HP integrated Citrix XenServer 5.0 Release Notes

HP integrated Citrix XenServer 5.0 Release Notes Part Number 488554-003 March 2009 (Third Edition)

Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor s standard commercial license. Xen, XenSource, XenEnterprise, XenServer, XenExpress, XenCenter and logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of XenSource, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Contents Important notes and recommendations... 4 Several installer screens are corrupted during VM RH4 and SLES10 install... 4 Using ilo Virtual Media for Guest OS installation... 4 PVC does not recognize for use a storage repository created using XenCenter on Fibre Channel or iscsi storage. 5 Creating a shared SR using PVC on a Fibre Channel LUN can fail... 5 Pseudo LUN appears after removing all LUNs to host... 6 If logged out when screen saver starts system console can abort a running task... 6 ALT+TAB does not work inside Windows virtual machine... 6 Removal from Pool causes issues with server configuration... 6 Very low throughput on NetXen P3 chipset with XenServer... 6 XenServer HP Edition Release Notes... 7 Installation and upgrades... 7 Backup... 7 Remote database on iscsi LUN for diskless hosts... 7 Stand-alone server upgrade between XenServer 4.1.0 and 5.0.0...8 Stand-alone upgrade using XenCenter... 8 Stand-alone upgrade using the CLI alone... 8 Rolling upgrade between XenServer 4.1.0 and 5.0.0... 9 Prerequisites... 9 Rolling upgrade using the CLI alone... 9 Rolling upgrade using XenCenter... 10 Troubleshooting upgrades... 11 Contents 3

Important notes and recommendations Several installer screens are corrupted during VM RH4 and SLES10 install If you select Japanese on the Language Selection screen, the screen might appear corrupted during text mode installation of some Linux host operating systems. To resolve this issue, choose one of the following options: To refresh the screen, press CTRL+L, and then proceed with the installation. To prevent the screen from appearing corrupted, select English as the installation language and Japanese as the runtime language using either of the following procedures. o For installing Red Hat 4 with Japanese language support in the XenServer Select Edition: o i. From the Language Selection screen, select English. ii. From the Language Support screen, select Japanese. iii. From the Default Language screen, select Japanese. For installing SLES10, SP1 with Japanese language support in the XenServer Select Edition: i. From the Preparation>Language screen, select English during the installation. ii. After completing the installation, change the primary language from English to Japanese. Using ilo Virtual Media for Guest OS installation HP ProLiant ilo Virtual Media can be used to provide installation media when installing a guest virtual machine. Attach the ilo Virtual Media to the host using your preferred mechanism within ilo (virtual media support in the ilo management menus, media access in the ilo remote console applet, and so on). The selected media is made available to the server as a USB removable device. When virtual media is attached, a USB device appears in the storage resources in the HP ProLiant Virtual Console. This USB device is mappable into a target guest virtual machine using the VM guest storage tab or when a virtual machine is created in the New VM creation dialog. When the media is mapped into a virtual machine, it can be used in that virtual machine as a local device. Unplugging a virtual media image using the media management functions in the ilo virtual console will cause the USB device to be hot-removed from the system. When performing a multi-disk installation of an operating system, this might cause difficulties. To change the virtual media without causing the device to be hot-unplugged and re-plugged (for example, to act as if media had been ejected) use one of the following methods: If you are using the virtual media java applet, select Browse without disconnecting, and then select a new ISO file. ilo generates a media change event to the OS on the virtual CDROM drive. Important notes and recommendations 4

