 168 1 10 lt IPAddress gt lt Target IQN gt ign 192 168 1 10 filerl lt Target IQN gt lt TGT gt lt iscsi target iqns gt Probin
139. ctive Directory and your XenServer hosts use you can use these two approaches to setup your DNS CITRIX 1 Configure the DNS server to use on your XenServer hosts xe pif reconfigure ip mode static dns lt dnshost gt 2 Manually set the management interface to use a PIF that is on the same network as your DNS server xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt pif_in_the_dns_subnetwork gt Note External authentication is a per host property However Citrix advises that you enable and disable this on a per pool basis in this case XenServer will deal with any failures that occur when enabling authentication on a particular host and perform any roll back of changes that may be required ensuring that a consistent configuration is used across the pool Use the host param list command to inspect properties of a host and to determine the status of external authentication by checking the values of the relevant fields Disabling external authentication e Use XenCenter to disable Active Directory authentication or the following xe command xe pool disable external auth User authentication To allow a user access to your XenServer host you must add a subject for that user or a group that they are in Transitive group memberships are also checked in the normal way for example adding a subject for group A where group A contains group B and user 1 is a member of group B would permit access to user 1 If you wish to manage user permissio
140. ctual Linux hostname of the XenServer host Note that hostname is not the same as the value of the name_ label field host shutdown host shutdown lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Shut down the specified XenServer hosts The specified XenServer hosts must be disabled first using the xe host disable command otherwise a HOST_IN_USE error message is displayed The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section If the specified XenServer hosts are members of a pool the loss of connectivity on shutdown will be handled and the pool will recover when the XenServer hosts returns If you shut down a pool member other members and the master will continue to function If you shut down the master the pool will be out of action until the master is rebooted and back on line at which point the members will reconnect and synchronize with the master or until one of the members is made into the master If HA is enabled for the pool one of the members will be made into a master automatically If HA is disabled you must manually designate the desired server as master with the pool designate new master command See the section called pool designate new master host syslog reconfigure host syslog reconfigure lt host selector gt lt host_selector_v
141. cture For SR types that use an underlying block device the process of creating a new SR involves erasing any existing data on the specified storage target Other storage types such as NFS Netapp Equallogic and StorageLink SRs create a new container on the storage array in parallel to existing SRs CLI operations to manage storage repositories are described in the section called SR commands Virtual Disk Images VDIs Virtual Disk Images are a storage abstraction that is presented to a VM VDIs are the fundamental unit of virtualized storage in XenServer Similar to SRs VDls are persistent on disk objects that exist independently of XenServer hosts CLI operations to manage VDIs are described in the section called VDI commands The actual on disk representation of the data differs by the SR type and is managed by a separate storage plugin interface for each SR called the SM API Physical Block Devices PBDs Physical Block Devices represent the interface between a physical server and an attached SR PBDs are connector objects that allow a given SR to be mapped to a XenServer host PBDs store the device 30 CITRIX configuration fields that are used to connect to and interact with a given storage target For example NFS device configuration includes the IP address of the NFS server and the associated path that the XenServer host mounts PBD objects manage the run time attachment of a given SR to a given XenServer host CLI o
142. d activity increase extremely quickly in your environment you may want to decrease the optimization interval e If server loads and activity increase gradually in your environment you may want to increase the optimization interval Citrix does not recommend modifying this setting unless Citrix Technical Support directs you to do so Setting the Minimum Optimization Severity All optimization recommendations include a severity rating Critical High Medium Low that indicates the importance of the recommendation Workload Balancing bases this rating on a combination of factors including configuration options you set such as thresholds and metric tunings resources available for the workload and resource usage history The severity rating for a recommendation appears in the Optimization Recommendations pane on the WLB tab When you configure Workload Balancing to apply optimization recommendations automatically you can set the minimum severity level that should be associated with a recommendation before Workload Balancing automatically applies it Modifying the Aggressiveness Setting The Workload Balancing Aggressiveness setting controls how strictly Workload Balancing applies optimization criteria when determining whether to apply recommendations automatically when Automation is enabled The conditions under which Workload Balancing applies optimizations automatically vary according to the settings you configure in the VM Recommendation
143. d and managed using the xe CLI or XenCenter Device config parameters for lvmohba SRs Parameter name Description Required SCSlid Device SCSI ID Yes To create a shared lvmohba SR perform the following steps on each host in the pool 1 Zone in one or more LUNs to each XenServer host in the pool This process is highly specific to the SAN equipment in use Please refer to your SAN documentation for details 2 If necessary use the HBA CLI included in the XenServer host to configure the HBA Emulex usr sbin hbanyware e QLogic FC opt QLogic_Corporation SANsurferCLI e QLogic iSCSI opt QLogic_Corporation SANsurferiCLI See the section called Managing Hardware Host Bus Adapters HBAs for an example of QLogic iSCSI HBA configuration For more information on Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs please refer to the Emulex and QLogic websites 3 Use the sr probe command to determine the global device path of the HBA LUN sr probe forces a re scan of HBAs installed in the system to detect any new LUNs that have been zoned to the host and returns a list of properties for each LUN found Specify the host uuid parameter to ensure the probe occurs on the desired host The global device path returned as the lt path gt property will be common across all hosts in the pool and therefore must be used as the value for the device config device parameter when creating the SR If multiple LUNs are present use the vendor LUN size LUN serial n
144. d volume and the VDIs are the LUNs within the volume VM cloning uses the snapshotting and cloning capabilities of the storage for data efficiency and performance and to ensure compatibility with existing ONTAP management tools As with the SCSI based SR type the NetApp driver also uses the built in software initiator and its assigned host IQN which can be modified by changing the value shown on the General tab when the storage repository is selected in XenCenter 43 CITRIX The easiest way to create NetApp SRs is to use XenCenter See the XenCenter help for details See the section called Creating a shared NetApp SR over iSCSI for an example of how to create them using the xe CLI FlexVols NetApp uses FlexVols as the basic unit of manageable data There are limitations that constrain the design of NetApp based SRs These are maximum number of FlexVols per filer maximum number of LUNs per network port maximum number of snapshots per FlexVol Precise system limits vary per filer type however as a general guide a FlexVol may contain up to 200 LUNs and provides up to 255 snapshots Because there is a one to one mapping of LUNs to VDIs and because often a VM will have more than one VDI the resource limitations of a single FlexVol can easily be reached Also the act of taking a snapshot includes snapshotting all the LUNs within a FlexVol and the VM clone operation indirectly relies on snapshots in the background as well
145. deletes the contents of the SR from the physical media Alternatively you can forget an SR which allows you to re attach the SR for example to another XenServer host without removing any of the SR contents In both cases the PBD of the SR must first be unplugged Forgetting an SR is the equivalent of the SR Detach operation within XenCenter 1 Unplug the PBD to detach the SR from the corresponding XenServer host xe pbd unplug uuid lt pbd_uuid gt 2 To destroy the SR which deletes both the SR and corresponding PBD from the XenServer host database and deletes the SR contents from the physical media xe sr destroy uuid lt sr_uuid gt 3 Or to forget the SR which removes the SR and corresponding PBD from the XenServer host database but leaves the actual SR contents intact on the physical media xe sr forget uuid lt sr_uuid gt Note It might take some time for the software object corresponding to the SR to be garbage collected Introducing an SR Introducing an SR that has been forgotten requires introducing an SR creating a PBD and manually plugging the PBD to the appropriate XenServer hosts to activate the SR The following example introduces a SR of type lvmoiscsi 1 Probe the existing SR to determine its UUID xe sr probe type lvmoiscsi device config target lt 192 168 1 10 gt device config targetlQN lt 192 168 1 10 filerl gt device config SCSIid lt 149455400000000000000000002000000b70200000 000000 gt
146. different SR The XenCenter Copy VM function creates copies of all VDIs for a selected VM on the same or a different SR The source VM and VDIs are not affected by default To move the VM to the selected SR rather than creating a copy select the Remove original VM option in the Copy Virtual Machine dialog box 1 Shutdown the VM 2 Within XenCenter select the VM and then select the VM gt Copy VM menu option 3 Select the desired target SR Copying individual VDIs to a different SR A combination of the xe CLI and XenCenter can be used to copy individual VDIs between SRs 60 CITRIX 1 Shutdown the VM 2 Use the xe CLI to identify the UUIDs of the VDIs to be moved If the VM has a DVD drive its vdi uuid will be listed as lt not in database gt and can be ignored xe vbd list vm uuid lt valid_vm_uuid gt Note The vbd list command displays both the VBD and VDI UUIDs Be sure to record the VDI UUIDs rather than the VBD UUIDs 3 In XenCenter select the VM s Storage tab For each VDI to be moved select the VDI and click the Detach button This step can also be done using the vbd destroy command Note If you use the vbd destroy command to detach the VDI UUIDs be sure to first check if the VBD has the parameter other config ownersetto true If so set itto false Issuing the vbd destroy command with other config owner t rue will also destroy the associated VDI 4 Use the vdi copy command to copy each of the VM s VDIs to be mo
147. dition or higher license To learn more about XenServer editions and to find out how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here Note Do not forget to install the Xen VSS provider in the Windows guest in order to support VSS This is done using the install XenProvider cmd script provided with the Windows PV drivers More details can be found in the Virtual Machine Installation Guide in the Windows section In general a VM can only access VDI snapshots not VDI clones of itself using the VSS interface There is a flag that can be set by the XenServer administrator whereby adding an attribute of snapmanager t rue to the VM s other config allows that VM to import snapshots of VDIs from other VMs Warning This opens a security vulnerability and should be used with care This feature allows an administrator to attach VSS snapshots using an in guest transportable snapshot ID as generated by the VSS layer to another VM for the purposes of backup VSS quiesce timeout the Microsoft VSS quiesce period is set to a non configurable value of 10 seconds and it is quite probable that a snapshot may not be able to complete in time If for example the XAPI daemon has queued additional blocking tasks such as an SR scan the VSS snapshot may timeout and fail The operation should be retried if this happens Note The more VBDs attached to a VM the more likely it is that this timeout may be reached Citrix recommends attaching no more that 2 VBDs to a
148. dministration and has all rights or permissions In XenServer the local super user is the default account at installation The LSU is authenticated by XenServer and not an external authentication service This means that if the external authentication service fails the LSU can still log in and manage the system The LSU can always access the XenServer physical server through SSH You can create additional users by adding their Active Directory accounts through either the XenCenter s Users tab or the CLI All editions of XenServer can add user accounts from Active Directory However only XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions let you assign these Active Directory accounts different levels of permissions through the Role Based Access Control RBAC feature If you do not use Active Directory in your environment you are limited to the LSU account The permissions assigned to users when you first add their accounts varies according to your version of XenServer e In the XenServer and XenServer Advanced edition when you create add new users XenServer automatically grants the accounts access to all features available in that version In the XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions when you create new users XenServer does not assign newly created user accounts roles automatically As a result these accounts do not have any access to the XenServer pool until you assign them a role If you do not have one of these editions you can add
149. during the time frame you specified Pool Audit Log History This report displays the contents of the XenServer Audit Log a XenServer feature designed to log attempts to perform unauthorized actions and select authorized actions including import export host and pool back ups and guest and host console access For information about the Audit Log feature see the audit log documentation in the XenCenter online help or the XenServer Administrator s Guide To run the audit log report the Audit Logging feature must be enabled which it is by default This report displays the following Time The time XenServer recorded the user s action Host Name The name of the physical server on which the user performed the action where the action occurred User Name The name of the person who created the session in which the action was performed In some cases this may be the User ID e Access Whether or not the user had permission to perform the action e Call Type The Call Type indicates whether the user connected to the session over the Internet or locally For example if the user connected to XenCenter over the Internet Event Object The object that was the subject of the action for example a VM Object Name The name of the object for example the name of the VM 119 CITRIX Event Action The action that occurred For definitions of these actions see the section called Audit Log Event Names e Succeed
150. e It is possible to revert to any snapshot in time forwards or backwards Existing snapshots and checkpoints are not deleted during revert Deleting a snapshot Ensure that you have the UUID of the checkpoint or snapshot that you wish to remove and then run the following command 129 e CITRIX 1 Run the snapshot list command to find the UUID of the snapshot or checkpoint that you want to revert to xe snapshot list 2 Note the UUID of the snapshot and then run the snapshot uninstall command to remove it xe snapshot uninstall snapshot uuid lt snapshot uuid gt 3 This command alerts you to the VM and VDIs that will be deleted Type yes to confirm For example xe snapshot uninstall snapshot uuid 1760561d a5dl 5d5e 2be5 d0dd9 a3blef The following items are about to be destroyed VM 1760561d a5d1 5d5e 2be5 d0dd99a3blef Snapshot with memory VDI llalaa81 3c6b 4f7d 805a b6ea02947582 0 VDI 43c33fe7 a768 4612 bf8c c385e2c657ed 1 VDI 4c33c84a a874 42db 85b5 5e29174fa9 b2 Suspend image Type yes to continue yes All objects destroyed If you only want to remove the metadata of a checkpoint or snapshot run the following command xe snapshot destroy snapshot uuid lt snapshot uuid gt For example xe snapshot destroy snapshot uuid d7eefb03 39 bc 80f8 8d73 2calbabIdcff Snapshot Templates Creating a template from a snapshot You can create a VM template from a snapshot however its memory
151. e To backup a VM Ensure that the VM to be backed up is offline Run the command xe vm export vm lt vm_uuid gt filename lt backup gt Note This backup also backs up all of the VM s data When importing a VM you can specify the storage mechanism to use for the backed up data Warning Because this process backs up all of the VM data it can take some time to complete To backup VM metadata only Run the command 123 a C TRIX xe vm export vm lt vm_uuid gt filename lt backup gt metadata Full metadata backup and disaster recovery DR This section introduces the concept of Portable Storage Repositories Portable SRs and explains how they work and how to use them as part of a DR strategy DR and metadata backup overview XenServer 5 6 introduces the concept of Portable SRs Portable SRs contain all of the information necessary to recreate all the Virtual Machines VMs with Virtual Disk Images VDIs stored on the SR after re attaching the SR to a different host or pool Portable SRs can be used when regular maintenance or disaster recovery requires manually moving a SR between pools or standalone hosts Using portable SRs has similar constraints to XenMotion as both cases result in VMs being moved between hosts To use portable SRs e The source and destination hosts must have the same CPU type and networking configuration The destination host must have a network of the same name as the one of the source
152. e sr uuid the storage repository that the PBD read only points to device config additional configuration information that read only map parameter is provided to the SR backend driver of a host currently attached True if the SR is currently attached on read only this host False otherwise host uuid UUID of the physical machine on which read only the PBD is available host The host field is deprecated Use read only host_uuid instead other config Additional configuration information read write map parameter pbd create pbd create host uuid lt uuid_of_host gt sr uuid lt uuid of sr gt device config key lt corresponding_value gt Create a new PBD on a XenServer host The read only device config parameter can only be set on creation To add a mapping of path gt tmp the command line should contain the argument device config path tmp For a full list of supported device config key value pairs on each SR type see Storage pbd destroy pbd dest roy uuid lt uuid_of_pbd gt Destroy the specified PBD pbd plug pbd plug uuid lt uuid_of_pbd gt Attempts to plug in the PBD to the XenServer host If this succeeds the referenced SR and the VDIs contained within should then become visible to the XenServer host pbd unplug pbd unplug uuid lt uuid_of_pbd gt Attempt to unplug the PBD from the XenServer host PIF commands Commands for working with PIFs objects representing the physical network interfaces
153. e Manager LVM and provides the same performance benefits provided by LVM VDIs in the local disk case Shared iSCSI SRs using the software based host initiator are capable of supporting VM agility using XenMotion VMs can be started on any XenServer host in a resource pool and migrated between them with no noticeable downtime iSCSI SRs use the entire LUN specified at creation time and may not span more than one LUN CHAP support is provided for client authentication during both the data path initialization and the LUN discovery phases XenServer Host iSCSI configuration All iSCSI initiators and targets must have a unique name to ensure they can be uniquely identified on the network An initiator has an iSCSI initiator address and a target has an iSCSI target address Collectively these are called iSCSI Qualified Names or IQNs XenServer hosts support a single iSCSI initiator which is automatically created and configured with a random IQN during host installation The single initiator can be used to connect to multiple iSCSI targets concurrently iSCSI targets commonly provide access control using iSCSI initiator IQN lists so all iSCSI targets LUNs to be accessed by a XenServer host must be configured to allow access by the host s initiator IQN Similarly targets LUNs to be used as shared iSCSI SRs must be configured to allow access by all host IQNs in the resource pool Note iSCSI targets that do not provide access control will typical
154. e added or removed without restart thus providing a more seamless experience to the user e When servers are full DMC allows you to start more VMs on these servers reducing the amount of memory allocated to the running VMs proportionally What is Dynamic Memory Control DMC XenServer DMC sometimes known as dynamic memory optimization memory overcommit or memory ballooning works by automatically adjusting the memory of running VMs keeping the amount of memory allocated to each VM between specified minimum and maximum memory values guaranteeing performance and permitting greater density of VMs per server Without DMC when a server is full starting further VMs will fail with out of memory errors to reduce the existing VM memory allocation and make room for more VMs you must edit each VM s memory allocation and then reboot the VM With DMC enabled even when the server is full XenServer will attempt to reclaim memory by automatically reducing the current memory allocation of running VMs within their defined memory ranges Without DMC when a server is full starting further VMs will fail with out of memory errors to reduce the existing VM memory allocation and make room for more VMs you must edit each VM s memory allocation and then reboot the VM With DMC enabled even when the server is full XenServer will attempt to reclaim memory by automatically reducing the current memory allocation of running VMs within their defined memory r
155. e audit log get filename tmp auditlog pool actions out To obtain audit records of the pool since a precise millisecond timestamp Run the following command xe audit log get since 2009 09 24T17 56 20 530Z filename tmp auditlog pool actions out To obtain audit records of the pool since a precise minute timestamp Run the following command xe audit log get since 2009 09 24T17 56Z filename tmp auditlog pool actions out 17 e C TRIX How does XenServer compute the roles for the session 1 The subject is authenticated via the Active Directory server to verify which containing groups the subject may also belong to 2 XenServer then verifies which roles have been assigned both to the subject and to its containing groups 3 As subjects can be members of multiple Active Directory groups they will inherit all of the permissions of the associated roles In this illustration since Subject 2 Group 2 is the Pool Operator and User 1 is a member of Group 2 when Subject 3 User 1 tries to log in he or she inherits both Subject 3 VM Operator and Group 2 Pool Operator roles Since the Pool Operator role is higher the resulting role for Subject 3 User 1 is Pool Operator and not VM Operator 18 CITRIX XenServer hosts and resource pools This chapter describes how resource pools can be created through a series of examples using the xe command line interface CLI A simple NFS based shared storage configuration i
156. e been changed to point at shared storage which can be seen by other XenServer hosts in the pool or simply removed It is for this reason that you are strongly advised to move any local storage to shared storage upon joining a pool so that individual XenServer hosts can be ejected or physically fail without loss of data 22 CITRIX High Availability This section explains the XenServer implementation of virtual machine high availability HA and how to configure it using the xe CLI Note XenServer HA is only available with XenServer Advanced edition or above To find out about XenServer editions visit the Citrix website here HA Overview When HA is enabled XenServer continually monitors the health of the hosts in a pool The HA mechanism automatically moves protected VMs to a healthy host if the current VM host fails Additionally if the host that fails is the master HA selects another host to take over the master role automatically so that you can continue to manage the XenServer pool To absolutely guarantee that a host is unreachable a resource pool configured for high availability uses several heartbeat mechanisms to regularly check up on hosts These heartbeats go through both the storage interfaces to the Heartbeat SR and the networking interfaces over the management interfaces Both of these heartbeat routes can be multi homed for additional resilience to prevent false positives XenServer dynamically maintains a fai
157. e command is run hourly Sending host log messages to a central server Rather than have logs written to the control domain filesystem you can configure a XenServer host to write them to a remote server The remote server must have the syslogd daemon running on it to receive the logs and aggregate them correctly The syslogd daemon is a standard part of all flavors of Linux and Unix and third party versions are available for Windows and other operating systems To write logs to a remote server 1 Set the syslog_destination parameter to the hostname or IP address of the remote server where you want the logs to be written 140 CITRIX xe host param set uuid lt xenserver_host_uuid gt logging syslog_destination lt hostname gt 2 Issue the command xe host syslog reconfigure uuid lt xenserver_host_uuid gt to enforce the change You can also execute this command remotely by specifying the host parameter XenCenter logs XenCenter also has client side log This file includes a complete description of all operations and errors that occur when using XenCenter It also contains informational logging of events that provide you with an audit trail of various actions that have occurred The XenCenter log file is stored in your profile folder If XenCenter is installed on Windows XP the path is Suserprofile AppData Citrix XenCenter logs XenCenter log If XenCenter is installed on Windows Vista the path is Suserprofile AppData
158. e does not have this permission this functionality is not visible Configure WLB Initialize WLB and change WLB servers Enable WLB Disable WLB Apply any optimization recommendations that appear in the WLB tab Change the WLB report generated or its recipient 13 CITRIX Permission Allows Assignee To Rationale Comments Accept WLB Placement Recommendations Display WLB Configuration Generate WLB Reports XenCenter view mgmt operations Cancel own tasks Read audit log Connect to pool and read all pool metadata Note Select one of the servers Workload Balancing recommends for placement star recommendations View WLB settings for a pool as shown on the WLB tab View and run WLB reports including the Pool Audit Trail report Folders custom fields and searches are shared between all users accessing the pool Create and modify global XenCenter folders Create and modify global XenCenter custom fields Create and modify global XenCenter searches Lets a user cancel their own tasks Download the XenServer audit log Log in to pool View pool metadata View historical performance data View logged in users View users and roles View messages Register for and receive events In some cases a Read Only user cannot move a resource into a folder in XenCenter even after receiving an elevation prompt and supplying the credentials of a more privileged user In this case log on t
159. e exact device config parameters differ depending on the device type See Storage for details of these parameters across the different storage backends sr scan sr scan uuid lt sr_uuid gt Force an SR scan syncing the xapi database with VDIs present in the underlying storage substrate Task commands Commands for working with long running asynchronous tasks These are tasks such as starting stopping and suspending a Virtual Machine which are typically made up of a set of other atomic subtasks that together accomplish the requested operation The task objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe task list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Task parameters Tasks have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object reference for read only the Task name label the name of the Task read only 176 CITRIX Parameter Name name description resident on status progress type result error_info allowed operations created finished subtask_of subtasks task cancel Description the description string of the Task the unique identifier object reference of the host on which the task is running current status of the Task if the Task is still pending this field contains the estimated percentage complete from 0 to 1 If the Task has com
160. e excluded from Workload Balancing optimization and placement recommendations including Start On placement recommendations Situations when you may want to exclude hosts from recommendations include when e You want to run the pool in Maximum Density mode and consolidate and shut down hosts but there are specific hosts you want to exclude from this behavior When two VM workloads always need to run on the same host for example if they have complementary applications or workloads e You have workloads that you do not want moved around a lot for example domain controllers or SQL Server You want to perform maintenance on a host and you want to leave the host on the network in the pool The performance of the workload is so critical that the cost of dedicated hardware is irrelevant e Specific hosts are running high priority workloads which you do not want to prioritize using the High Availability feature The hardware in the host is not optimum for the other workloads in the pool Regardless of whether you specify a fixed or scheduled optimization mode hosts excluded remain excluded even when the optimization mode changes Therefore if you only want to prevent Workload Balancing from shutting off a host automatically consider not enabling or deselecting Power Management for that host instead as described in Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically To exclude hosts from placement and optimization recommendations
161. e page ahead or back in the report Back to Parent Report Lets you return to the parent report when working with drill through reports Stop Rendering Cancels the report generation Refresh Lets you refresh the report display Es Print Lets you print a report and specify general printing options such as the printer the number of pages and the number of copies Ni Print Layout Lets you display a preview of the report before you print it m Page Setup Lets you specify printing options such as the paper size page orientation and margins 116 CITRIX Export Lets you export the report as an Acrobat PDF file or as an Excel file with a XLS extension Find Find Lets you search for a word in a report such as the name of a virtual machine To print a Workload Balancing report Citrix recommends printing Workload Balancing reports in Landscape orientation 1 After generating the report click il Page Setup Page Setup also lets you control the margins and paper size 2 In the Page Setup dialog select Landscape and click OK 3 Optional If you want to preview the print job click E Print Layout 4 Click Print To export a Workload Balancing report You can export a report in Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat PDF formats After generating the report click al Export and select one of the following e Excel Acrobat PDF file Displaying Workload B
162. e password to use for CHAP Yes authentication protocol Specifies the storage protocol to Yes use fc or iscsi for multi protocol storage systems If not specified fc is used if available otherwise iscsi provision type Specifies whether to use thick or Yes thin provisioning thick or thin default is thick provision options Additional provisioning options Yes Set to dedup to use the de duplication features supported by the storage system raid type The level of RAID to use forthe Yes SR as supported by the storage array If the username password or port configuration of the StorageLink service are changed from the default then the appropriate parameter and value must be specified SRs of type cslg support two additional parameters that can be used with storage arrays that support LUN grouping features such as NetApp flexvols The sm config parameters for CSLG SRs are Parameter name Description Optional pool count Creates the specified number Yes of groups on the array in which LUNs provisioned within the SR will be created 55 CITRIX Parameter name Description Optional physical size The total size of the SR in MB Yes Each pool will be created with a size equal to physical size divided by pool count Required when specifying the sm config pool count parameter Note When a new NetApp SR is created using StorageLink by default a single FlexVol is created for the SR that contains all LUNs cr
163. e rate in kB per second for this VBD list of the operations allowed in this state This list is advisory only and the server state may have changed by the time this field is read by a client links each of the running tasks using this object by reference to a current_operation enum which describes the nature of the task true if this VBD will support hot unplug True if the device can be attached additional configuration vbd create vm uuid lt uuid_of the_vm gt device lt device_value gt vdi uuid lt uuid_of_the_vdi_the_vbd_will_connect_to gt bootable true type lt Disk CD gt mode lt RW RO gt 187 Type read only read only read only read write read write map parameter read only set parameter read only read only read only set parameter read only set parameter read write read only read write map parameter CITRIX Create a new VBD on a VM Appropriate values for the device field are listed in the parameter allowed VBD devices on the specified VM Before any VBDs exist there the allowable values are integers from 0 15 If the type is Disk vdi uuidis required Mode can be RO or Rw for a Disk If the type is CD vdi uuid is optional if no VDI is specified an empty VBD will be created for the CD Mode must be Ro for a CD vbd destroy vbd dest roy uuid lt uuid_of_vbd gt Destroy the specified VBD Ifthe VBD has its other config owner parameter set to t
164. e role this simplifies common operations XenServer maintains a list of authorized users and their roles RBAC allows you to easily restrict which operations different groups of users can perform thus reducing the probability of an accident by an inexperienced user To facilitate compliance and auditing RBAC also provides an Audit Log feature and its corresponding Workload Balancing Pool Audit Trail report RBAC depends on Active Directory for authentication services Specifically XenServer keeps a list of authorized users based on Active Directory user and group accounts As a result you must join the pool to the domain and add Active Directory accounts before you can assign roles CITRIX The local super user LSU or root is a special user account used for system administration and has all rights or permissions In XenServer the local super user is the default account at installation The LSU is authenticated via XenServer and not external authentication service so if the external authentication service fails the LSU can still log in and manage the system The LSU can always access the XenServer physical host via SSH RBAC process This is the standard process for implementing RBAC and assigning a user or group a role 1 Join the domain See Enabling external authentication on a pool 2 Add an Active Directory user or group to the pool This becomes a subject See the section called To
165. e the IP address configuration from the non bonded PIF previously used for the management interface This step is not strictly necessary but might help reduce confusion when reviewing the host networking configuration xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt old_management_pif_uuid gt mode None 9 Move existing VMs to the bond network using the vif destroy and vif create commands This step can also be completed using XenCenter by editing the VM configuration and connecting the existing VIFs of a VM to the bond network 10 Restart the VMs shut down in step 1 Controlling the MAC address of the bond Creating a bond on a dual NIC host implies that the PIF NIC currently in use as the management interface for the host will be subsumed by the bond If DHCP is used to supply IP addresses to the host in most cases the MAC address of the bond should be the same as the PIF NIC currently in use allowing the IP address of the host received from DHCP to remain unchanged The MAC address of the bond can be changed from PIF NIC currently in use for the management interface but doing so will cause existing network sessions to the host to be dropped when the bond is enabled and the MAC IP address in use changes The MAC address to be used for a bond can be controlled in two ways e an optional mac parameter can be specified in the bond create command Using this parameter the bond MAC address can be set to any arbitrary address Ifthe mac parameter is not
166. eated for the SR To change this behavior and specify the number of FlexVols to create and the size of each FlexVol use the sm config pool size and sm config physical size parameters The sm config pool size parameter specifies the number of FlexVols The sm config physical size parameter specifies the total size of all FlexVols to be created so that each FlexVol will be of size sm config physical size divided by sm config pool size To create a CSLG SR 1 Install the StorageLink service onto a Windows host or virtual machine Configure the StorageLink service with the appropriate storage adapters and credentials Use the sr probe command with the device config target parameter to identify the available storage system IDs 56 CITRIX xe sr probe type cslg device config target 192 168 128 10 lt csl__storageSystemInfoList gt lt csl__storageSystemInfo gt lt friendlyName gt 5001 4380 013C 0240 lt friendlyName gt lt displayName gt HP EVA 5001 4380 013C 0240 lt displayName gt lt vendor gt HP lt vendor gt lt model gt lt serial EVA lt model gt um gt 50014380013C0240 lt serialNum gt lt storageSystemId gt HP__EVA__50014380013C0240 lt storageSystemId gt lt systemCapabilities gt lt ca pabilities gt PROVISIONING lt capabilities gt lt capabilities gt MAPPING lt capabilities gt lt ca pabilities gt MULTIPLE_STORAGE_POOLS lt capabilities gt lt capabilities gt DIFF_SNAPSHOT lt
