Just dropped in an i5 3470 and still not working. I hate love computers.

This is all very new to me, but I'm very fascinated with all this so please have some patience with me.

 

So, XENserver is actually a Linux based OS?

When I start up the computer it goes straight to XENserver where I choose which "computer" I want to start, or I can just create a new computer with any OS of my choice, even unRAID? What about PFSENSE?

And if my XENserver computer dies, I just need to get another XENserver set up again and all my other "computers" will start up like nothing ever happened?

 

Here is the gist of Hypervisor software, for more info Google  “Type 1 Hypervisor”

 

XenServer is special type of software. Which is based on Linux. It is commonly known as Type 1(bare metal) Hypervisor. (I will explain further down)

It is like a VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation product used to make a virtual computers. This programs are commonly known as Type 2 Hypervisors

Meaning they need to be installed on computer that already have a functioning OS  like Linux or Windows , and they are installed and run

just like any other programs on the computer

 

there are several bare metal  Hypervisor products available today for you to use

Free and paid for.

As an example  in no particular order :

    Xen is an open source(free ) product several other commercial and free Hypervisors are based on

XCP – based on Xen but with few bells and whistles added to the mix.

XenServer 6.2 is a free(as of July 2013 ) product form Citrix , that is based on Xen but with more user interface functions added on top

VMWare ESX/ESXi  - comes in free and paid for configuration

Hyper-V from Microsoft comes in free and paid for configuration

 

All of this products are used to create a Virtual environment on single physical peas of hardware.

If you ever used any kind of virtualizer software such as VirtualBox or VMWare workstation (aka Type 2 Hypervisors) you know what it is used for and how to do it.

However this products need to be installed within an running OS. Which limits their use and functionality a little, as well as degrades performance

Since the main (Host) OS takes up resources on the computer.

 

Type 1 Hypervisor is different  as it installs directly on Hardware, just as you would install an regular OS

And then you create a Virtual Computer to run what ever OS you like on it. This make it possible to have VM perform close or some time seven better than Real PC.

 

 

 

On my current unRAID machine, can I run XENserver off a USB drive, then start up unRAID (from another USB stick) inside XEN? Would I have to reconfigure my unRAID array?

No, you can not do this.

What you would need to do , is (if you want to reuse the hardware from you unraid machine)

!!! IMPORTANT !!! :

before you do ANYTHING with your current unraid setup

backup your flash dirve,

run Parity check,

update unraid to the most current stable version you feel comfortable with.

make sure all is fine and running stable as is.

 

on more personal note I would create a brand new usb stick with same version of unraid as the setup you will be running, and use that for testing the new VM stuff. if you have get an empty harddrive of any kind

and use that to see if your new VM setup sees it and can work with it.

 

!!! IMPORTANT !!!

 

1. Stop and shut down unRiad, Remove All the drives (this is to make sure you do not screw-up and destroy the data by accident)

2. get a clean empty drive of any size but no less than 20GB or even 40GB, if you want to run the Hypervisor from USB it certainly possible but you still need the drive to store your VMs on.

If you want to use unRaid as VM storage, I think it is possible but will be very tricky to setup.  Do the search on this site, I believe I have come across such post some time ago.

 

3. install the Hypervisor(HV) of your choice.

NOTE: there are some caveats in running unRaid in VM. The most popular HV here so far is ESXi from VMWare, but it is very picky about the hardware it runs on

And free version have other constrains (google is your friend) os check your Motherboard and CPU for compartibility.

 

4. once you have the HV setup, follow the direction on how to create unRaid VM.

  If you decide to go with ESXi do search here on ESXi. There is a thread where you can even download a functioning VM image and instruction on how to use it.

For Xen/XenServer this is the main thread for help so far.  And ddeeds and tashak  are main men in this respect.

 

5. Go nuts and paly with creating other VM like windows, linux etc.

 

If my XENserver is headless, do I manage and access all my machines from a web browser, like on an iPad or do I need another computer installed with some kind of console?

Different HV have different way of management.

But most of them need a PC with some sort of client installed.

 

ESXi needs windows PC with management client. (what you do is when your server is up and running you navigate your browser to server IP and it will give you a link to download clinet)

 

XenServer is managed using XenCenter app from Citrix or using CLI via  SSH client  (like Putty or alike)

Xen/XCP  is managed  using CLI via  SSH client 

 

MS Hyper-V free is managed using PowerShell and/or RDP command line 

Also possible to manage it using Hyper-V manager in Windows 8.

 

 

 

When my XENserver starts up, will it automatically start the other "computers"?

It will if you set it up like that

 

 

Can I store the virtual machines on an unRAID share, and will XEN know to start the other virtual machines AFTER unRAID has started up?