If you are using the scripting (XML) interface, issue a new INSERT_VIRTUAL_MEDIA command without sending EJECT_VIRTUAL_MEDIA first. The scripting interface causes multiple insert commands to be media changes and signals the appropriate event to the OS. If you are using virtual media through the integrated remote console, virtual media does not provide you with the level of control that is needed. The alternative to using virtual media in this manner is to use the java virtual media control in ilo. You can, however, use the integrated remote console to view the remote console and still access virtual media through the Java applet or scripting interface. PVC does not recognize for use a storage repository created using XenCenter on Fibre Channel or iscsi storage If you use XenCenter to create a new storage repository(sr) on FibreChannel or iscsi storage using the lvmohba SR type, it is unavailable for use for virtual machine storage in ProLiant Virtual Console. XenCenter does allow lvmohba SR to be used for virtual machine storage. When the SR is created by XenCenter the content_type is set to a bland entry. The ProLiant Virtual Console uses the content field (for virtual machine storage it looks for a content_type of user) to determine valid SRs that might be used to store virtual machines. Because of the way the SR is created the SR is not useable. A work-around is to use the xe command within Dom0 to create the SR instead and set a content_type of user on creation. For iscsi array: xe sr-create host-uuid=<uuid of host> name-label=<name of SR> shared=<true/false> type=lvmoiscsi content_type=user deviceconfig:target=<target ip address> device-config:targetiqn=<target IQN name> device-config:scsiid=<device SCSI id> For a Fibre Channel array: xe sr-create host-uuid=<uuid of host> name-label=<name of SR> shared=<true/false> type=lvmohba content_type=user deviceconfig:device=/dev/mapper/<device SCSI id> For more information see the Citrix XenServer 5.0 Admin Guide for additional details. Creating a shared SR using PVC on a Fibre Channel LUN can fail Creating a shared SR on a Fibre Channel exposed storage might fail if you use the PVC New Storage wizard to create the storage using the Local Storage option. PVC does not support creation of shared virtual disk storage. To accomplish this task, use XenCenter or the xe CLI tool in Dom0 to provision storage on a shared Fibre Channel LUN. To use PVC to create virtual machines using this storage, see PVC does not recognize SR created using XenCenter on FibreChannel or ISCSI storage. ("PVC does not recognize for use a storage repository created using XenCenter on Fibre Channel or iscsi storage" on page 5) Important notes and recommendations 5

Pseudo LUN appears after removing all LUNs to host After removing all LUNs presented to a HP integrated Citrix XenServer host, a pseudo LUN might still be present to each host in the pool. The WWN presented to each host is not valid and does not represent a real LUN. If logged out when screen saver starts system console can abort a running task For security reasons, if no user activity is detected for 10 minutes, HP ProLiant Virtual Console (PVC) automatically logs out. Any open windows close in PVC, and any jobs started within the console are aborted. For uninterrupted completion of jobs that take more than 10 minutes and do not require any user interaction, use a secure shell session to connect to the host and start the job within that session. ALT+TAB does not work inside Windows virtual machine HP PVC uses the [ALT+TAB] key combination to switch between windows opened within PVC. As a result, the virtual machine can not use this key combination or use it to switch between open windows within a virtual machine. Use the mouse to select and switch between windows in a virtual machine. Removal from Pool causes issues with server configuration When a server is removed from a pool, configuration information is lost. If this happens, reconfigure the server. 1. To restore the factory configuration setting, from the PVC, select Tools, and then select Revert to Factory Configuration. 2. Run the first installation setup wizard to configure the server. This is a Citrix XenServer issue and will be fixed in future release of the product. Very low throughput on NetXen P3 chipset with XenServer You might see lower than expected throughput when using NetXen NICs. This problem should be resolved in an upcoming release. Important notes and recommendations 6

XenServer HP Edition Release Notes Installation and upgrades Backup System requirements, preparation, installation, and initial configuration are described in the XenServer Installation Guide. This release fully supports upgrading from XenServer 4.1.0 HP Edition hosts. You can upgrade 4.1.0 resource pools without any VM downtime by using the rolling upgrade procedures described below. NOTE: Rolling upgrade is not supported for beta versions of XenServer. To upgrade from 4.0.1 to 5.0.0, you must first upgrade 4.0.1 to 4.1.0, and then upgrade to 5.0.0. XenServer 4.1.0 might cause VMs on NFS storage to become detached from their XenServer host after applying an upgrade. To avoid this issue, type the command chkconfig netfs off in the XenServer host console before applying the upgrade. Unlike in Beta releases, the Windows Xen VSS provider is not installed by default and must be specifically installed in order to enable quiesced VM snapshots via the install-xenprovider.cmd script. See the Virtual Machine Administration Guide under the Windows section for more information on how to do this. The control domain uses slightly more memory in XenServer 5.0.0 relative to the previous releases, and automatically allocates approximately 100MB of host memory to the control domain upon upgrade. If you were using all available host memory prior to the upgrade, reduce the amount of memory used by one VM by 100MB before powering it on. Citrix recommends that you take a host backup and/or a Status Report for each server prior to upgrade. See the Backing up and restoring XenServer hosts and VMs section in the XenServer Installation Guide for details. Citrix also recommends that you take a backup of the state of your existing pool using the pooldumpdatabase CLI command (see the XenServer Administrator's Guide). This allows you revert a partially complete rolling upgrade back to its original state without losing any VM data. NOTE: Because it is not possible to migrate a VM from an upgraded XenServer host to a XenServer host running an older version of XenServer, it may be necessary to shut down VMs if you need to revert the rolling upgrade for any reason. Remote database on iscsi LUN for diskless hosts The capability of XenServer 4.1.0 HP Edition to persist pool-wide management state to a shared iscsi LUN is not available in XenServer 5.0.0. A replacement capability will become available in an upcoming hotfix for XenServer 5.0.0. If you use this XenServer 4.1.0 feature, you must only upgrade directly to the upcoming hotfix, or contact HP Technical Support for more information before upgrading from XenServer 4.1.0. XenServer HP Edition Release Notes 7