167. ect reference of XenServer host designated as the pool s master default SR the unique identifier object reference of the default SR for the pool the unique identifier object reference of the SR where any crash dumps for pool members are saved crash dump SR suspend image SR the unique identifier object reference of the SR where suspended VMs on pool members are saved a list of key value pairs that specify additional configuration parameters for the pool other config supported sr types SR types that can be used by this pool True if HA is enabled for the pool false otherwise ha enabled ha configuration reserved for future use lists the UUIDs of the VDIs being used by HA to determine storage health ha statefiles the number of host failures to tolerate before sending a system alert ha host failures to tolerate the number of hosts failures that can actually be handled according to the calculations of the HA algorithm ha plan exists for ha allow overcommit True if the pool is allowed to be overcommitted False otherwise ha overcommitted True if the pool is currently overcommitted 171 Type read only read write read write read write read write map parameter read only read only read only read only read write read only read write read only CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type blobs binary data store read only wlb url Path to the WLB serve
168. ed This provides that status of the action that is whether or not it was successful Audit Log Event Names The following table defines some events that appear frequently in the XenServer Audit Log report For additional event definitions see the events section of the Citrix XenServer Management API Event Name Definition task create Created a new task object task destroy Destroyed the task object SR destroy Destroyed the storage repository VM start Started a virtual machine http get_audit_log Gets Audit Log pool retrieve wlb recommendations Somebody retrieved the Workload Balancing recommendations for this pool Pool Health The pool health report displays the percentage of time a resource pool and its hosts spent in four different threshold ranges Critical High Medium and Low You can use the Pool Health report to evaluate the effectiveness of your performance thresholds A few points about interpreting this report e Resource utilization in the Average Medium Threshold blue is the optimum resource utilization regardless of the placement strategy you selected Likewise the blue section on the pie chart indicates the amount of time that host used resources optimally e Resource utilization in the Average Low Threshold Percent green is not necessarily positive Whether Low resource utilization is positive depends on your placement strategy For example if your placement strategy is Maximum Density and most of the
169. ed 79 Changing networking configuration OPTIONS dicas oct a a A a aca ses 79 HOMME A A As 80 ONS SEVE Sina a a a 80 Changing IP address configuration for a standalone NOSt s ssssssissrsrrrererrrrrrrnrrerrsrrrererrr 80 Changing IP address configuration in resource POOIS oooocococccccccococococonncncncncnnnnanoncncncnnnnnnore 80 Management INEMACE src idas 81 Disabling management ACCESS vii A eens 81 Adding ainew physical NIE ui a ads 82 NIC PIF ordering in resource POOIS oooocococccccccocococococononononcncncnononanononnnrncnnnrnnnnnrnnonnnininanananananes 82 Verifying NIG One ring evi ida teed atebe aa o a 82 Reordering NICS iii ia 82 Networking TrOUDIGSMOOTING sio A classi vies a A A A war aia idee 83 Diagnosing NetWork COUPON sii da E sear Nn nina serene 83 Recovering from a bad network configuration oococococccccccococncocococonononanononcncncnnncnnnrnrnanananananananes 84 viii CITRIX Workload Balancing msi 00 What S NEW acia aia 85 New Features ia E EE E AA E E N 85 A O O 86 Workload Balancing OVNIS a o 86 Workload Balancing Basic CONCSpiS isis A ia 87 Workload Balancing Installation Overview oooooocococcncoconcoconcnnoncnnonencn crono ronnn nr nr nrrnrnrrnrnrrrenarrrnrnrenenaners 87 Workload Balancing System Requirements oooocococccococococccccncncoconononononnncnnnnnnnnnnnoranenenenarnnnnninans 88 Supported XenServer Versions 0ocococccccccocccocononanonanananonanononcncncnnnrnnnrnne
170. ed disk blocks Metadata only import will fail if any VDIs cannot be found named by SR and VDI location unless the force option is specified in which case the import will proceed regardless If disks can be mirrored or moved out of band then metadata import export represents a fast way of moving VMs between disjoint pools e g as part of a disaster recovery plan Note Multiple VM imports will be performed faster in serial that in parallel vm install vm install new name label lt name gt template uuid lt uuid_of desired_template gt template lt uuid_or_name_of_desired_template gt sr uuid lt sr_uuid gt sr name label lt name_of_sr gt copy bios strings from lt uuid of host gt Install a VM from a template Specify the template name using either the template uuid or template argument Specify an SR other than the default SR using either the sr uuidor sr name 1label argument Specify to install BIOS locked media using the copy bios strings from argument vm memory shadow multiplier set vm memory shadow multiplier set lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt multiplier lt float_memory_multiplier gt Set the shadow memory multiplier for the specified VM This is an advanced option which modifies the amount of shadow memory assigned to a hardware assisted VM In some specialized application workloads such as Citrix XenApp extra shadow memory is required to achieve full performance This memory
171. ee eee eee ntr rtro rrtt rnrn ee eeeeeeeee es 26 HOST POWE OR ii a A A A A A lada 27 Powering On hosts tremolo tasca ice 27 Using the CLI to Manage Host Power ON oociccococoncncncncncncncncncncnnnonononnnnnnrnnnnnennnnncncnrnnnrnnnnninins 27 To enable Elost Power On using the CUl sscicsieieise teed aetehad ane onisial E A E 28 To turn on hosts remotely using the CUI cies ecccct is scsaminesadned cgesiinetnenmedetenadenstavetan E E 28 Configuring a Custom Script for XenServer s Host Power On Feature 0 0 cceeeeeeeeeee tees eset eeeeeeeees 28 Key Value PAS rara ao 28 MOST POWEFON_IMOGE sisri risiini enra diri ia daa 28 MOST POWER ONCONG vii iii a id Eat 29 Sample Sopranos 29 A CITRIX Storage QVEMIOW e oeer EE nial E Ad ice 30 Storage Repositories SRS idas eir a e r ea r A a e A SE 30 Virtual Disk Images MIS mirar ita is 30 Physical Block Devices PBDS oococococccococococococononononcncncncnnnonnnonnnnnnnrnnnrncnrnrnrnrnrnnnnnnnnaninanananen 30 virtual Block Devices VBDS 200 en 31 SUMMALY Of Storage DECS lonas 31 Virtual Disk Data FORMAUS air rr EA din ast 31 VElD based VDIS isidro 32 VHD Chaln Goalescing ip ain inieieeaaearen E E E ee ieniees 32 Space Utilization a ssi A A Sn 32 LUN based VOS A ica 33 Storage COMMOWALOM a rrricancola ae ja lolas 33 Creating Storage Repositorio 33 Upgrading LVM storage from XenServer 5 0 Or Carlier ooooococccccccncononcncononcoronan crono ro nan ro nrn rn ren
172. eject vm cd eject lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Eject a CD from the virtual CD drive This command only works if there is one and only one CD attached to the VM When there are two or more CDs use the command xe vbd eject and specify the UUID of the VBD The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section 202 e C TRIX vm cd insert vm cd insert cd name lt name_of_cd gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Insert a CD into the virtual CD drive This command will only work if there is one and only one empty CD device attached to the VM When there are two or more empty CD devices use the xe vbd insert command and specify the UUIDs of the VBD and of the VDI to insert The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm cd list vm cd 1ist vbd params vdi params lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Lists CDs attached to the specified VMs The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at t
173. el value LEVEL gt lt variable gt lt config gt Valid VM Elements name what to call the variable no default If the name value is one of cpu_usage network_usage or disk_usage the rrd_regex and alarm_trigger_sense parameters are not required as defaults for these values will be used alarm_priority the priority of the messages generated default 5 alarm_trigger_level level of value that triggers an alarm no default 137 CITRIX alarm_trigger_sense high if alarm_trigger_level is a maximum value otherwise low if the alarm_trigger_level is a minimum value default high alarm_trigger_period number of seconds that values above or below the alarm threshold can be received before an alarm is sent default 60 alarm_auto_inhibit_period number of seconds this alarm disabled after an alarm is sent default 3600 consolidation_fn how to combine variables from rrd_updates into one value default is sum other choice is average rrd_regex regular expression to match the names of variables returned by the xe vm data source list uuid lt vmuuid gt command that should be used to compute the statistical value This parameter has defaults for the named variables cpu_usage network_usage and disk_usage If specified the values of all items returned by xe vm data source list whose names match the specified regular expression will be consolidated using the method specified as the consolidation_fn
174. emory was set at 512 MB and the Dynamic Maximum Memory was set at 1024 MB this would give the VM a Dynamic Memory Range DMR of 512 1024 MB within which it would operate With DMC XenServer guarantees at all times to assign each VM memory within its specified DMR The concept of static range Many Operating Systems that XenServer supports do not fully understand the notion of dynamically adding or removing memory As a result XenServer must declare the maximum amount of memory that a VM will ever be asked to consume at the time that it boots This allows the guest operating system to size its page tables and other memory management structures accordingly This introduces the concept of a static memory range within XenServer The static memory range cannot be adjusted while the VM is running For a particular boot the dynamic range is constrained such as to be always contained within this static range Note that the static minimum the lower bound of the static range is there to protect the administrator and is set to the lowest amount of memory that the OS can run with on XenServer Note Citrix advises not to change the static minimum level as this is set at the supported level per operating system refer to the memory constraints table for more details By setting a static maximum level higher than a dynamic max means that in the future if you need to allocate more memory to a VM you can do so without requiring a reboot
175. en this computed value falls below the specified value for ha host failures to tolerate 5 Specify the number of failures to tolerate parameter This should be less than or equal to the computed value xe pool param set ha host failures to tolerate lt 2 gt Removing HA protection from a VM using the CLI To disable HA features for a VM use the xe vm param set command to set the ha always run parameter to false This does not clear the VM restart priority settings You can enable HA for a VM again by setting the ha always run parameter to true Recovering an unreachable host If for some reason a host cannot access the HA statefile it is possible that a host may become unreachable To recover your XenServer installation it may be necessary to disable HA using the host emergency ha disable command xe host emergency ha disabl forc If the host was the pool master then it should start up as normal with HA disabled Slaves should reconnect and automatically disable HA If the host was a Pool slave and cannot contact the master then it may be necessary to force the host to reboot as a pool master xe pool emergency transition to master or to tell it where the new master is xe pool emergency reset master xe pool emergency transition to master uuid lt host_uuid gt xe pool emergency reset master master address lt new_master_hostname gt When all hosts have successfully restarted re enable HA xe pool h
176. enever possible use a dedicated IP address that is not likely to change for the lifetime of the pool for pool masters To change the IP address of a pool master host 1 Use the pif reconfigure ip CLI command to set the IP address as desired See Appendix A Command line interface for details on the parameters of the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt pif_uuid gt mode DHCP 2 When the IP address of the pool master host is changed all member hosts will enter into an emergency mode when they fail to contact the master host 3 On the master XenServer host use the pool recover slaves command to force the master to contact each of the member hosts and inform them of the new master IP address xe pool recover slaves Management interface When XenServer is installed on a host with multiple NICs one NIC is selected for use as the management interface The management interface is used for XenCenter connections to the host and for host to host communication To change the NIC used for the management interface 1 Use the pif list command to determine which PIF corresponds to the NIC to be used as the management interface The UUID of each PIF is returned xe pif list 2 Use the pif param list command to verify the IP addressing configuration for the PIF that will be used for the management interface If necessary use the pif reconfigure ip command to configure IP addressing for the PIF to be used See Appendix A C
177. ent interfaces e Disable server management e Delete crashdumps Add edit and remove networks Add edit and remove PBDs PIFs VLANs Bonds SRs Add remove and retrieve secrets 12 CITRIX Permission Allows Assignee To Rationale Comments VM advanced operations VM create destroy operations VM change CD media VM change power state View VM consoles Configure Initialize Enable Disable WLB Apply WLB Optimization Recommendations Modify WLB Report Subscriptions Adjust VM memory through Dynamic Memory Control This permission provides the assignee with enough privileges to start a VM on a different server if they are not satisfied with the server XenServer selected Create a VM snapshot with memory take VM snapshots and roll back VMs Migrate VMs Start VMs including specifying physical server Resume VMs Install or delete Clone VMs Add remove and configure virtual disk CD devices Add remove and configure virtual network devices Import export VMs VM configuration change Eject current CD Insert new CD Start VMs automatic This permission does not placement include start_on resume_on Shut d VM and migrate which are part of ee the VM advanced operations Reboot VMs permission Suspend VMs Resume VMs automatic placement See and interact with VM consoles This permission does not let the user view server consoles When a user s rol
178. ent that your entire resource pool fails you will need to recreate the pool database from scratch Be sure to regularly back up your pool metadata using the xe pool dump database CLI command see the section called pool dump database To restore a completely failed pool 1 Install a fresh set of hosts Do not pool them up at this stage 2 For the host nominated as the master restore the pool database from your backup using the xe pool restore database see the section called pool restore database command 3 Connect to the master host using XenCenter and ensure that all your shared storage and VMs are available again 4 Perform a pool join operation on the remaining freshly installed member hosts and start up your VMs on the appropriate hosts Coping with Failure due to Configuration Errors If the physical host machine is operational but the software or host configuration is corrupted To restore host software and configuration 1 Run the command xe host restore host lt host gt file name lt hostbackup gt 2 Reboot to the host installation CD and select Restore from backup Physical Machine failure Ifthe physical host machine has failed use the appropriate procedure listed below to recover Warning Any VMs which were running on a previous member or the previous host which has failed will still be marked as Running in the database This is for safety simultaneously starting a VM on two different hosts
179. eps 3 and 4 to move the management interface on the host and to enable the bond Adding NIC bonds to an existing pool Warning Do not attempt to create network bonds while HA is enabled The process of bond creation disturbs the in progress HA heartbeating and causes hosts to self fence shut themselves down subsequently they will likely fail to reboot properly and you will need to run the host emergency ha disable command to recover them Note If you are not using XenCenter for NIC bonding the quickest way to create pool wide NIC bonds is to create the bond on the master and then restart the other pool members Alternately you can use the service xapi restart command This causes the bond and VLAN settings on the master to be inherited by each host The management interface of each host must however be manually reconfigured When adding a NIC bond to an existing pool the bond must be manually created on each host in the pool The steps below can be used to add NIC bonds on both the pool master and other hosts with the following requirements 1 All VMs in the pool must be shut down 2 Add the bond to the pool master first and then to other hosts 3 The bond create host management reconfigure and host management disable commands affect the host on which they are run and so are not suitable for use on one host in a pool to change the configuration of another Run these commands directly on the console of the host to be affec
180. er SRs For storage repositories that store a library of ISOs the content type must be set to iso In other cases Citrix recommends that this be set either to empty or the string user shared True if this SR is capable of being read write shared between multiple XenServer hosts False otherwise other config list of key value pairs that specify read write map parameter additional configuration parameters for the SR host The storage repository host name read only virtual allocation sum of virtual size values of all VDIs in read only this storage repository in bytes sm config SM dependent data read only map parameter blobs binary data store read only sr create sr create name label lt name gt physical size lt size gt type lt type gt content type lt content_type gt device config lt config_name gt lt value gt host uuid lt XenServer host UUID gt shared lt true false gt Creates an SR on the disk introduces it into the database and creates a PBD attaching the SR to a XenServer host If sharedis set to true a PBD is created for each XenServer host in the pool if shared is not specified or set to false a PBD is created only for the XenServer host specified with host uuid The exact device config parameters differ depending on the device type See Storage for details of these parameters across the different storage backends sr destroy sr destroy uuid lt sr_uuid gt Destroys the specified SR on the XenServer
181. er has been tested extensively against Network Appliance FAS270c and FAS3020c storage using Data OnTap 7 2 2 In situations where XenServer is used with lower end storage it will cautiously wait for all writes to be acknowledged before passing acknowledgments on to guest VMs This will incur a noticeable performance cost and might be remedied by setting the storage to present the SR mount point as an asynchronous 52 CITRIX mode export Asynchronous exports acknowledge writes that are not actually on disk and so administrators should consider the risks of failure carefully in these situations The XenServer NFS implementation uses TCP by default If your situation allows you can configure the implementation to use UDP in situations where there may be a performance benefit To do this specify the device config parameter useUDP true at SR creation time Warning Since VDIs on NFS SRs are created as sparse administrators must ensure that there is enough disk space on the NFS SRs for all required VDIs XenServer hosts do not enforce that the space required for VDIs on NFS SRs is actually present Creating a shared NFS SR nfs Device config parameters for nfs SRs Parameter Name Description Required server IP address or hostname of the Yes NFS server serverpath path including the NFS mount Yes point to the NFS server that hosts the SR To create a shared NFS SR on 192 168 1 10 export1 use the following command
182. er to a resource pool these default networks are merged so that all physical NICs with the same device name are attached to the same network Typically you would only add a new network if you wished to create an internal network set up a new VLAN using an existing NIC or create a NIC bond You can configure three different types of physical server networks in XenServer Internal networks have no association to a physical network interface and can be used to provide connectivity only between the virtual machines on a given server with no connection to the outside world External networks have an association with a physical network interface and provide a bridge between a virtual machine and the physical network interface connected to the network enabling a virtual machine to connect to resources available through the server s physical network interface card Bonded networks create a bond between two NICs to create a single high performing channel between the virtual machine and the network Note Some networking options have different behaviors when used with standalone XenServer hosts compared to resource pools This chapter contains sections on general information that applies to both standalone hosts and pools followed by specific information and procedures for each 69 C TRIX Network objects There are three types of server side software objects which represent networking entities These objects are A PIF which rep
183. er values with those specified on the command line only printing objects that match all of the specified constraints For example xe vm list HVM boot policy BIOS order power state halted This command will only list those VMs for which both the field power state has the value halted and for which the field HVM boot policy has the value BIOS order It is also possible to filter the list based on the value of keys in maps or on the existence of values in a set The syntax for the first of these is map name key value and the second is set name contains value 146 CITRIX For scripting a useful technique is passing minimal on the command line causing xe to print only the first field in a comma separated list For example the command xe vm list minimal on a XenServer host with three VMs installed gives the three UUIDs of the VMs for example a85d6717 7264 d00e 069b 3b1d19d56ad9 aaa3eec5 9499 bcf3 4c03 afl0baea96b7 42c044de df69 4b30 89d9 2c199564581d xe command reference This section provides a reference to the xe commands They are grouped by objects that the commands address and listed alphabetically Bonding commands Commands for working with network bonds for resilience with physical interface failover See the section called Creating NIC bonds on a standalone host for details The bond object is a reference object which glues together master and member PIFs The master PIF is the bonding in
184. ere trees of chained VDIs are created over time as VMs and their associated VDIs get cloned When one of the VDIs in a chain is deleted XenServer rationalizes the other VDIs in the chain to remove unnecessary VDIs This coalescing process runs asynchronously The amount of disk space reclaimed and the time taken to perform the process depends on the size of the VDI and the amount of shared data Only one coalescing process will ever be active for an SR This process thread runs on the SR master host If you have critical VMs running on the master server of the pool and experience occasional slow IO due to this process you can take steps to mitigate against this e Migrate the VM to a host other than the SR master e Set the disk IO priority to a higher level and adjust the scheduler See the section called Virtual disk QoS settings for more information Space Utilization Space utilization is always reported based on the current allocation of the SR and may not reflect the amount of virtual disk space allocated The reporting of space for LVM based SRs versus File based SRs will also differ given that File based VHD supports full thin provisioning while the underlying volume of an LVM based VHD will be fully inflated to support potential growth for writeable leaf nodes Space utilization 32 CITRIX reported for the SR will depend on the number of snapshots and the amount of difference data written to a disk between each snapshot
185. ers of a pool the loss of connectivity on shutdown will be handled and the pool will recover when the XenServer hosts returns If you shut down a pool member other members and the master will continue to function If you shut down the master the pool will be out of action until the master is rebooted and back on line at which point the members will reconnect and synchronize with the master or until you make one of the members into the master host restore host restore file name lt backup_filename gt lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Restore a backup named file name of the XenServer host control software Note that the use of the word restore here does not mean a full restore in the usual sense it merely means that the compressed backup file has been uncompressed and unpacked onto the secondary partition After you ve done a xe host restore you have to boot the Install CD and use its Restore from Backup option The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section host set hostname live host set hostname host uuid lt uuid_of host gt hostname lt new_hostname gt 160 e CITRIX Change the hostname of the XenServer host specified by host uuid This command persistently sets both the hostname in the control domain database and the a
186. es a combination of XenCenter and xsconsole To create and move a portable SR using the xsconsole and XenCenter 1 On the source host or pool in xsconsole select the Backup Restore and Update menu option select the Backup Virtual Machine Metadata option and then select the desired SR 2 In XenCenter select the source host or pool and shutdown all running VMs with VDIs on the SR to be moved 3 Inthe tree view select the SR to be moved and select Storage gt Detach Storage Repository The Detach Storage Repository menu option will not be displayed if there are running VMs with VDIs on the selected SR After being detached the SR will be displayed in a grayed out state Warning Do not complete this step unless you have created a backup VDI in step 1 Select Storage gt Forget Storage Repository to remove the SR record from the host or pool Select the destination host in the tree view and select Storage gt New Storage Repository Create a new SR with the appropriate parameters required to reconnect the existing SR to the destination host In the case of moving a SR between pools or hosts within a site the parameters may be identical to the source pool 125 CITRIX 7 Everytime a new SR is created the storage is checked to see if it contains an existing SR If so an option is presented allowing re attachment of the existing SR If this option is not displayed the parameters specified during SR creation are not correct Select
187. espite being created In this situation a VM can appear to be not agile and cannot be protected by HA If this occurs use the CLI pif plug command to bring the VLAN and bond PIFs up so that the VM can become agile You can also determine precisely why a VM is not agile by using the xe diagnostic vm status CLI command to analyze its placement constraints and take remedial action if required Restart priorities Virtual machines are assigned a restart priority and a flag that indicates whether they should be protected by HA or not When HA is enabled every effort is made to keep protected virtual machines live If a restart priority is specified any protected VM that is halted will be started automatically If a server fails then the VMs on it will be started on another server The possible restart priorities are 24 CITRIX 1 2 3 when a pool is overcommited the HA mechanism will attempt to restart protected VMs with the lowest restart priority first best effort VMs with this priority setting will be restarted only when the system has attempted to restart protected VMs ha always run false VMs with this parameter set will not be restarted The restart priorities determine the order in which VMs are restarted when a failure occurs In a given configuration where a number of server failures greater than zero can be tolerated as indicated in the HA panel in the GUI or by the ha plan exists for field on the pool object on the CLI the
188. eters control the fields of the respective objects to output and should be given as a comma separated list or the special key a11 for the complete list The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm disk remove vm disk remove device lt integer_label_of_disk gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Remove a disk from the specified VMs and destroy it The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm export vm export filename lt export_filename gt metadata lt true false gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Export the specified VMs including disk images to a file on the local machine Specify the filename to export the VM into using the filename parameter By convention the filename should have a xva extension If the metadata parameter is t rue then the disks are not exported and only the VM metadata is written to the output file This is intended to be used when the underlying storage is transferred through other mechanisms and permits the VM information to be recreated see the section called vm import The VM or VMs on whi
189. etlQN Yes Yes SCSlid Yes Yes Ivmohba SCSlid Yes Yes 36 CITRIX device config parameter in order of Required for sr create netapp nfs Ilym ext equallogic cslg dependency target username password chapuser chappassword aggregate FlexVols allocation asis server serverpath device device target username password chapuser chappassword storagepool target storageSystemld storagePoolld username password cslport chapuser chappassword 37 No No No No No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No Not No Yes Yes No No No No No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No CITRIX device config parameter in order of Can be Required for sr create dependency probed provision type Yes No protocol Yes No provision options Yes No raid type Yes No Aggregate probing is only possible at sr create time It needs to be done there so that the aggregate can be specified at the point that the SR is created Storage pool probing is only possible at sr create time It needs to be done there so that the aggregate can be specified at the point that the SR is created Hf the username password or port configuration of the StorageLink service are changed from the default value then the appropriate parameter and value must be specified Storage Multipathing Dynamic multipathi
190. ew of the report displays an average value for resource utilization over the period you specified Expanding the sign displays line graphs for individual resources You can use these graphs to see trends in resource utilization over time This report displays data for CPU Usage Free Memory Network Reads Writes and Disk Reads Writes 122 CITRIX Backup and recovery This chapter presents the functionality designed to give you the best chance to recover your XenServer from a catastrophic failure of hardware or software from lightweight metadata backups to full VM backups and portable SRs Backups Citrix recommends that you frequently perform as many of the following backup procedures as possible to recover from possible server and or software failure To backup pool metadata 1 Run the command xe pool dump database file name lt backup gt Run the command xe pool restore database file name lt backup gt dry run true This command checks that the target machine has an appropriate number of appropriately named NICs which is required for the backup to succeed To backup host configuration and software Run the command xe host backup host lt host gt file name lt hostbackup gt Note e Do not create the backup in the control domain e This procedure may create a large backup file e To complete a restore you have to reboot to the original install CD e This data can only be restored to the original machin
191. feature to turn a server on and off remotely either from XenCenter or by using the CLI When using Workload Balancing WLB you can configure Workload Balancing to turn hosts on and off automatically as VMs are consolidated or brought back online To enable host power the server must have one of the following power control solutions Wake On LAN enabled network card Dell Remote Access Cards DRAC To use XenServer with DRAC you must install the Dell supplemental pack to get DRAC support DRAC support requires installing RACADM command line utility on the server with the remote access controller and enable DRAC and its interface RACADM is often included in the DRAC management software For more information see Dell s DRAC documentation e Hewlett Packard Integrated Lights Out iLO To use XenServer with iLO you must enable iLO on the host and connect interface to the network For more information see HP s LO documentation A custom script based on the XenAPI that enables you to turn the power on and off through XenServer For more information see Configuring a Custom Script for XenServer s Host Power On Feature Using the Host Power On feature requires three tasks 1 Ensuring the hosts in the pool support controlling the power remotely that is they have Wake on LAN functionality a DRAC or iLO card or you created custom script 2 Enabling the Host Power On functionality using the CLI or XenCenter 3 Optional
192. figure and dedicate a NIC to specific functions such as storage traffic Assigning a NIC to a specific function will prevent the use of the NIC for other functions such as host management but requires that the appropriate network configuration be in place in order to ensure the NIC is used for the desired traffic For example to dedicate a NIC to storage traffic the NIC storage target switch and or VLAN must be configured such that the target is only accessible over the assigned NIC This allows use of standard IP routing to control how traffic is routed between multiple NICs within a XenServer Note Before dedicating a network interface as a storage interface for use with iSCSI or NFS SRs ensure that the dedicated interface uses a separate IP subnet which is not routable from the main management interface If this is not enforced then storage traffic may be directed over the main management interface after a host reboot due to the order in which network interfaces are initialized To assign NIC functions using the xe CLI 1 Ensure that the PIF is on a separate subnet or routing is configured to suit your network topology in order to force the desired traffic over the selected PIF 2 Setup an IP configuration for the PIF adding appropriate values for the mode parameter and if using static IP addressing the IP netmask gateway and DNS parameters xe pif reconfigure ip mode lt DHCP Static gt uuid lt pif uuid gt 3 Set the PIF
193. for all subsequent LUN clones By default if no snapshot hint is passed into the backend driver it will generate a random ID with which to name the FlexVol snapshot There is a CLI override for this value passed in as an epochhint The first time the epochhint value is received the backend generates a new snapshot based on the cookie name Any subsequent snapshot requests with the same epochhint value will be backed off the existing snapshot xe vdi snapshot uuid lt valid_vdi_uuid gt driver params epochhint lt cookie gt During NetApp SR provisioning additional disk space is reserved for snapshots If you plan to not use the snapshotting functionality you might want to free up this reserved space To do so you can reduce the value of the other config multiplier parameter By default the value of the multiplier is 2 4 so the amount of space reserved is 2 4 times the amount of space that would be needed for the FlexVols themselves Software iSCSI Support XenServer provides support for shared SRs on iSCSI LUNs iSCSI is supported using the open iSCSI software iSCSI initiator or by using a supported iSCSI Host Bus Adapter HBA The steps for using iSCSI 47 CITRIX HBAs are identical to those for Fibre Channel HBAs both of which are described in the section called Creating a shared LVM over Fibre Channel iSCSI HBA or SAS SR Ilvmohba Shared iSCSI support using the software iSCSI initiator is implemented based on the Linux Volum
194. frequency of VM recommendation intervals is a product of multiple factors including How long you specify Workload Balancing waits before applying another optimization recommendation How many recommendations Workload Balancing must make before applying the recommendation The severity level a recommendation must achieve optimization The assertiveness with which Workload Balancing applies recommendations Length of Time Between Optimization Recommendations After VM Moves You can specify the number of times Workload Balancing must wait after the last time a virtual machine was moved regardless of the cause before it can generate another optimization recommendation that includes virtual machine Setting the relocation interval prevents Workload Balancing from generating optimization recommendations for artificial reasons for example if there was a temporary utilization spike The frequency for which you should set the optimization generation interval varies according to your environment Consider these scenarios e If server loads and activity increase extremely quickly in your environment you may want to decrease number of minutes for the optimization interval For example if you know that activity in your environment tends to increase sharply every morning because all employees arrive to work and access their published applications exactly the same time every day for example 9 00 AM and your enrolment always spikes for forty minu
