I finally got my lab updated and the two vms started, so far so good. Stats data is present, the first time I've seen any of my hosts pull 100% CPU. Hosts are little HP T740 thin clients with AMD V1756B processors and 64GB of ram, in a 3 host pool.
Sorry I can't bring more detail, not really doing work on my XCP lab right now, and lots of shake up around tech. space at work.
I decided to burn my lab down because of some trouble and wanted to start fresh to isolate any problems I may have created in the past. Wiped the disks, built a new NFS share ready for work, installed the XCP-ng OS and configured networking for the management interface on the local machines, all normal stuff. Went back to my desk and logged into XO Lite on each machine, using console --> xsconsole I was able to get all the hosts into a pool, and add an ISO and NFS SR, all seemed to work.
Went to the New VM to create a simple Debian vm on which I intended to host XO-CE from sources. Typed the info in, chose the Debian image from my ISO SR, the rest of the config as normal. Uncheck the boot after creation box, and create.
Click on the VM to bring the console up, then click power on... UEFI loader comes up, and ... Can't find the boot disk. Tried another iso that I knew was capable of EFI boot, same.
Realized I was trying to start in EFI, made a new one in BIOS mode, this one worked but now my screen shots are messed up so I'll probably have to go through and delete stuff with a different XO and go back to grabbing images of the process to write up "for the next guy".
Other than this small issue, it's working and doing it all from XO Lite. Yes still a bunch of missing features, but I know you are working on this. I just wanted to try things this way on this fresh build and see what I could get done from local console and XO Lite.
BTW, the ram increase made zero difference in the VDI migration times.
I may still change the ram for each host in production, but I only have like 12 VMs right now and probably not many more to create in my little system. Might be useful if I ever get down to a single host because of a catastrophe. Currently running what it chose for default at 7.41 MiB, roughly doubled that in my lab to see what might happen.
Just got my VMware lab started so all this other stuff is going to back burner for a while. I will say I like the basic ESXi interface that they give you, I can see why smaller systems may not bother buying VCenter. I hope XO-lite gives us the same amount of function when it gets done (or more).
I was looking for a way to mark this solved, can't find it.
I haven't moved things, but after migrating my big lab to my mini-lab, I'm confident that the warm migration is the way to go. It was fast and seamless as long as you have the right network adapters set up. I had to fool with one of my networks to make a VM function, but that was certainly something I overlooked while setting up the mini-lab. A little testing before moving the VMs should make this go easily if using the old servers is the option for this project.
Having what is essentially XCP-NG Center from a browser would be nice, no more need to install something on a Windows machine just to get some basic stuff set up until you get a full XOA instance running. Yes I know you can just grab the demo with a single command, but sometimes you want to configure a few things first.
Tom Lawrence has a bit hub with all the artwork that he uses, you might want to find that and check it out.
Documentation is the first thing to get pushed to the back burner, same in my area, same in my larger IT department. Never enough time to document things correctly.
I need to get going with Netbox and see if I can make this speed up what I want to document.
Ummm... Your documentation sure makes a lot of us jealous!
Was that just a layout program like draw.io, or are you using something like Netbox for that work?
I'm starting on GLPI to handle more than just flow paths going forward, need to track serial numbers, date of purchase, maybe installed software as I go forward. A project for the summer.
So there might be two other things to look into if you get bored.
It is not cheaper, but it draws about half the power when idle. When doing work the power still gets up there, they are 60-90 watt computers, which is still less than the 300 watt capable HP servers at full go.
If you really stress your lab a lot, real servers are a win as they will draw less power for more performance, but if yours is like mine and it idles a lot, cutting the power is nice. I'm about 200 watts at idle with the above, and that's two labs worth. I was 400 with the single old lab system.
Mounts are cheap book ends, drilled and screwed to that specific shelf, and drilled for short m4 thumbscrews to get into the VESA mount on the t740.
If anyone reading this wants to duplicate, and they see HP T755 cheap enough, I recommend these because it has 6 cores / 12 threads over the t740 with 4 cores / 8 threads. Both are DDR4 sodimm and top out at 64GB. Both have a PCI 3.0 x8 (x16 slot) that takes half height cards. And if the BIOS is locked, you can write over them with a programmer and enter the data needed to function (see badcaps forum for my guide).
Here is mine
HP DL360e Gen 8 for Truenas, 96GB of RAM, more processors than it needs, and 8x500 drives, NFS share for the VMs
3x HP DL360p gen 8 for XCP-NG with 128GB of RAM and 20c40t worth of processors.