Stand-alone server upgrade between XenServer 4.1.0 and 5.0.0 XenServer 4.1.0 and 5.0.0 can be upgraded using the Stand-alone upgrade using Xencenter and the Stand-alone upgrade using the CLI alone. Stand-alone upgrade using XenCenter To perform a standalone upgrade using XenCenter: 1. ENsure the XenServer HP Edition 5.0.0 upgrade file is in a location accessible to the computer running XenCenter. 2. Select Updates Manager from the Tools menu. 3. In the Updates Manager dialog box, click Install New Update. 4. Select the server you want to update, then click Next. 5. Browse to the location where you have the embedded update file, and then click Next. A progress bar is displayed as the update is loaded. 6. When the update has finished loading, you are prompted to select the mode for applying the update. Select Automatic mode, then click Next. 7. When the update is finished, the server will reboot. When the server reboots, XenCenter will lose its connection to the server. When it returns, it should reconnect automatically. If it does not, right-click on the server and select Connect from the context menu. 8. Update the PV drivers on the VMs once the server has been upgraded. See the XenServer VM Installation Guide for details. NOTE: XenCenter from release 4.0.1 or 4.1.0 does not work with XenServer hosts from release 5.0.0. However, XenCenter from release 5.0.0 does work with XenServer hosts from release 4.1.0. Stand-alone upgrade using the CLI alone To perform a standalone upgrade using the CLI alone: 1. Insert the removable media containing the XenServer HP Edition 5.0.0 upgrade file. 2. Find the name of the device that holds the media with the update using the command fdisk -l 3. Mount the media with the command mount /dev/<device_label> /mnt 4. Find out the name of the upgrade file with the command ls /mnt 5. Apply the upgrade to the server with the command xe update-upload host-uuid= <uuid_of_host> filename=/mnt/<upgrade_filename> Press TAB after host_uuid= and the UUID of the server automatically populates. XenServer HP Edition Release Notes 8

6. Applying the update should take several minutes. When complete, unmount the media with the command umount /mnt 7. Remove the upgrade media and reboot the server. 8. Update the PV drivers on the VMs once the server is upgraded. See the XenServer VM Installation Guide for details. Rolling upgrade between XenServer 4.1.0 and 5.0.0 XenServer allows you to upgrade a pool of XenServer hosts to the next major version, while keeping VMs on that pool running to avoid service downtime. This is achieved by upgrading on a host-by-host basis with only one XenServer host offline at a time. Plan your upgrade path carefully. Do not run a mixed-mode pool (multiple versions of XenServer coexisting) for longer than necessary. The pool operates in a degraded state during the upgrade; all VMs continue to function as normal, but control operations other than migration might not be available. It is not safe to perform storage-related operations such as adding, removing or resizing virtual disks in this mode. Prerequisites None of the VMs in the pool should have a virtual CD attached, including any VMs in the suspended state. Having virtual CDs inserted during rolling upgrade can prevent migrations from working correctly, and due to the mode of operation of the pool while the rolling upgrade is taking place, it is required that this be done before the rolling upgrade is started. 1. Verify that there are no VMs in the Suspended state. Use the CLI command xe vm-list powerstate=suspended to identify them. Any suspended VMs with a CD drive attached cannot be resumed after performing an upgrade. 2. Resume any suspended VMs using the CLI command xe vmresume uuid=<vm_uuid> so you can remove their CDs as described below. Otherwise, after the upgrade, you will have to perform a Force Shutdown and then restart it to return to a usable state. 3. Eject any virtual CDs (the XenServer Tools ISO or a physical CD in the local physical drive, for example) from your VMs before starting the rolling upgrade. To eject CDs from all VMs in the pool using the xe CLI: a. On the console, type the command xe vmcd- eject -multiple. The command will return "operation could not be performed because the drive is empty" messages for any virtual DVD/CD drives that are already empty. b. Set the state of the virtual DVD/CD drives that are not empty to empty=true. Rolling upgrade using the CLI alone To perform a rolling upgrade using the CLI alone: 1. Migrate all VMs running on the pool master to other XenServer host. Using the xe CLI, use the command xe host-evacuate uuid=<host_uuid> XenServer HP Edition Release Notes 9