195. g the same target again and specifying both the name IP address and desired IQN returns the set of SCSlids LUNs available on the target IQN 35 CITRIX xe sr probe type lvmoiscsi device config target 192 168 1 10 device config targetIOQN ign 192 168 1 10 filerl Error code SR_BACKEND_FAILURE_107 Error parameters The SCSIid parameter is missing or incorrect lt xml version 1 0 gt lt iscsi target gt lt LUN gt lt vendor gt IET lt vendor gt lt LUNid gt 0 lt LUNid gt lt size gt 42949672960 lt size gt lt SCSTid gt 149455400000000000000000002000000b70200000 000000 lt SCSTid gt lt LUN gt lt iscsi target gt Probing the same target and supplying all three parameters will return a list of SRs that exist on the LUN if any xe sr probe type lvmoiscsi device config target 192 168 1 10 device config targetIQN 192 168 1 10 filerl device config SCSIid 149455400000000000000000002000000b70200000f000000 lt xml version 1 0 gt lt SRlist gt lt SR gt lt UUID gt 3f6elebd 8687 0315 f 9d3 b02ab3adc4a6 lt UUID gt lt Devlist gt dev disk by id scsi 149455400000000000000000002000000b70200000 000000 lt Devlist gt lt SR gt lt SRlist gt The following parameters can be probed for each SR type SR type device config parameter in order of Required for sr create dependency Ivmoiscsi target No Yes chapuser No No chappassword No No targ
196. gs listed under the Optimal Server command Five stars indicates the most recommended optimal server and five empty stars indicates the least recommended server To resume a virtual machine on the optimal server 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select the suspended virtual machine you want to resume 2 From the VM menu select Resume on Server and then select one of the following Optimal Server The optimal server is the physical host that is best suited to the resource demands of the virtual machine you are starting Workload Balancing determines the optimal server based on 109 e CITRIX its historical records of performance metrics and your placement strategy The optimal server is the server with the most stars One of the servers with star ratings listed under the Optimal Server command Five stars indicates the most recommended optimal server and five empty stars indicates the least recommended server Accepting Optimization Recommendations Workload Balancing provides recommendations about ways you can move virtual machines to optimize your environment Optimization recommendations appear in the WLB tab in XenCenter Optimization recommendations are based on the e Placement strategy you select that is the placement optimization mode as described in the section called Adjusting the Optimization Mode e Performance metrics for resources such as a physical host s CPU memory network and disk utilization
197. hat virtual machine and the physical hosts in the resource pool Likewise when Workload Balancing is enabled if you migrate a virtual machine to another host XenCenter recommends servers to which you can move that host This Workload Balancing enhancement is also available for the Initial Start On Placement and Resume features In general Workload Balancing functions more effectively and makes better less frequent optimization recommendations if you start Initial Start On Placement and Resume virtual machines on the servers it recommends When you use these features with Workload Balancing enabled host recommendations appear as star ratings beside the name of the physical host Five empty stars indicates the lowest rated least optimal server When it is not possible to start or move a virtual machine to a host an X appears beside the host name with the reason To start a virtual machine on the optimal server 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select the virtual machine you want to start 2 From the VM menu select Start on Server and then select one of the following e Optimal Server The optimal server is the physical host that is best suited to the resource demands of the virtual machine you are starting Workload Balancing determines the optimal server based on its historical records of performance metrics and your placement strategy The optimal server is the server with the most stars One of the servers with star ratin
198. he beginning of this section You can also select which VBD and VDI parameters to list vm cd remove vm cd remove cd name lt name_of_cd gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Remove a virtual CD from the specified VMs The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm clone vm clone new name label lt name_for_clone gt new name description lt description_for_clone gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Clone an existing VM using storage level fast disk clone operation where available Specify the name and the optional description for the resulting cloned VM using the new name label and new name description arguments The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm compute maximum memory vm compute maximum memory total lt amount_of_available_physical_ram_in_bytes gt approximate lt add overhead memory for additional vCPUS true false gt lt vm_selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Calculate the maximum amount of static memory which can be allocated to an existing VM using the total amount of physical RAM as an upper bound
199. he days on which you want to generate it and when you want to start and stop automatic report delivery Using Workload Balancing Reports for Tasks The Workload Balancing reports can help you perform capacity planning determine virtual server health and evaluate the effectiveness of your configured threshold levels Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Optimization Thresholds You can use the Pool Health report to evaluate the effectiveness of your optimization thresholds While Workload Balancing provides default threshold settings you might need to adjust these defaults for them to provide value in your environment If you don t have the optimization thresholds adjusted to the correct level for your environment Workload Balancing recommendations might not be appropriate for your environment Generating and Managing Workload Balancing Reports This topic explains how to generate navigate print and export Workload Balancing reports To generate a Workload Balancing report 1 In XenCenter from the Pool menu select View Workload Reports 2 From the Workload Reports screen select a report from the left pane 3 Select the Start Date and the End Date for the reporting period Depending on the report you select you might need to specify a host in the Host list box 4 Click Run Report The report displays in the report window To subscribe to a Workload Balancing report Before you can subscribe to a report you must enable the report
200. he total number of FlexVols assigned This means that VDIs LUNs are evenly distributed across any one of the FlexVols at the point that the VDI is instantiated The only exception to this rule is for groups of VM disks which are opportunistically assigned to the same FlexVol to assist with VM cloning and when VDIs are created manually but passed a vmhint flag that informs the backend of the FlexVol to which the VDI should be assigned The vmhint may be a random string such as a uuid that is re issued for all subsequent VDI creation operations to ensure grouping in the same FlexVol or it can be a simple FlexVol number to correspond to the FlexVol naming convention applied on the Filer Using either of the following 2 commands a VDI created manually using the CLI can be assigned to a specific FlexVol xe vdi create uuid lt valid_vdi_uuid gt sr uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt sm config vmhint lt valid_vm_uuid gt xe vdi create uuid lt valid_vdi_uuid gt sr uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt sm config vmhint lt valid_flexvol_number gt Taking VDI snapshots with a NetApp SR Cloning a VDI entails generating a snapshot of the FlexVol and then creating a LUN clone backed off the snapshot When generating a VM snapshot you must snapshot each of the VMs disks in sequence Because all the disks are expected to be located in the same FlexVol and the FlexVol snapshot operates on all LUNs in the same FlexVol it makes sense to re use an existing snapshot
201. herits existing shared storage repositories in the pool and appropriate PBD records are created so that the new host can access existing shared storage automatically e Networking information is partially inherited to the joining host the structural details of NICs VLANs and bonded interfaces are all inherited but policy information is not This policy information which must be re configured includes the IP addresses of management NICs which are preserved from the original configuration e the location of the management interface which remains the same as the original configuration For example if the other pool hosts have their management interface on a bonded interface then the joining host must be explicitly migrated to the bond once it has joined See To add NIC bonds to the pool master and other hosts for details on how to migrate the management interface to a bond Dedicated storage NICs which must be re assigned to the joining host from XenCenter or the CLI and the PBDs re plugged to route the traffic accordingly This is because IP addresses are not assigned as part of the pool join operation and the storage NIC is not useful without this configured correctly See the section called Configuring a dedicated storage NIC for details on how to dedicate a storage NIC from the CLI To join XenServer hosts host and host2 into a resource pool using the CLI Open a console on XenServer host host2 2 Command XenServer host hos
202. his template appears as lt not in database gt for a template memory memory metrics reported by read only map parameter the agent on a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt fora template disks disk metrics reported by the read only map parameter agent on a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt fora template networks network metrics reported by read only map parameter the agent on a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt fora template other other metrics reported by read only map parameter the agent on a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt fora template 183 CITRIX Parameter Name guest metrics last updated actions after shutdown actions after reboot possible hosts HVM shadow multiplier dom id recommendations xenstore data is a snapshot snapshot_of snapshots snapshot_time memory target Description timestamp when the last write to these fields was performed by the in guest agent in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z Where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT action to take after the VM has shutdown action to take after the VM has rebooted list of hosts that could potentially host the VM multiplier applied to the amount of shadow that will be made available to the guest domain ID if available 1 otherwise XML specification of
203. hold relocating it to a less taxed host in the pool To rebalance workloads Workload Balancing moves workloads to keep hosts in balance To ensure the rebalancing and placement recommendations align with your environment s needs you can configure Workload Balancing to optimize workloads for either resource performance or to maximize density These optimization modes can be configured to change automatically at predefined times or stay the same at all times For additional granularity you can fine tune the weighting of individual resource metrics CPU network memory and disk To help you perform capacity planning Workload Balancing provides historical reports about host and pool health optimization and virtual machine performance and virtual machine motion history Workload Balancing Basic Concepts Workload Balancing captures data for resource performance on virtual machines and physical hosts It uses this data combined with the preferences you set to provide optimization and placement recommendations Workload Balancing stores performance data in a SQL Server database the longer Workload Balancing runs the more precise its recommendations become Workload Balancing recommends moving virtual machine workloads across a pool to get the maximum efficiency which means either performance or density depending on your goals Within a Workload Balancing context e Performance refers to the usage of physical resources on a host for example
204. host sr forget sr forget uuid lt sr_uuid gt The xapi agent forgets about a specified SR on the XenServer host meaning that the SR is detached and you cannot access VDIs on it but it remains intact on the source media the data is not lost 175 e CITRIX sr introduce sr introduce name label lt name gt physical size lt physical_size gt type lt type gt content type lt content_type gt uuid lt sr_uuid gt Just places an SR record into the database The device config parameters are specified by device config lt parameter_key gt lt parameter_value gt for example xe sr introduce device config lt device gt lt dev sdb1 gt Note This command is never used in normal operation It is an advanced operation which might be useful if an SR needs to be reconfigured as shared after it was created or to help recover from various failure scenarios sr probe sr probe type lt type gt host uuid lt uuid_of_host gt device config lt config_name gt lt value gt Performs a backend specific scan using the provided device config keys If the device configis complete for the SR backend then this will return a list of the SRs present on the device if any If the device config parameters are only partial then a backend specific scan will be performed returning results that will guide you in improving the remaining device config parameters The scan results are returned as backend specific XML printed out on the CLI Th
205. ich you want the report to generate 115 CITRIX Deliver On The day of the week you want Workload Balancing to generate and deliver the report The schedule you are creating does not become active until you set this field to a day Leaving this field at None means that no reports will be generated for this subscription Starting The date you want Workload Balancing to begin generating the report Ending The date you want Workload Balancing to stop generating the report After you create a subscription a folder icon appears under the report name in the left pane To cancel a report subscription 1 In XenCenter from the Pool menu select View Workload Reports 2 From the Workload Reports screen select the report for which you enabled the subscription from the left pane Expand the node for the report then expand the Subscriptions folder Select the subscription you want to delete Confirm it is the correct subscription by reviewing the subscription contents in the right pane Click Delete on Bb Ww To navigate in a Workload Balancing Report After generating a report you can use the toolbar buttons in the report to navigate and perform certain tasks To display the name of a toolbar button hold your mouse over toolbar icon Table 3 Report Toolbar Buttons ES Document Map Lets you display a document map that helps you navigate through long reports Kd lo as pi Page Forward Back Lets you move on
206. ied true or false patch apply patch apply uuid lt patch_file_uuid gt Apply the specified patch file patch clean patch clean uuid lt patch_file_uuid gt Delete the specified patch file from the XenServer host patch pool apply patch pool apply uuid lt patch_uuid gt Apply the specified patch to all XenServer hosts in the pool patch precheck patch precheck uuid lt patch_uuid gt host uuid lt host_uuid gt Run the prechecks contained within the specified patch on the specified XenServer host patch upload patch upload file name lt patch_filename gt Upload a specified patch file to the XenServer host This prepares a patch to be applied On success the UUID of the uploaded patch is printed out If the patch has previously been uploaded a PATCH_ALREADY_EXISTS error is returned instead and the patch is not uploaded again PBD commands Commands for working with PBDs Physical Block Devices These are the software objects through which the XenServer host accesses storage repositories SRs The PBD objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe pbd list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details PBD parameters PBDs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the PBD 165 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Typ
207. ifier object reference of read only the XenServer host to which this PIF is connected 167 CITRIX Parameter Name host name label IP configuration mode IP netmask gateway DNS io read_kbs io_write_kbs carrier vendor id vendor name device id device name speed duplex pci bus path other config ethtool speed other config ethtool autoneg other config ethtool duplex Description the name of the XenServer host to which this PIF is connected type of network address configuration used DHCP or static IP address of the PIF defined here if IP configuration mode is static undefined if DHCP Netmask of the PIF defined here if IP configuration mode is static undefined if supplied by DHCP Gateway address of the PIF defined here if IP configuration mode is static undefined if supplied by DHCP DNS address of the PIF defined here if IP configuration mode is static undefined if supplied by DHCP average read rate in kB s for the device average write rate in kB s for the device link state for this device the ID assigned to NIC s vendor the NIC vendor s name the ID assigned by the vendor to this NIC model the name assigned by the vendor to this NIC model data transfer rate of the NIC duplexing mode of the NIC full or half PCI bus path address sets the speed of connection in Mbps set to no to disable autonegotiation of the physical interface or bridge Default is yes
208. ing Settings 1 Temporarily disable Workload Balancing In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool Inthe Properties pane click the WLB tab Inthe WLB tab click Disable WLB The Disable Workload Balancing dialog box appears e Click Yes Note Do not select the Remove all resource pool information from the Workload Balancing server check box 2 Reenable Workload Balancing and specify the new credentials After the progress bar completes click Enable WLB The Connect to WLB Server dialog box appears e Click Update Credentials Inthe Server Address section modify the following as desired a In the Address box type the IP address or NetBIOS name of the Workload Balancing server You can also enter a fully qualified domain name FQDN b Optional Edit the port number if you want XenServer to connect to Workload Balancing using a different port Entering a new port number here sets a different communications port on the Workload Balancing server By default XenServer connects to Workload Balancing specifically the Web Service Host service on port 8012 Note Do not edit this port number unless you have changed it during Workload Balancing Setup The port number value specified during Setup and in the Workload Balancing Configuration dialog must match 112 CITRIX c In the WLB Server Credentials section enter the user name for example workloadbalancing_user and pa
209. ion to retry the PBD creation and plugging portions of the sr create operation This can be valuable in cases where the LUN zoning was incorrect for one or more hosts in a pool when the SR was created Correct the zoning for the affected hosts and use the Repair Storage Repository function instead of removing and re creating the SR NFS VHD The NFS VHD type stores disks as VHD files on a remote NFS filesystem NFS is a ubiquitous form of storage infrastructure that is available in many environments XenServer allows existing NFS servers that support NFS V3 over TCP IP to be used immediately as a storage repository for virtual disks VDIs VDIs are stored in the Microsoft VHD format only Moreover as NFS SRs can be shared VDIs stored in a shared SR allow VMs to be started on any XenServer hosts in a resource pool and be migrated between them using XenMotion with no noticeable downtime Creating an NFS SR requires the hostname or IP address of the NFS server The sr probe command provides a list of valid destination paths exported by the server on which the SR can be created The NFS server must be configured to export the specified path to all XenServer hosts in the pool or the creation of the SR and the plugging of the PBD record will fail As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter VDIs stored on NFS are sparse The image file is allocated as the VM writes data into the disk This has the considerable benefit that VM image files take up only a
210. irewall you must configure the WLB Web Service HTTPS Port rule in the Windows Firewall settings specifically the Private Windows firewall profile for a Domain and Public profile By default Workload Balancing Setup creates a Firewall rule WLB Web Service HTTPS Port in the Private Windows Firewall Profile However inbound communication via the Domain and Public profile may also be necessary for WLB to function properly To configure this setting in the existing WLB Firewall rule also enable the Domain and Public profile check boxes Note The following error appears if the Workload Balancing server is behind a firewall and you did not configure the appropriate firewall settings There was an error connecting to the Workload Balancing server lt pool name gt Click Initialize WLB to reinitialize the connection settings This error may also appear if the Workload Balancing server is otherwise unreachable Upgrading Workload Balancing To see the new features included in this release of Workload Balancing you must also upgrade XenCenter and XenServer to the latest versions e If you do not upgrade XenCenter the new features will not appear in the XenCenter user interface However you will be able to use them through the XE commands e If you do not upgrade XenServer you will not be able to use new Workload Balancing features however upgrading the Workload Balancing server will install fixes for known issues Note Cit
211. is based on See the storage vendor driver documentation for details vdi copy vdi copy uuid lt uuid_of_the_vdi gt sr uuid lt uuid_of_the_destination_sr gt Copy a VDI to a specified SR vdi create vdi create sr uuid lt uuid_of_the_sr_where_you_want_to_create_the_vdi gt name label lt name_for_the_vdi gt type lt system user suspend crashdump gt virtual size lt size_of virtual_disk gt sm config lt storage_specific_configuration_data gt Create a VDI The virtual size parameter can be specified in bytes or using the IEC standard suffixes KiB 2 bytes MiB 27 bytes GiB 2 bytes and TiB 2 bytes Note SR types that support sparse allocation of disks such as Local VHD and NFS do not enforce virtual allocation of disks Users should therefore take great care when over allocating virtual disk space on an SR If an over 190 e CITRIX allocated SR does become full disk space must be made available either on the SR target substrate or by deleting unused VDIs in the SR Note Some SR types might round up the vi rtual si ze value to make it divisible by a configured block size vdi destroy vdi destroy uuid lt uuid_of_vdi gt Destroy the specified VDI Note In the case of Local VHD and NFS SR types disk space is not immediately released on vdi destroy but periodically during a storage repository scan operation Users that need to force deleted disk space to be made available should call sr
212. is particularly useful in virtual server environments and in any situation where you know exactly how much memory you want a guest to use XenServer will adjust the guest s memory allocation to meet the target you specify 2 Dynamic Range Mode The administrator specifies a dynamic memory range for the guest XenServer chooses a target from within the range and adjusts the guest s memory allocation to meet the target Specifying a dynamic range is particularly useful in virtual desktop environments and in any situation where you want XenServer to repartition host memory dynamically in response to changing numbers of guests or changing host memory pressure XenServer chooses a target from within the range and adjusts the guest s memory allocation to meet the target Note It is possible to change between target mode and dynamic range mode at any time for any running guest Simply specify a new target or a new dynamic range and XenServer takes care of the rest Memory constraints XenServer allows administrators to use all memory control operations with any guest operating system However XenServer enforces the following memory property ordering constraint for all guests O lt memory static min lt memory dynamic min lt memory dynamic max lt memory static max XenServer allows administrators to change guest memory properties to any values that satisfy this constraint subject to validation checks However in addition to the above co
213. is state current operations a list of the operations that read only set parameter are currently in progress on this VIF device integer label of this VIF read only indicating the order in which VIF backends were created MAC MAC address of VIF as read only exposed to the VM 192 CITRIX Parameter Name Description MTU Maximum Transmission Unit of the VIF in bytes This parameter is read only but you can override the MTU setting with the mtu key using the other config map parameter For example to reset the MTU on a virtual NIC to use jumbo frames xe vif param set uuid lt vif_uuid gt other config mtu 9000 currently attached true if the device is currently attached qos_algorithm_type QoS algorithm to use qos_algorithm_params parameters for the chosen QoS algorithm qos_supported_algorithms supported QoS algorithms for this VIF MAC autogenerated True if the MAC address of the VIF was automatically generated other config Additional configuration key value pairs other config ethtool rx set to on to enable receive checksum off to disable other config ethtool tx set to on to enable transmit checksum off to disable other config ethtool sg set to on to enable scatter gather of to disable other config ethtool tso set to on to enable tcp segmentation offload off to disable other config ethtool ufo set to on to enable udp fragment offload of to disable other config ethtool gso set to
214. isk in the physical CD or DVD ROM drive of the XenServer host The other is for a USB device plugged into a USB port of the XenServer host VDIs that represent the media come and go as disks or USB sticks are inserted and removed ISO The ISO type handles CD images stored as files in ISO format This SR type is useful for creating shared ISO libraries For storage repositories that store a library of ISOs the content type parameter must be set to iso For example xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type iso type iso name label lt Example ISO SR gt location lt nfs server path gt gt EqualLogic The EqualLogic SR type maps LUNs to VDIs on an EqualLogic array group allowing for the use of fast snapshot and clone features on the array If you have access to an EqualLogic filer you can configure a custom EqualLogic storage repository for VM storage on you XenServer deployment This allows the use of the advanced features of this filer type Virtual disks are stored on the filer using one LUN per virtual disk Using this storage type will enable the thin provisioning snapshot and fast clone features of this filer Consider your storage requirements when deciding whether to use the specialized SR plugin or to use the generic LVM iSCSI storage backend By using the specialized plugin XenServer will communicate with the filer to provision storage Some arrays have a limitation of seven concurrent connections which
215. issions available for each role and more detailed information on the operations available for each permission see the section called Definitions of RBAC roles and permissions All XenServer users need to be allocated to an appropriate role By default all new users will be allocated to the Pool Administrator role It is possible for a user to be assigned to multiple roles in that scenario the user will have the union of all the permissions of all their assigned roles H 2 CITRIX A user s role can be changed in two ways 1 Modify the subject gt role mapping this requires the assign modify role permission only available to a Pool Administrator 2 Modify the user s containing group membership in Active Directory Definitions of RBAC roles and permissions The following table summarizes which permissions are available for each role For details on the operations available for each permission see Definitions of permissions Table 1 Permissions available for each role Role Pool Admin Pool VM Power VM Admin VM Read Only permissions Operator Admin Operator Assign X modify roles Log in to X physical server consoles through SSH and XenCenter Server X backup restore Log out X X active user connections Create and X X dismiss alerts Cancel task X X of any user Pool X X management VM X xX X advanced operations VM create X X X X destroy operations CITRIX Role Pool Admin Pool V
216. ition displays the contents of the XenServer host license Note This command only applies to free XenServer XenServer 5 6 Advanced edition and higher use the host apply edition license server address and license server port commands For these editions licensing has changed They now use the licensing model described in the Citrix XenServer 5 6 Installation Guide host logs download host logs download file name lt ogfile_name gt lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Download a copy of the logs of the specified XenServer hosts The copy is saved by default in a time stamped file named hostname yyyy mm dd T hh mm ssZ tar gz You can specify a different filename using the optional parameter file name The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section While the xe host logs download command will work if executed on the local host that is without a specific hostname specified do not use it this way Doing so will clutter the control domain partition with the copy of the logs The command should only be used from a remote off host machine where you have space to hold the copy of the logs host management disable host management disable Disables the host agent listening on an external management network interface and disconnects all c
217. ition this release of Workload Balancing is aware of the XenServer Dynamic Memory Control feature Workload Balancing considers a virtual machine s memory range and target when providing virtual machine placement host evacuation and pool optimization recommendations To see the new features included in this release of Workload Balancing you must also upgrade XenCenter and XenServer to the latest versions Changes This release of Workload Balancing also contains the following changes Installation Changes Prerequisites e Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components are no longer required Changes to User Interface e Protocol Selection Removed You no longer need to select the protocol it is selected for you silently during installation HTTPS is and remains the only supported protocol e Certificate configuration is no longer required However you can configure Trusted Certificates for Workload Balancing to use with XenServer after installation using the new configuration tool Full Initial Configuration No Longer Required to Run You no longer need to configure optimization and placement settings when you initialize Workload Balancing Instead if desired you modify default placement settings after initialization in a separate properties dialog e New Dialogs for Configuration and Initialization Server settings initialization and configuration settings are now in two separate dialog boxes the Connect t
218. ject identifier logout subject identifier lt subject 1d gt Leaving an AD domain Warning CITRIX When you leave the domain that is disable Active Directory authentication and disconnect a pool or server from its domain any users who authenticated to the pool or server with Active Directory credentials are disconnected Use XenCenter to leave an AD domain See the XenCenter help for more information Alternately run the pool disable external auth command specifying the pool uuid if required Note Leaving the domain will not cause the host objects to be removed from the AD database See this knowledge base article for more information about this and how to remove the disabled host entries Role Based Access Control Note The full RBAC feature is only available in Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition or higher To learn more about upgrading XenServer click here XenServer s Role Based Access Control RBAC allows you to assign users roles and permissions to control who has access to your XenServer and what actions they can perform The XenServer RBAC system maps a user or a group of users to defined roles a named set of permissions which in turn have associated XenServer permissions the ability to perform certain operations As users are not assigned permissions directly but acquire them through their assigned role management of individual user permissions becomes a matter of simply assigning the user to the appropriat
219. l need to suspend or shut down the VM 67 CITRIX Update individual memory properties Warning Citrix advises not to change the static minimum level as this is set at the supported level per operating system refer to the memory constraints table for more details Update the dynamic memory properties of a VM 1 Find the uuid of the required VM xe vm list 2 Note the uuid and then use the command memory dynamic min max lt value gt xe vm param set uuid lt uuid gt memory dynamic min max lt value gt The following example changes the dynamic maximum to 128MB xe vm param set uuid ec77a893 bff2 aa5c Tef2 9c3acf0f83c0 memory dynamic max 128MiB Upgrade issues After upgrading from Citrix XenServer 5 5 XenServer sets all VMs memory so that the dynamic minimum is equal to the dynamic maximum Workload Balancing interaction If Workload Balancing WLB is enabled XenServer defers decisions about host selection to the workload balancing server If WLB is disabled or if the WLB server has failed or is unavailable XenServer will use its internal algorithm to make decisions regarding host selection 68 CITRIX Networking This chapter discusses how physical network interface cards NICs in XenServer hosts are used to enable networking within Virtual Machines VMs XenServer supports up to 16 physical network interfaces or up to 16 of bonded network interfaces per XenServer host and up to 7 virtual
220. l safely support live migrations Using XenServer to mask the CPU features of a new server so that it will match the features of the existing servers in a pool requires the following e the CPUs of the server joining the pool must be of the same vendor i e AMD Intel as the CPUs on servers already in the pool though the specific type family model and stepping numbers need not be e the CPUs of the server joining the pool must support either Intel FlexMigration or AMD Enhanced Migration e the features of the older CPUs must be a sub set of the features of the CPUs of the server joining the pool the server joining the pool is running the same version of XenServer software with the same hotfixes installed as servers already in the pool an Enterprise or Platinum license Creating heterogeneous resource pools is most easily done with XenCenterwhich will automatically suggest using CPU masking when possible Refer to the Poo Requirements section in the XenCenter help for more details To display the help in XenCenter press F1 To add a heterogeneous XenServer host to a resource pool using the xe CLI Find the CPU features of the Pool Master by running the xe host get cpu features command 2 On the new server run the xe host set cpu features command and copy and paste the Pool Master s features into the features parameter For example xe host set cpu features features lt pool_master s_cpu_ features gt 3 Restart the
221. lds relative to the critical threshold on a pool Default Settings for Critical Thresholds The default settings for the Critical Thresholds are as follows Setting Default CPU Utilization 90 Free Memory 51 MB Network Read 26 MB per second Network Write 26 MB per second Disk Read 26 MB per second Disk Write 26 MB per second To prevent the pool master from becoming overloaded Workload Balancing automatically sets the pool master s Critical Thresholds at lower values To change the critical thresholds In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab In the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane select Critical Thresholds ao A ON In Critical Thresholds page accept or enter a new value in the Critical Thresholds boxes Workload Balancing uses these thresholds when making virtual machine placement and pool optimization recommendations Workload Balancing strives to keep resource utilization on a host below the critical values set Tuning Metric Weightings Balancing workloads occurs if a resource s utilization is significant enough to warrant or prevent relocating a workload For example if you set memory as a Less Important factor in placement recommendations Workload Balancing may still recommend placing virtual machines you are relocating on a server with high memory utilization 104 CITRIX The effect of the weighting
222. le paths for 64 bit edition files might be in the C Program Files x86 folder Configuring Workload Balancing Settings After initialization you can edit the Workload Balancing server connection settings and the settings Workload Balancing uses to calculate placement and optimization recommendations Placement and optimization settings you can perform include changing the placement strategy configuring automatic optimizations and power management editing performance thresholds and metric weightings and excluding hosts You can also set up report subscriptions that generate and email reports to you on a preset schedule automatically Workload Balancing settings apply collectively to all virtual machines and hosts in the pool However you must configure individual settings for each resource pool in your environment Provided the network and disk thresholds align with the hardware in your environment you might want to consider using most of the defaults in Workload Balancing initially After Workload Balancing is enabled for a while Citrix recommends evaluating your performance thresholds and determining if you need to edit them For example consider if you are e Getting optimization recommendation when they are not yet required If this is the case try adjusting the thresholds until Workload Balancing begins providing suitable optimization recommendations e Not getting recommendations when you think your network has insufficient band
