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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide] Citrix XenServer Quick Proof of Concept How to set up a XenServer 5.6 cluster Stuart Hanks Page 1 1/17/202210

Citrix XenServer Installation Guide

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Page 1: Citrix XenServer Installation Guide

[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Citrix XenServer

Quick Proof of Concept

How to set up a XenServer 5.6 cluster

Stuart Hanks Page 1 4/11/202310

Page 2: Citrix XenServer Installation Guide

[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Contents

Overview.............................................................................................................................3

Step 1 – Create Pool........................................................................................................4

Step 2 - Create Storage Repository...............................................................................6

Step 3 – Configure High Availability...............................................................................9

Step 4 - Configure Xenmotion and Dynamic Memory Control.................................13

Step 5 - Configure Active Directory Authentication...................................................14

Summary..........................................................................................................................15

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Page 3: Citrix XenServer Installation Guide

[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Overview

This document provides guidance for setting a very basic Citrix XenServer 5.6 cluster of two hosts attached to ISCSI storage. The features that will configured are as below

XenMotion HA Shared ISCSI storage repository Active Directory integration Dynamic Memory control

Requirements

In order to set up the cluster two hosts will need to set up with Xenserver installed, hosts will need to set up with IP addresses and configured to be managed via XenCenter as below.

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Step 1 – Create Pool

The first step is to create a pool; this is very similar to creating a cluster in Vsphere.

1: Right click on XenCenter >and choose New Pool

2: Choose a name for the cluster in this instance well will be calling the cluster XenCluster

3: Select the required hosts to be members of the cluster.

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Page 5: Citrix XenServer Installation Guide

[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

4:We will now see the XenServer Cluster appear with the two member servers

5:We now need to license the servers: use >Tools >License manager and enter the IP address of your license server*

*You will need to use enterprise edition or above to use the Dynamic memory control functionality

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Step 2 - Create Storage Repository

1: We now need to create the shared storage repository this is similar to creating a VMFS volume in Vsphere but with XenServer this a LVM SR.

2: Choose ISCSI as the SR type and choose an name and then enter the target host IP (in this instance it will be the virtual IP of the HP Left-hand storage) *

*Note you will need to have configured your ISCSI storage to accept the ISCSI IQNOf the two nodes in the cluster

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1: After the IP has been entered use the discover IQNs button to scan for the presented IQN, you will then see the LUN appear in the Target IQN tab.

2:Now use the discover LUN’s button to scan for the presented LUN, you will then see the LUN appear in the Target LUN tab

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

3: Click finish to create the SR and you will presented with the following message, which basically means the LUM will formatted with the LVM and a SR will be created

4: In the XenCenter management console you will now see the ISCSI SR appear. You can now implement this SR for Virtual machines.

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Step 3 – Configure High Availability

1: We now need to configure high availability this is similar to Vsphere HA, but XenServer uses a Quorum heartbeat LUN instead of the HA agents on each node

2: A small LUN (around 500mb) needs to created on the ISCSI SR and presented to both hosts*

*Use the methods explained in the Create Storage section to create and present the LUN

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

3: We now need to configure the heartbeat SR for HARight click on the Cluster and choose >High Availability

4: Click next and choose the created HA SR to use as the heartbeat SR*

*Note you will given the option to choose virtual machine restart priority in the event of HA failover, but as no machines have been created we will configure this at a later stage.

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

5: XenServer HA works on the concept of Pool masters(the master will always be the server listed directly under XenCenter). The configuration is populated amongst the hosts but only one is the master server. If you wish to change this for any reason you will need to run the following commands*Go to the >console tab and open the mgmt shell

6: Firstly we need to disable HA in the cluster

Type > xe pool-ha-disable

*I have included these commands as you will not be able to use XenCenter to manage your cluster if the pool master node is unavailable.

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

7: We now need to find out the UUID of the hosts this can be achieved by typing > xe host-list

8: Now we need to promote the slave by using the UUID of the slave server found in the previous command.

Type > xe pool-designate-new-master host-uuid=****

When you reconnect via XenCenter you will now see the new pool master listed at the top of the tree

Now enable HA as in step 1

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Step 4 - Configure Xenmotion and Dynamic Memory Control

1: XenMotion is very easy to configure, the only requirements are shared storage and Connectivity you just need to make sure that Xentools are running on each machine.Either drag and drop onto the required host or right click on the VM and choose >migrate to server

2: XenServer Dynamic memory control permits memory utilization of existing VM’s to be compressed so you can add more machines to the node.You need use the memory tab > then edit and chose a minimum and maximum allocation based on your requirements this again is similar to the memory reservation function in Vsphere though not as advanced as TPS

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Step 5 - Configure Active Directory Authentication

1:AD integration is very simple in Xenserver, simply click on the users tab and then > Join domain

2:Once you have added your domain you can then drill down and add users and apply permissions based on roles, Simply use the > add user button and then choose the required role

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[Citrix XenServer 5.6 Guide]

Summary

As you can see XenServer 5.5 is very simple to configure the new licensing model means with the advanced edition you now have the option for HA, Memory over commit, Snapshots and live migrations all for around 700 pounds per server, I think this is a great fit for server hosting and VDI environments.

Feature Free Advanced Enterprise Platinum

Freevirtual infrastructure

XenServer hypervisor

XenMotion® live migration

VM Disk Snapshot and Revert

XenCenter multi-server management

Resilient distributed management architecture

Conversion tools

Advanced management and automation

High availability  

Memory optimization  

Performance alerting and reporting  

Automated workload balancing    

Heterogeneous pools    

Host power management    

Provisioning services (virtual)    

Role-based administration    

Live memory snapshots and reverts    

Citrix® StorageLink™    

Lifecycle management      

Provisioning services (physical)      

Site recovery      

  Cost per server Free $1,000 $2,500 $5,000

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