Xen

Accessing VNC Consoles

All the vm consoles on xenserver are per default only accessible via the http(s) interface, but with some few tricks you can access them directly:

All commands are done via SSH on xenserver

Warning - this bypasses a lot of xenservers security measures

1. Allow VNC ports through firewall
   1. Append following line to /etc/rc.local
   2. iptables --insert INPUT -p tcp --dport 5900:5999 -j ACCEPT
2. Set vncterm to listen on all interfaces instread of 127.0.0.1
   1. Edit /opt/xensource/libexec/vncterm-wrapper
   2. Alter the VNCTERM_LISTEN variable to "-v 0.0.0.0:1"

Autostart of VM's

The free xenserver doesn't allow to set a vm to autostart via xencenter, but there's a work-around that issue:

1. edit /etc/rc.local
2. add a line with "sleep 45" - to allow all the xen components to complete initialization (on more powerfull hardware the delay can be less than 45 seconds)
3. add a line with xe vm-start vm=<vm-name> for each vm you want to auto start

Running XenCenter on linux - doesnt work

1. Download Xencenter from 6.0 550
2. Install wine > 1.2 (apt-get install wine1.3 or what ever you got)
3. Download winetricks: wget http://winetricks.org/winetricks
4. Use winetricks to install .net: sh winetricks dotnet2 Use winetricks to install mono: sh winetricsk mono210
5. Install XenCenter from msi: wine start XenServer-6.0.0-XenCenter.msi
6. use wine to launch mono and xencenter: wine "C:\\Program Files\\Mono-2.10.6\\bin\\mono.exe" "c:\\XenCenter\\XenCenterMain.exe"

Basic Centos admin

Enable standard repos in /etc/yum.repos.d/Centos-Base.repo (set enabled=1)

• list installed packages: rpm -qa (filter with grep)
• search packages: yum search
• install packages: yum install
• apache package is called httpd
  • make sure that it starts automatically: chkconfig --level 2345 httpd on
  • xapi uses port 80 so run apache from eg port 88 or 8080
  • remember to add a firewall rule (see accessing vnc)
  • no longer the case on 6.2.0 make sure apache can navigate down from root folder: chmod 711 / (by default it is 700)

hoerup's custom xen install

• basic xenserver 6.0.2 6.2.0 install
• installeret apache httpd via ovenstående sektion
• rc.local
  • iptables --insert INPUT -j ACCEPT
• installed packages
  • epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
  • yum install ser2net
  • yum install smartmontools
  • yum install php php-xmlrpc php-pear php-gd
• /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
  • rewriteDomain=xen.t-hoerup.dk
  • mailhub=rafiki
  • root=torben
• /etc/ser2net.conf
  • 2001:raw:600:/dev/ttyUSB0:9600 NONE 1STOPBIT 8DATABITS

• chkconfig
  • chkconfig --level 345 smartd on
  • chkconfig --level 345 nfs on
  • chkconfig ser2net on

Updates

XenServer_updates_from_cli (indsat af Tommy)

Tools

• XenOrchestra up-comming Xenserver management Appliance
• VMTurbo VM performance monitoring (ikke prøvet)

Network /vSwitch tools

• DVSC (deprecated)
• FloodLight OpenFlow controller (efter start launche http://localhost:8080/ui/index.html )
  • Avior gui addon til floodlight controlleren
• Beacon (ikke prøvet endnu)
• OpenDaylight/Hydrogen - ikke afprøvet endnu

XenServer 6.2 vs nighlies

Component	6.2	nighly
Centos	5.7	6.5
Kernel	2.6.32	3.10.27
Xen	4.1.5	4.4.0
Xapi	1.3	1.11