223. ll host the data store Specify an instance name by appending it to the database name for example database name yourinstancename Note By default SQL Express creates an instance name even if you do not specify one during SQL Express installation If you do not explicitly specify an instance name SQL Express Setup creates an instance on the database named sql express If you installed SQL Express and specified an instance name append the server name with yourinstancename If you installed SQL Express without specifying an instance name append the server name with sqlexpress e Choose an existing database server Lets you select the database server from a list of servers Workload Balancing Setup detected on your network Note Workload Balancing installation may fail if you specify a name for the data store that uses certain Japanese characters 7 In the Install Using section select one of the following methods of authentication Windows Authentication This option uses your current credentials that is the Windows credentials you used to log on to the computer on which you are installing Workload Balancing To select this option your current Windows credentials must have been added as a login to the SQL Server database server instance 92 CITRIX SQL Server Authentication To select this option you must have configured SQL Server to support Mixed Mode authentication Note Citrix recommends clicking Test Connec
224. lover plan which details what to do if a set of hosts in a pool fail at any given time An important concept to understand is the host failures to tolerate value which is defined as part of HA configuration This determines the number of failures that is allowed without any loss of service For example if a resource pool consisted of 16 hosts and the tolerated failures is set to 3 the pool calculates a failover plan that allows for any 3 hosts to fail and still be able to restart VMs on other hosts If a plan cannot be found then the pool is considered to be overcommitted The plan is dynamically recalculated based on VM lifecycle operations and movement Alerts are sent either through XenCenter or e mail if changes for example the addition on new VMs to the pool cause your pool to become overcommitted Overcommitting A pool is overcommitted if the VMs that are currently running could not be restarted elsewhere following a user defined number of host failures This would happen if there was not enough free memory across the pool to run those VMs following failure However there are also more subtle changes which can make HA guarantees unsustainable changes to Virtual Block Devices VBDs and networks can affect which VMs may be restarted on which hosts Currently it is not possible for XenServer to check all actions before they occur and determine if they will cause violation of HA demands However an asynchronous notification is sent if HA beco
225. lude Workload Balancing folders as described in the section called Configuring Antivirus Software Note After the initial configuration the Initialize button on the WLB tab changes to a Disable button This is because after initialization you cannot modify the Workload Balancing server a resource pool uses without disabling Workload Balancing on that pool and then reconfiguring it For information see the section called Reconfiguring a Pool to Use Another WLB Server You can use the Connect to WLB Server dialog box in XenCenter or the XE commands to initialize Workload Balancing To initialize Workload Balancing Use this procedure to enable and perform the initial configuration of Workload Balancing for a resource pool To complete this dialog you need the IP address or NetBIOS name and port of the Workload Balancing server e Credentials for the resource pool you want Workload Balancing to monitor e Credentials for the account you created on the Workload Balancing server Note Before the Workload Balancing feature can begin collecting performance data the XenServers you want to balance must be part of a resource pool 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool 2 In the Properties pane click the WLB tab 3 In the WLB tab click Initialize WLB The Connect to WLB Server dialog box appears 4 In the Server Address section dialog box enter the following a In the Add
226. ly Maximum Density mode with Power Management When you enable Automation you can specify how many minutes you want Workload Balancing to wait before it accepts applies its optimization recommendations This functionality is not enabled by default so if want to have it enabled you must configure it If you do not Workload Balancing still prompts you to accept optimization recommendations manually Enabling Workload Balancing Power Management The term power management refers to the ability to the turn the power on or off for physical hosts in a resource pool based on the pool s total workload Configuring power management on a host requires that The hardware for the host server has remote power on off capabilities The Host Power On feature is configured for the host The pool s optimization mode is set to Maximum Density or Maximum Performance either as a Fixed mode or a Scheduled mode Workload Balancing is configured to apply Optimization recommendations automatically e Workload Balancing is configured to apply Power Management recommendations automatically The host has been explicitly selected as a host to be managed under Power Management When enabled if Workload Balancing detects unused resources it recommends powering off hosts until it eliminates all excess capacity in the pool If Workload Balancing detects there is not sufficient host capacity in the pool to turn off servers itrecommends leaving the servers on un
227. ly default to restricting LUN access to a single initiator to ensure data integrity If an iSCSI LUN is intended for use as a shared SR across multiple XenServer hosts in a resource pool ensure that multi initiator access is enabled for the specified LUN The XenServer host IQN value can be adjusted using XenCenter or using the CLI with the following command when using the iSCSI software initiator xe host param set uuid lt valid_host_id gt other config iscsi_iqn lt new_initiator_iqn gt Warning It is imperative that every iSCSI target and initiator have a unique IQN If a non unique IQN identifier is used data corruption and or denial of LUN access can occur Warning Do not change the XenServer host IQN with iSCSI SRs attached Doing so can result in failures connecting to new targets or existing SRs Managing Hardware Host Bus Adapters HBAs This section covers various operations required to manage SAS Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs Sample QLogic iSCSI HBA setup For full details on configuring QLogic Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs please refer to the QLogic website 48 o CITRIX Once the HBA is physically installed into the XenServer host use the following steps to configure the HBA 1 Set the IP networking configuration for the HBA This example assumes DHCP and HBA port 0 Specify the appropriate values if using static IP addressing or a multi port HBA opt QLogic_Corporation SANsurferiCLI iscli ipdhcp 0 2 Add
228. m generic raw VMs that can boot an OS vendor installation CD RHEL CentOS SLES Windows to complete pre configured OS instances the Demo Linux VM template With XenServer you can create VMs configure them in standard forms for your particular needs and save a copy of them as templates for future use in VM deployment The template objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe template list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Template parameters Templates have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object read only reference for the template name label the name of the template read write name description the description string of the read write template user version string for creators of VMs read write and templates to put version information is a template true if this is a template read write Template VMs can never be started they are used only for cloning other VMs Note that setting s a template using the CLI is not supported is control domain true if this is a control domain read only domain 0 or a driver domain power state current power state always read only halted for a template power state current power state always read only halted for a template memory dynamic max dynamic maximum memory read write in bytes Currently unused
229. mance data your placement strategy and performance thresholds 113 CITRIX If an optimal server is not available the words Click here to suspend the VM appear in the Enter Maintenance Mode dialog box In this case Workload Balancing does not recommend a placement because no host has sufficient resources to run this virtual machine You can either suspend this virtual machine or exit Maintenance Mode and suspend a virtual machine on another host in the same pool Then if you reenter the Enter Maintenance Modedialog box Workload Balancing might be able to list a host that is a suitable candidate for migration Note When you take a server offline for maintenance and Workload Balancing is enabled the words Workload Balancing appear in the upper right corner of the Enter Maintenance Mode dialog box To enter maintenance mode with Workload Balancing enabled 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select the physical host that you want to take offline From the Server menu select Enter Maintenance Mode 2 In the Enter Maintenance Mode dialog box click Enter maintenance mode The virtual machines running on the server are automatically migrated to the optimal host based on Workload Balancing s performance data your placement strategy and performance thresholds To take the server out of maintenance mode right click the server and select Exit Maintenance Mode When you remove a server from maintenance mode XenServer automatically rest
230. me and all its snapshots offline This is the default action The delete oldest action deletes the oldest snapshot until enough space is available for creating the new snapshot control Certain customer configurations may require yes separate IP addresses for the control and SCSI target interfaces use this option to specify a different control IP address from the device config target address Use the sr create command to create an EqualLogic SR For example xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example shared Equallogic SR gt shared true device config target lt target_ip gt device config username lt admin_username gt device config password lt admin_password gt device config storagepool lt my_storagepool gt device config chapuser lt chapusername gt device config chappassword lt chapuserpassword gt device config allocation lt thick gt type equal EqualLogic VDI Snapshot space allocation with XenServer EqualLogic Adapter When you create a SR using the EqualLogic plug in you specify a storage pool in which the SR is created This assumes that the free space in the storage pool will be used for creating the VDIs and for snapshot and clones when requested If the storage pool comprises of all the member arrays in the EqualLogic group 42 CITRIX then the plug in will use all of the space on the SAN for creating VDIs When the SR is created a small am
231. me for the CD Description text for the CD A list of the operations that can be performed on this CD A list of the operations that are currently in progress on this CD The unique identifier object reference for the SR this CD is part of The name for the SR this CD is part of A list of the unique identifiers for the VBDs on VMs that connect to this CD Not used on CDs since crashdumps cannot be written to them Size of the CD as it appears to VMs in bytes amount of physical space that the CD image is currently taking up on the SR in bytes Set to User for CDs Whether or not the CD drive is sharable Default is false Whether the CD is read only if false the device is writable Always true for CDs true if this disk is locked at the storage level Reference to the parent disk if this CD is part of a chain 148 Type read only read write read write read only set parameter read only set parameter read only read only read only set parameter read only set parameter read only read only read only read only read only read only read only C TRIX Parameter Name Description Type missing true if SR scan operation reported this read only CD as not present on disk other config A list of key value pairs that specify read write map parameter additional configuration parameters for the CD location The path on which the device is mounted read only managed true if the device
232. mes unsustainable Overcommitment Warning If you attempt to start or resume a VM and that action causes the pool to be overcommitted a warning alert is raised This warning is displayed in XenCenter and is also available as a message instance through the Xen API The message may also be sent to an email address if configured You will then be allowed to cancel the operation or proceed anyway Proceeding causes the pool to become overcommitted The amount of memory used by VMs of different priorities is displayed at the pool and host levels Host Fencing If a server failure occurs such as the loss of network connectivity or a problem with the control stack is encountered the XenServer host self fences to ensure that the VMs are not running on two servers simultaneously When a fence action is taken the server immediately and abruptly restarts causing all VMs 23 CITRIX running on it to be stopped The other servers will detect that the VMs are no longer running and the VMs will be restarted according to the restart priorities assign to them The fenced server will enter a reboot sequence and when it has restarted it will try to re join the resource pool Configuration Requirements To use the HA feature you need e Shared storage including at least one iSCSI or Fibre Channel LUN of size 356MB or greater the heartbeat SR The HA mechanism creates two volumes on the heartbeat SR 4MB heartbeat volume Used for heartbeating 256M
233. n The reason for the optimization e Status If the optimization was successful From Host The physical server where the virtual machine was originally hosted 121 CITRIX To Host The physical server where the virtual machine was moved Time The time when the optimization occurred Virtual Machine Motion History This line graph displays the number of times virtual machines moved on a resource pool over a period of time lt indicates if a move resulted from an optimization recommendation and to which host the virtual machine moved This report also indicates the reason for the optimization You can use this report to audit the number of moves on a pool Some points about interpreting this report The numbers on the left side of the chart correspond with the number of moves possible which is based on how many virtual machines are in a resource pool You can look at details of the moves on a specific date by expanding the sign in the Date section of the report Virtual Machine Performance History This report displays performance data for each virtual machine on a specific host for a time period you specify Workload Balancing bases the performance data on the amount of virtual resources allocated for the virtual machine For example if the Average CPU Usage for your virtual machine is 67 this means that your virtual machine was using on average 67 of its virtual CPU for the period you specified The initial vi
234. n the option of restoring only VM records associated with that SR or all the VM records found potentially from other SRs which were present at the time of the backup There is also a dry run option to see which VMs would be imported but not actually perform the operation For automating this scripting there are some commands in the control domain which provide an interface to metadata backup and restore at a lower level than the menu options e xe backup metadata provides an interface to create the backup VDIs with the c flag and also to attach the metadata backup and examine its contents xe restore metadata can be used to probe for a backup VDI on a newly attached SR and also selectively reimport VM metadata to recreate the associations between VMs and their disks Full usage information for both scripts can be obtained by running them in the control domain using the h flag One particularly useful invocation mode is xe backup metadata d which mounts the backup VDI into dom0 and drops into a sub shell with the backup directory so it can be examined Moving SRs between hosts and Pools The metadata backup and restore options can be run as scripts in the control domain or through the Backup Restore and Update menu option in the xsconsole All other actions such as detaching the SR from the source host and attaching it to the destination host can be performed using XenCenter the menu based xsconsole or the xe CLI This example us
235. n is required per bond Incidentally this is true of unbonded PIFs as well and is unchanged from XenServer 4 1 0 Gratuitous ARP packets are sent when assignment of traffic changes from one interface to another as a result of fail over Re balancing is provided by the existing ALB re balance capabilities the number of bytes going over each slave interface is tracked over a given period When a packet is to be sent that contains a new source MAC address it is assigned to the slave interface with the lowest utilization Traffic is re balanced every 10 seconds 71 CITRIX Note Bonding is set up with an Up Delay of 31000ms and a Down Delay of 200ms The seemingly long Up Delay is purposeful because of the time taken by some switches to actually start routing traffic Without it when a link comes back after failing the bond might rebalance traffic onto it before the switch is ready to pass traffic If you want to move both connections to a different switch move one then wait 31 seconds for it to be used again before moving the other Initial networking configuration The XenServer host networking configuration is specified during initial host installation Options such as IP address configuration DHCP static the NIC used as the management interface and hostname are set based on the values provided during installation When a XenServer host has a single NIC the follow configuration is present after installation e a single PIF i
236. n mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section 209 e CITRIX vm vif list vm vif 1ist lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Lists the VIFs from the specified VMs The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Note that the selectors operate on the VM records when filtering and not on the VIF values Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section Workload Balancing commands Commands for controlling the Workload Balancing feature pool initialize wlb pool initialize wlb wlb_url lt wlb_server_address gt wlb_username lt wlb_server_username gt wlb_password lt wlb_server_password gt xenserver_username lt pool_master_username gt xenserver_password lt pool_master_password gt Starts the Workload Balancing service on a pool Note Initializing a pool requires running two commands After executing the pool initialize wlb command execute xe pool param set wlb enabled true uuid lt pool uuid gt pool param set other config Use the pool param set other config command to specify the timeout when communicating with the WLB server All requests are serialized and the timeout covers the time from a request being queued to its response being completed In other words slow calls cause
237. n one computer 1 Launch the Workload Balancing Setup wizard from Autorun exe and select the Workload Balancing option Note If you are installing on Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 and the User Account Control UAC is enabled right click Autorun exe and select Run as administrator To install Workload Balancing with UAC enabled you must have sufficient administrative privileges to authorize an elevation and install software 2 After the initial Welcome page appears click Next 3 In the Setup Type page select Workload Balancing Services and Data Store and click Next This option lets you install Workload Balancing and configure its data store After you click Next Workload Balancing Setup verifies that your system has the correct prerequisites 4 Accept the End User License Agreement 5 In the Component Selection page select Database and all of the Services This is the default selection Note If you are reinstalling Workload Balancing and you have an existing remote database from this release deselect the database option in the Component Selection page of Setup If you do not clear this option then Setup attempts to reinstall a database to the location you specify in the Database Server page and issues an error 6 In the Database Server page in the SQL Server Selection section select one of the following Enter the name of a database server Lets you type the name of the database server that wi
238. n set the multiplier to a value gt 1 Setting the multiplier should only be done with extreme care by system administrators who understand the space allocation constraints of the NetApp filer If you try to set the amount to less than 1 for example in an attempt to pre allocate very little space for the LUN the attempt will most likely fail Setting the SR other config enforce_allocation parameter to true resizes the FlexVols to precisely the amount specified by either the multiplier value above or the default 2 4 value 46 CITRIX Note This works on new VDI creation in the selected FlexVol or on all FlexVols during an SR scan and overrides any manual size adjustments made by the administrator to the SR FlexVols To create a NetApp SR use the following command xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example shared NetApp SR gt shared true device config target lt 192 168 1 10 gt device config username lt admin_username gt device config password lt admin_password gt type netapp Managing VDIs in a NetApp SR Due to the complex nature of mapping VM storage objects onto NetApp storage objects such as LUNs FlexVols and disk Aggregates the plugin driver makes some general assumptions about how storage objects should be organized The default number of FlexVols that are managed by an SR instance is 8 named XenStorage_ lt SR_UU D gt _FV lt gt where is a value between 0 and t
239. n_mode string mode Dictionary lt string string gt config host power_on_mode e Definition This contains key value pairs to specify the type of remote power solution for example Dell DRAC 28 CITRIX e Possible values An empty string representing power control disabled e iLO Lets you specify HP iLO e DRAC Lets you specify Dell DRAC To use DRAC you must have already installed the Dell supplemental pack e wake on lan Lets you specify Wake on LAN Any other name used to specify a custom power on script This option is used to specify a custom script for power management Type string host power_on_config e Definition This contains key value pairs for mode configuration Provides additional information for e Possible values e If you configured iLO or DRAC as the type of remote power solution you must also specify one of the following keys e power_on_ip This is the IP address you specified configured to communicate with the power control card Alternatively you can enter the domain name for the network interface where LO or DRAC is configured e power_on_user This is the iLO or DRAC user name that is associated with the management processor which you may or may not have changed from its factory default settings e power_on_password_secret Specifies using the secrets feature to secure your password To use the secrets feature to store your password specify the key power_on_pass
240. nagement 1 In the Power Management section select the hosts that you want Workload Balancing to power on and off automatically Note Selecting hosts for power management recommendations without selecting the Automatically apply Power Management recommendations check box results in Workload Balancing suggesting power management recommendations but not applying them automatically for you 2 Click OK If none of the physical servers in the resource pool support remote power management Workload Balancing displays the message No hosts support Power Management Changing the Critical Thresholds Workload Balancing evaluates CPU Memory Network Read Network Write Disk Read and Disk Write utilization for physical hosts in a resource pool 103 e CITRIX Workload Balancing determines whether to recommend relocating a workload and whether a physical host is suitable for a virtual machine workload by evaluating e Whether a resource s critical threshold is met on the physical host e If the critical threshold is met the importance assigned to a resource Note To prevent data from appearing artificially high Workload Balancing evaluates the daily averages for a resource and smooths utilization spikes When evaluating utilization Workload Balancing compares its daily average to four thresholds low medium high and critical After you specify or accept the default critical threshold Workload Balancing sets the other thresho
241. ncing You can remove the contents of the data directory manually Customizing Workload Balancing Workload Balancing provides several methods of customization e Database Views Documentation You can use these views to create custom queries on your data without having to fully understand the Workload Balancing database schema You can use them as a guideline for creating tables if you want to import the files into your own database or archiving and data warehousing The database views documentation provides three tables with information about Host Metric History Host Virtual Machine History and Virtual Machine Metric History See Citrix Knowledge Center article Citrix XenServer Workload Balancing SQL Views CTX121348 Command lines for scripting See the Workload Balancing section of the XenServer Administrator s Guide e Host Power On scripting support You can also customize Workload Balancing indirectly through the Host Power On scripting How to create a custom script for Host Power On is documented in the XenServer Administrator s Guide Entering Maintenance Mode with Workload Balancing Enabled When Workload Balancing is enabled if you take a physical host offline for maintenance that is suspend a server by entering Maintenance Mode XenServer automatically migrates the virtual machines running on that host to their optimal servers when available XenServer migrates them based on Workload Balancing recommendations perfor
242. nds were required to resize the physical volume group of iSCSI and HBA SRs These commands are now issued as part of the PBD plug operation and are no longer required Converting local Fibre Channel SRs to shared SRs Use the xe CLI and the XenCenter Repair Storage Repository feature to convert a local FC SR to a shared FC SR 1 Upgrade all hosts in the resource pool to XenServer 5 6 2 Ensure all hosts in the pool have the SR s LUN zoned appropriately See the section called Probing an SR for details on using the sr probe command to verify the LUN is present on each host 3 Convert the SR to shared xe sr param set shared true uuid lt local_fc_sr gt 4 Within XenCenter the SR is moved from the host level to the pool level indicating that it is now shared The SR will be marked with a red exclamation mark to show that it is not currently plugged on all hosts in the pool 5 Select the SR and then select the Storage gt Repair Storage Repository menu option 6 Click Repair to create and plug a PBD for each host in the pool Moving Virtual Disk Images VDIs between SRs The set of VDIs associated with a VM can be copied from one SR to another to accommodate maintenance requirements or tiered storage configurations XenCenter provides the ability to copy a VM and all of its VDIs to the same or a different SR and a combination of XenCenter and the xe CLI can be used to copy individual VDIs Copying all of a VM s VDIs to a
243. ne of the following keywords highest high normal low lowest an integer between 0 and 7 where 7 is the highest priority and 0 is the lowest so that for example I O requests with a priority of 5 will be given priority over I O requests with a priority of 2 To enable the disk QoS settings you also need to set the other config scheduler to cfq and replug PBDs for the storage in question For example the following CLI commands set the virtual disk s VBD to use real time priority 5 xe vbd param set uuid lt vbd_uuid gt qos_algorithm_type ionice xe vbd param set uuid lt vbd_uuid gt qos_algorithm_params sched rt xe vbd param set uuid lt vbd_uuid gt qos_algorithm_params class 5 xe sr param set uuid lt sr_uuid gt other config scheduler cfq xe pbd plug uuid lt pbd_uuid gt 62 CITRIX Configuring VM memory When a VM is first created it is allocated a fixed amount of memory To improve the utilization of physical memory in your XenServer environment you can use Dynamic Memory Control DMC a memory management feature that enables dynamic reallocation of memory between VMs XenCenter provides a graphical display of memory usage in its Memory tab This is described in the XenCenter Help In previous editions of XenServer adjusting virtual memory on VMs required a restart to add or remove memory and an interruption to users service Dynamic Memory Control DMC provides the following benefits Memory can b
244. network interfaces per VM Note XenServer provides automated configuration and management of NICs using the xe command line interface CLI Unlike previous XenServer versions the host networking configuration files should not be edited directly in most cases where a CLI command is available do not edit the underlying files If you are already familiar with XenServer networking concepts you may want to skip ahead to one of the following sections e For procedures on how to create networks for standalone XenServer hosts see the section called Creating networks in a standalone server For procedures on how to create networks for XenServer hosts that are configured in a resource pool see the section called Creating networks in resource pools For procedures on how to create VLANs for XenServer hosts either standalone or part of a resource pool see the section called Creating VLANs e For procedures on how to create bonds for standalone XenServer hosts see the section called Creating NIC bonds on a standalone host For procedures on how to create bonds for XenServer hosts that are configured in a resource pool see the section called Creating NIC bonds in resource pools XenServer networking overview This section describes the general concepts of networking in the XenServer environment One network is created for each physical network interface card during XenServer installation When you add a serv
245. new server 4 Run the xe pool join command on the new server to join the pool To return a server with masked CPU features back to its normal capabilities run the xe host reset cpu features command Note To display a list of all properties of the CPUs in a host run the xe host cpu info command Adding shared storage For a complete list of supported shared storage types see the Storage chapter This section demonstrates how shared storage represented as a storage repository can be created on an existing NFS server 21 CITRIX Adding NFS shared storage to a resource pool using the CLI Open a console on any XenServer host in the pool Create the storage repository on lt server path gt by issuing the command xe sr create content type user type nfs name label lt Example SR gt shared true device config server lt server gt device config serverpath lt path gt The device config server refers to the hostname of the NFS server and device config serverpath refers to the path on the NFS server Since shared is set to true the shared storage will be automatically connected to every XenServer host in the pool and any XenServer hosts that subsequently join will also be connected to the storage The Universally Unique Identifier UUID of the created storage repository will be printed on the screen Find the UUID of the pool by the command xe pool list Set the shared storage as the pool wide default with the command
246. ng or its services from running Communications Port Determine the port over which you want the Workload Balancing server to communicate You will be prompted for this port during Setup By default Workload Balancing server uses 8012 Synchronizing Time on Host and VM When installing Workload Balancing on a VM it is essential that the time on the physical server hosting the WLB VM and the WLB VM itself match You might want to consider pointing both the host and VM to a Network Time NTP server 90 e CITRIX WLB Access Control Permissions When Role Based Access Control RBAC is implemented in your environment all user roles can display the WLB tab However not all roles can perform all operations The following table lists the minimum role administrators require to use Workload Balancing features Task Minimum Required Role Configure Initialize Enable Disable WLB Pool Operator Apply WLB Optimization Recommendations in Pool Operator WLB tab Modify WLB Report Subscriptions Pool Operator Accept WLB Placement Recommendations star VM Power Admin recommendations Generate WLB Reports including the Pool Audit VM Operator Trail report Display WLB Configuration Read Only If an administrator tries to use Workload Balancing and he or she does not have sufficient permissions a role elevation dialog appears For more information about RBAC see the section called Role Based Access Control Note Generating WLB
247. ng so that eth0 corresponds to the device with a MAC address of 00 19 bb 2d 7e 7a 82 e CITRIX 1 Use XenCenter or the vm shutdown command to shut down all VMs in the pool to force existing VIFs to be unplugged from their networks xe vm shutdown uuid lt vm_uuid gt 2 Use the host management disable command to disable the management interface xe host management disabl 3 Use the pif forget command to remove the two incorrect PIF records xe pif forget uuid 1ef8209 1 5db5 cf69 3fe6 0e8d24f8f518 xe pif forget uuid 829fd476 2bbb 67bb 139f d607c09e9110 4 Use the pif introduce command to re introduce the devices with the desired naming xe pif introduce device eth0 host uuid lt host_uuid gt mac 00 19 bb 2d 7e 7a xe pif introduce device eth1 host uuid lt host_uuid gt mac 00 19 bb 2d 7e 8a 5 Use the pif list command again to verify the new configuration xe pif list params uuid device MAC 6 Use the pif reconfigure ip command to reset the management interface IP addressing configuration See Appendix A Command line interface for details on the parameters of the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt 728d e7f 62ed a277 20c71 3974d75972eb gt mode dhcp 7 Use the host management reconfigure command to set the management interface to the desired PIF and re enable external management connectivity to the host xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt 728d9 e7f 62ed a477 20c71 3974d
248. ng support is available for Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage backends By default it uses round robin mode load balancing so both routes have active traffic on them during normal operation You can enable multipathing in XenCenter or on the xe CLI Before attempting to enable multipathing verify that multiple targets are available on your storage server For example an iSCSI storage backend queried for sendtargets ona given portal should return multiple targets as in the following example iscsiadm m discovery type sendtargets portal 192 168 0 161 192 168 0 161 3260 1 igqn strawberry litchie 192 168 0 204 3260 2 iqn strawberry litchie To enable storage multipathing using the xe CLI 1 Unplug all PBDs on the host xe pbd unplug uuid lt pbd_uuid gt 2 Set the host s other config multipathing parameter xe host param set other config multipathing true uuid host_uuid 3 Setthe host s other config multipathhandle parameter to dmp xe host param set other config multipathhandle dmp uuid host_uuid 4 lf there are existing SRs on the host running in single path mode but that have multiple paths e Migrate or suspend any running guests with virtual disks in affected the SRs Unplug and re plug the PBD of any affected SRs to reconnect them using multipathing xe pbd plug uuid lt pbd_uuid gt To disable multipathing first unplug your VBDs set the host other config multipathing parameter to false and then replug your PBD
249. ning Incorrect use of this command can lead to data corruption Only use this command if absolutely necessary Master failures Every member of a resource pool contains all the information necessary to take over the role of master if required When a master node fails the following sequence of events occurs 1 If HA is enabled another master is elected automatically 2 If HA is not enabled each member will wait for the master to return If the master comes back up at this point it re establishes communication with its members and operation returns to normal If the master is really dead choose one of the members and run the command xe pool emergency transition to master on it Once it has become the master run the command xe pool recover slaves and the members will now point to the new master 133 CITRIX If you repair or replace the server that was the original master you can simply bring it up install the XenServer host software and add it to the pool Since the XenServer hosts in the pool are enforced to be homogeneous there is no real need to make the replaced server the master When a member XenServer host is transitioned to being a master you should also check that the default pool storage repository is set to an appropriate value This can be done using the xe pool param list command and verifying that the default SR parameter is pointing to a valid storage repository Pool failures In the unfortunate ev