2. If there are any VMs using local storage rather than shared storage, they are listed in the output of the host-evacuate command. Shut them down before performing the upgrade using the command xe vm-shutdown uuid=<vm_uuid> 3. Insert the removable media containing the XenServer HP Edition 5.0.0 upgrade file. 4. Find the name of the device that holds the media with the update with the command fdisk -l 5. Mount the media with the command mount /dev/<device_label> /mnt 6. Find out the name of the upgrade file with the command ls /mnt 7. Find out the UUID of the master host with the command xe pool-list params=master 8. Apply the upgrade to the master using the command xe update-upload host-uuid= <uuid_of_master> filename=/mnt/<upgrade_filename> 9. Applying the update should take several minutes. When complete, unmount the media with the command umount /mnt 10. Remove the upgrade media and reboot the server. 11. Repeat for all other servers in the pool, except use the command xe host-list params=uuid To retrieve the UUIDs of the remaining hosts in the pool, use the update-upload command: xe update-upload host-uuid= <uuid_of_member> filename=/mnt/<upgrade_filename> 12. Update the PV drivers on the VMs once the pool servers are upgraded. See the XenServer VM Installation Guide for details. Rolling upgrade using XenCenter To perform a rolling upgrade using XenCenter: 1. Ensure that the XenServer HP Edition 5.0.0 upgrade file is in a location accessible to the computer running XenCenter. 2. With XenCenter connected to the pool, migrate all VMs running on the pool master to one or more of the other pool members. You can drag and drop VMs from the master to one of the members, or right-click and select Migrate from the context menu, and select one of the members from the submenu. You can also select Migrate from the VM menu, and select one of the members from the submenu. 3. If there are any VMs using local storage rather than shared storage, shut them down before performing the upgrade. You can either select them and click the Shut Down button, or right-click and select Shut Down from the context menu, or select Shut Down from the Server menu. 4. Select Updates Manager from the Tools menu. 5. In the Updates Manager dialog box, click Install New Update. 6. Select the server you want to update, then click Next. XenServer HP Edition Release Notes 10

7. Browse to the location where you have the embedded update file, then click Next. A progress bar is displayed as the update is loaded. 8. When the update has finished loading, you are prompted to select the mode for applying the update. Select Manual mode, then click Next. CAUTION: You must select Manual mode in this step. Attempting to upgrade your pool using Automatic mode can result in data loss. 9. Remove the upgrade media and reboot the server. When the server reboots, XenCenter loses its connection to the pool. When it returns, it should reconnect automatically. If it does not, right-click on the pool and select Connect from the context menu. 10. Repeat for all other servers in the pool, migrating VMS to the master and/or other members and shutting down any VMs that are on local storage. 11. Update the PV drivers on the VMs once the pool servers are upgraded. See the XenServer VM Installation Guide for details. NOTE: XenCenter from release 4.0.1 or 4.1.0 does not work with XenServer hosts from release 5.0.0. However, XenCenter from release 5.0.0 does work with XenServer hosts from release 4.1.0. Troubleshooting upgrades If you experience trouble during the upgrade process, you can roll back to the previous image by holding down the SHIFT or CAPS LOCK during boot and a menu is displayed. If this is the first upgrade you have performed, option 1 will be the original system, and option 2 will be the new system (the current default). If this is the second upgrade you have performed, option 1 will be the new system (the current default), and option 2 will be the prior system. Upgrades 3, 4, and the rest are arranged similarly such that which partition the newer and older software resides on switches, and the newer upgrade is always set as the default boot partition. When you boot either system image from this menu, your selection will then be set as the default option. To enable a verbose boot, enter the command /opt/xensource/libexec/set-boot noisy To enable serial output, enter enter the command /opt/xensource/libexec/set-boot serial To turn off serial and verbose boot sequences, enter the command /opt/xensource/libexec/set-boot quiet XenServer HP Edition Release Notes 11