Book Image

Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide

By : Daniele Tosatto
Book Image

Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide

By: Daniele Tosatto

Overview of this book

Virtualization helps an organization reduce costs and achieve low maintenance. It is fast becoming an important skill for all administrators. Citrix's XenServer is one of the leading virtualization solutions for enterprises and helps companies reduce costs while allowing them to integrate, automate and easily manage their datacenters. It comes with a steep learning curve, but the results are well worth the effort. This practical guide on XenServer administration shows you how to manage XenServer pools; create, configure and manage virtual machines and a datacenter. With the help of real-world examples in this book, you will be able to apply these concepts directly in your everyday life. Packed with author's tips and helpful advice; the book is your best choice for anything related to XenServer administration. This is the only book that focuses on the most vital aspect of XenServerñadministration. You don't have to struggle through the lesser-documented tasks anymore, this book will provide all the information you need to create and run a perfectly designed datacenter using XenServer.You will begin your journey towards becoming an expert XenServer administrator by configuring XenServer pools and managing role-based user authentication. Your next step is to create and manage virtual machines. In the following chapters you will learn to configure storage. The book discusses some of the more difficult tasks like configuring and managing VM memory. In the end you will be capable of handling your datacenter and virtual machines through a network, and you will learn how to monitor and backup your XenServer setup. All through the book, the author adds his helpful tips and advice that will help you choose the best options for your setup.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Overview of supported guest virtual machines


In Chapter 4, Creating Virtual Machines we have learned how to create virtual machines in a XenServer virtual environment.

In the following table, you can find a list of operating systems that you can install in a virtual machine created in a XenServer environment.

The following table includes the values you can set for the minimum and maximum amount of memory and disk space you can set for each supported guest operating system:

Guest operating system

Minimum RAM

Maximum RAM

Disk space

Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit)

1 GB

4 GB

24 GB minimum, 40 GB or more recommended

Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)

2 GB

128 GB

24 GB minimum, 40 GB or more recommended

Windows Server 2008 R2,

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit)

512 MB

128 GB

24 GB minimum, 40 GB or more recommended

Windows Server 2008,

Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32-bit)

512 MB

64 GB

24 GB minimum, 40 GB or more recommended

Windows Server 2008,

Windows Server 2008 SP2 (64-bit)

512 MB

128 GB

24 GB minimum, 40 GB or more recommended

Windows Server 2003,

Windows Server 2003 SP1, SP2 (32-bit)

256 MB

64 GB

8 GB

Windows Server 2003,

Windows Server 2003 SP1, SP2 (64-bit)

256 MB

128 GB

8 GB

Windows Vista,

Windows Vista SP1, SP2 (32-bit)

1 GB

4 GB

24 GB

Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)

256 MB

4 GB

8 GB

CentOS 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 (32-bit)

256 MB

16 GB

8 GB

CentOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-/64-bit)

512 MB

16 GB

8 GB

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 (32-bit)

256 MB

16 GB

8 GB

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-/64-bit)

512 MB

16 GB

8 GB

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (32-bit)

512 MB

8 GB

8 GB

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (64-bit)

512 MB

32 GB

8 GB

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 (32-bit)

256 MB

16 GB

8 GB

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, SLES 10 SP2, SLES 10 SP3, SLES 10 SP4 (32-bit)

512 MB

16 GB

8 GB

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, SLES 10 SP2, SLES 10 SP3, SLES 10 SP4 (64-bit)

512 MB

128 GB

8 GB

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, SLES 11 SP1 (32-bit)

512 MB

16 GB

8 GB

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1, SLES 11 SP1 (64-bit)

512 MB

128 GB

8 GB

Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-bit)

512 MB

64 GB

8 GB

Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (64-bit)

512 MB

128 GB

8 GB

Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (32-bit)

512 MB

8 GB

8 GB

Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (64-bit)

512 MB

32 GB

8 GB

Debian Lenny 5.0 (32-bit)

128 MB

32 GB

8 GB

Debian Squeeze 6.0 (32-/64-bit)

128 MB

32 GB

8 GB

Ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit)

128 MB

512 MB

8 GB

Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit)

128 MB

32 GB

8 GB

Virtual machine templates

In Chapter 4, Creating Virtual Machines we have discovered that we can create guest virtual machines starting from a template.

In the following table, you can find the templates XenServer offers you in order to create virtual machines based on Windows and Linux operating systems.

Also, you can find some notes for Linux distributions that help you in the installation phase.

Template Name

Notes

Windows 7 (32-bit)

 

Windows 7 (64-bit)

 

Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)

 

Windows Server 2003 (64-bit)

 

Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)

 

Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)

 

Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

 

Windows Vista (32-bit)

The Enterprise edition is supported.

Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)

Service Packs 1 and 2 are not supported.

Debian Lenny 5.0 (32-bit)

The standard Debian Lenny 5.0 DVD images are not compatible with XenServer. For details on how to obtain a suitable DVD image, see the Debian Lenny article available at http://community.citrix.com/display/xs/Debian+Lenny.

To properly mount the XenServer Tools CD on a Debian guest, you must pass -o exec along with the other options on the VM.

Debian Squeeze 6.0 (32-/64-bit)

To install Debian Squeeze 6.0, you need to use the multiarch.iso from the official Debian mirror which can be found at http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer.

To properly mount the XenServer Tools CD on a Debian guest, you must pass -o exec along with the other options on the VM.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 (32-bit)

Requires installing XenServer Tools after installing RHEL to apply the Citrix RHEL 4.8 kernel.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-/64-bit)

Use the 5.4 or later kernel.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (32-/64-bit)

You cannot install Red Hat Enterprise Linux using a physical CD media.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 32-bit

Installation supported only by network repository.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, SLES 10 SP2,SLES 10 SP4 (32-/64-bit)

 

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 (32-bit)

 

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 (64-bit)

Supported only if upgrading from SLES 10 SP2.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, SLES 11 SP1(32-/64-bit)

 

CentOS 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 (32-bit)

Ensure that the operating system is using the RHEL 5.4 or later kernel.

CentOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-/64-bit)

Ensure that the operating system is using the RHEL 5.4 or later kernel.

Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 (32-/64-bit)

With OEL 5.6 64-bit, the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel does not support the Xen platform.

Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (32-/64-bit)

You cannot install Red Hat Enterprise Linux using a physical CD media.

Ubuntu 10.04 (32-/64-bit)

Installation supported only by network repository.

To create Ubuntu 10.04 VMs with multiple vCPUs, update the guest kernel to 2.6.32-32 #64. For details on this issue, see the Citrix Knowledge Base article CTX129472 available at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX129472.

You can find more details about supported Linux distributions in the Citrix XenServer 6.0 Virtual Machine Installation Guide available at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130422.