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

Applying a hotfix or update using the command line


In the following example, we will discover how to apply a hotfix using the xe CLI to the XenServer host xenserver2:

  1. First, download and extract the update file to a known location on your computer.

  2. If High Availability is enabled on the pool, disable it by executing the xe command pool-ha-disable.

  3. Copy the update file to a folder on the XenServer host, using a tool such as WinSCP. In this example we copy the file to the path /home/.

    Note

    You can download the WinSCP tool available at http://winscp.net.

  4. Upload the hotfix file to the host you wish to update using the xe command patch upload:

    xe patch-upload file-name=<file-name> -s <server> -u <username> -pw <password>
    

    where:

    • The file-name parameter is the path where you have uploaded the hotfix file

    • The server parameter is the name or IP address of the host where you want to apply the hotfix

    • The username parameter is the name of the user account that XenServer will use to upload the file

    • The password parameter is the password related to the user account that you will use to upload the file

    In our example, we execute the following command:

    xe patch-upload file-name=/home/XS60E001.xsupdate -s 192.168.0.2 -u root -pw xenserver
    

    XenServer assigns the hotfix file a unique identifier (UUID). We use this UUID for installing the hotfix. In our example, the uuid is 95ac709c-e408-423f-8d22-84b8134a149e.

    Note

    As we have seen using XenCenter, if XenServer detects any errors or preparatory steps that have not been taken it informs you. So, follow any guidance before continuing with the update.

  5. Now, start the update process using the xe command patch-apply:

    xe patch-apply host-uuid=<host-uuid> uuid=<hotfix-uuid>
    

    where:

    • The host-uuid parameter is the unique identifier of the XenServer host that you are updating

    • The uuid parameter is the unique identifier of the hotfix that you have uploaded previously

    In our example, we execute the following command:

    xe patch-apply host-uuid=5b344339-620c-42f2-b0d1-1b6ad5ec8802 uuid=95ac709c-e408-423f-8d22-84b8134a149e
    
  6. After you have applied the hotfix, you can verify that the update has been successfully applied by using the xe command patch-list. If the update has been successful, the hosts (SRO) field contains the host UUID:

    The command patch-list also informs you about the post-update tasks that you have to perform. The after-apply-guidance (SRO) field in this example instructs you to restart the host.

  7. After you have completed the update process, enable again the High Availability feature on your pool with the xe command pool-ha-enable.