10gbps networking to a Mikrotik switch, also an old Cisco 2960s for a second gigabit network (with POE+)
There is also a cheap GPS/GNSS NTP clock at the top of the rack, just too far to show these other items.
I like the spinning lights on the drives, just wish it was a little faster.
We have a group of colleges together, and they got the price down to $120 per core for VCF, there are no other levels to buy.
And for the small system that we have, Vates would not be a huge amount less, only a couple thousand a year less which doesn't really push to find a different solution. But again I have not looked into education discounts yet so if that cuts the price in half, then it would be substantial enough that they might think about changing. We also pay for Dell vxrail, not sure how much that costs, but allows us to not employ a person to handle the cluster.
There are scripts to run that will set up the XO-CE, even an image you can download directly and answer a few questions to set the IP, etc. while downloading it. It's not hard and easy to document. If that user goes away, then it might get more complex, but there are a couple people that have made scripts on github to get the XO-CE running on many Debian based and many RHEL based linux, I think there is even a docker image if you are using docker stuff.
But I agree looking out for "the next guy" is something that needs to be done whenever possible.
As far as pricing for non-profit education, I'll have to contact sales again and see what I can do. I checked several years ago when things were kind of separate, now that support is all encompassing I need to check back and see what it will cost. I've just been running the XO-CE version but I like to support projects where I can, and if I can wedge a little money into my budget for support, I certainly will do that. With only 3 hosts and a handful of VMs, it's hard to come up with the money for the lowest tier.
One thing I really want to work with is XOstor, I think in my system this might be a good way to go forward for me. Cheaper than building new NAS (about $5000 each for two of them).
All that said, if it is a simple enough system, you probably aren't going to need much support beyond these forums.
[edit] Are we allowed to attach PDF documents to a post? I have simple instructions from when I set up 8.2 in my lab. I don't have newer documents made for 8.3 using XO-lite yet, but screenshots to put to words. XO-lite is changing the knowledge burden to get up and running by a significant factor, and I like where it is going!
Has anyone tried turning off delta, and turning off compression?
Not ideal, but its how I'm dealing with some different issues (windows with big empty disks).
OK, 3 months is good because I'm in a nasty bind right now and this may need to wait until August. I would expect many other places to have the same issues.
Can you simply change the filter to "none" in the vm view to see those that are stopped (red icon)?
This only works if the master host is still running, if that host crashes, you have more work ahead of you.
I also suggest having an XO from sources running somewhere else, like a laptop (VM or hardware), or an old low power server, in a VM on another pool, etc. That way if the host running XOA or XO-CE fails, or the VM just crashes, you will have a backup.
Also keep you XO config backed up since it is pretty quick to deploy a new XO and blast the config onto it.
In version 8.3 you could also log into the XO-Lite and see the VMs that are running and those that are not.
So is that June 25, 2025 or 3 months from now as the drop dead date?
With 8.3 becoming LTS, what happens to 8.2.x? How long will it still receive security updates?
Trying to decide if this is a drop everything and upgrade moment, or if there is some time available before upgrading is required. While my 8.3 lab has been solid since switching (disregarding user created problems), I'm not sure I want to go through an 8.2 to 8.3 upgrade right now.
Also with 8.3 going LTS, does this mean that a 9.x Beta will be available soon? It looks like Alma just released v10 which I've read is going to be the basis for XCP-ng 9.x, or is this still a mountain of work to overcome to get to a Beta? The newer kernel functions like the NFS options is something I'm looking forward to testing.
Here is some info on setting the disks so that they are no longer removeable, I think the last time I did this I just needed the registry edit to fix it.
I'm kind of stuck waiting to migrate my firewall before I can get back to fixing my VMs. I only have 5 and one of them is not showing the warning. All of them should have been getting updates from the management agent or from Windows Update, not sure why only 4 give the warning.
Just an FYI,
So far the only 2022 VM I've updated has created new network adapters which defaulted to DHCP, and it has marked the system drive as removeable, which we saw with 2025 almost a year ago.
Make sure to write down your static IP addresses before beginning.
This is from installing Xenserver MA 9.4.1-160
I finally got my lab updated and the two vms started, so far so good. Stats data is present, the first time I've seen any of my hosts pull 100% CPU. Hosts are little HP T740 thin clients with AMD V1756B processors and 64GB of ram, in a 3 host pool.
Sorry I can't bring more detail, not really doing work on my XCP lab right now, and lots of shake up around tech. space at work.