Hello,
XO Lite directs requests/comments here, so here are my first impressions after upgrading to 8.3:
The Good:
Very happy a builtin option for managing a host will be provided!
Worked well for basic tasks I needed to do post reinstall to version 8.3.
Interface is snappy and I like the look and feel so far.
Console view was VERY helpful.
The inclusion of the an XOA url at the top is a nice addition.
For the following, I'm coming at this from the perspective of "what do I need to be able to do if I can't get XOA started for reason X." I know some of this might fall into the "What XO Lite is NOT," but I still think that all of the following are host-specific and not pool-specific if that makes sense. So if it's a vm-on-a-host-based task, it's fair game, but if it's something like vm migration then it's not. Also, if the intent is for this to replace XCP-NG center for single-host deployments (which is a great goal imo), then some of the request below fit the bill of what XCP-NG Center supports, but are also in the "What XO Lite is NOT" list. There's a bit of an identity crisis. Also, apologies if anything below is present and I missed it.
The Missing/"Required":
Creating/Attaching/Detaching VDBs manually. I have one VM that, after upgrades, needs to have an SR re-attached that is not backed up. This may also be useful in instances when a troublesome VDB might need to be rebuilt or reattached in an emergency.
Configuring passthrough NICs on the host and passing them through to a VM would be nice, but I don't remember if XCP-NG Center did this or not. Similar to above, I have a VM that I passthrough a number of NICs to, and while it's scripted for now it'd be nice to be able to do as a one-off if needed.
Restoring From Snapshops. If my host crashes and one of my dependent VMs (maybe even the XOA VM) is corrupted, I want to be able to restore a snapshot to get back into working order ASAP.
Modifying the MAC address on VM interfaces is another emergency-based task I'd like. The MAC address can change when restoring a VM from backup, but if the environment depends on the MAC address staying the same for "reasons" (say the IPv6 address of the VM is derived from SLAAC), then being able to set this manually in XO Lite can mean the difference between a quick restore and a lengthy restoration effort while DNS is updated etc...
Likewise, being able to add/remove NICs to a VM is desired. So I guess this can be combined with the above bullet-point: Add/Remove/Modify NICs on a VM.
The ability to create and destroy a VM on the host.
The ability to backup and restore a VM from backup LOCALLY as one-offs (not scheduled). The use-case is a situation where XOA is accidentally blown away, then the administrator can mount the backup location on the host (via NFS/Samba) and kick-off a one-off restore where they specify the location on (remote) disk.
Nice To Have:
XCP-NG Center has a really nice view if you click on a Host and select the Search tab. It shows all of the VMs CPU/Memory statistics, so at-a-glance you can see if a VM is misbehaving. I very occasionally use this (relying on monitoring), but it has come in handy.
It'd be nice if XO Lite could be tied into LDAP for authentication like XOA can be while still "preferring" root login. This would help provide some level of auditing for organizations that want to make sure no funny business is being done on a host-level. Otherwise, I think organizations will block access to this after the host has started.
Since XO Lite is focused on the host-level, it'd be nice if certain host-specific configurations like SNMP and Syslog were configurable in XO Lite.
It'd be great if there were a tab to show the running/failed systemd services on the XCP-NG Host.
Similarly, it'd be nice if there were a host Logs tab to display logs at a configurable level (ERROR, WARN, INFO) for the host in-question.
The Small Improvements:
I wish the XOA link pointed to the XOA server's FQDN or is configurable as opposed to linking to the XOA server's IP address. Might be a quick fix?
Very ignorable and too late in the game, but I wish XO Lite had a different name. The "Lite" in the name gives it the likeness of being an intentionally neutered application. I'd have preferred something like "XCP-NG Local Host Manager" (XLHM) or similar that makes it clear the tool will be developed to allow configuring JUST the host in question.
Anyway, great work team. Looking forward to improvements to XO Lite in the future.
