Unattended Installation of XenServer Tools

This article describes about the unattended installation of XenServer Tools using Microsoft’s Windows Installer program, msiexec. Background XenTools delivered with XenServer 6.1 version are able to make use of Microsoft’s Windows Installer program, msiexec. One of those is a way to install...

Error: "SR BACKEND FAILURE 181" in XenServer

After installation or upgrade to XenServer 6.0, user experiences issues with any storage related operations. The following error message appears: “SRBACKENDFAILURE181 Error In metadata Volume Operation For SR.” The following entries appears in the log /var/log/SMlog file: Error code:...

How to Disarm Fencing When Using High Availability in XenServer

This article describes how to disarm High Availability HA and prevent XenServer host from fencing. Disarming HA does not stop HA logging...

How to Mount a CIFS (Windows File System) Share in XenServer Using the Command Line Interface

This article describes how to mount a CIFS Windows file system share in XenServer using the Command Line Interface CLI. Requirements Basic knowledge of Linux Administrator root access to XenServer host using the Command Line Interface CLI Windows username and password to access Windows share to b...

Partition Details are Not Displayed After a Clean Install of XenServer 6.x

On a clean install of XenServer 6.0 or later, the detailed partition does not appear for XenServer boot disk when you run the command,fdisk –l. On XenServer 6.0 or later and running thefdisk –l command, following shows the output and does not display any partition details of the booting disk. Pri...

How to Replace a Network Interface Card in a XenServer Host

This article describes the procedure to replace a Network Interface Card NIC in a XenServer Host. For example, the procedure can be used to replace a faulty NIC. Requirements The XenServer host must be standalone and not joined to a resource pool. Replacing the NIC used as management interface...

High Availability Behavior When the Heartbeat is Lost in a XenServer Pool

This article describes High Availability HA behavior in situations when the heartbeat is lost on XenServer 5.x. HA does not check the link state of the interfaces. It rather works on the bases of HA Host Groups and Network Partitions. HA Daemon chooses the larger of the network partitions to take...

Troubleshooting Linux Virtual Machines in XenServer

This article describes about troubleshooting Linux virtual machines in XenServer. Serial console was used to access UNIX server consoles and most of the network devices switches, routes. The simplicity of serial port hardware and its universality make them popular. Serial console apart from...

How to Move a XenServer Pool to a Different IP Subnet

This article describes how to change the IP subnet assigned to the management network on a XenServer pool. This procedure is long compared to changing the IP address while staying in the same subnet. Requirements Working knowledge of XenServer and XenCenter and basic knowledge of the Command Line...

How to Configure XenServer 6.x Multi-GPU Passthrough for XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro Graphics

This article describes how to configure XenServer 6.0 with XenDesktop for HDX 3D Pro Graphics so that a host workstation with multiple graphics cards can be shared by an equal number of concurrent high-end professional graphics users one user per GPU, thereby reducing the cost per user. Hardware...

iSCSI Service (open-iscsi) Startup Best Practices for XenServer

This article containsbest practices for setting the iSCSI Service open-iscsi to start automatically in XenServer...

How to Adjust the Bond Balance Interval in XenServer 6.x

XenServer 6.1.0 introduces a change to the NIC bonding load balancing algorithm for active-active bonds in the vSwitch network stack. In past releases, active-active bonds were set to rebalance load every 10 seconds. However, in XenServer 6.1.0 active-active bonds on the vSwitch rebalance load...

Considerations for Connecting XenServer to the Switch Ports

This article contains information about connecting XenServer to a switch. Background Switch ports must be configured differently for a XenServer host as opposed to a standard computer. The following considerations are recommended when connecting a XenServer to a switch: If using Spanning Tree...

How to use PING to check for proper MTU level for fragmentation for storage networks

There are many times in XenServer environments where the customer will have implemented MTU of 9000 to be able to enjoy the benefits of Jumbo Frames. While this is 100% supported, it is not 100% recommended. For the best customer experience we need to be able to suggest, test, and implement the...

Alternate Method to Reverse Image Provisioning Services vDisks (XenServer Direct VHD Boot)

This article describes an alternate method to Reverse Image Provisioning Services vDisks XenServer Direct VHD Boot. Note : Reverse imaging a Provisioning Services PVS vDisk is not the only way to get a vDisk back to your hypervisor for updates. This article explains the versatility associated wit...

Applying Security Hotfixes to XenServer on NetScaler SDX Appliance with Software Release 9.3 and 10

This article describes how to apply the hotfixes required to remediate the security vulnerabilities detailed in security bulletin CTX134876 -Citrix NetScaler SDX Multiple Security Updates. Determining the Version of XenServer on the NetScaler SDX Appliance To determine what version of XenServer y...

How to Remove a Server from a XenServer Pool that Contains Only One Host

This article describes how to remove a server from a XenServer pool that contains only one server. The procedure to remove servers is also described in the XenCenter help. When you remove a server from a pool that contains only one server Pool Master, the pool will be deleted and the Pool Master...

Error: "HVM is Required for this Operation" when Trying to Start the VM in XenServer

Example 1 When trying to start the virtual machine VMthe following error is returned: “ There were no servers available to start VM ” The reason is displayed as “ HVM Hardware Virtual Machine is required for this operation ” Example 2 When trying to migrate a Windows VM from one host to another...

How to Introduce a Local Storage Repository in XenServer

This article describes how to introduce a local Storage repository SR on XenServer. The XenServer database has become corrupt or your XenServer does not see the local SR...

Recovering Virtual Machines from Failed Pool Member

In the event of a XenServer host power failure, any Virtual Machines VMs running on that host might not be displayed in XenCenter. This is the expected behavior without High Availability HA enabled. The following is a XenCenter screen shot of the pool prior to the failure of the host named...