Feature Request / Community Input – VM Boot Order & Delayed Startup

olivierlambert

Hi,

You can use vApp for that.

Cygace

said in Feature Request / Community Input – VM Boot Order & Delayed Startup:

Hello everyone,

I’m currently deploying a complete infrastructure for a client who previously used Hyper-V, where we could easily configure a VM boot order as well as startup delays between VMs.
This ensured a clean sequence:

XOA

Domain Controller

Application servers, etc.

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What I have verified so far

I contacted the official XCP-ng / XOA support, and they confirmed that this functionality does NOT currently exist, even on the paid (Premium) version of XOA.

They also confirmed that:
• There is no native way to set a boot priority in XCP-ng
• There is no parameter such as order= or delay= in xe vm-param-set
• XOA does not provide a UI for this either
• The orchestration engine does not currently support dependent startup

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What I’m asking the community

Before I build something custom (scripts, hooks, cron jobs, etc.), I would like to know:

Has anyone implemented a reliable way to:
• Force a boot order for VMs
• Introduce a configurable delay between VM startups
• Ensure XOA starts first, then the Domain Controller, then other servers

Is there perhaps:
• A community script
• A known workaround
• A XenAPI trick
• Or an unofficial feature hidden somewhere?

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Environment
• XCP-ng host
• XOA Premium
• ~5 VMs (DC, financial software, POS system, XOA itself, etc.)
• Need clean deterministic startup order after host reboot or power outage

⸻

Any insight or community solutions would be greatly appreciated!
This is something my client relied on in Hyper-V, so I’m trying to replicate the behavior in XCP-ng as cleanly as possible.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Olivier, vApp ???

What do you mean ?

Pilow

@Cygace in advanced settings of VMs
there is

I know at scale it is not easy with 100+ VMs but...
try to put 40s for all VMs, except 20s for domain controller, and 0 for XOA ?

that will not change start order as you think it, but in case of a full restart should do the job ?

olivierlambert

https://docs.xcp-ng.org/appendix/cli_reference/#appliance-commands

Pilow

@olivierlambert hmmm could we consider an appliance as a "group of VMs" ?

if appliance is destroyed, what about the underlying VMs ? still there ?

olivierlambert

Yes, it's a way to group VMs and to get boot prio for them.

Pilow

@olivierlambert nice !
a new discover...

no way to manage by UI in xo5/xo6 AFAIK ?

olivierlambert

Nope, it was never a priority vs all the rest. But the API is there, so it's something we could do at some point. Adding @gregoire in the loop so we are sure it's somewhere in the backlog.

Cygace

Hello everyone,

We have use now XCP-ng Standalone (paid version) with a single host and about 8 VMs.

After opening a ticket with support, I received confirmation that there is currently no built-in feature in XCP-ng or XOA (even Premium) to control VM boot order or per-VM startup delays.

XOA’s Auto-Power-On option does not offer sequencing or delays.
The documentation mentions “appliances”, but even after reviewing that I don't understand how It can help me.

What I need is very simple:
1 Host 1 pool, around 8 VMs.
I need them to auto-start after a host reboot in a specific order, with a delay between each VM (e.g., XOA → Domain Controller → other servers, with 30 seconds delay).

If this cannot be done natively for now, I’ll create a startup script, but before doing that I would really appreciate feedback from others in the community who may have solved this.

Thanks in advance for any advice or ideas!

olivierlambert

Create an appliance with all those VMs and configure the order and delay inside it.