 

I probably just need 2 or 3 machines (unRAID, slackware, windows) at the moment. I guess that I would need a reasonably powerful computer, like something with a quadcore?

 

Does it need very specific type of hardware, like server motherboards and stuff?

As my needs grow, would I be able to easily move everything to a new XENserver?

It’s not that simple.

You do not NEED the server hardware per say, but server grade hardware does have some benefits to it.

Such as IPMI (especially if you run headless.) and More memory support.

But you can pretty much run this on anything  that meets your needs.

A quad core 64bit capable CPU/MB with at least 8GB of RAM can handle it just fine.

NOTE: make sure that whatever CPU/MB you get they fully support VT-d(intell)  or  IOMMU(AMD)

for hardware pass-through functionality.

 

if you go with ESXi check the HCL on VMWare site for compatible hardware

 

 

Depending on what solution you go with it should be easy enough to export your VMs and import them to new hardware as needed.

Only issue would be if you need a hardware pass-through functionality (which you might for unraid)

In that case you will need to make sure that you remove the passed through hardware from your VM before exporting it

And add proper hardware to it after importing onto new server.

In unRaid case most common item to pass-through is hard drive controller  so unRaid can control drive spin up/down

 

 

 

I was looking around for information about virtualbox in unRAID before I came across this thread. One of the things that I thought about was that if I had to restart unRAID then all my virtual machines need to be shutdown. I'm playing around with my unRAID setup quite a bit - installing packages and plugins, trying things out and I actually need to restart unRAID quite often. So XEN gets a point here. On the other hand Virtualbox seems easier to install, and that's important for a noobie like me.

 

I would love to give this a try. I would need lots of instruction, but I think I can follow instructions well enough.

 

I guess the first thing I need to do is to determine whether XEN will run on my hardware?

 

Just dropped in an i5 3470 and still not working. I hate love computers.

 

actually have success to report!

 

xl pci-list-assignable-devices

didn't produce any output until i manually went and passed the card through. so it would appear I didn't require that step.

 

new problem, of course! unraid boots, passes through the supermicro SAS card no problem but it's not picking up my pro.key so i'm limited to only 3 drives.

actually have success to report!

 

Glad that you were able to get it installed and working using the guide.

 

new problem, of course! unraid boots, passes through the supermicro SAS card no problem but it's not picking up my pro.key so i'm limited to only 3 drives.

 

Yes, I am going to provide a solution for this later today or early tomorrow and will update page 1 with the solution / how to guide.

 

 

great! this is really important for me. is it a difficult thing to do to get the .key detected? is it along the lines of creating the .vhd or something?

ddeeds : I have a strange question here.

 

your guide for creating unRaid VM on Xen creates HVM  domU

not PV domU right?

 

is it possible to create a PV domU for unraid?

 

 

No, it is not about performance,  as I am reading stuff, I see again and again that pvm have better support for pass through than hvm. But that is xen related not xenserver. I am almost done bulding the bare xen setup. And will try.

 

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

After a very long day I am exceptionally pleased to report, success! With thanks to ddeeds to pushing me in the right direction all day.

 

The crux of the issue was that Xen doesn't passthrough the UUID of the flash drive to unraid. The solution, pass the entire PCI controller through. This created another issue - no boot volume! This involved making a .vhd of unraid from a USB key using winimage (similar to the process for esxi) and importing that into xencenter.

 

I can therefore confirm with my hardware that Xen is a go. There may well be a more elegant solution but my mobo has at least 2 usb controllers meaning I can use different sets of ports for keyboard access and usb passthrough.

 

Next up is setting up a VM to take care of all the usenet stuff, mySQL server and other XBMC related guff. Then onto passing through the dvb-s2 card and seeing if it works better than it did under ESXi (loads of pixellation).

 

Cannot thank OP enough. Top lad.

i'm following this thread to check if i can switch from my esxi setup ... i have 3 m1015s and 2 unraid pro usbs that i do need to eventually pass through.

 

a couple of questions

 

- i dont see the equivalent of rdm (raw device mapping) .. i'm assuming there's no need for it.

- can i have an nfs serve as "datastore", the same as it happens today in esxi 5.1

- it seems like upgrading and stuff should be easier under this xen setup. any experience on this matter ?

 

great post ddeeds ... keep it up !

Successfully completed a parity check. A little slower than normal, usually about 90-95 mb/s.

 

Spin down all working OK.

Successfully completed a parity check. A little slower than normal, usually about 90-95 mb/s.

 

Compared to "bare metal"? ESXi?

 

Also, how much memory / CPUs did you assign to XenServer and unRAID?

 

 

1 cpu, 2gb ram.

