XCP-ng documentation

# Managing pools and hosts

You have multiple ways to manage your hosts and your pool: all of those are called clients.

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As soon you start to work with multiple pools, or if you want to have advanced features, you'll need more advanced clients. For example, xe, XO Lite and XCP-ng Center are considered "basic", and Xen Orchestra web UI, CLI or API is so far the only one considered "advanced".

# xe

The xe command line interface is installed by default on all XCP-ng hosts. A stand-alone remote CLI is also available for Linux.

Please read the xe dedicated section here.

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xe however, works within a pool. If you want a cross-pool CLI (i.e. your whole infrastructure), please take a look at Xen Orchestra CLI! (opens new window)

# XCP-ng Center

WARNING

XCP-ng Center is only community maintained, and right now, by one person. It fills a gap between xe and Xen Orchestra, until XO Lite is available. Use it with caution.

This is the heavy client working on Windows only. You can download here (opens new window) on the GitHub project page.

# Xen Orchestra

Xen Orchestra is the officially supported client for XCP-ng. It's currently developed by the same team as the XCP-ng project (Vates (opens new window)).

It's also far more than just a client: because it runs 24/7 in a daemon, a lot of extra cool stuff is possible:

  • reports
  • ACLs
  • Self Service
  • load balancing
  • SDN controller
  • backup
  • delta backup
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Continuous Replication
  • backup with RAM etc…

Take a look at the official doc (opens new window) to take a tour on what's possible.

Xen Orchestra is fully Open Source, and it comes in 2 "flavors":

  1. the turnkey/preinstalled virtual appliance, called XOA that you can deploy in a minute (opens new window)
  2. manual install from GitHub (documentation (opens new window))

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We advise to start using XOA by deploying it really easily in few clicks on this page (opens new window). You can always decide later to build it yourself from GitHub.

# XOA vs XO from GitHub?

XOA is meant to be used as the easiest way to test it, but also to use it in production: this is the version professionally supported. If you are an individual, feel free to enjoy version from GitHub directly!

# Web UI

You have access to all XCP-ng possibilities (and more!) from a web UI:

Please report to XO official documentation (opens new window) for more!

# XO CLI

This is another client of xo-server (like XO Web) - this time in command line form.

Thanks to introspection, xo-cli will detect all the available features exposed in the xo-server API.

> xo-cli --help
Usage:

  xo-cli --register <XO-Server URL> <username> [<password>]
    Registers the XO instance to use.

  xo-cli --unregister
    Remove stored credentials.

  xo-cli --list-commands [--json] [<pattern>]...
    Returns the list of available commands on the current XO instance.

    The patterns can be used to filter on command names.

  xo-cli --list-objects [--<property>]… [<property>=<value>]...
    Returns a list of XO objects.

    --<property>
      Restricts displayed properties to those listed.

    <property>=<value>
      Restricted displayed objects to those matching the patterns.

  xo-cli <command> [<name>=<value>]...
    Executes a command on the current XO instance.

Check XO CLI documentation (opens new window) for more details.

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Unlike xe which is only connected to one pool, xo-cli has access to all pools connected via Xen Orchestra. This is the preferred way to manage your infrastructure, using XO as a central point.

# XO API

You can also build your own application or automation on top of XO API. It's a JSON-RPC API, using the same function calls that xo-cli.

# XO Lite

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XO Lite is not there yet, but it will be embed in each host in a reasonable future

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