How to Configure Windows 2003 Network File Share as Authenticated Storage Repository for XenServer

This document describes how to configure Windows Server 2003 Release 2 Server Network File Share NFS as an authenticated storage repository for XenServer. The NFS component is only included in Windows Server 2003 Release 2. If you do not have this edition, you can achieve the same results by...

Unable to Connect to High Availability Enabled XenSever Pool and All Servers in Pool are in Emergency Mode

This article provides resolution to connectivity issues to the pool in XenCenter. Following are some of the issues that you might experience: Cannot connect to the pool in XenCenter Cannot start or migrate the virtual machines, although the virtual machines are active and running. All the servers...

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...

LACP Bonding in XenServer - Configuration and Troubleshooting

In XenServer 6.1, LACP link aggregation was added to existing bonding modes for vSwitch. This article describes dynamic link aggregation LACP between a XenServer host and a switch, giving a high-level overview of the 802.3ad protocol, explaining configuration and diagnosis tools. Background LACP...

How to Configure a Promiscuous Virtual Machine in XenServer

This article describes how to configure a Virtual Machine VM running on XenServer to behave promiscuously on the network, that is, allow it to see all network traffic on the Physical Network Interface PIF. Certain applications, such as network diagnostic or performance monitoring tools, might...

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:...

Linux Virtual Machines are Unable to Boot from DVD on XenServer

On XenServer, a user can run both Linux and Windows virtual machines, and like physical machines, it can be set to boot from various sources. However, when a Linux virtual machine is set to boot from DVD, it can fail with the following error message:...

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...

How to Export a Virtual Machine to an External USB Drive

This article describes how to export a XenServer Virtual Machine VM to a USB storage device...

XenServer - Overview of Disaster Recovery Options

This article provides an overview of different backup/restore methods available in XenServer for Virtual Machine Metadata. Background Backup/Restore or Site Recover/Disaster Recovery options in XenServer have evolved over recent product versions. This document briefly explains those options...

How to Modify Network Speed and Duplexing

This article describes how to change speed, duplex, and auto-negotiation on a network interface in XenServer. Requirements Console access required, if reconfiguring the management interface...

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 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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

How to Validate If XenServer is Using Bridge or vSwitch for the Network Stack

This article describes how to validate if XenServer is using Bridge or vSwitch for the network stack. By default, XenServer 6.x uses vSwitch as the network stack when the host is installed. At some point, the XenServer administrator might have changed the network stack to Bridge. When attempting ...