 

and that speed was bare metal. esxi was faster.

XenServer seems pretty nifty, might have to play around with it once i free up my bare metal unraid gear after moving to esx.  I'm also interested in giving openstack a shot, we use a lot of KVM at work.

What speeds were you getting in an ESXi unRAID VM?

 

Was your ESXi unRAID VM configured with only 1 cpu and 2gb of ram?

 

Have you updated / applied the 2 patches to XenServer?

 

Speeds in ESXi were about the same as bare metal minus 10% and hardware was similar.

 

As for the patches to XS6.2 I am unable to install them. The server is greyed out and won't complete the update wizard.

BIG UPDATE

 

Thanks to the incredible help I've received from ddeeds over the past few days, I am proud to report that unRAID is now a guest OS using Xen and Debian Wheezy!!!! He's taken me through several distros, many late nights and taught me much foo with regard on how to compile kernels. The end result is my Debian install is running a custom kernel, Xen 4.3 was compiled from source too.

 

Performance is excellent, slightly better than I was getting on bare metal (which is insane). All of my drives are plugged directly into the Supermicro SAS card, which is using PCI passthrough, to achieve this performance. So far as unRAID is concerned, nothing changed - everything is in tact. Awesome.

 

 

As before, to get the Pro license working an entire USB controller had to be passed through (much in the same was as the SAS card).

 

---------------------

 

To do list:

- Get XBMC auto starting on the dom0 using the HDMI out from the CPUs hd2500 GPU.

- Fix HDMI audio

- Setup virt-manager for easy VM administration

- Setup ubuntu for all my usenet crap

- Partay!

congratulations,

 

I am trying to do the same but so far no luck :-(

 

but maybe I am trying to go the lazy way about it.

I manage to install ubuntu server 12.04 with XEN

but as soon as I try to setup XAPI so I can mange it with XenCenter it all goes down.

network issues, etc.

 

still trying though :-)

 

 

we tried this endlessly. it's a problem with the XAPI toolstack. debian is your friend 

 

congratulations,

 

I am trying to do the same but so far no luck :-(

 

but maybe I am trying to go the lazy way about it.

I manage to install ubuntu server 12.04 with XEN

but as soon as I try to setup XAPI so I can mange it with XenCenter it all goes down.

network issues, etc.

 

still trying though :-)

we tried this endlessly. it's a problem with the XAPI toolstack. debian is your friend 

 

are you saying I should try debian with xen setup not ubuntu?

or I should just give up and go the hard way (CLI all the way).

I am a Linux noob 99%. (I mean I heard of Linux, and Play with some distros. as well try to setup ubuntu server right now.)

I am windows guy 100% of the time and Like to have some GUI for hard to medium tasks.

but at this point will try anything :-)

 

 

It's not easy, it involves compiling your own kernel - which took a lot of time with ddeeds helping me. see link at the bottom. you can install debian with or without a desktop environment so you are covered for a GUI. but once you learn all this stuff, you won't need a GUI on the server as you'll control it all from somewhere else using virt-manager. I was a GUI man until last week like yourself, but having invested this week into learning stuff, I'd say I'm comfy not having a GUI now. SSH is my friend.

 

download and install Debian Wheezy to your main HD. then compile yourself a xen compatible kernel, boot into xen and load up unraid. (it really is that simple, pci passthrough is really simple too!)

 

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Xen_Debian_Wheezy_PCI_Passthrough_Tutorial

Hi ddeeds,

I know what you are saying.

not sure if you remember, but I think this thread was started because of my cry for help (see the link in my sig.)

I started with XCP, moved to XenServer

and now play with Xen on Ubuntu.

 

and that is all because my hardware does not fully support IOMMU ,so I can do PCI pass-though to unraid.

 

And I have been  trying to get thing going for a while.

I reinstall UBUNTU 6 times already.

twice on USB stick (too slow)

4 times on HDD  twice with GUI and twice core only.

 

I can get the Ubuntu server running.

I install Xen and make it run (I follow several how-to and all checks seam to indicate a working system)  but as soon as I drop the XAPI on it all goes to hell.

I lose Internet connectivity, thus I can not install update anything anymore.

and sometimes I even loose network connection as well so no SSH tools work(thanks God for IPMI)

 

I get why I would want to go with Xen. I just having issue setting things up.

 

on the side note I really need to move now,  I think one of my PSU is dead and if the other one go I will have to do the PSU mode on this rig. and the only PSU I have is the one running my current UnRaid setup.

it is no point of buying new one as if I go virtual the old setup is up for grubs.

 

There was literally no way to do it over this thread. We spent almost 4 solid days on IM. Once we have a fully cooked up solution, we WILL post a guide. Pinkie swear! Just a few things left to get working. virt-manager being one of them, kinda important.