250. nnnnnnnnnnnnnananananannn 88 Supported Operating Systems 0 cece eee ee eee eee eee erent eet eed 88 Recommended Hardware sas aga E E apes oes a 88 Workload Balancing Data Store Requirements 1 0 00 cece ttn etree nen ne net ENEEK E EEEE 89 SQL Server Database Authentication Requirements 0 0 cccceeeeeeeee tees tees tees ee eeeeneneneneaed 89 Operating System Language Support sieriem tassate asein oi eaa ieia n a Tara ea Eon aE En 90 Preinistallation Considerations aiii A a 90 WEB ACCESS Control PENMISSIONS acto in E A A di 91 Installing Workload Balancing ruta A cs 91 To install Workload Balancing Server oooocccocccocononcncncncncncncncnnncnnncnonnnanenenenenencncnnananananinines 92 To verify your Workload Balancing installation oooononnnociccccccccccncncnnoconnnonononnno coco nonananananes 93 COMU ci deat 94 Upgrading Workload Balancing ooooociciccoccconcncncncncncncncncncnnnrnononananannnnrnr rn nn EA Ea a EERENS 94 Upgrading Workload Balancing on the Same Operating System oooooccccccccnoncncncncncncncncoronnnnos 95 Upgrading SQL Sever isidro 95 Upgrading Workload Balancing and the Operating System cceeee ee eee cece eee eee eee ea ea teed 95 Initializing Workload Balancing rra awn feet atin e E a e N E 95 To inthaliz Workload BalanGIng visto it rs a ea a oe ont bene aa aE ENa 96 Authorization for Workload Balancing siii aan a A E OAAS EDR 97 CG nfig ring Antivirus A seran ean era
251. nnrononarononnrannnnonnnnnonrnnrnnrnnrnn nono nnronanarnnos 1 Managing AAA Authenticating users using Active Directory AD oooooonicccccccncncncncncncncnnnnnnnononnnnnnn nn nn nent nnncnrnrncnnnnnnnnnnnnns 2 Configuring Active Directory authentication caco e a 3 User AUTNSMLICATION sed A A A Aa 5 Removing ACCESS TOF a US aa ia aa 6 Leaving an ADAM a A seed ET A AE 6 Role Based ACCESS COMO ia a a A a E A A ah ci ial 7 FROME mosia moraran o ah nacido nua deere nang a ccc teeing renter T earns eine analy 8 Definitions of RBAC roles and permissions ccccece cece eee ee ee eens ee ee eee rttr eee ee ea sees saeeeeeeaeeeeeeaeennas 9 Working with RBAC using the xe CLI sareren anA E E AE E T EEEE E EE EEPE 14 To list all the available defined roles in XenServer oococcccococcnconcncononcononnoronennnnrnrorenannrnrnrrnnnss 14 To display a list of Current subjects 2 0 0 cece eee cece e eee eet e eee eee e ee ee nent ee ENESE EEEE EE EEE EEEE 15 To adda subject tO RBAC ia ia 16 To assign an RBAG role to a Created SUD EC oocococcccoccncnnononcnnoncnroncnnnncn E E E E 16 To change a subjects RBAG Ole cancion ii iaiia a ia saad diet elias ci 17 AUN atte 17 Audit log xe CLI COMMANAS s icon eea eani E R aE eE AEAEE EE anaE 17 To obtain all audit records from the POO arsine renra E E E EEA 17 To obtain audit records of the pool since a precise millisecond timestamp s essererrerrrrrrrerr 17 To obtain audit rec
252. ns in Active Directory you could create a single group that you then add and remove users to from alternatively you can add and remove individual users from XenServer or a combination of users and groups as your would be appropriate for your authentication requirements The subject list can be managed from XenCenter or using the CLI as described below When authenticating a user the credentials are first checked against the local root account allowing you to recover a system whose AD server has failed If the credentials i e username then password do not match authenticate then an authentication request is made to the AD server if this is successful the user s information will be retrieved and validated against the local subject list otherwise access will be denied Validation against the subject list will succeed if the user or a group in the transitive group membership of the user is in the subject list Note When using Active Directory groups to grant access for Pool Administrator users who will require host ssh access the number of users in the Active Directory group must not exceed 500 Allowing a user access to XenServer using the CLI To add an AD subject to XenServer xe subject add subject name lt entity name gt The entity name should be the name of the user or group to which you want to grant access You may optionally include the domain of the entity for example lt xendf user1 gt as opposed to lt user1 gt
253. nstraint Citrix supports only certain guest memory configurations for each supported operating system See below for further details Supported operating systems Citrix supports only certain guest memory configurations The range of supported configurations depends on the guest operating system in use XenServer does not prevent administrators from configuring guests to exceed the supported limit However customers are strongly advised to keep memory properties within the supported limits to avoid performance or stability problems Operating System Supported Memory Limits Family Version Architectures Dynamic Dynamic Additional Minimum Maximum Constraints Microsoft Windows XP SP2 SP3 x86 gt 256 MB lt 4 GB Dynamic Minimum gt Static Server 2003 x86 x64 gt 256 MB lt 32 GB Maximum for all supported Server 2008 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 32 GB operating systems Server 2008 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 32 GB R2 Vista x86 gt 1GB lt 4 GB 7 x86 gt 1GB lt 4 GB 65 CITRIX Operating System Supported Memory Limits x64 gt 2GB lt 32 GB CentOS Linux 4 5 4 8 x86 gt 256 MB lt 16 GB 5 0 5 4 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 16 GB RedHat Enterprise 4 5 4 8 x86 gt 256 MB lt 16 GB Linux 5 0 5 4 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 16 GB Oracle Enterprise 5 0 5 4 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 16 GB Linux SUSE Enterprise 10 SP1 SP2 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 32 GB Linux 11 x86 x64 gt 512 MB lt 32 GB Debian GNU Linux Lenny x86 gt 128 MB lt 32 GB
254. ntaining storage repository location information 189 Type read only read write read write read only set parameter read only set parameter read only read only set parameter read only set parameter read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read write map parameter read only read only CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type managed true if the VDI is managed read only xenstore data data to be inserted into the xenstore read only map parameter tree loca1 domain 0 backend vba lt domid gt lt device 1d gt sm data after the VDI is attached This is generally set by the SM backends on vdi_attach sm config SM dependent data read only map parameter is a snapshot true if this VDI is a VM storage snapshot read only snapshot_of the UUID of the storage this VDI is a read only snapshot of snapshots the UUID s of all snapshots of this VDI read only snapshot_time the timestamp of the snapshot operation read only that created this VDI vdi clone vdi clone uuid lt uuid_of_the_vdi gt driver params lt key value gt Create a new writable copy of the specified VDI that can be used directly It is a variant of vdi copy that is capable of exposing high speed image clone facilities where they exist The optional driver params map parameter can be used for passing extra vendor specific configuration information to the back end storage driver that the VDI
255. o WLB Server dialog box and the Workload Balancing Configuration properties dialog replace the Configure Workload Balancing wizard e Overcommit CPU The Overcommit CPU feature is not available in this Workload Balancing release If you perform an upgrade using the installation wizard and you enabled the feature the installation wizard will automatically disable it for you Workload Balancing Overview Workload Balancing is a XenServer feature that balances virtual machines and locates them on the best possible servers for their workload in a resource pool For example Workload Balancing can e Balance virtual machine workloads across hosts in a XenServer resource pool Determine the best host on which to start a virtual machine Determine the best host on which to resume a virtual machine that you powered off Determine the best host to move a virtual machine to when a host fails Determine the optimal server for each of the host s virtual machines when you put a host into or take a host out of Maintenance mode Depending on your preference Workload Balancing can accomplish these tasks automatically or prompt you to accept its rebalancing and placement recommendations You can also configure Workload Balancing to power off hosts automatically at specific times of day for example to save power at night 86 CITRIX Workload Balancing works by evaluating the utilization of workloads across a pool and when a host exceeds its thres
256. o XenCenter as the more privileged user and retry the action Working with RBAC using the xe CLI To list all the available defined roles in XenServer e Run the command xe role list This command returns a list of the currently defined roles for example 14 CITRIX uuid RO 0165f 154 ba3e 034e 6b27 5d271af109ba name descrip uuid name descrip RO pool admin tion RO The Pool Administrator role can do anything RO b9ce9791 0604 50cd 0649 09b3284c7dfd RO pool operator tion RO The Pool Operator can do anything but access Dom0 and mange subjects and roles uuid RO 7955168d 7bec 10ed 105f c6a7e6e63249 name descrip RO vm power admin tion RO The VM Power Administrator role can do anything affecting VM properties across the pool uuid name descrip uuid name descrip uuid name descrip Note RO aaa00ab5 7340 bfbc 0d1b 7cf342639 a6e RO vm admin tion RO The VM Administrator role can do anything to a VM RO fb8d4ff9 310c a959 0613 54101535d3d5 RO vm operator tion RO The VM Operator role can do anything to an already RO 7233b8e3 eacb d7da 2c95 f2e581cdbf4e RO read only tion RO The Read Only role can only read values The list of roles is static so it is not possible to add or remove roles from it only to list the available static ones To display a list of current subjects e Run the command xe subject li
257. o be able to get back to the current pre change state RAM of the VM Reverting back to a snapshot with memory does not require a reboot of the VM You can take a snapshot with memory of a running or suspended VM via the XenAPI the xe CLI or by using XenCenter Creating a VM Snapshot Before taking a snapshot see the section called Preparing to clone a Windows VM in XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide and the section called Preparing to clone a Linux VM in XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide for information about any special operating system specific configuration and considerations to take into account Firstly ensure that the VM is running or suspended so that the memory status can be captured The simplest way to select the VM on which the operation is to be performed is by supplying the argument vm lt name gt or vm lt vm uuid gt gt Run the vm snapshot and vm snapshot with quiesce commands to take a snapshot of a VM xe vm snapshot vm lt vm uuid gt new name label lt vm_snapshot_name gt xe vm snapshot with quiesce vm lt vm uuid gt new name label lt vm_snapshot_name gt 127 CITRIX Creating a snapshot with memory Run the vm checkpoint command giving a descriptive name for the snapshot with memory so that you can identify it later xe vm checkpoint vm lt vm uuid gt new name label lt name of the checkpoint gt When XenServer has completed creating the snapshot with mem
258. ocks each block containing a digital signature which is compared to all other signatures in the data volume If an exact block match exists the duplicate block is discarded and the disk space reclaimed FAS Deduplication can be enabled on thin provisioned NetApp based SRs and operates according to the default filer FAS Deduplication parameters typically every 24 hours It must be enabled at the point the SR is created and any custom FAS Deduplication configuration must be managed directly on the filer Access Control Because FlexVol operations such as volume creation and volume snapshotting require administrator privileges on the filer itself Citrix recommends that the XenServer host is provided with suitable administrator username and password credentials at configuration time In situations where the XenServer host does not have full administrator rights to the filer the filer administrator could perform an out of band preparation and provisioning of the filer and then introduce the SR to the XenServer host using XenCenter or the sr introduce xe CLI command Note however that operations such as VM cloning or snapshot generation will fail in this situation due to insufficient access privileges Licenses You need to have an iSCSI license on the NetApp filer to use this storage repository type for the generic plugins you need either an iSCSI or NFS license depending on the SR type being used Further information For more information abou
259. om their existing role and add them to a new role 1 Run the commands xe subject role remove uuid lt subject uuid gt role name lt role_name_to_remove gt xe subject role add uuid lt subject uuid gt role name lt role_name_to_add gt To ensure that the new role takes effect the user should be logged out and logged back in again this requires the Logout Active User Connections permission available to a Pool Administrator or Pool Operator Warning Once you have added or removed a pool admin subject there can be a delay of a few seconds for ssh sessions associated to this subject to be accepted by all hosts of the pool Auditing The RBAC audit log will record any operation taken by a logged in user e the message will explicitly record the Subject ID and user name associated with the session that invoked the operation e if an operation is invoked for which the subject does not have authorization this will be logged e if the operation succeeded then this is recorded if the operation failed then the error code is logged Audit log xe CLI commands xe audit log get since lt timestamp gt filename lt output filename gt This command downloads to a file all the available records of the RBAC audit file in the pool If the optional parameter since is present then it only downloads the records from that specific point in time To obtain all audit records from the pool Run the following command x
260. omain Passwords are never to be included in any bug report regardless of any PII declaration 157 CITRIX The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above host is in emergency mode host is in emergency mod Returns true if the host the CLI is talking to is currently in emergency mode false otherwise This CLI command works directly on slave hosts even with no master host present host apply edition host apply edition host uuid lt XenServer_host_UUID gt edition xenserver_edition lt free gt lt advanced gt lt enterprise gt lt platinum gt lt enterprise xd gt Assigns a XenServer license to a host server When you assign a license XenServer contacts the Citrix License Server and requests the specified type of license If a license is available it is then checked out from the license server For Citrix XenServer for XenDesktop editions use lt enterprise xd gt For initial licensing configuration see also license server address and license server port license server address license server address license server address license_server_address host uuid XenServer lt _host_UU D gt For XenServer Advanced Edition and higher use to specify either a license server name or IP address Run on the pool master before initial use Specifies the name of the license server the pool is to use Assigns a XenServer li
261. ommand line interface for more detail on the options available for the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif param list uuid lt pif_uuid gt 3 Use the host management reconfigure CLI command to change the PIF used for the management interface If this host is part of a resource pool this command must be issued on the member host console xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt pif_uuid gt Warning Putting the management interface on a VLAN network is not supported Disabling management access To disable remote access to the management console entirely use the host management disable CLI command 81 CITRIX Warning Once the management interface is disabled you will have to log in on the physical host console to perform management tasks and external interfaces such as XenCenter will no longer work Adding a new physical NIC Install a new physical NIC on a XenServer host in the usual manner Then after restarting the server run the xe CLI command pif scan to cause a new PIF object to be created for the new NIC NIC PIF ordering in resource pools It is possible for physical NIC devices to be discovered in different orders on different servers even though the servers contain the same hardware Verifying NIC ordering is recommended before using the pooling features of XenServer Verifying NIC ordering Use the pif list command to verify that NIC ordering is consistent across your XenServer hosts Review the MAC add
262. on mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm crashdump list vm crashdump 1ist lt vm selector gt lt vm selector value gt List crashdumps associated with the specified VMs If the optional argument params is used the value of params is a string containing a list of parameters of this object that you want to display Alternatively you can use the keyword a11 to show all parameters If params is not used the returned list shows a default subset of all available parameters The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm data source forget vm data source forget data source lt name description _of data source gt lt vm selector gt lt wm selector value gt Stop recording the specified data source for a VM and forget all of the recorded data The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm data source list vm data source 1ist lt vm selector gt lt vm selector value gt 204 e CITRIX List the data sources that can be recorded for a VM The VM or VMs on
263. on changes on a member XenServer host If a loss of networking occurs the following notes may be useful in recovering and regaining network connectivity Citrix recommends that you ensure networking configuration is set up correctly before creating a resource pool as it is usually easier to recover from a bad configuration in a non pooled state The host management reconfigure and host management disable commands affect the XenServer host on which they are run and so are not suitable for use on one host in a pool to change the configuration of another Run these commands directly on the console of the XenServer host to be affected or use the xe s u and pw remote connection options When the xapi service starts it will apply configuration to the management interface first The name of the management interface is saved in the etc xensource inventory file In extreme cases you can stop the xapi service by running service xapi stop at the console edit the inventory file to set the management interface to a safe default and then ensure that the ifcfg files in etc sysconfig network scripts have correct configurations for a minimal network configuration including one interface and one bridge for example ethO on the xenbr0 bridge 84 CITRIX Workload Balancing What s New This topic describes new features and changes from the previous release of Workload Balancing New Features Workload Balancing now provides a series of fe
264. on to enable generic segmentation offload off to disable 193 Type read only read only read write read write map parameter read only set parameter read only read write map parameter read write read write read write read write read write read write C TRIX Parameter Name Description Type other config promiscuous true to a VIF to be read write promiscuous on the bridge so that it sees all traffic over the bridge Useful for running an Intrusion Detection System IDS or similar in a VM network uuid the unique identifier object read only reference of the virtual network to which this VIF is connected network name label the descriptive name of the read only virtual network to which this VIF is connected io_read_kbs average read rate in kB s for read only this VIF io_write_kbs average write rate in kB s for read only this VIF vif create vif create vm uuid lt uuid_of the_vm gt device lt see below gt network uuid lt uuid_of_the_network_the_vif_will_connect_to gt mac lt mac_address gt Create a new VIF ona VM Appropriate values for the device field are listed in the parameter allowed VIF devices on the specified VM Before any VIFs exist there the allowable values are integers from 0 15 The mac parameter is the standard MAC address in the form aa bb cc dd ee ff If you leave it unspecified an appropriate random MAC address will be created You can also explicitly set a
265. onfigure 99 CITRIX weekdays or weekends as a group when specifying days For the hour you can choose any hour and you can specify minutes in 15 minute intervals To set an optimization mode for all time periods 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool 2 In the Properties pane click the WLB tab 3 On the WLB tab click Configure WLB 4 In the left pane click Optimization Mode 5 In the Fixed section of the Optimization Mode page select one of these optimization modes e Maximize Performance Default Attempts to spread workload evenly across all physical hosts in a resource pool The goal is to minimize CPU memory and network pressure for all hosts e Maximize Density Attempts to fit as many virtual machines as possible onto a physical host The goal is to minimize the number of physical hosts that must be online To specify times when the optimization mode will change automatically In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab On the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane click Optimization Mode and select Scheduled Click Add New In the Change to box select one of the following modes ona A OO N e Maximize Performance Attempts to spread workload evenly across all physical hosts in a resource pool The goal is to minimize CPU memory and network pressure for all hosts
266. onnected API clients such as the XenCenter Operates directly on the XenServer host the CLI is connected to and is not forwarded to the pool master if applied to a member XenServer host Warning Be extremely careful when using this CLI command off host since once it is run it will not be possible to connect to the control domain remotely over the network to re enable it host management reconfigure host management reconfigure interface lt device gt pif uuid lt uuid gt Reconfigures the XenServer host to use the specified network interface as its management interface which is the interface that is used to connect to the XenCenter The command rewrites the MANAGEMENT_INTERFACE key in etc xensource inventory If the device name of an interface which must have an IP address is specified the XenServer host will immediately rebind This works both in normal and emergency mode If the UUID of a PIF object is specified the XenServer host determines which IP address to rebind to itself It must not be in emergency mode when this command is executed Warning 159 CITRIX Be careful when using this CLI command off host and ensure that you have network connectivity on the new interface Use xe pif reconfigure to set one up first Otherwise subsequent CLI commands will reach the XenServer host host power on host power on host lt host_uuid gt Turns on power on XenServer hosts with Host Power On functionality ena
267. onsume only as much data as has been written to disk but the leaf nodes VDI clones remain fully inflated to the virtual size of the disk Snapshot leaf nodes VDI snapshots remain deflated when not in use and can be attached Read only to preserve the deflated allocation Snapshot nodes that are attached Read Write will be fully inflated on attach and deflated on detach For file based VHDs all nodes consume only as much data as has been written and the leaf node files grow to accommodate data as it is actively written If a 100GB VDI is allocated for a new VM and an OS is installed the VDI file will physically be only the size of the OS data that has been written to the disk plus some minor metadata overhead When cloning VMs based off a single VHD template each child VM forms a chain where new changes are written to the new VM and old blocks are directly read from the parent template If the new VM was converted into a further template and more VMs cloned then the resulting chain will result in degraded performance XenServer supports a maximum chain length of 30 but it is generally not recommended that you approach this limit without good reason If in doubt you can always copy the VM using XenServer or the vm copy command which resets the chain length back to 0 VHD Chain Coalescing VHD images support chaining which is the process whereby information shared between one or more VDIs is not duplicated This leads to a situation wh
268. ords of the pool since a precise minute timestamp s ssssresrsrrerrrrrererrrer 17 How does XenServer compute the roles for the SESSION ooococcccccccononcncnncncnnononcnnonanannononannonananos 18 XenServer hosts and resource POIs scsssssecsessseessessseessssssessessseeseeees 19 Hosts and resource Pools OVERVIEW ia a A A a An di 19 Requirements for creating resource pools 02 0 0 cece cece eee ee eee eee renee teen ene nent dente eee eee ea ease ea eaeaeaeae 19 CITRIX Creating a resource POO ii A 20 Greating heterogeneous TESQUICE POOIS vicio a A A cand deed 21 Adding shared Storage srta p a A a 21 Removing a XenServer host from a resource POO 0 eect tr nr nn een rr rrnrrrenennrnrnrenenarnrnnne 22 Hight Availability caviar A reds vx reek de esmad ap add 23 HA OVENVICW cidieaoek ieutnichetndicak apewtcudtue dante sinsxincinbanecdtonapastmatinr sade oppramanunendaet npevtueeiamoetomrmemanarsas 23 OVEFCOMM TUNG seca is 23 OvercommitmMent Waits a o 23 H st FENCING civil ida 23 Configuration REQUIFEMEN S snicio tomas dat A A di 24 Resta POS ai aos 24 Enabling HA On amp XenServer POO wpro iii da aa ria 25 Enabling AA using the CLI ari Ad AE 25 Removing HA protection from a VM using the CLI oo ttn tinirel 26 RECOVENNG an unreachable NOSE unida Rio 26 Shutting down a host when HA iS enabled 0 0 trent nnn paai 26 Shutting down a VM when it is protected by HA cccce cece eee eee e e
269. ores that server s original virtual machines to that server Working with Workload Balancing Reports This topic provides general information about Workload Balancing historical reports and an overview of where to find additional information about these reports To generate a Workload Balancing report you must have installed the Workload Balancing component registered at least one resource pool with Workload Balancing and configured Workload Balancing on at least one resource pool Introduction Workload Balancing provides reporting on three types of objects physical hosts resource pools and virtual machines At a high level Workload Balancing provides two types of reports e Historical reports that display information by date e Roll up style reports Workload Balancing provides some reports for auditing purposes so you can determine for example the number of times a virtual machine moved Subscribing to Workload Balancing Reports By subscribing to Workload Balancing reports you can schedule for Workload Balancing to deliver individual reports with the options you want enabled on a preset schedule and have the reports delivered to your email account For example to subscribe to a report you generate a report that specifies the objects hosts pools and so on and settings you want in the subscribed report and then subscribe to it Then you specify the time 114 CITRIX at which you want to generate the report t
270. orted If you use this group Workload Balancing cannot be successfully initialized 11 Click Install To verify your Workload Balancing installation Workload Balancing Setup does not install an icon in the Windows Start menu Use this procedure to verify that Workload Balancing installed correctly before trying to connect to the Workload Balancing server using the Connect to WLB Server dialog 1 Verify Windows Add or Remove Programs lists Citrix Workload Balancing as a currently installed programs 2 Check for the following services in the Windows Services panel e Citrix WLB Analysis Engine e Citrix WLB Data Collection Manager e Citrix WLB Web Service Host All of these services must be started and running before you start configuring Workload Balancing 3 If Workload Balancing services are not in the Services panel check the installation log to see if it installed successfully 93 CITRIX If you used the Setup wizard the log is at C Documents and Settings username Local Settings Temp msibootstrapper2CSM_MSI_Install log by default On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 this log is at C Users username AppData Local Temp msibootstrapper2CSM_MSI_Install log User name is the name of the user logged on during installation e If you used the Setup properties Msiexec the log is at C log txt by default or wherever you specified for Setup to create it Configuring Firewalls If Workload Balancing server is behind a f
271. ory its uuid will be displayed For example xe vm checkpoint vm 2d1d9208 e479 2f0a 69e7 24a0e062dd35 new name label example_checkpoint_1 b3c0f369 5 9a1 ddl6 ecd4 al211df29886 A snapshot with memory requires at least 4MB of disk space per disk plus the size of the RAM plus around 20 overhead So a checkpoint with 256MB RAM would require approximately 300MB of storage Note During the checkpoint creation process the VM is paused for a brief period of time and cannot be used during this period To list all of the snapshots on a XenServer pool Run the snapshot list command xe snapshot list This lists all of the snapshots in the XenServer pool To list the snapshots on a particular VM You will need to know the uuid of the particular VM to do this run the vm list command xe vm list This displays a list of all VMs and their UUIDs For example xe vm list uuid RO 116dd310 a0ef a830 37c8 df 41521ff72d name label RW Windows Server 2003 1 power state RO halted uuid RO 96fde888 2a18 c042 491a 014e22b07839 name label RW Windows XP SP3 1 power state RO running uuid RO dff45c56 426a 4450 a094 d3bbada2ba3f name label RW Control domain on host power state RO running VMs can also be specified by filtering the full list of VMs on the values of fields 128 CITRIX For example specifying power state halted will select all VMs whose power state field is equ
272. ount of meta data is created called the SR Management Volume This will be displayed as the smallest volume 30MB All of the VDIs in the SR are created with 100 space reserved for snapshots by default This will also override the Group Defaults that are set by the administrator from the EqualLogic GUI CLI You can change this default by using a sm config parameter while creating a VDI via the xe CLI Creating a VDI using the CLI To create a VDI using CLI use the xe vdi create command xe vdi create virtual size 10GiB name label testvdi sr uuid lt sr_uuid gt gt type user sm config allocation lt thin thick gt sm config snap reserve percentage lt Percentage Integral Value gt sm config snap depletion lt delete oldest volume offline gt Where lt sr_uuid gt is the UUID of the SR of type Dell EqualLogic sm config allocation controls whether the VDI volume is provisioned as a thin volume or not Setting sm config allocation thin will create a volume with thin provisioning enabled Setting sm config allocation thick will create a volume with thick provisioning disabled If the type of allocation is not specified the default allocation for the SR is used to provision the VDI volume sm config snap reserve percentage specifies the amount of space in terms of percentage of volume to reserve for volume snapshots sm config snap depletion specifies the snapshot space recovery policy action taken when the space
273. ove Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section host evacuate host evacuate lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Live migrates all running VMs to other suitable hosts on a pool The host must first be disabled using the host disable command If the evacuated host is the pool master then another host must be selected to be the pool master To change the pool master with HA disabled you need to use the pool designate new master command See the section called pool designate new master for details With HA enabled your only option is to shut down the server which will cause HA to elect a new master at random See the section called host shutdown The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section host forget host forget uuid lt XenServer_host_UUID gt The xapi agent forgets about the specified XenServer host without contacting it explicitly Use the force parameter to avoid being prompted to confirm that you really want to perform this operation Warning Don t use this command if HA is enabled on the pool Disable HA first then enable it again after you ve forgotten the host Tip This command is useful if the XenServer host to forget is dead however if the
274. perations relating to PBDs are described in the section called PBD commands Virtual Block Devices VBDs Virtual Block Devices are connector objects similar to the PBD described above that allows mappings between VDIs and VMs In addition to providing a mechanism for attaching also called plugging a VDI into a VM VBDs allow for the fine tuning of parameters regarding QoS quality of service statistics and the bootability of a given VDI CLI operations relating to VBDs are described in the section called VBD commands Summary of Storage objects The following image is a summary of how the storage objects presented so far are related XenServer Host XenServer Host XenServer Host Graphical overview of storage repositories and related objects Virtual Disk Data Formats In general there are three types of mapping of physical storage to a VDI e File based VHD on a Filesystem VM images are stored as thin provisioned VHD format files on either a local non shared Filesystem EXT type SR or a shared NFS target NFS type SR Logical Volume based VHD on a LUN The default XenServer blockdevice based storage inserts a Logical Volume manager on a disk either a locally attached device LVM type SR or a SAN attached LUN over either Fibre Channel LVMoHBA type SR iSCSI LVMoISCSI type SR or SAS LVMoHBA type Sr VDIs are represented as volumes within the Volume manager and stored in VHD format to allow thin
275. pleted successfully or unsuccessfully this should be 1 if the Task has successfully completed this parameter contains the type of the encoded result that is the name of the class whose reference is in the result field otherwise this parameter s value is undefined if the Task has completed successfully this field contains the result value either Void or an object reference otherwise this parameter s value is undefined if the Task has failed this parameter contains the set of associated error strings otherwise this parameter s value is undefined list of the operations allowed in this state time the task has been created time task finished i e succeeded or failed If task status is pending then the value of this field has no meaning contains the UUID of the tasks this task is a sub task of contains the UUID s of all the subtasks of this task task cancel uuid lt task_uuid gt Direct the specified Task to cancel and return Template commands Commands for working with VM templates 177 Type read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only read only CITRIX Templates are essentially VMs with the s a template parameter set to true A template is a gold image that contains all the various configuration settings to instantiate a specific VM XenServer ships with a base set of templates which range fro
276. pletion does not normally work However if you put the server username and password in an environment variable called XE__ EXTRA_ARGS on the machine from which you are entering the commands tab completion is enabled See the section called Basic xe syntax for details Command types Broadly speaking the CLI commands can be split in two halves Low level commands concerned with listing and parameter manipulation of API objects and higher level commands for interacting with VMs or hosts in a more abstract level The low level commands are e lt class gt list e lt class gt param get e lt class gt param set e lt class gt param list e lt class gt param add e lt class gt param remove e lt class gt param clear where lt class gt is one of bond console e host e host crashdump e host cpu e network e patch pbd e pif pool sm e sr e task e template e vbd e vdi e vif vlan 144 CITRIX vm Note that not every value of lt c ass gt has the full set of lt class gt param commands some have just a subset Parameter types The objects that are addressed with the xe commands have sets of parameters that identify them and define their states Most parameters take a single value For example the name labe1 parameter of a VM contains a single string value In the output from parameter list commands such as xe vm param list such parameters have an indi
277. port upload lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt url lt destination_url gt htto proxy lt http_proxy_name gt Generate a fresh bug report using xen bugtool with all optional files included and upload to the Citrix Support ftp site or some other location The host s on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see host selectors above Optional arguments can be any number of the host selectors listed at the beginning of this section Optional parameters are http proxy use specified http proxy and ur1 upload to this destination URL If optional parameters are not used no proxy server is identified and the destination will be the default Citrix Support ftp site host crashdump destroy host crashdump destroy uuid lt crashdump_uuid gt Delete a host crashdump specified by its UUID from the XenServer host host crashdump upload host crashdump upload uuid lt crashdump_uuid gt url lt destination_url gt htto proxy lt http_proxy_name gt Upload a crashdump to the Citrix Support ftp site or other location If optional parameters are not used no proxy server is identified and the destination will be the default Citrix Support ftp site Optional parameters are http proxy use specified http proxy and ur upload to this destination URL host disable host disable lt host selector gt lt host_selector_value gt Disables the specified XenServer hosts
