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Hands-On Xen: Installation Guide for Xen Server

Chapter · August 2017

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2785-5.ch010

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 Hands on Vagrant
I. Introduction

The word Xen (pronounced /’zɛn/) with origin in the ancient Greek term Xenos (ξένος),
means to refer the guest families whose relationship come under the ritual of Xenia ("guest-
friendship") (https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Project_Beginners_Guide). This term
played a vital role to give the idea of guest/host operating, SaaS and community cloud. The
Xen Hypervisor Project was designed and developed by Cambridge University for the
XenoServers Project as a mechanism to divide up the single physical resource into multiple
logical views of computing resources as a multi-tenancy and to control the hardware,
managing resources and auditing the accountability to improve the performance of the cloud
services. Xen is graphical user interface based on Windows. XenCenter facilitates the pooling
and sharing storage, hosting of XenServer. It also manages, monitors and deploys the
Windows-based desktop machine. The original website was created in 2003 to allow a global
community of developers to contribute and improve the hypervisor. The community
supported project followed multiple principles: Transparency, Open Standards, Consensus
Decision Making support, and Meritocracy
(https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/xenserver-7-whats-new/).

Two commercial copies of XenServer 7.0 are:

 Enterprise
 Standard

The basic and standard edition is entry level commercial contributes a wide range of
properties suitable to the needs of customers with high performances of virtualization
platform, no requirement of top level principles by the Enterprise edition, while still desiring
to take benefits from the guarantee of full Citrix support, control and maintenance. The
Enterprise edition is top best enhanced for both desktop, Server and cloud workloads.

The end users with the first time XenApp or XenDesktop may continue to have the
privilege of XenServer containing all the principles and properties within the standard and
many of those from the Enterprise edition that includes:
 Automatic updating virtual machine driver for windows
 Automated updates of Management agent
 SMB storage support
 APIs Directly Examine
 Dynamic Balance of workloads
 Intel GVt-g and GPU Virtualization (vGPU) with NVIDIA GRID
 Transformation services from VMware vSphere to XenServer
 Intel Secure Measured Boot (TXT)
 Exportation of Data Resource Pooling
 Read caching in-memory

XenServer can directly installs on bare-metal hardware without any restriction, overhead
charge and performance obstacles of an Operating System. Device drivers from Linux kernel
are used by means of XenServer. As the performance and production, it is capable to run on a
wide range of storage devices and hardware.

The XenServer host mainly contains of:

 Xen Hypervisor: The hypervisor is the primarily abstractive level of software. It is liable
and responsive for disk isolation of residing virtual machines and low-level jobs such as
scheduling of CPU. It distinct for the virtual machine from the hardware. It has no basic
information and knowledge of configuring networks, video, external storage, etc. The Xen
Project of Linux Foundation improves and manages the Xen hypervisor as an open
licensed software under the General Public License. V4.6 of the Xen hypervisor is used by
the XenServer 7.0.
 Domain Control: also called ‘dom0’ or ‘Domain0’. It is a safe and protected, preferred
Linux (based on CentOS) Virtual Machine that is eligible to run XenServer management
toolstack. It also runs the stack driver without producing XenServer control functionality,
that delivers consumer generated VMs access to physical devices instead of logical.
 Management toolstacks (xapi): used to control lifecycle operations of Virtual Machine,
networking of Virtual Machine and host, consumer authenticity, virtual machine storage.
It also manages the resource pooling of XenSerrver and delivers recognized XenAPI
 Managing Interface freely, accessible to use by all tools that manage resource pooling and
Virtual Machines.
 Templates of Virtual machine, for installation of OS as virtual machines.
 A general Storage Repository set aside for virtual machines.
o Note: A 64-bit x86 server is required for the installation of XenServer host.
Installation of any other OS is restricted with XenServer host in the dualboot
configuration; due to its irrelevant configuration.

Benefit goes to XenServer are:

It is the cost effective and reduces the cost of utilizing XenServer as:

 Adding/Combing different virtual machines on the physical servers

 Multiple separate storage images are reduced to easily manage.
 Available storage infrastructure and networking are easily integrated by the use of
XenServer that enhances the flexibility.
 It allows to schedule zero downtime maintenance by means of XenMotion for VMs
migration within XenServer hostings.
 High availability increases the VMs availability for configuring policies that turns to
restart VMs on other XenServer host if anyone fails.
 Portability of VM images are enhanced, as single VM image functioning on a range of
deployable infrastructures.

II. System Requirements

1: XenServer host
2: XEN Citrix Center

XenServer:
The XenServer host should be a 64-bit x86 server-class machine devoted to hosting VMs.
64-bit x86 server-class machine is needed for XenServer to host VMS. A toughened and
enhanced Linux partition should be run by this machine with a Xen enabled kernel which is able
to control the communication between the physical hardware and the virtualized devices seen by
the VMs.

XenServer is able to use of:

a) up to 16 NICs
b) up to 1TB of RAM
c) up to 160 logical processors per host.
 d) System capable of virtualization.

