Make Continuous Replication/Disaster Recovery jobs apply the HideFromXenCenter=true flag

mike

Hey guys,

Yesterday I got round to implementing something I've been meaning to do for a long time: I tagged a bunch of VMs at our HQ as 'Critical', and setup a Continuous Replication job for them to replicate to another office's XCP-ng pool on a 2-hourly basis. Additionally, so that we can also roll back a full day if we need to, I set the retention to 12. Job done, I gave myself a pat on the back and went home.

Just got into work this morning and had a look at XCP-ng Center to see how it was all looking. Picture the combined amusement and surprise to find 8 copies of each replicated VM cluttering up the view. In hindsight this makes sense, but is there any way to filter these from the XCP-ng Center view? I know I can do it easily enough in the XOA, but in XC (that we use for >50% of VM management tasks) it isn't so obvious.

I see that VMs can be hidden by adding the key HideFromXenCenter=true to the other_config parameter for the object (https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xencenter/7-1/intro-hiddenobjects.html). Can this be added perhaps as an advanced option for the backup jobs? Or better yet, is there a way to make it happen already?

Thanks in advance for any help. Let me know if you need any more info from me!

olivierlambert

Hi,

Features used with Xen Orchestra are meant to be used with Xen Orchestra. XCP-ng Center is only community maintained, and we don't have resources here to work on this project too (or to make changes on a tool that just follows mainly Citrix XenCenter).

However, in the meantime, we are working on a new XO UI to have a view with a more similar look to XCP-ng Center, so everyone could get rid of it in the end

mike

Colour me intrigued! But I get the impression it's some way away.

Wonder if there's a scripty way to apply that flag to VMs with the CR tag then. Hmmmm.

olivierlambert

We plan to have a visible prototype for the end of the year.

Feel free to create a custom script for your own need

edit: also if you hide them in XCP-ng Center, then you'll need XOA to start them. Would it be easier to use XOA all along?

mike

Well I can click View/Show Hidden Objects easily enough.

Literally the main advantage of XCP-ng Center is the tree view. I personally try to use XO as much as possible, but for features that are available in both I do find myself falling back to XC for the more logical view. I'll very much be looking forward to this prototype!

olivierlambert

Hang on then, tree view is coming