 

 

BIG UPDATE

 

Thanks to the incredible help I've received from ddeeds over the past few days, I am proud to report that unRAID is now a guest OS using Xen and Debian Wheezy!!!! He's taken me through several distros, many late nights and taught me much foo with regard on how to compile kernels. The end result is my Debian install is running a custom kernel, Xen 4.3 was compiled from source too.

 

It would have been of tremendous help to the rest of us, if that discussion was conducted in this thread, instead of PM.  Still, it's encouraging to hear that you've had a success.

my issue ddeeds is that  I do not have another Linux system to work with.

thus my struggle with making XenCenter work.

 

I might try making a VM in vitualbox or something on my windows system to do that...

 

I guess my task tonight will be UN-installing XAPI on my box and make the networking work again.

than try the libvirt.

ok ddeeds, I have a working ubuntu 12.04 server with xen setuped

 

I have installed libvirt lib

apt-get install libvirt-bin virtinst

 

setup a VM in VMware for ubuntu desctop

installed vit-manager

 

when trying to conenct, get error

 

"can not connect localhost:8000

"

 

I haven't even do the pass through yet.

I have no VM to pass it to.

 

just got Ubuntu/Xen setup

with openSSH.

installed libvirt.

run an update/upgrade command

 

I do have a question here, one of the guides I used for installing Xen

told me to run KVN remove command before installing Xen, which I did as I did it the last 2 times I reinstalled the system, but virt-manager wiki mention KVM, and some other post do as well,

did I screws up ?

I haven't even do the pass through yet.

I have no VM to pass it to.

 

just got Ubuntu/Xen setup

with openSSH.

installed libvirt.

run an update/upgrade command

 

I do have a question here, one of the guides I used for installing Xen

told me to run KVN remove command before installing Xen, which I did as I did it the last 2 times I reinstalled the system, but virt-manager wiki mention KVM, and some other post do as well,

did I screws up ?

 

My advice would be, install Debian (with or without a GUI) as we know this distro works flawlessly.

 

Once you have Debian installed you'd need to compile a custom kernel with xen support (Google is your friend here). If that sounds like too much effort, I'll be posting my .deb files which are my custom kernel compiled with ddeeds the other day later tonight. A full how to is in the works, but these things take time!

 

Once you've got the kernel right, next you want to compile and install xen itself. Plenty of guides on that elsewhere.

 

Then once xen is confirmed working (run xl dmesg to confirm this). We need to check your PCI pass thru as deeds explained above. It's a lot simpler than it sounds, I promise.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

I haven't even do the pass through yet.

I have no VM to pass it to.

 

just got Ubuntu/Xen setup

with openSSH.

installed libvirt.

run an update/upgrade command

 

I do have a question here, one of the guides I used for installing Xen

told me to run KVN remove command before installing Xen, which I did as I did it the last 2 times I reinstalled the system, but virt-manager wiki mention KVM, and some other post do as well,

did I screws up ?

 

My advice would be, install Debian (with or without a GUI) as we know this distro works flawlessly.

 

Once you have Debian installed you'd need to compile a custom kernel with xen support (Google is your friend here). If that sounds like too much effort, I'll be posting my .deb files which are my custom kernel compiled with ddeeds the other day later tonight. A full how to is in the works, but these things take time!

 

Once you've got the kernel right, next you want to compile and install xen itself. Plenty of guides on that elsewhere.

 

Then once xen is confirmed working (run xl dmesg to confirm this). We need to check your PCI pass thru as deeds explained above. It's a lot simpler than it sounds, I promise.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

 

slow down there cowboy :-)

 

I am sure you did not see the post where it say I am a total noob with Linux (although by the sound of some of my post it might not look that way.)

I do need the path of least resistance, and compiling my own kernel and xen might just be a bit over the top (about 2-3 feet over the top I'll bet) :-D

 

so for now I think I will stick with Ubuntu.

 

on the other note, I just have to say I love this board and people on it.

it is very refreshing  to see that most Linux users (geeks or not) are nice and supportive people,

and that the obnoxious jerks, I  come across on other blogs/forums  are a minority.

it is very nice to be able to get some info and support that we (windows users) are accustom to

when faced with a challenge of trying something new and unknown.

 

I have always been able to find information I needed to accomplish the task I face in almost any platform.  since internet took off and a high-speed  always on connections became a norm it was much easier than old days.

but some times dry info is not enough, and an human interaction is needed and very welcome.

especially when a generic solution is not working.

 

let me just say again thank you guys for your time and support.

Tom is doing his best to get a respect worthy product out there, but he needs people like you to help improve  and propagate this product for it to succeed.