278. provisioning of reference nodes on snapshot and clone LUN per VDI LUNs are directly mapped to VMs as VDIs by SR types that provide an array specific plugin Netapp Equallogic or StorageLink type SRs The array storage abstraction therefore matches the VDI storage abstraction for environments that manage storage provisioning at an array level 31 e C TRIX VHD based VDIs VHD files may be chained allowing two VDIs to share common data In cases where a VHD backed VM is cloned the resulting VMs share the common on disk data at the time of cloning Each proceeds to make its own changes in an isolated copy on write CoW version of the VDI This feature allows VHD based VMs to be quickly cloned from templates facilitating very fast provisioning and deployment of new VMs The VHD format used by LVM based and File based SR types in XenServer uses sparse provisioning The image file is automatically extended in 2MB chunks as the VM writes data into the disk For File based VHD this has the considerable benefit that VM image files take up only as much space on the physical storage as required With LVM based VHD the underlying logical volume container must be sized to the virtual size of the VDI however unused space on the underlying CoW instance disk is reclaimed when a snapshot or clone occurs The difference between the two behaviors can be characterized in the following way e For LVM based VHDs the difference disk nodes within the chain c
279. r Status Report in the Tools menu to open the Server Status Report wizard You can select from a list of different types of information various logs crash dumps etc The information is compiled and downloaded to the machine that XenCenter is running on For details see the XenCenter Help Additionally the XenServer host has several CLI commands to make it simple to collate the output of logs and various other bits of system information using the utility xen bugtool Use the xe command host bugreport upload to collect the appropriate log files and system information and upload them to the Citrix Support ftp site Please refer to the section called host bugreport upload for a full description of this command and its optional parameters If you are requested to send a crashdump to Citrix Support use the xe command host crashdump upload Please refer to the section called host crashdump upload for a full description of this command and its optional parameters It is possible that sensitive information might be written into the XenServer host logs By default the server logs report only errors and warnings If you need to see more detailed information you can enable more verbose logging To do so use the host loglevel set command host loglevel set 10g 1evel level where level can be 0 1 2 3 or 4 where 0 is the most verbose and 4 is the least verbose Log files greater than 5 MB are rotated keeping 4 revisions The logrotat
280. r devices may be used but may not work the boot policy for HVM guests Either BIOS Order or an empty string the order key controls the HVM guest boot order represented as a string where each character is a boot method d for the CD DVD c for the root disk and n for network PXE boot The default is dc path to the kernel path to the initrd string of kernel command line arguments string of arguments to make legacy VMs based on this template boot 181 Type read write read only set parameter read write map parameter read only set parameter read only set parameter read only set parameter read only set parameter read write read write map parameter read write read write read write read write CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type PV bootloader name of or path to bootloader read write PV bootloader args string of miscellaneous read write arguments for the bootloader last boot CPU flags describes the CPU flags on read only which a VM based on this template was last booted not populated for a template resident on the XenServer host on which read only a VM based on this template is currently resident appears as lt not in database gt for a template affinity a XenServer host which a read write VM based on this template has preference for running on used by the xe vm start command to decide where to run the VM other config list of key value pairs read write map parameter
281. r documentation This documentis primarily aimed at system administrators who need to configure and administer XenServer deployments Other documentation shipped with this release includes XenServer Installation Guide provides a high level overview of XenServer along with step by step instructions on installing XenServer hosts and the XenCenter management console XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide describes how to install Linux and Windows VMs on top of a XenServer deployment As well as installing new VMs from install media or using the VM templates provided with the XenServer release this guide also explains how to create VMs from existing physical machines using a process called P2V XenServer Software Development Kit Guide presents an overview of the XenServer SDK a selection of code samples that demonstrate how to write applications that interface with XenServer hosts XenAPI Specification provides a programmer s reference guide to the XenServer API XenServer User Security considers the issues involved in keeping your XenServer installation secure Release Notes provides a list of known issues that affect this release CITRIX Managing users When you first install XenServer a user account is added to XenServer automatically This account is the local super user LSU or root which is authenticated locally by the XenServer computer The local super user LSU or root is a special user account used for system a
282. r hosts can work with VLANs in multiple ways Note All supported VLAN configurations are equally applicable to pools and standalone hosts and bonded and non bonded configurations Using VLANs with host management interfaces Switch ports configured to perform 802 1Q VLAN tagging untagging commonly referred to as ports with a native VLAN or as access mode ports can be used with XenServer management interfaces to place management traffic on a desired VLAN In this case the XenServer host is unaware of any VLAN configuration XenServer management interfaces cannot be assigned to a XenServer VLAN via a trunk port Using VLANs with virtual machines Switch ports configured as 802 1Q VLAN trunk ports can be used in combination with the XenServer VLAN features to connect guest virtual network interfaces VIFs to specific VLANs In this case the XenServer host performs the VLAN tagging untagging functions for the guest which is unaware of any VLAN configuration XenServer VLANs are represented by additional PIF objects representing VLAN interfaces corresponding to a specified VLAN tag XenServer networks can then be connected to the PIF representing the physical NIC to see all traffic on the NIC or to a PIF representing a VLAN to see only the traffic with the specified VLAN tag For procedures on how to create VLANs for XenServer hosts either standalone or part of a resource pool see the section called Creating VLANs 70 CITRIX
283. r read only wlb username Name of the user of the WLB read only service wlb enabled True is WLB is enabled read write wlb verify cert True if there is a certificate to read write verify pool designate new master pool designate new master host uuid lt UUID of member XenServer host to become new master gt Instruct the specified member XenServer host to become the master of an existing pool This performs an orderly hand over of the role of master host to another host in the resource pool This command only works when the current master is online and is not a replacement for the emergency mode commands listed below pool dump database pool dump database file name lt filename_to_dump_database_into_ on_client gt Download a copy of the entire pool database and dump it into a file on the client pool eject pool eject host uuid lt UUID of XenServer host to eject gt Instruct the specified XenServer host to leave an existing pool pool emergency reset master pool emergency reset master master address lt address of the pool s master XenServer host gt Instruct a slave member XenServer host to reset its master address to the new value and attempt to connect to it This command should not be run on master hosts pool emergency transition to master pool emergency transition to master Instruct a member XenServer host to become the pool master This command is only accepted by the XenServer host if it has transitioned to emergency mode
284. r which PBDs 3 For each PBD and SR list the VBDs that reference VDIs on the SR 4 For all active VBDs that are attached to VMs on the host calculate the combined throughput For iSCSI and NFS storage check your network statistics to determine if there is a throughput bottleneck at the array or whether the PBD is saturated 139 CITRIX Troubleshooting If you experience odd behavior application crashes or have other issues with a XenServer host this chapter is meant to help you solve the problem if possible and failing that describes where the application logs are located and other information that can help your Citrix Solution Provider and Citrix track and resolve the issue Troubleshooting of installation issues is covered in the XenServer Installation Guide Troubleshooting of Virtual Machine issues is covered in the XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide Important We recommend that you follow the troubleshooting information in this chapter solely under the guidance of your Citrix Solution Provider or Citrix Support Citrix provides two forms of support you can receive free self help support on the Support site or you may purchase our Support Services and directly submit requests by filing an online Support Case Our free web based resources include product documentation a Knowledge Base and discussion forums XenServer host logs XenCenter can be used to gather XenServer host information Click on Get Serve
285. ram key lt key gt Adds to either a map or a set parameter If the parameter is a map add key value pairs using the lt key gt lt value gt syntax If the parameter is a set add keys with the lt param key gt lt key gt syntax lt class gt param remove uuid lt uuid gt param name lt parameter gt param key lt key gt Removes either a key value pair from a map or a key from a set lt class gt param clear uuid lt uuid gt param name lt parameter gt Completely clears a set or a map Low level list commands The lt class gt list command lists the objects of type lt c ass gt By default it will list all objects printing a subset of the parameters This behavior can be modified in two ways it can filter the objects so that it only outputs a subset and the parameters that are printed can be modified To change the parameters that are printed the argument params should be specified as a comma separated list of the required parameters For example xe vm list params name label other config Alternatively to list all of the parameters use the syntax xe vm list params all Note that some parameters that are expensive to calculate will not be shown by the list command These parameters will be shown as for example allowed VBD devices SRO lt expensive field gt To obtain these fields use either the command lt class gt param list or lt class gt param get To filter the list the CLI will match paramet
286. random MAC address by specifying mac random vif destroy vif destroy uuid lt uuid_of_vif gt Destroy a VIF vif plug vif plug uuid lt uuid_of_vif gt Attempt to attach the VIF while the VM is in the running state vif unplug vif unplug uuid lt uuid_of_vif gt 194 CITRIX Attempts to detach the VIF from the VM while it is running VLAN commands Commands for working with VLANs virtual networks To list and edit virtual interfaces refer to the PIF commands which have a VLAN parameter to signal that they have an associated virtual network see the section called PIF commands For example to list VLANs you need to use xe pif list vlan create vlan create pif uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt vlan lt vlan_number gt network uuid lt uuid_of_network gt Create a new VLAN on a XenServer host pool vlan create vlan create pif uuid lt uuid_of_pif gt vlan lt vlan_number gt network uuid lt uuid_of_network gt Create a new VLAN on all hosts on a pool by determining which interface for example et h0 the specified network is on on each host and creating and plugging a new PIF object one each host accordingly vlan destroy vlan destroy uuid lt uuid_of pif mapped_to_vian gt Destroy a VLAN Requires the UUID of the PIF that represents the VLAN VM commands Commands for controlling VMs and their attributes VM selectors Several of the commands listed here have a common mechanism for selecting one or more
287. ration pool retrieve wlb configuration Prints all workload balancing configuration to standard out pool retrieve wlb recommendations Prints all workload balancing recommendations to standard out pool retrieve wlb report Gets a WLB report of the specified type and saves it to the specified file The available reports are e pool_health e pool_audit_history poolid e pool_optimization_history e host_health_history e optimization_performance_history pool_health_history vm_movement_history vm_performance_history Example usage for each report type is shown below The utcoffset parameter specifies the number of hours ahead or behind of UTC for your time zone The start parameter and end parameters specify the number of hours to report about For example specifying start 3 and end 0 will cause WLB to report on the last 3 hour of activity xe pool retrieve wlb report report pool_health Y poolid lt 51e411f1 62f4 e462 fled 97c626703cae gt utcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 3 gt end lt 0 gt filename lt pool_health txt gt xe pool retrieve wlb report report host_health_history hostid lt e26685cd 1789 4f90 8e47 a4fd0509b4a4 gt utcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 3 gt end lt 0 gt filename lt host_health_history txt gt 212 CITRIX xe pool retrieve wlb report report optimization_performance_history poolid lt 51e411f 1 62 4 e462 fled 97c626703cae gt u
288. refore if you want Workload Balancing to optimize workloads for Maximum Performance during your organization busiest periods for example daytime and Maximum Density at night you can configure it to do so automatically using a schedule that can vary by the day of the week Host Exclusion The ability to exclude a specific host in a pool from Workload Balancing s optimization recommendations even though Workload Balancing is enabled for all other hosts in the pool See also the section called Optimizing and Managing Power Automatically Other new features include Audit Log Report You can generate reports for changes specific user accounts including the Local Super User LSU made to a pool for auditing purposes Enhanced Reporting This release includes an optimized user interface for reporting as well as additional reports including the Audit Log report Report Subscriptions You can now have a report generated and delivered to your email automatically at preset dates and times Usability Enhancements e Simplified Installation You no longer need to install the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components before installation Improved User Interface Features such as Initialization and Configuration are streamlined and easier to use 85 CITRIX Improved Error Messages Improved error messages make issues easier to understand Also error messages are now documented with suggested actions In add
289. reports requires the VM Operator role or higher Users assigned the Read Only role cannot generate reports in this release Installing Workload Balancing Before installing Workload Balancing you must 1 Install a SQL Server or SQL Server Express database as described in the section called Workload Balancing Data Store Requirements 2 Have a login on the SQL Server database instance that has SQL Login creation privileges For SQL Server Authentication the account needs sysadmin privileges 3 Create an account for Workload Balancing as described in the section called Preinstallation Considerations and have its name on hand 4 Configure all Workload Balancing servers to meet the system requirements described in the section called Workload Balancing System Requirements After Setup is finished installing Workload Balancing verify that it installed correctly See the section called To verify your Workload Balancing installation Then you must set up the connection between Workload Balancing and your pool See the section called Initializing Workload Balancing before Workload Balancing can begin gathering data and making recommendations Note Workload Balancing requires Internet connectivity for digital signature verification as described in the section called Preinstallation Considerations 91 e C TRIX To install Workload Balancing server The following procedure installs Workload Balancing o
290. resents a physical network interface on a XenServer host PIF objects have a name and description a globally unique UUID the parameters of the NIC that they represent and the network and server they are connected to A VIF which represents a virtual interface on a Virtual Machine VIF objects have a name and description a globally unique UUID and the network and VM they are connected to A network which is a virtual Ethernet switch on a XenServer host Network objects have a name and description a globally unique UUID and the collection of VIFs and PIFs connected to them Both XenCenter and the xe CLI allow configuration of networking options control over which NIC is used for management operations and creation of advanced networking features such as virtual local area networks VLANs and NIC bonds Networks Each XenServer host has one or more networks which are virtual Ethernet switches Networks without an association to a PIF are considered internal and can be used to provide connectivity only between VMs on a given XenServer host with no connection to the outside world Networks with a PIF association are considered external and provide a bridge between VIFs and the PIF connected to the network enabling connectivity to resources available through the PIF s NIC VLANs Virtual Local Area Networks VLANs as defined by the IEEE 802 1Q standard allow a single physical network to support multiple logical networks XenServe
291. reserved for snapshots has been exceeded Setting sm config snap depletion delete oldest deletes the oldest snapshots until sufficient space is recovered the default Setting sm config snap deplet ion volume offline sets the volume and snapshots offline Active SCSI connections will be terminated before a snapshot is automatically deleted NetApp The NetApp type maps LUNs to VDIs on a NetApp server enabling the use of fast snapshot and clone features on the filer Note NetApp and EqualLogic SRs require XenServer Advanced edition or above to use the special integration with the NetApp and Dell EqualLogic SR types but you can use them as ordinary iSCSI FC or NFS storage with free XenServer without the benefits of direct control of hardware features To find out about XenServer editions and how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here If you have access to Network Appliance NetApp storage with sufficient disk space running a version of Data ONTAP 7G version 7 0 or greater you can configure a custom NetApp storage repository for VM storage on your XenServer deployment The XenServer driver uses the ZAPI interface to the storage to create a group of FlexVols that correspond to an SR VDIs are created as virtual LUNs on the storage and attached to XenServer hosts using an iSCSI data path There is a direct mapping between a VDI and a raw LUN that does not require any additional volume metadata The NetApp SR is a manage
292. ress and carrier link state parameters associated with each PIF to verify that the devices discovered eth0 eth1 etc correspond to the appropriate physical port on the server xe pif list params uuid device MAC currently attached carrier management IP configuration mode uuid RO lef82091 5db5 cf69 3fe6 0e8d24f8f518 device RO etho0 MAC RO 00 19 bb 2d 7e 8a currently attached RO true management RO true IP configuration mode RO DHCP carrier RO true uuid RO 829fd476 2bbb 67bb 139f d607c09e9110 device RO ethl MAC RO 00 19 bb 2d 7e 7a currently attached RO false management RO false IP configuration mode RO None carrier RO true If the hosts have already been joined in a pool add the host uuid parameter to the pif list command to scope the results to the PIFs on a given host Re ordering NICs It is not possible to directly rename a PIF although you can use the pif forget and pif introduce commands to achieve the same effect with the following restrictions e The XenServer host must be standalone and not joined to a resource pool Re ordering a PIF configured as the management interface of the host requires additional steps which are included in the example below Because the management interface must first be disabled the commands must be entered directly on the host console For the example configuration shown above use the following steps to change the NIC orderi
293. ress box type the IP address or NetBIOS name of the Workload Balancing server You can also enter a fully qualified domain name FQDN b Optional Edit the port number if you want XenServer to connect to Workload Balancing using a different port Entering a new port number here sets a different communications port on the Workload Balancing server By default XenServer connects to Workload Balancing specifically the Web Service Host service on port 8012 Note Do not edit this port number unless you have changed it during Workload Balancing Setup The port number value specified during Setup and in the Workload Balancing Configuration dialog must match 5 In the WLB Server Credentials section enter the user name for example workloadbalancing_user and password the computers running XenServer will use to connect to the Workload Balancing server 96 CITRIX This must be the account or group that was configured during the installation of the Workload Balancing Server For information see the section called Authorization for Workload Balancing 6 Inthe XenServer Credentials section enter the user name and password for the pool you are configuring typically the password for the pool master Workload Balancing will use these credentials to connect to the computers running XenServer in that pool To use the credentials with which you are currently logged into XenServer select the Use the current XenCenter credentials che
294. ritical lt HostCpuThresholdCritical value gt config HostMemoryThresholdHigh lt HostMemoryThresholdHigh value gt config HostPifReadThresholdCritical lt HostPifRe config HostPifReadThresholdHigh lt HostPifReadThresholdHigh value gt config set_host_configuration lt true false gt Use the pool send wlb configuration command with the arguments lt ParticipatesinPowerManagement gt and lt set_host_configuration gt to configure Workload Balancing s Host Power Management feature xe pool send wlb configuration config lt host_21_ gt ParticipatesInPowerManagement lt true gt config set_host_configuration lt true gt 213 CITRIX Index A AMD V AMD hardware virtualization 19 C CD commands xe CLI 148 CLI see command line interface Command line interface CLI basic xe syntax 142 Bonding commands 147 CD commands 148 command types 144 console commands 149 event commands 150 host XenServer host commands 151 log commands 161 low level list commands 146 low level parameter commands 145 message commands 162 network commands 163 overview parameter types 145 patch commands 164 PBD commands 165 PIF commands 166 Resource pool commands 170 shorthand xe syntax 143 special characters and syntax 143 Storage Manager commands 173 Storage repository SR commands 174 task commands 176 Template commands 177 update commands 185 user commands 185 VBD commands 186 VDI commands 188
295. rix recommends backing up your Workload Balancing database before upgrading the Workload Balancing server Optionally you may want to restart your Workload Balancing server so that all Workload Balancing processes are restarted providing a known state from which to upgrade Also upgrade your XenServer hosts before upgrading the Workload Balancing server You can upgrade directly to the latest release of Workload Balancing Workload Balancing 2 0 from the previous version Workload Balancing 1 0 Before upgrading Citrix recommends backing up your data using SQL Management Studio When you upgrade you are prompted for the location of the existing Workload Balancing data store After you specify it the installation wizard upgrades it to the newest data store automatically The MSI file checks for existing versions of the Workload Balancing database and Workload Balancing components each time you launch the installation wizard Upgrades from the XenServer 5 6 Alpha and Beta releases are not supported Note 94 CITRIX The time it takes to upgrade the server may be affected by the distribution of the database file group Additional time may be required to perform file group moves during the upgrade In addition the size of the database affects the time required to perform an upgrade Upgrading Workload Balancing on the Same Operating System If you only want to upgrade the Workload Balancing server software and you are not upgrading oper
296. rue the associated VDI will also be destroyed vbd eject vbd eject uuid lt uuid_of_vbd gt Remove the media from the drive represented by a VBD This command only works if the media is of a removable type a physical CD or an ISO otherwise an error message VBD_NOT_REMOVABLE_MEDIA is returned vbd insert vbd insert uuid lt uuid_of_vbd gt vdi uuid lt uuid_of_vdi_containing_media gt Insert new media into the drive represented by a VBD This command only works if the media is of a removable type a physical CD or an ISO otherwise an error message VBD_NOT_REMOVABLE_MEDTA is returned vbd plug vbd plug uuid lt uuid_of_vbd gt Attempt to attach the VBD while the VM is in the running state vbd unplug vbd unplug uuid lt uuid of vbd gt Attempts to detach the VBD from the VM while it is in the running state VDI commands Commands for working with VDIs Virtual Disk Images A VDI is a software object that represents the contents of the virtual disk seen by a VM as opposed to the VBD which is a connector object that ties a VM to the VDI The VDI has the information on the physical attributes of the virtual disk which type of SR whether the disk is shareable whether the media is read write or read only and so on while the VBD has the attributes which tie the VDI to the VM is it bootable its read write metrics and so on The VDI objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe vdi
297. rver hosts in resource pools have a single management IP address used for management and communication to and from other hosts in the pool The steps required to change the IP address of a host s management interface are different for master and other hosts Note Caution should be used when changing the IP address of a server and other networking parameters Depending upon the network topology and the change being made connections to network storage may be lost If this happens the storage must be replugged using the Repair Storage function in XenCenter or the pbd plug command using the CLI For this reason it may be advisable to migrate VMs away from the server before changing its IP configuration Changing the IP address of a pool member host 1 Use the pif reconfigure ip CLI command to set the IP address as desired See Appendix A Command line interface for details on the parameters of the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt pif_uuid gt mode DHCP 80 CITRIX 2 Use the host list CLI command to confirm that the member host has successfully reconnected to the master host by checking that all the other XenServer hosts in the pool are visible xe host list Changing the IP address of the master XenServer host requires additional steps because each of the member hosts uses the advertised IP address of the pool master for communication and will not know how to contact the master when its IP address changes Wh
298. rver support for Fibre Channel does not support direct mapping of a LUN to a VM HBA based LUNs must be mapped to the host and specified for use in an SR VDIs within the SR are exposed to VMs as standard block devices Citrix StorageLink Gateway CSLG SRs The CSLG storage repository allows use of the Citrix StorageLink service for native access to a range of iSCSI and Fibre Channel arrays and automated fabric initiator and array configuration features Installation and configuration of the StorageLink service is required for more information please see the StorageLink documentation Note Running the StorageLink service in a VM within a resource pool to which the StorageLink service is providing storage is not supported in combination with the XenServer High Availability HA features To use CSLG SRs in combination with HA ensure the StorageLink service is running outside the HA enabled pool CSLG SRs can be created using the xe CLI only After creation CSLG SRs can be viewed and managed using both the xe CLI and XenCenter Because the CSLG SR can be used to access different storage arrays the exact features available for a given CSLG SR depend on the capabilities of the array All CSLG SRs use a LUN per VDI model where a new LUN is provisioned for each virtual disk VDI CSLG SRs can co exist with other SR types on the same storage array hardware and multiple CSLG SRs can be defined within the same resource pool The StorageLink ser
299. s The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section If the VM is on a shared SR in a pool of hosts use the on argument to specify which host in the pool on which to start it By default the system will determine an appropriate host which might be any of the members of the pool vm shutdown vm shutdown lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force lt true false gt 208 o CITRIX Shut down the specified VM The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section Use the force argument to cause an ungraceful shutdown similar to pulling the plug on a physical server vm start vm start lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force lt true false gt on lt XenServer host UUID gt multiple Start the specified VMs The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section If the VMs are on a shared SR in a pool of hosts use the on argument to specify which host in the pool on
300. s much space on the NFS storage as is required If a 100GB VDI is allocated for a new VM and an OS is installed the VDI file will only reflect the size of the OS data that has been written to the disk rather than the entire 100GB VHD files may also be chained allowing two VDIs to share common data In cases where a NFS based VM is cloned the resulting VMs will share the common on disk data at the time of cloning Each will proceed to make its own changes in an isolated copy on write version of the VDI This feature allows NFS based VMs to be quickly cloned from templates facilitating very fast provisioning and deployment of new VMs Note The maximum supported length of VHD chains is 30 As VHD based images require extra metadata to support sparseness and chaining the format is not as high performance as LVM based storage In cases where performance really matters it is well worth forcibly allocating the sparse regions of an image file This will improve performance at the cost of consuming additional disk space XenServer s NFS and VHD implementations assume that they have full control over the SR directory on the NFS server Administrators should not modify the contents of the SR directory as this can risk corrupting the contents of VDIs XenServer has been tuned for enterprise class storage that use non volatile RAM to provide fast acknowledgments of write requests while maintaining a high degree of data protection from failure XenServ
301. s Interval section of this dialog box Specifically Workload Balancing looks at these settings in this dialog conjunction with the following principles Before applying a recommendations the exact same recommendation has to occur x number where x is specified by the user Workload Balancing checks for recommendations every two minutes 107 CITRIX Example recommendation 1 Move VM07 to host18 2 Move VMO7 to host20 3 Move VM07 to host18 If 3 was specified for x this is an example where Workload Balancing would not automatically apply the recommendation yet The recommendations have to be exact notice the move to the host is not the same for all three recommendations When you set the aggressiveness setting higher for example Medium Workload Balancing will be less strict In this case Workload Balancing may go ahead and apply the recommendation ignoring the fact that the move to host was not the same To configure VM Recommendation intervals In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab In the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane click Advanced ao A ON In the VM Recommendation Interval section do one or more of the following Inthe Minutes box type a value for the number of minutes you want Workload Balancing to wait before making another optimization recommendation on a newly rebalanced server Inthe Recommenda
302. s a container called a storage repository SR to describe a particular storage target in which Virtual Disk Images VDIs are stored A VDI is a disk abstraction which contains the contents of a virtual disk The interface to storage hardware allows VDIs to be supported on a large number of SR types The XenServer SR is very flexible with built in support for IDE SATA SCSI and SAS drives locally connected and iSCSI NFS SAS and Fibre Channel remotely connected The SR and VDI abstractions allow advanced storage features such as sparse provisioning VDI snapshots and fast cloning to be exposed on storage targets that support them For storage subsystems that do not inherently support advanced operations directly a software stack is provided based on Microsoft s Virtual Hard Disk VHD specification which implements these features Each XenServer host can use multiple SRs and different SR types simultaneously These SRs can be shared between hosts or dedicated to particular hosts Shared storage is pooled between multiple hosts within a defined resource pool A shared SR must be network accessible to each host All hosts in a single resource pool must have at least one shared SR in common SRs are storage targets containing virtual disk images VDIs SR commands provide operations for creating destroying resizing cloning connecting and discovering the individual VDIs that they contain A storage repository is a persistent on disk data stru
303. s as described above Do not modify the other config multipathhandle parameter as this will be done automatically Multipath support in XenServer is based on the device mapper multipathd components Activation and deactivation of multipath nodes is handled automatically by the Storage Manager API Unlike the standard 38 CITRIX dm multipath tools in linux device mapper nodes are not automatically created for all LUNs on the system and it is only when LUNs are actively used by the storage management layer that new device mapper nodes are provisioned It is unnecessary therefore to use any of the dm multipath CLI tools to query or refresh DM table nodes in XenServer Should it be necessary to query the status of device mapper tables manually or list active device mapper multipath nodes on the system use the mpathutil utility e mpathutil list e mpathutil status Unlike the standard dm multipath tools in Linux device mapper nodes are not automatically created for all LUNs on the system As LUNs are actively used by the storage management layer new device mapper nodes are provisioned It is unnecessary to use any of the dm multipath CLI tools to query or refresh DM table nodes in XenServer Note Due to incompatibilities with the integrated multipath management architecture the standard dm multipath CLI utility should not be used with XenServer Please use the mpat hut il CLI tool for querying the status of nodes on the host Note
304. s created corresponding to the host s single NIC e the PIF is configured with the IP addressing options specified during installation and to enable management of the host the PIF is set for use in host management operations e a single network network 0 is created e network 0 is connected to the PIF to enable external connectivity to VMs When a host has multiple NICs the configuration present after installation depends on which NIC is selected for management operations during installation e PIFs are created for each NIC in the host e the PIF of the NIC selected for use as the management interface is configured with the IP addressing options specified during installation e a network is created for each PIF network 0 network 1 etc e each network is connected to one PIF the IP addressing options of all other PIFs are left unconfigured In both cases the resulting networking configuration allows connection to the XenServer host by XenCenter the xe CLI and any other management software running on separate machines via the IP address of the management interface The configuration also provides external networking for VMs created on the host The PIF used for management operations is the only PIF ever configured with an IP address External networking for VMs is achieved by bridging PIFs to VIFs using the network object which acts as a virtual Ethernet switch The steps required for networking features such as VLANs NIC bonds
305. s lists the operations currently in process This list is advisory only and the server state may have changed by the time this field is read by a client patches Set of host patches blobs Binary data store memory free computed A conservative estimate of the maximum amount of memory free on a host ha statefiles The UUID s of all HA statefiles ha network peers The UUIDs of all hosts that could host the VMs on this host in case of failure external auth type Type of external authentication for example Active Directory external auth service name The name of the external authentication service external auth configuration Configuration information for the external authentication service Type read only read write map parameter read only set parameter read only set parameter read only set parameter read only read only read only read only read only read only read only map parameter XenServer hosts contain some other objects that also have parameter lists CPUs on XenServer hosts have the following parameters 153 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the CPU number the number of the physical CPU core read only within the XenServer host vendor the vendor string for the CPU name for read only example Genuinelntel speed The CPU clock speed in Hz read only modelname the vendor string for the CPU model read only for ex