System Component Minimum Requirement Recommended Requirement

Operating System Any Windows OS, Any Linux OS
One or more 64-bit x86 CPU(s),
CPUs 2 GHz or faster multicore CPU
1.5GHz
Memory 2 GB of RAM 4 GB of RAM or more
One or more gigabit NIC(s) for
faster P2V and export/import
Network 100Mbit/s
data transfers and VM live
migration.
Locally attached storage (PATA,
Disk Space 60 GB
SATA, SCSI) with 16GB

Xen Citrix Center:

System Component Minimum Requirement Recommended Requirement

Any Windows flavors: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7,
Operating System Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server
2008R2
CPUs 750 MHz of CPU 1 GHz of CPU or Faster
.Net Framework Version 3.5 Version 4
Memory 1 GB of RAM 2 GB of RAM
1920 x 1200 pixels for LAN
Screen Resolution 1024 x 768 Pixels and 1280 x 1024 for WAN
connection
Network 100 MB Or Faster NIC
Disk Space 100 MB

III. Installation and configuration processes directly on the system

1. First of all, download .exe file using the below given link:

(http://downloadns.citrix.com.edgesuite.net/8708/XenCenter.msi?_ga=1.226090010.1819
769869.1476463749)

2. Double click on the.exe file, a dialog will be displayed as then click on the Next button.

Figure: 1

3. Now, select the installation type (Install for: All Users or only for Just Me) and also click
on the browse button if you want to change the location of the installation.
 Figure: 2

4. You can see, CitrixXen Server is ready to install, Click on Install button.

Figure: 3

5. Citrix Xen is now installing on your system. Only Cancel button is active to cancel the
process.
Figure: 4

6. Click on the Finish button.

Figure: 5

7. Click on Add New Server Tab

7.1 Under server field, put the address whether the IP address or web address.
7.2 Username of that server under username field.
7.3 Password on the server under password field.

Figure: 6

8. Some setting is required at the time of Xen server configuration for virtualization

Figure: 7

9. Installation processes using the virtual Box

9.1 Download Oracle Virtual Box
9.2 Install Virtual Box
9.3 Install the operating system under this virtual box.
9.3.1. For Windows: mounting the downloaded Operating System, run it for
installation directly by the means of UI panel setting under the virtual machine.
9.3.2. For Linux: Mount the image file under the user root directory through this
command: mount/dev/cdrom/mnt.
Then the installation of operating system goes to run this command:
/mnt/Linux/install.sh.
If the kernel has been upgraded, or the VM has been upgraded earlier from a previous
version, then after VM is needed to reboot the VM.
 10. Download Xen Server using URL (https://www.citrix.com/downloads/xenserver/product-
software/xenserver-70-standard-edition.html)
For Linux Environmet use command for downloading .exe file
# wget –c http://downloadns.citrix.com.edgesuite.net/11616/XenServer-7.0.0-main.iso.
Now mount this ISO file into drive/USB using command:
#dd if=XenServer-7.0.0-main.iso of=</path/to/usb/drive> to mount the into USB.

Figure:8

11. At the time of installation, set the following configuration. Select keyboard as the qwerty
US and click Ok button.

Figure:9

12. Set the profile name and network configuration manually like DNS, IPV4 address and
URL, and then click on Ok button.

Figure:10

13. Select the driver manually or use a driver disk for further configuration.

Figure:11

14. Set the settings for creating the backup of the existing environment and use the storage
space for the new configuration. Click on the Continue button if you agree on display
message, otherwise click on the Back button and select the desired driver.

Figure:12

15. Add New Pool

15.1 Name of the pool under Name field.
15.2 Give Description of the pool under Description field.
15.3 Add New Server button gives the ability to create a server using this popup.

Figure:13

References:

1. XenServer 7. (2016, December 29). Retrieved January 1, 2017, from

https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/xenserver-7-whats-new/
2. XCP Beginners Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2017,
from https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/XCP_Beginners_Guide
 3. (n.d.). Retrieved January, from
http://downloadns.citrix.com.edgesuite.net/8708/XenCenter.msi?_ga=1.226090010.18197
69869.1476463749.
4. XenServer 7.0 Standard Edition. (n.d.). Retrieved January, 2017,
fromhttps://www.citrix.com/downloads/xenserver/product-software/xenserver-70-
standard-edition.html

Authors’ Biography
Dr. Khaleel Ahmad

Dr. Khaleel Ahmad is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science
& Information Technology at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. Prior
to this, he has worked at prestigious universities and institutions of national repute. He
holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering and M.Tech in Information Security.
His research area is Information Security, Cyber Security, Cryptography, Opportunistic
Network, and Cloud Computing. He has 40 published papers in refereed
national/international journals and conferences (viz. Elsevier, ACM, IEEE, and Springer),
6 book chapters (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, IGI Global, IGNOU New Delhi).
He has delivered guest lectures at the Central University of Haryana, India, and
TelanganaUniversity, India and also chaired the session at an international conference in
Hyderabad. He is also the life member of various international/national research societies
viz. ISTE, CRSI, ISCA, IACSIT (Singapore), IAENG (Hong Kong), IARCS, IAOE
(Austria), ISOC (USA) etc. In addition, he is associated with many international research
organizations as editorial board member and reviewer.

Mr. Masroor Ansari

Mr. Masroor Ansari is an M.Tech Computer Science student at the Department of

Computer Science & Information Technology, Maulana Azad National Urdu University,
India. He had completed his B.Tech in Computer Engineering from Uttar Pradesh
Technical University, India. He had worked 4 years as a Software engineer in reputed
MNCs.

Mr. Afsar Kamal

Mr. Afsar Kamal is a final year student of MCA at the Dept of Computer Science &
Information Technology in Maulana Azad National Urdu University, India. He has
completed his graduation in Computer Application from BRA B.U (Bihar University),
Muzaffarpur, India.

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