306. s presented and a number of simple VM management examples are discussed Procedures for dealing with physical node failures are also described Hosts and resource pools overview A resource pool comprises multiple XenServer host installations bound together into a single managed entity which can host Virtual Machines When combined with shared storage a resource pool enables VMs to be started on any XenServer host which has sufficient memory and then dynamically moved between XenServer hosts while running with minimal downtime XenMotion If an individual XenServer host suffers a hardware failure then the administrator can restart the failed VMs on another XenServer host in the same resource pool If high availability HA is enabled on the resource pool VMs will automatically be moved if their host fails Up to 16 hosts are supported per resource pool although this restriction is not enforced A pool always has at least one physical node known as the master Only the master node exposes an administration interface used by XenCenter and the XenServer Command Line Interface known as the xe CLI the master forwards commands to individual members as necessary Note If the pool s master fails master re election will only take place if High Availability is enabled Requirements for creating resource pools A resource pool is a homogeneous or heterogeneous with restrictions see the section called Creating heterogeneous resource pools
307. s section discusses how to change the networking configuration of a XenServer host This includes 79 CITRIX changing the hostname e adding or removing DNS servers changing IP addresses e changing which NIC is used as the management interface e adding a new physical NIC to the server Hostname The system hostname is defined in the pool wide database and modified using the xe host set hostname live CLI command as follows xe host set hostname live uuid lt host_uuid gt host name example The underlying control domain hostname changes dynamically to reflect the new hostname DNS servers To add or remove DNS servers in the IP addressing configuration of a XenServer host use the pif reconfigure ip command For example for a PIF with a static IP pif reconfigure ip uuid lt pif_uuid gt mode static DNS lt new_dns_ip gt Changing IP address configuration for a standalone host Network interface configuration can be changed using the xe CLI The underlying network configuration scripts should not be modified directly To modify the IP address configuration of a PIF use the pif reconfigure ip CLI command See the section called pif reconfigure ip for details on the parameters of the pif reconfigure ip command Note See the section called Changing IP address configuration in resource pools for details on changing host IP addresses in resource pools Changing IP address configuration in resource pools XenSe
308. s will be invalid after the bond is enabled xe vm shutdown uuid lt vm_uuid gt Use the network create command to create a new network for use with the bonded NIC The UUID of the new network is returned xe network create name label lt bond0 gt Use the pif list command to determine the UUIDs of the PIFs to use in the bond xe pif list Use the bond create command to create the bond separated by commas specify the newly created network UUID and the UUIDs of the PIFs to be bonded The UUID for the bond is returned xe bond create network uuid lt network_uuid gt pif uuids lt pif_uuid_1 gt lt pif_uuid_2 gt Note See the section called Controlling the MAC address of the bond for details on controlling the MAC address used for the bond PIF Use the pif list command to determine the UUID of the new bond PIF xe pif list device lt bond0 gt Use the pif reconfigure ip command to configure the desired management interface IP address settings for the bond PIF See Appendix A Command line interface for more detail on the options available for the pif reconfigure ip command xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt mode DHCP Use the host management reconfigure command to move the management interface from the existing physical PIF to the bond PIF This step will activate the bond xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt 74 CITRIX 8 Use the pif reconfigure ip command to remov
309. se by default The vm data source record command sets enabled false Once enabled you can stop recording the metrics of the data source by running the vm data source forget command The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm destroy vm destroy uuid lt uuid_ of vm gt Destroy the specified VM This leaves the storage associated with the VM intact To delete storage as well use xe vm uninstall vm disk add vm disk add disk size lt size_of disk _to_add gt device lt uuid_of device gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Add a new disk to the specified VMs Select the device parameter from the value of the al 1owed VBD devices parameter of the VMs 205 CITRIX The disk size parameter can be specified in bytes or using the IEC standard suffixes KiB 21 bytes MiB 2 bytes GiB 2 bytes and TiB 2 bytes The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm disk list vm disk list vbd params vdi params lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Lists disks attached to the specified VMs The vbd params and vdi params param
310. served to account for background snapshot data collection and to ensure that writes to disk are never blocked In addition to the double disk space guarantee Ontap also requires some additional space reservation for management of unique blocks across snapshots The guideline on this amount is 20 above the reserved space The space guarantees afforded by thick provisioning will reserve up to 2 4 times the requested virtual disk space The alternative allocation strategy is thin provisioning which allows the administrator to present more storage space to the VMs connecting to the SR than is actually available on the SR There are no space guarantees and allocation of a LUN does not claim any data blocks in the FlexVol until the VM writes data This might be appropriate for development and test environments where you might find it convenient to over provision virtual disk space on the SR in the anticipation that VMs might be created and destroyed frequently without ever utilizing the full virtual allocated disk Warning If you are using thin provisioning in production environments take appropriate measures to ensure that you never run out of storage space VMs attached to storage that is full will fail to write to disk and in some cases may fail to read from disk possibly rendering the VM unusable FAS Deduplication FAS Deduplication is a NetApp technology for reclaiming redundant disk space Newly stored data objects are divided into small bl
311. set to on to enable UDP fragment read write offload off to disable other config ethtool gso set to on to enable generic segmentation read write offload off to disable blobs Binary data store read only network create network create name label lt name_for_network gt name description lt descriptive_text gt Creates a new network network destroy network destroy uuid lt network_uuid gt Destroys an existing network Patch update commands Commands for working with XenServer host patches updates These are for the standard non OEM editions of XenServer for commands relating to updating the OEM edition of XenServer see the section called Update commands for details The patch objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe patch list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Patch parameters Patches have the following parameters Parameter Name Description uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the patch host uuid The unique identifier for the XenServer read only host to query name label The name of the patch read only name description The description string of the patch read only 164 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type applied Whether or not the patch has been read only applied true or false size Whether or not the patch has been read only appl
312. shotTypeList gt lt snapshotType gt CLONE lt snapshotType gt lt snapshotTypeList gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt lt snapshotCapabilities gt sl__snapshotMethodInfo gt snapshotMethodInfoList gt ageSystemInfo gt ystemInfoList gt 57 CITRIX You can use grep to filter the sr probe output to just the storage pool IDs xe sr probe type cslg device config target 192 168 128 10 grep storageSystemid lt storageSystemId gt EMC__CLARIION__APM00074902515 lt storageSystemId gt lt storageSystemId gt HP__EVA__50014380013C0240 lt storageSystemId gt lt storageSystemId gt NETAPP__LUN__OAD4F00A lt storageSystemId gt 4 Add the desired storage system ID to the sr probe command to identify the storage pools available within the specified storage system xe sr probe type cslg device config target 192 168 128 10 device config storageSystemId HP__EVA__50014380013C0240 lt xml version 1 0 encoding iso 8859 1 gt lt csl__storagePoolInfoList gt lt csl__storagePoolInfo gt lt displayName gt Default Disk Group lt displayName gt lt friendlyName gt Default Disk Group lt friendlyName gt lt storagePoolId gt 00010710B4080560B6AB08000080000000000400 lt storagePoolld gt lt parentStoragePoollId gt lt parentStoragePoollId gt lt storageSystemId gt HP__EVA__50014380013C0240 lt storageSystemId gt lt sizeInMB gt 1957099 lt sizeInMB gt
313. sing Workload Balancing Reports for Tasks 2 0 0 cccie teeter erent nent neni nt rnrn rununu EEEE EEEE nnna 115 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Optimization Thresholds 0ooooooccocococoncononcoronanrnnnoro canos 115 Generating and Managing Workload Balancing Reports 0 0 0 0 ceeeeeeeeee ener eee ee teeta teeta ee neneaetnenes 115 To generate a Workload Balancing report 0 cece cece ened e eee ee ee tees teeter eter eeeeeees 115 To subscribe to a Workload Balancing report occoccccncocononcnnnonononcnnnnnoronancrnnnronenarnrnrnrennnos 115 To cancela report SUDSCHPLION sicssctadstdrcans sanded daaeecdas Miandad orien named T EEA EE canes 116 To navigate in a Workload Balancing Report ccccece cece cece eee e eee teeta tees eset ee eeeeeeeeeees 116 To print a Workload Balancing report 0 cece eee eee eee eee teen etter teeter ee ee eterna 117 To export a Workload Balancing report ccccee cece cece cece e cece ee ee ee eee teeta eaeatatanenes 117 xi gt C TRIX Displaying Workload Balancing Reports occccccccccncncncocncncncncnnncnnncnnonononananannncncnrnnrnnaranananananananes Report Generation Features 2 2 0 0 cece eect eee tee eee nent nett t nent ett e en ea ea eaeaeaeaeaees Toolbar IBUTONMS sorna a E E eer pected Meta Ae Workload Balancing Report GloSSary ccccee cece eee eee eee eee e tee e tee e este teeter ee EEEEEEEEEEE EEE Host Healthy ESTOY air A A A iaa Pool Op
314. specified the MAC address of the first PIF listed in the pi f uuids parameter is used for the bond Reverting NIC bonds If reverting a XenServer host to a non bonded configuration be aware of the following requirements As when creating a bond all VMs with VIFs on the bond must be shut down prior to destroying the bond After reverting to a non bonded configuration reconnect the VIFs to an appropriate network e Move the management interface to another PIF using the pif reconfigure ip and host management reconfigure commands prior to issuing the bond destroy command otherwise connections to the host including XenCenter will be dropped Creating NIC bonds in resource pools Whenever possible create NIC bonds as part of initial resource pool creation prior to joining additional hosts to the pool or creating VMs Doing so allows the bond configuration to be automatically replicated to hosts as they are joined to the pool and reduces the number of steps required Adding a NIC bond to an existing pool requires creating the bond configuration manually on the master and each of the members of the pool Adding a NIC bond to an existing pool after VMs have been installed is also a disruptive operation as all VMs in the pool must be shut down Citrix recommends using XenCenter to create NIC bonds For details refer to the XenCenter help This section describes using the xe CLI to create bonded NIC interfaces on XenServer hosts that comprise a
315. ssword the computers running XenServer will use to connect to the Workload Balancing server This must be the account or group that was configured during the installation of the Workload Balancing Server For information see the section called Authorization for Workload Balancing d In the XenServer Credentials section enter the user name and password for the pool you are configuring typically the password for the pool master Workload Balancing will use these credentials to connect to the computers running XenServer in that pool To use the credentials with which you are currently logged into XenServer select the Use the current XenCenter credentials check box Uninstalling Workload Balancing Citrix recommends uninstalling Workload Balancing from the Control Panel in Windows When you uninstall Workload Balancing only the Workload Balancing software is removed from the Workload Balancing server The data store remains on the system running SQL Server To remove a Workload Balancing data store you must use the SQL Server Management Studio SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 If you want to uninstall both Workload Balancing and SQL Server from your computer uninstall Workload Balancing first and then delete the database using the SQL Server Management Studio The data directory usually located at C Documents and Settings All Users Application Data Citrix Workload Balancing Data is not removed when you uninstall Workload Bala
316. st This will return a list of XenServer users their uuid and the roles they are associated with 15 CITRIX uuid RO bb6dd239 1fa9 a06b a497 3be28b8dca4 4 subject identifier RO S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2244 other config MRO subject name example01 user_vm_admin subject upn user_vm_admin XENDT NET subject uid 1823475908 subject gid 1823474177 subject sid S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2244 subject gecos user_vm_admin subject displayname user_vm_admin subject is group false subject account disabled false subject account expired false subject account locked false subject password expired false roles SRO vm admin uuid RO 4fe89a50 6ala d9dd afb9 b554cd00c0la subject identifier RO S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2245 other config MRO subject name example02 user_vm_op subject upn user_vm_op XENDT NET subject uid 1823475909 subject gid 1823474177 subject sid S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2245 subject gecos user_vm_op subject displayname user_vm_op subject is group false subject account disabled false subject account expired false subject account locked false subject password expired false roles SRO vm operator uuid RO 8a63fbf0 9ef4 4fef b4a5 b42984c27267 subject identifier RO S 1 5 21 1539997073 1618981536 2562117463 2242 other config MRO su
317. sts_for e ha_pool_overcommitted e ha_protected_vm_restart_failed e ha_statefile lost e host_clock_skew_detected e host_sync_data_failed 136 CITRIX e license_does_not_support_pooling e pbd_plug_failed_on_server_start e pool_master_transition The following alerts appear on the performance graphs in XenCenter See the XenCenter online help for more information e vm_cloned e vm_crashed e vm_rebooted vm_resumed e vm_shutdown e vm_started vm_suspended Customizing Alerts The performance monitoring perfmon runs once every 5 minutes and requests updates from XenServer which are averages over 1 minute but these defaults can be changed in etc sysconfig perfmon Every 5 minutes perfmon reads updates of performance variables exported by the XAPI instance running on the same host These variables are separated into one group relating to the host itself and a group for each VM running on that host For each VM and also for the host perfmon reads in the other config perfmon parameter and uses this string to determine which variables it should monitor and under which circumstances to generate a message vm other config perfmon and host other config perfmon values consist of an XML string like the one below lt config gt lt variable gt lt name value cpu_usage gt lt alarm_trigger_level value LEVEL gt lt variable gt lt variable gt lt name value network_usage gt lt alarm_trigger_lev
318. subscription functionality as described in the section called Configuring Optimization Intervals Report Subscriptions and Data Storage 1 After generating a report as described in the previous procedure click Subscribe 2 In the New Subscription for a Report dialog box name the subscription 3 Configure the following fields as you require e To Use semi colons to separate multiple email addresses From Enter email address you want to appear as the sender e BCC Sends a copy of the report to somebody without their name appearing in the email s receiver list of report subscribers Reply To Enter the name of the person to whom report subscribers should direct their inquiries about the report For example if somebody has a question about a data point you might want them to have them email the administrator for that resource pool when they click Reply This is a required field Subject Enter the text you want to appear in the Subject line of the email Format You can choose from one of three report delivery formats PDF JPEG and Excel Comments Workload Balancing add the text you enter to the email that delivers the report 4 In the Schedule Options section create the schedule for delivering the reports and click OK e Configure the duration of the time interval on which the report s data is based For example if you want it to always generate the most recent week s data then select Last Week Run at The time at wh
319. t NetApp technology see the following links 45 C TRIX e General information on NetApp products Data ONTAP e FlexVol e FlexClone e RAID DP e Snapshot FilerView Creating a shared NetApp SR over iSCSI Device config parameters for netapp SRs Parameter Name Description Optional target the IP address or hostname of the NetApp server that hosts no the SR port the port to use for connecting to the NetApp server that hosts yes the SR Default is port 80 usehttps specifies whether to use a secure TLS based connection to yes the NetApp server that hosts the SR true false Default is false username the login username used to manage the LUNs on the filer no password the login password used to manage the LUNs on the filer no aggregate the aggregate name on which the FlexVol is created Required for sr_create FlexVols the number of FlexVols to allocate to each SR yes chapuser the username for CHAP authentication yes chappassword the password for CHAP authentication yes allocation specifies whether to provision LUNs using thick or thin yes provisioning Default is thick asis specifies whether to use FAS Deduplication if available yes Default is false Setting the SR other config multiplier parameter to a valid value adjusts the default multiplier attribute By default XenServer allocates 2 4 times the requested space to account for snapshot and metadata overhead associated with each LUN To save disk space you ca
320. t for field x to take any value other than y Example wait for a specific VM to be running xe event wait class vm name label myvm power state running Blocks other commands until a VM called myvm is in the power state running Example wait for a specific VM to reboot xe event wait class vm uuid VM start time xe vm list uuid VM params start time minimal Blocks other commands until a VM with UUID VM reboots i e has a different start time value The class name can be any of the Event classes listed at the beginning of this section and the parameters can be any of those listed in the CLI command class param list Host XenServer host commands Commands for interacting with XenServer host XenServer hosts are the physical servers running XenServer software They have VMs running on them under the control of a special privileged Virtual Machine known as the control domain or domain 0 The XenServer host objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe host list xe host cpu list and xe host crashdump list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Host selectors Several of the commands listed here have a common mechanism for selecting one or more XenServer hosts on which to perform the operation The simplest is by supplying the argument host lt uuid_or_name_label gt XenServer hosts can also be specified by
321. t for hosts with varying CPUs to be part of the same resource pool then the pool joining operation can be forced by passing a force parameter 19 CITRIX Note The requirement for a XenServer host to have a static IP address to be part of a resource pool also applies to servers providing shared NFS or iSCSI storage for the pool Although not a strict technical requirement for creating a resource pool the advantages of pools for example the ability to dynamically choose on which XenServer host to run a VM and to dynamically move a VM between XenServer hosts are only available if the pool has one or more shared storage repositories If possible postpone creating a pool of XenServer hosts until shared storage is available Once shared storage has been added Citrix recommends that you move existing VMs whose disks are in local storage into shared storage This can be done using the xe vm copy command or XenCenter Creating a resource pool Resource pools can be created using either the XenCenter management console or the CLI When you join a new host to a resource pool the joining host synchronizes its local database with the pool wide one and inherits some settings from the pool e VM local and remote storage configuration is added to the pool wide database All of these will still be tied to the joining host in the pool unless you explicitly take action to make the resources shared after the join has completed The joining host in
322. t to ensure Setup can use the credentials you provided to contact the database server 8 In the Database Information page select Install a new Workload Balancing data store and type the name you want to assign to the Workload Balancing database in SQL Server The default database name is WorkloadBalancing 9 In the Web Service Host Account Information page edit the port number if necessary The port is set to 8012 by default Note If you change the port here you must also change it on XenServer using either the Connect to WLB Server dialog or the XE commands Make sure that the port you specify for the Web Service is open in any firewalls including the Windows Firewall 10For the account on the Workload Balancing server that XenServer will use to connect to Workload Balancing select the authorization type User or Group and type one of the following e User name Enter the name of the account you created for XenServer for example workloadbalancing_user e Group name Enter the group name containing the account you want XenServer to use Specifying the authorization type lets Workload Balancing recognize the XenServer s connection For more information see the section called Authorization for Workload Balancing You do not specify the password until you configure Workload Balancing Note Specifying the Domain Users Group as the authorization type that is the group in Workload Balancing installation is not supp
323. t2 to join the pool on XenServer host host by issuing the command xe pool Join master address lt host1 gt master username lt administrators_username gt master password lt password gt The master address must be set to the fully qualified domain name of XenServer host host and the password must be the administrator password set when XenServer host host1 was installed Naming a resource pool e XenServer hosts belong to an unnamed pool by default To create your first resource pool rename the existing nameless pool Use tab complete to find the pool_uuid 20 CITRIX xe pool param set name label lt New Pool gt uuid lt pool_uuid gt Creating heterogeneous resource pools Note Heterogeneous resource pool creation is only available for XenServer Enterprise or Platinum editions To learn more about XenServer editions and to find out how to upgrade visit the Citrix website here here XenServer 5 6 simplifies expanding deployments over time by allowing disparate host hardware to be joined into a resource pool known as heterogeneous resource pools Heterogeneous resource pools are made possible by leveraging technologies in recent Intel FlexMigration and AMD Extended Migration CPUs that provide CPU masking or leveling These features allow a CPU to be configured to appear as providing a different make model or functionality than it actually does This enables you to create pools of hosts with disparate CPUs but stil
324. tcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 3 gt end lt 0 gt filename lt optimization_performance_history txt gt xe pool retrieve wlb report report pool_health_history poolid lt 5le411f1 62f4 e462 fled 97c626703cae gt utcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 3 gt end lt 0 gt lt filename pool_health_history txt gt xe pool retrieve wlb report report vm_movement_history poolid lt 51le411f1 62f4 e462 fled 97c626703cae gt utcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 5 gt end lt 0 gt filename lt vm_movement_history txt gt xe pool retrieve wlb report report vm_performance_history hostid lt e26685cd 1789 4f 90 8e47 a4fd0509b4a4 gt utcoffset lt 5 gt start lt 3 gt end lt 0 gt lt filename vm_performance_history txt gt pool send wlb configuration Modifies Workload Balancing configuration settings including thresholds WLB power management settings and weightings It is not mandatory to configure all settings with the command You can configure only some parameters but not all if desired Before using the pool send wlb configuration command learn about the default values on your system by running pool retrieve wlb configuration When you run the pool retrieve wlb configuration command additional parameters appear that are not documented in this section Citrix does not recommend editing these parameters pool send wlb configuration config HostMemoryThresholdC
325. ted 77 CITRIX To add NIC bonds to the pool master and other hosts 1 10 11 12 Use the network create command to create a new pool wide network for use with the bonded NICs This step should only be performed once per pool The UUID of the new network is returned xe network create name label lt bond0 gt Use XenCenter or the vm shutdown command to shut down all VMs in the host pool to force all existing VIFs to be unplugged from their current networks The existing VIFs will be invalid after the bond is enabled xe vm shutdown uuid lt vm_uuid gt Use the host list command to find the UUID of the host being configured xe host list Use the pif list command to determine the UUIDs of the PIFs to use in the bond Include the host uuid parameter to list only the PIFs on the host being configured xe pif list host uuid lt host_uuid gt Use the bond create command to create the bond specifying the network UUID created in step 1 and the UUIDs of the PIFs to be bonded separated by commas The UUID for the bond is returned xe bond create network uuid lt network_uuid gt pif uuids lt pif_uuid_1 gt lt pif_uuid_2 gt Note See the section called Controlling the MAC address of the bond for details on controlling the MAC address used for the bond PIF Use the pif list command to determine the UUID of the new bond PIF Include the host uuid parameter to list only the PIFs on the host being configured
326. tem for the VM PV drivers version the versions of the read only map parameter paravirtualized drivers for the VM 200 CITRIX Parameter Name PV drivers up to date memory disks networks other guest metrics last updated actions after shutdown actions after reboot possible hosts dom id recommendations xenstore data is a snapshot snapshot_of snapshots Description flag for latest version of the paravirtualized drivers for the VM memory metrics reported by the agent on the VM disk metrics reported by the agent on the VM network metrics reported by the agent on the VM other metrics reported by the agent on the VM timestamp when the last write to these fields was performed by the in guest agent in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT action to take after the VM has shutdown action to take after the VM has rebooted potential hosts of this VM domain ID if available 1 otherwise XML specification of recommended values and ranges for properties of this VM data to be inserted into the xenstore tree local domain lt domid gt vm data after the VM is created True if this VM is a snapshot the UUID of the VM this is a snapshot of the UUID s of all snapshots of this VM 201 Type read only read only map parameter read only map parameter read only map parameter read only map
327. terface which must be used as the overall PIF to refer to the bond The member PIFs are a set of 2 or more physical interfaces which have been combined into the high level bonded interface Bond parameters Bonds have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid unique identifier object reference for the read only bond master UUID for the master bond PIF read only members at UUIDs for the underlying bonded read only set parameter Ss bond create bond create network uuid lt network_uuid gt pif uuids lt pif_uuid_1 pif_uuid_2 gt Create a bonded network interface on the network specified from a list of existing PIF objects The command will fail if PIFs are in another bond already if any member has a VLAN tag set if the referenced PIFs are not on the same XenServer host or if fewer than 2 PIFs are supplied bond destroy host bond destroy uuid lt bond_uuid gt Delete a bonded interface specified by its UUID from the XenServer host 147 CITRIX CD commands Commands for working with physical CD DVD drives on XenServer hosts CD parameters CDs have the following parameters Parameter Name uuid name label name description allowed operations current operations sr uuid sr name label vbd uuids crashdump uuids virtual size physical Utilization type sharable read only storage lock parent Description unique identifier object reference for the CD Na
328. ters 34 LVM performance considerations oococococccccocccococccononononananonononcncncnnnrnnna ra ranananenerernrnrnnnrncnrenenese 34 WII DGS io tia ot int ias 34 Creating a raw virtual disk using the xe CLI oo cert er er tinnu tititi rnnrnrenenrrnrnnnres 34 Converting between VDI POMMALS usio occiso cite 35 Probing an Occ a O a aa atlas a aA 35 Storage MUTATING iii altea 38 Storage Repository IYPES eaen A aa de 39 Local Mod 40 Creating a local LVM SR IVM cccceceecec eee ecne eee eeeeeeee eens ee eeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeaeeeeeeaneneenenees 40 Local EXITS WED iss ooo iaa saree a palavararetaeseareas aeeratamads 40 Creating a local EXIS SR EXI it iaa NE 40 A A chai E E e EAS E nla E E A E AE E E E a a Aa 41 DO E E E E E E ARO 41 A RN 41 CITRIX Creating a shared Equallogic Rivas a e 41 EqualLogic VDI Snapshot space allocation with XenServer EqualLogic Adapter ooooioicicccccccccnooo 42 Greating a VDI USING ANE GLU sow s citing anitesteonyiecicigein danenieneray atoning aint a a panini Geraint 43 NGAP e a o cembacncaseet su waatanesnaubianscaa Dando R 43 Creating a shared NetApp SR over iSCSI oococcccccccncncncncncncncncononononononcnnncnnnnnnnnnancncnnncncns 46 Managing VDIS na NetApp SA iio as 47 Taking VDI snapshots with a NetApp SR ococococccocococncocncocococononanananoncnnncncncnnnrnnnananananananess 47 Software ISCSI SUPPO airna argued dete cana cen Anottaneis eben hahaene died aonentuaeltind tent a aE 47
329. tes you prevent workload 106 CITRIX balancing from generating artificial recommendations for this period by setting the Relocation interval to more than an hour e If server loads and activity increase gradually in your environment you may want to increase the number of minutes for the optimization interval When Automation is configured it is especially important to be careful when modifying the optimization interval If an issue occurs that leads to continuous recurring spikes increasing the frequency setting a lower number can generate many recommendations and consequently relocations Note Setting an optimization interval does not affect how long Workload Balancing waits to factor recently rebalanced servers into the servers it recommends for Start On placement Resume and Maintenance Mode Number of Times an Optimization Recommendation is Made When you enable Automation you can specify how many times you want Workload Balancing to wait before it accepts applies its optimization recommendations Accepting optimization recommendations uses system resources and affects performance while Workload Balancing is relocating the virtual machines Setting this interval prevents Workload Balancing from applying optimization recommendations too soon after the last optimization for example if there was a temporary utilization spike The interval you choose to set depends on factors such as the following e If server loads an
330. that specify additional configuration parameters for the template start time timestamp of the date and read only time that the metrics for a VM based on this template were read in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT set to 1 Jan 1970 Z beginning of Unix POSIX epoch for a template install time timestamp of the date and read only time that the metrics for a VM based on this template were read in the form yyyymmddThh mm ss z where z is the single letter military timezone indicator for example Z for UTC GMT set to 1 Jan 1970 Z beginning of Unix POSIX epoch for a template 182 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type memory actual the actual memory being read only used by a VM based on this template 0 for a template VCPUs number the number of virtual CPUs read only assigned to a VM based on this template 0 for a template VCPUs Utilization list of virtual CPUs and their read only map parameter weight os version the version of the operating read only map parameter system for a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt fora template PV drivers version the versions of the read only map parameter paravirtualized drivers for a VM based on this template appears as lt not in database gt for a template PV drivers up to date flag for latest version of the read only paravirtualized drivers for a VM based on t
331. ther config parameter of a VM to baa the command would be xe vm param set uuid lt VM uuid gt other config foo baa Note In previous releases the separator dash was used in specifying map parameters This syntax still works but is deprecated Low level param commands There are several commands for operating on parameters of objects lt class gt param get lt class gt param set lt class gt param add lt class gt param remove lt class gt param clear and lt class gt param list Each of these takes a uuid parameter to specify the particular object Since these are considered low level commands they must be addressed by UUID and not by the VM name label lt class gt param 1ist uuid lt uuid gt Lists all of the parameters and their associated values Unlike the class list command this will list the values of expensive fields 145 e CITRIX lt class gt param get uuid lt uuid gt param name lt parameter gt param key lt key gt Returns the value of a particular parameter If the parameter is a map specifying the param key will get the value associated with that key in the map If param key is not specified or if the parameter is a set it will return a string representation of the set or map lt class gt param set uuid lt uuid gt param lt value gt Sets the value of one or more parameters lt class gt param add uuid lt uuid gt param name lt parameter gt lt key gt lt value gt pa
332. tify users of significant events and are displayed in XenCenter as system alerts Message parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid The unique identifier object reference for read only the message name The unique name of the message read only priority The message priority Higher numbers read only indicate greater priority class The message class for example VM read only obj uuid The uuid of the affected object read only timestamp The time that the message was read only generated body The message content read only message create message create name lt message_name gt body lt message_text gt host uuid lt uuid_of host gt sr uuid lt uuid_of_sr gt vm uuid lt uuid_of_vm gt pool uuid lt uuid_of_pool gt Creates a new message message list message list Lists all messages or messages that match the specified standard selectable parameters 162 CITRIX Network commands Commands for working with networks The network objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe network list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details Network parameters Networks have the following parameters Parameter Name uuid name label name description VIF uuids PIF uuids bridge other config static routes other config ethtool autoneg other config ethtool rx
333. til the pool s workload decreases enough to power off servers When you configure Workload Balancing to power off extra servers automatically it applies these recommendations automatically and consequently behaves in the same way When you enable Power Management you do so at the resource pool level However you can specify the individual hosts from the pool for which you want enable Power Management Understanding Power Management Behavior Before Workload Balancing powers servers on or off it selects the hosts to transfer virtual machines to that is to fill according to which hosts have the most virtual machines running This means that to encourage density it fills the most loaded server first The host with the most virtual machines is filled first takes precedence The pool master is filled last lowest level of precedence so that it is not overloaded 101 Workload Balancing Optimization ecommendations E Fill Order Host with Most VMs Pool Master are VM movement Host with Least VMs XenServer Resource Pool If Workload Balancing detects a performance issue while the pool is in Maximum Density mode it attempts to address the issue by recommending migrating workloads among the powered on hosts If Workload Balancing cannot resolve the issue using this method it attempts to power on a host Workload Balancing determines which host s to power on by applying the same criteria it wo
334. timization Performance HIStOMY ccccececcceee cece eee ee ee ee eee ee eases ee ee eee eeeateseaeaeeeeaeneenes RoolAUdIt LOUIS suites dt ocio Audit Log Event Names iii angie ohh sheeted e A A E E tae Pool Hrs ii is Pool Heathi ASt ar A ie Pool Optimization HIStONY iii A id Virtual Machine Motion History ccccceccceeceeeeeeeeeee eases ease e esse ee eee esse eee eeeaseeeeeateesaeaenesaeas Virtual Machine Performance History sccce cccssak ceded ca a 117 117 118 118 119 119 120 120 121 121 122 122 Backup and recovery concncccnccconnnonenannonanonenannnnananenancnnnnanenananonnnnonananenananzan 129 O NO Full metadata backup and disaster recovery DR ooooococococccccccocococococononononcncncncncnnnnnn nono nananannnnanananans DR and metadata backup OVeIVIeW ocococcccncncncncncncncncncononononononononanana nana nananannnenrnenenananananannnns Backup and restore USING XSCOMSOIS io seroelege i a E O E ane Moving SRs between hosts and POOlS ssicticisestsaas des o ii ti pci dee AER Using Portable SRs for Manual Multi Site Disaster Recovery ccececee tent eeeeeeeee tees ee ee et eeeeenenes VMESIMAEDSOTS das sic cieclajrtaddans lis Regular SMADSMOLS tri Quiescod nap tallos Nail Snapshots witht MeMON iii Greating a VM SNAPSHOT unicidad ee Creating a snapshot with Memory ccce cece cece eee renee eee ene e eee eee eee een ea tata eaeeeenenees To list all of
335. tions for more information To apply optimization recommendations automatically In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab In the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane click Automation Power Management ao A OO N gt Select one or more of the following check boxes Automatically apply Optimization recommendations When you select this option you do not need to accept optimization recommendations manually Workload Balancing automatically accepts optimization and placement recommendations it makes Automatically apply Power Management recommendations When you select this option it specifies for Workload Balancing to implement Power Management recommendations it makes without requiring you to accept them manually If you want Workload Balancing to power off hosts automatically during low usage periods select this option To apply power recommendations automatically Workload Balancing requires you to configure it to apply optimizations automatically 6 Specify the number of minutes Workload Balancing waits before it applies an optimization recommendation The default is three minutes 7 Select the lowest level of optimization recommendation that you want Workload Balancing to apply automatically The default is High 8 Continue on to select specific servers for power management or exit the dialog To select servers for power ma
336. tions box type a value for the number of optimization recommendations you want Workload Balancing to make before it applies an optimization recommendation automatically Select a minimum severity level before optimizations are applied automatically e Modify how aggressively Workload Balancing applies optimization recommendations when it is running in Automated mode Increasing the aggressiveness level reduces constraints on the consistency of recommendations before automatically applying them The Aggressiveness setting directly complements the Number of Optimization Recommendations setting Note If you specify 1 for the value in the Number of Optimization Recommendations setting the Aggressiveness setting is not relevant Receiving Reports by Email Automatically Report Subscriptions Workload Balancing lets you subscribe to reports so that they are delivered automatically by email on a schedule that you configure This feature is known as Report Subscriptions Configuring report subscriptions requires two tasks 1 Enabling Report Subscriptions by configuring the name of the email server 2 Specifying the report to which you want to subscribe as described in To subscribe to a Workload Balancing report Instead of using the default report delivery mechanism included with the report subscriptions feature you can configure for Workload Balancing to deliver reports using SQL Server Reporting Services In large environments espe
337. ual machines listed in the Optimization Recommendations section to their recommended servers After you click Apply Recommendations XenCenter automatically displays the Logs tab so you can see the progress of the virtual machine migration Administering Workload Balancing Some administrative tasks you may want to perform on Workload Balancing include e Disabling Workload Balancing on a pool either permanently or temporarily e the section called Reconfiguring a Pool to Use Another WLB Server server that a pool uses Changing the credentials Workload Balancing or XenServer use to communicate 110 e CITRIX e Uninstalling Workload Balancing Disabling Workload Balancing You can disable Workload Balancing for a resource pool either temporarily or permanently e Temporarily Disabling Workload Balancing temporarily stops XenCenter from displaying recommendations for the specified resource pool When you disable Workload Balancing temporarily data collection stops for that resource pool e Permanently Disabling Workload Balancing permanently deletes information about the specified resource pool from the data store and stops data collection for that pool To disable Workload Balancing on a pool 1 In the Resource pane of XenCenter select the resource pool for which you want to disable Workload Balancing 2 In the WLB tab click Disable WLB The Disable Workload Balancing dialog box appears 3 Click Yes to disable Workload Bal
338. uld if the optimization mode was set to Maximum Performance If while migrating one or more virtual machines Workload Balancing determines that increasing capacity benefit the pool s overall performance it turns hosts back on automatically or recommends doing so Important Workload Balancing never recommends powering on a host unless Workload Balancing powered it off Designing Environments for Power Management and VM Consolidation When you are planning a XenServer implementation and you intend to configure automatic VM consolidation and power management consider your workload design For example you may want to Place Different Types of Workloads in Separate Pools If you have an environment with distinct types of workloads for example user applications versus domain controllers or types of applications that perform 102 CITRIX better with certain types of hardware consider if you need to locate the virtual machines hosting these workloads in different pools Because power management and VM consolidation are managed at the pool level you should design pools so they contain workloads that you want consolidated at the same rate factoring in considerations such as those discussed in the section called Configuring Optimization Intervals Report Subscriptions and Data Storage Exclude Hosts from Workload Balancing Some hosts may need to be on at all times See the section called Excluding Hosts from Recommenda
339. umber or the SCSI ID as included in the lt path gt property to identify the desired LUN 50 CITRIX xe sr probe type lvmohba host uuid 1212c7b3 f333 4a8d a6fb 80c5b79b5b31 Error code SR_BACKEND_FAILURE_90 Error parameters The request is missing the device parameter lt xml version 1 0 gt lt Devlist gt lt BlockDevice gt lt path gt dev disk by id scsi 360a9800068666949673446387665336f lt path gt lt vendor gt HITACHI lt vendor gt lt serial gt 730157980002 lt serial gt lt size gt 80530636800 lt size gt lt adapter gt 4 lt adapter gt lt channel gt 0 lt channel gt lt id gt 4 lt id gt lt lun gt 2 lt lun gt lt hba gt qla2xxx lt hba gt lt BlockDevice gt lt Adapter gt lt host gt Host4 lt host gt lt name gt qla2xxx lt name gt lt manufacturer gt QLogic HBA Driver lt manufacturer gt lt id gt 4 lt id gt lt Adapter gt lt Devlist gt 4 On the master host of the pool create the SR specifying the global device path returned in the lt path gt property from sr probe PBDs will be created and plugged for each host in the pool automatically xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example shared LVM over HBA SR gt shared true device config SCSIid lt device_scsi_id gt type lvmohba 51 CITRIX Note You can use the BRAND_CONSOLE Repair Storage Repository funct
340. un the command xe host power on host lt host uuid gt Configuring a Custom Script for XenServer s Host Power On Feature If your servers remote power solution uses a protocol that is not supported by default such as Wake On Ring or Intel Active Management Technology you can create a custom Linux Python script to turn on your XenServer computers remotely However you can also can create custom scripts for iLO DRAC and Wake On LAN remote power solutions This topic provides information about configuring a custom script for Host Power On using the key value pairs associated with the XenServer API call host power_on When you create a custom script run it from the command line each time you want to control power remotely on XenServer Alternatively you can specify it in XenCenter and use the XenCenter UI features to interact with it The XenServer API is documented in the document the Citrix XenServer Management API which is available from the Citrix Web site Note Do not modify the scripts provided by default in the etc xapi d plugins directory You can include new scripts in this directory but you should never modify the scripts contained in that directory after installation Key Value Pairs To use Host Power On you must configure the host power_on_mode and host power_on_config keys Their values are provided below There is also an API call that lets you set these fields all at once void host set_host_power_o
341. upgraded verify that its sm config use_vhd key is true To check if a VDI was created with type raw check its sm config map The sr param list and vdi param list xe commands can be used respectively for this purpose Creating a raw virtual disk using the xe CLI 1 Run the following command to create a VDI given the UUID of the SR you want to place the virtual disk in 34 CITRIX xe vdi create sr uuid lt sr uuid gt type user virtual size lt virtual size gt name label lt VDI name gt sm config type raw 2 Attach the new virtual disk to a VM and use your normal disk tools within the VM to partition and format or otherwise make use of the new disk You can use the vbd create command to create a new VBD to map the virtual disk into your VM Converting between VDI formats It is not possible to do a direct conversion between the raw and VHD formats Instead you can create a new VDI either raw as described above or VHD if the SR has been upgraded or was created on XenServer 5 5 or later and then copy data into it from an existing volume Citrix recommends that you use the xe CLI to ensure that the new VDI has a virtual size at least as big as the VDI you are copying from by checking its virtual size field for example by using the vdi param list command You can then attach this new VDI to a VM and use your preferred tool within the VM standard disk management tools in Windows or the dd command in Linux to do a direct block
342. urations the active directory server may provide the DNS itself This can be achieved either using DHCP to provide the IP address and a list of DNS servers to the XenServer host or by setting values in the PIF objects or using the installer if a manual static configuration is used Citrix recommends enabling DHCP to broadcast host names In particular the host names localhost or linux should not be assigned to hosts Note the following e XenServer hostnames should be unique throughout the XenServer deployment XenServer labels its AD entry on the AD database using its hostname Therefore if two XenServer hosts have the same hostname and are joined to the same AD domain the second XenServer will overwrite the AD entry of the first XenServer regardless of if they are in the same or in different pools causing the AD authentication on the first XenServer to stop working Itis possible to use the same hostname in two XenServer hosts as long as they join different AD domains e The servers can be in different time zones as it is the UTC time that is compared To ensure synchronization is correct you may choose to use the same NTP servers for your XenServer pool and the Active Directory server e Mixed authentication pools are not supported that is you cannot have a pool where some servers in the pool are configured to use Active Directory and some are not e The XenServer Active Directory integration uses the Kerberos protocol to communi
343. users from Active Directory However all users will have the Pool Administrator role These permissions are granted through roles as discussed in the section called Authenticating users using Active Directory AD Authenticating users using Active Directory AD If you want to have multiple user accounts on a server or a pool you must use Active Directory user accounts for authentication This lets XenServer users log in to a pool s XenServers using their Windows domain credentials The only way you can configure varying levels of access for specific users is by enabling Active Directory authentication adding user accounts and assign roles to those accounts Active Directory users can use the xe CLI passing appropriate u and pw arguments and also connect to the host using XenCenter Authentication is done on a per resource pool basis Access is controlled by the use of subjects A subject in XenServer maps to an entity on your directory server either a user or a group When external authentication is enabled the credentials used to create a session are first checked against the local root credentials in case your directory server is unavailable and then against the subject list To permit access you must create a subject entry for the person or group you wish to grant access to This can be done using XenCenter or the xe CLI If you are familiar with XenCenter note that the XenServer CLI uses slightly different terminology
344. ut actually perform the operation By default dry run is set to false pool sync database pool sync database Force the pool database to be synchronized across all hosts in the resource pool This is not necessary in normal operation since the database is regularly automatically replicated but can be useful for ensuring changes are rapidly replicated after performing a significant set of CLI operations Storage Manager commands Commands for controlling Storage Manager plugins The storage manager objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe sm list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details SM parameters SMs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object reference for read only the SM plugin name label the name of the SM plugin read only name description the description string of the SM plugin read only type the SR type that this plugin connects to read only 173 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Type vendor name of the vendor who created this read only plugin copyright copyright statement for this SM plugin read only required api version minimum SM API version required on the read only XenServer host configuration names and descriptions of device read only configuration keys capabilities capabilities of the SM plugin read only driver filen
345. varies according to the placement strategy you selected For example if you selected Maximum Performance and you set Network Writes towards Less Important if the Network Writes on that server exceed the critical threshold you set Workload Balancing still makes a recommendation to place a virtual machine s workload on a server but does so with the goal of ensuring performance for the other resources If you selected Maximum Density as your placement recommendation and you specify Network Writes as Less Important Workload Balancing will still recommend placing workloads on that host if the Network Writes exceed the critical threshold you set However the workloads are placed in the densest possible way By default all metric weightings are set to the farthest point on the slider More Important To edit metric weighting factors In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt your resource pool In the Properties pane click the WLB tab In the WLB tab click Configure WLB In the left pane select Metric Weighting ao A OO N gt In Metric Weighting page if desired adjust the sliders beside the individual resources Moving the slider towards Less Important indicates that ensuring virtual machines always have the highest amount of this resource available is not as vital on this resource pool Excluding Hosts from Recommendations When configuring Workload Balancing you can specify that specific physical hosts ar
346. ved to the desired SR xe vdi copy uuid lt valid_vdi_uuid gt sr uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt 5 Within XenCenter select the VM s Storage tab Click the Attach button and select the VDIs from the new SR This step can also be done use the vbd create command 6 To delete the original VDIs within XenCenter select the Storage tab of the original SR The original VDIs will be listed with an empty value for the VM field and can be deleted with the Delete button Adjusting the disk IO scheduler For general performance the default disk scheduler noop is applied on all new SR types The noop scheduler provides the fairest performance for competing VMs accessing the same device To apply disk QoS see the section called Virtual disk QoS settings it is necessary to override the default setting and assign the cfq disk scheduler to the SR The corresponding PBD must be unplugged and re plugged for the scheduler parameter to take effect The disk scheduler can be adjusted using the following command xe sr param set other config scheduler noop cfq anticipatory deadline uuid lt valid_sr_uuid gt Note This will not effect EqualLogic NetApp or NFS storage Virtual disk QoS settings Virtual disks have an optional I O priority Quality of Service QoS setting This setting can be applied to existing virtual disks using the xe CLI as described in this section In the shared SR case where multiple hosts are accessing the same LUN the Qo
347. version number identification of API vendor details of vendor implementation logging configuration the unique identifier object reference for the SR where suspended images are put the unique identifier object reference for the SR where crash dumps are put list of versioning parameters and their values list of Xen versions that the XenServer host can run A list of key value pairs that specify additional configuration parameters for the XenServer host XenServer host hostname XenServer host IP address list of bootloaders that the XenServer host supports for example pygrub eliloader total amount of physical RAM on the XenServer host in bytes total amount of physical RAM remaining that can be allocated to VMs in bytes 152 Type read only read only read only read only read only map parameter read write map parameter read write read write read only map parameter read only set parameter read write map parameter read only read only read only set parameter read only read only CITRIX Parameter Name Description host metrics live true if the host is operational logging The syslog_destination key can be set to the hostname of a remote listening syslog service allowed operations lists the operations allowed in this state This list is advisory only and the server state may have changed by the time this field is read by a client current operation
348. vert RBAC configuration changes Back up and restore pool metadata Log out active user connections Ability to disconnect logged in users Create dismiss alerts Warning A user with this permission can dismiss alerts for the entire pool Note The ability to view alerts is part of the Connect to Pool and read all pool metadata permission Cancel task of any user e Cancel any user s running This permission lets the user task request XenServer cancel an in progress task initiated by any user 11 CITRIX Permission Allows Assignee To Rationale Comments Pool management Set pool properties naming This permission includes all the default SRs actions required to maintain a e Enable disable and configure pool HA Note If the management Set per VM HA restart interface is not functioning no priorities logins can authenticate except Enable disable and configure ell oa logins Workload Balancing WLB Add and remove server from pool e Emergency transition to master e Emergency master address e Emergency recover slaves e Designate new master e Manage pool and server certificates e Patching Set server properties e Configure server logging Enable and disable servers e Shut down reboot and power on servers e System status reports e Apply license e Live migration of all other VMs on a server to another server due to either WLB Maintenance Mode or HA e Configure server managem
349. vice can be configured using the StorageLink Manager or from within the XenServer control domain using the StorageLink Command Line Interface CLI To run the StorageLink CLI use the following command where lt hostname gt is the name or IP address of the machine running the StorageLink service opt Citrix StorageLink bin csl server lt hostname gt lt port gt lt username gt lt password gt For more information about the StorageLink CLI please see the StorageLink documentation or use the opt Citrix StorageLink bin csl help command Creating a shared StorageLink SR SRs of type CSLG can only be created by using the xe Command Line Interface CLI Once created CSLG SRs can be managed using either XenCenter or the xe CLI The device config parameters for CSLG SRs are Parameter name Description Optional target The server name or IP address No of the machine running the StorageLink service storageSystemld The storage system ID to use for No allocating storage 54 CITRIX Parameter name Description Optional storagePoolld The storage pool ID within the No specified storage system to use for allocating storage username The username to use for Yes connection to the StorageLink service password The password to use for Yes connecting to the StorageLink service cslport The port to use for connecting to Yes the StorageLink service chapuser The username to use for CHAP Yes authentication chappassword Th
350. vm Device config parameters for lvm SRs are Parameter Name Description Required Device device name on the local host to Yes use for the SR To create a local lvm SR on dev sdb use the following command xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example Local LVM SR gt shared false device config device dev sdb type lvm Local EXT3 VHD The Local EXT3 VHD type represents disks as VHD files stored on a local path Local disks can also be configured with a local EXT SR to serve VDIs stored in the VHD format Local disk EXT SRs must be configured using the XenServer CLI By definition local disks are not shared across pools of XenServer host As a consequence VMs whose VDIs are stored in SRs on local disks are not agile they cannot be migrated between XenServer hosts in a resource pool Creating a local EXT3 SR ext Device config parameters for ext SRs 40 CITRIX Parameter Name Description Required Device device name on the local host to Yes use for the SR To create a local ext SR on dev sdb use the following command xe sr create host uuid lt valid_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example Local EXT3 SR gt shared false device config device dev sdb type ext udev The udev type represents devices plugged in using the udev device manager as VDIs XenServer has two SRs of type udev that represent removable storage One is for the CD or DVD d
351. w resource utilization is positive depends on your placement strategy For example if your placement strategy is Maximum Density and most days the Average Usage line is at or below the green line Workload Balancing might not be placing virtual machines as densely as possible on that pool If this is the case you should adjust the pool s Critical threshold values until the majority of its resource utilization falls into the Average Medium blue threshold range e When the Average Usage line intersects with the Average Critical Threshold Percent red this indicates the days when the average resource utilization met or exceeded the Critical threshold value for that resource If you find the data points in the majority of your graphs are not in the Average Medium Threshold range but you are satisfied with the performance of this pool you might need to adjust the Critical threshold for this pool For more information see the section called Changing the Critical Thresholds Pool Optimization History The Pool Optimization History report provides chronological visibility into Workload Balancing optimization activity Optimization activity is summarized graphically and in a table Drilling into a date field within the table displays detailed information for each pool optimization performed for that day This report lets you see the following information VM Name The name of the virtual machine that Workload Balancing optimized e Reaso
352. when a pool is overcommitted Warning When HA is enabled some operations that would compromise the plan for restarting VMs may be disabled such as removing a server from a pool To perform these operations HA can be temporarily disabled or alternately VMs protected by HA made unprotected Enabling HA using the CLI 1 Verify that you have a compatible Storage Repository SR attached to your pool iSCSI or Fibre Channel are compatible SR types Please refer to the reference guide for details on how to configure such a storage repository using the CLI 2 For each VM you wish to protect set a restart priority You can do this as follows xe vm param set uuid lt vm_uuid gt ha restart priority lt 1 gt ha always run true 3 Enable HA on the pool xe pool ha enable heartbeat sr uuids lt sr_uuid gt 25 CITRIX 4 Run the pool ha compute max host failures to tolerate command This command returns the maximum number of hosts that can fail before there are insufficient resources to run all the protected VMs in the pool xe pool ha compute max host failures to tolerat The number of failures to tolerate determines when an alert is sent the system will recompute a failover plan as the state of the pool changes and with this computation the system identifies the capacity of the pool and how many more failures are possible without loss of the liveness guarantee for protected VMs A system alert is generated wh
353. which to start the VMs By default the system will determine an appropriate host which might be any of the members of the pool vm suspend vm suspend lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Suspend the specified VM The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm uninstall vm uninstall lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt force lt true false gt Uninstall a VM destroying its disks those VDIs that are marked RW and connected to this VM only as well as its metadata record To simply destroy the VM metadata use xe vm destroy The VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selection mechanism see VM selectors Optional arguments can be any number of the VM parameters listed at the beginning of this section vm vcpu hotplug vm vcpu hotplug new vcpus lt new_vcpu_count gt lt vm selector gt lt vm_selector_value gt Dynamically adjust the number of VCPUs available to a running paravirtual Linux VM within the number bounded by the parameter VCPUs max Windows VMs always run with the number of VCPUs set to vcPUs max and must be rebooted to change this value The paravirtualized Linux VM or VMs on which this operation should be performed are selected using the standard selectio
354. width If this is the case try lowering the network critical thresholds until Workload Balancing begins providing optimization recommendations 98 CITRIX Before you edit your thresholds you might find it handy to generate a the section called Host Health History report for each physical host in the pool You can use either the Workload Balancing Configuration properties in XenCenter or the XE commands to modify the configuration settings To update the credentials XenServer and the Workload Balancing server use to communicate see Updating Workload Balancing Credentials To display the Workload Balancing Configuration dialog box 1 In the Resources pane of XenCenter select XenCenter gt resourcelessness 2 In the Properties pane click the WLB tab 3 In the WLB tab click Configure WLB Adjusting the Optimization Mode Workload Balancing makes recommendations to rebalance or optimize the virtual machine workload in your environment based on a strategy for placement you select known as the optimization mode Workload Balancing lets you chose from two optimization modes e Maximize Performance Default Workload Balancing attempts to spread workload evenly across all physical hosts in a resource pool The goal is to minimize CPU memory and network pressure for all hosts When Maximize Performance is your placement strategy Workload Balancing recommends optimization when a virtual machine reaches the High threshold
355. with updates to the OEM edition of XenServer For commands relating to updating the standard non OEM editions of XenServer see the section called Patch update commands for details update upload update upload file name lt name_of_upload_file gt Streams a new software image to a OEM edition XenServer host You must then restart the host for this to take effect User commands user password change user password change old lt old_password gt new lt new_password gt Changes the password of the logged in user The old password field is not checked because you require supervisor privilege to make this call 185 C TRIX VBD commands Commands for working with VBDs Virtual Block Devices A VBD is a software object that connects a VM to the VDI which represents the contents of the virtual disk The VBD has the attributes which tie the VDI to the VM is it bootable its read write metrics and so on while the VDI has the information on the physical attributes of the virtual disk which type of SR whether the disk is shareable whether the media is read write or read only and so on The VBD objects can be listed with the standard object listing command xe vbd list and the parameters manipulated with the standard parameter commands See the section called Low level param commands for details VBD parameters VBDs have the following parameters Parameter Name Description Type uuid the unique identifier object
356. word_secret Type Map string string Sample Script This sample script imports the XenServer API defines itself as a custom script and then passes parameters specific to the host you want to control remotely You must define the parameters session remote_host and power_on_configin all custom scripts The result is only displayed when the script is unsuccessful import XenAPI def custom session remote_host power_on_config result Power On Not Successful for key in power_on_config keys result result key key value power_on_config key return result Note After creation save the script in the etc xapi d plugins with a py extension 29 CITRIX Storage This chapter discusses the framework for storage abstractions It describes the way physical storage hardware of various kinds is mapped to VMs and the software objects used by the XenServer host API to perform storage related tasks Detailed sections on each of the supported storage types include procedures for creating storage for VMs using the CLI with type specific device configuration options generating snapshots for backup purposes and some best practices for managing storage in XenServer host environments Finally the virtual disk QoS quality of service settings are described Storage Overview This section explains what the XenServer storage objects are and how they are related to each other Storage Repositories SRs XenServer define
357. ws Server 2008 servers require SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 or higher Required Configurations e Configure SQL Server for case insensitive collation Workload Balancing does not currently support case sensitive collation Hard Drive Space SQL Server Express 4GB SQL Server 20GB SQL Server Database Authentication Requirements During installation Setup must connect and authenticate to the database server to create the data store Configure the SQL Server database instance to use either Windows Authentication mode or 89 CITRIX SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode Mixed Mode authentication If you create an account on the database for use during Setup the account must have sysadmin privileges for the database instance where you want to create the Workload Balancing data store Operating System Language Support Workload Balancing is supported on the following operating system languages US English Japanese Native JP Note When Workload Balancing is installed in a distributed multi server deployment as described in CTX124289 the operating system languages must match on both computers if the database and Web servers are installed on separate computers Preinstallation Considerations You may need to configure software in your environment so that Workload Balancing can function correctly Review the following considerations and determine if they apply to your environment Also check the XenServer
358. xVol resources are used for a single SR where there is a typical system wide limitation of 200 for some smaller filers Aggregates When creating a NetApp driver based SR you select an appropriate aggregate The driver can be probed for non traditional type aggregates that is newer style aggregates that support FlexVols and lists all aggregates available and the unused disk space on each Note Aggregate probing is only possible at sr create time so that the aggregate can be specified at the point that the SR is created but is not probed by the sr probe command Citrix strongly recommends that you configure an aggregate exclusively for use by XenServer storage because space guarantees and allocation cannot be correctly managed if other applications are sharing the resource 44 CITRIX Thick or thin provisioning When creating NetApp storage you can also choose the type of space management used By default allocated space is thickly provisioned to ensure that VMs never run out of disk space and that all virtual allocation guarantees are fully enforced on the filer Selecting thick provisioning ensures that whenever a VDI LUN is allocated on the filer sufficient space is reserved to guarantee that it will never run out of space and consequently experience failed writes to disk Due to the nature of the Ontap FlexVol space provisioning algorithms the best practice guidelines for the filer require that at least twice the LUN space is re
359. xe pif list device bond0 host uuid lt host_uuid gt Use the pif reconfigure ip command to configure the desired management interface IP address settings for the bond PIF See Appendix A Command line interface for more detail on the options available for the pif reconfigure ip command This command must be run directly on the host xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt mode DHCP Use the host management reconfigure command to move the management interface from the existing physical PIF to the bond PIF This step will activate the bond This command must be run directly on the host xe host management reconfigure pif uuid lt bond_pif_uuid gt Use the pif reconfigure ip command to remove the IP address configuration from the non bonded PIF previously used for the management interface This step is not strictly necessary but might help reduce confusion when reviewing the host networking configuration This command must be run directly on the host xe pif reconfigure ip uuid lt old_management_pif_uuid gt mode None Move existing VMs to the bond network using the vif destroy and vif create commands This step can also be completed using XenCenter by editing the VM configuration and connecting the existing VIFs of the VM to the bond network Repeat steps 3 10 for other hosts Restart the VMs previously shut down 78 C TRIX Configuring a dedicated storage NIC XenServer allows use of either XenCenter or the xe CLI to con
360. xe sr create host uuid lt host_uuid gt content type user name label lt Example shared NFS SR gt shared true device config server lt 192 168 1 10 gt device config serverpath lt export1 gt type nfs LVM over hardware HBA The LVM over hardware HBA type represents disks as VHDs on Logical Volumes within a Volume Group created on an HBA LUN providing for example hardware based iSCSI or FC support XenServer hosts support Fibre Channel FC storage area networks SANs through Emulex or QLogic host bus adapters HBAs All FC configuration required to expose a FC LUN to the host must be completed manually including storage devices network devices and the HBA within the XenServer host Once all FC configuration is complete the HBA will expose a SCSI device backed by the FC LUN to the host The SCSI device can then be used to access the FC LUN as if it were a locally attached SCSI device Use the sr probe command to list the LUN backed SCSI devices present on the host This command forces a scan for new LUN backed SCSI devices The path value returned by sr probe for a LUN backed SCSI device is consistent across all hosts with access to the LUN and therefore must be used when creating shared SRs accessible by all hosts in a resource pool The same features apply to QLogic SCSI HBAs See the section called Creating Storage Repositories for details on creating shared HBA based FC and iSCSI SRs Note 53 CITRIX XenSe
361. ybe gt lt capability content type text plain default checked yes key xenserver install max size 51200 max time 1 min size 10240 min time 1 pii maybe gt lt system status capabilities gt Each capability entity has a number of attributes Attribute Description key A unique identifier for the capability content type Can be either text plain or application data Indicates whether a Ul can render the entries for human consumption default checked Can be either yes or no Indicates whether a Ul should select this entry by default min size max size Indicates an approximate range for the size in bytes of this entry 7 indicates that the size is unimportant min time max time Indicate an approximate range for the time in seconds taken to collect this entry 1 indicates the time is unimportant pii Personally identifiable information Indicates whether the entry would have information that would identify the system owner or details of their network topology This is one of no no PII will be in these entries e yes PII will likely or certainly be in these entries maybe you might wish to audit these entries for PII e if customized if the files are unmodified then they will contain no PII but since we encourage editing of these files PII may have been introduced by such customization This is used in particular for the networking scripts in the control d

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