XCP-ng 7.5.0 Release Candidate

stormi

Update: RC phase is over. See https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/2568 to switch your RC system to 7.5.0 final.

A release candidate before the final release

The online RPM repositories and installation ISO are ready for XCP-ng 7.5.0, and our internal tests did not reveal bugs.

But before we release the final version to everyone, this time we'll start with a Release Candidate (RC). A RC is a pre-release that the developers consider ready but that hasn't faced testing from a broader audience yet. It's the last chance to spot potentially nasty bugs, and that's where you can help.

What changed in a few words

We'll list the changes in a more detailed way for the final release announcement. Here's a quick bullet-point list.

Based on XenServer 7.5 (see https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/xenserver-7-5/)
Proprietary packages removed because we can't distribute them:
- emu-manager (replaced by the new xcp-emu-manager, but lost vGPU migration support)
- vgpu (nvidia vGPU support)
Experimental packages can be installed for:
- ZFS support: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/ZFS-on-XCP-ng-7.5-and-later
- Ceph support: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Ceph-on-XCP-ng-7.5-or-later
Fixed some remaining bugs from XCP-ng 7.4.1
Fixed a regression of XenServer 7.5 that could make VHD export fail
Fixed some smaller bugs from XenServer 7.5

And also those invisible things in the background:

Streamlined build process: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp-ng-build-env
New RPM repository structure on updates.xcp-ng.org
Source RPMs are now available on updates.xcp-ng.org
New git repositories for RPM sources on github.com/xcp-ng-rpms

How to upgrade

There are two different upgrade methods: classical upgrade via installation ISO or upgrade using yum.

Before upgrading, remember that it is a pre-release, so the risks are higher than with a final release. But if you can take the risk, please do and tell us how it went and what method you used!

Reminder: always upgrade the master first (reboot it first, THEN the slaves).
Also disable HA before upgrading.

Now to the upgrade methods:

Upgrade via the installation ISO image

Download https://xcp-ng.org/7.5/xcp-ng-7.5.0-RC1.iso
Check integrity of the downloaded ISO:
- MD5: 080521f3f9f3cef21f8ad3eafd521335
- SHA256: 3fa5ab4c7ff4fb2f50402f58b3a037fdd3bc46916b71369be06885da24936c54
Copy the ISO (byte to byte copy, such as using dd) to an usb stick and boot it. Or find another way to boot the ISO

Upgrade with yum, as root on the server

This method is still experimental, because there are more things that can go wrong when you upgrade 500 packages one by one than when you reinstall from scratch (which is what the installation ISO does, without losing your data of course). Actually, we did find a few bugs in packages from XenServer that give a different result depending on the upgrade method. See for example https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-877 that we reported to XenServer teams.

Upgrade via installation ISO is also the only upgrade method that creates a backup of the old system to a backup partition before installing the new version.

With all these warnings given, we still think we made it stable enough for you to try it!

# Download repository file for the RC. This step will not be needed for final release.
wget https://updates.xcp-ng.org/7/xcp-ng-7.5.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/xcp-ng-7.5.repo
yum install xcp-ng-deps
yum update
reboot
# then either keep the xcp-ng-7.5.repo file to benefit from bugfix updates during the RC phase or remove it
# in any case remember to remove it when 7.5 final is released, or it will pollute your repository list for nothing.

What to test

Well, mostly that what used to work still works! Report or ask anything as replies to this thread. If some matters happen to deserve their own threads or bug reports, we can move when needed.

cometmth

Yum upgrade worked on my test server!

maxcuttins

fjen

Upgrading via yum went smoothly! Had a slight issue with the reboot. The XCP-ng splash would display and the bar would go all the way down, but the server wouldn't actually turn off. Had to do a power cycle over IPMI.

ecoutinho

On a test machine, I've upgraded from Xenserver 7.2 directly to this version and it worked fine. I've used PXE network installation to upgrade.
Congrats on this release!

_danielgurgel

GFS2 is supported, like XenServer?

AllooTikeeChaat

Yum update both of my lab hosts to 7.5 RC .. nice job team!

Marc.pezin

_danielgurgel No, GFS2 is not an open source feature in XenServer, it's proprietary.

borzel

yum upgrade on my testbox went ASAP - As Smooth As Possible

cocoon

Congratulations to everyone, impressive work!
I didn't expect ZFS and Ceph support so soon, nice!

A Former User

stormi said in XCP-ng 7.5.0 Release Candidate:

wget https://updates.xcp-ng.org/7/xcp-ng-7.5.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/xcp-ng-7.5.repo
yum install xcp-ng-deps
yum update
reboot

I was expect, to see 'update' message in new xcp-ng-center, after install repo and deps - but is not show anything.

Anyway, command line update works good.

christianuhlmann

my first host with xcp-ng upgraded successful to 7.5 (Intel NUC) without an error.
thanks for the great job !

Aimdev

Progress Report UG to xcp-ng v7.5 from xcp-ng v7.41
Method YUM

Error
Updating : sm-1.18.0-1.31.x86_64 69/147
Starting sm-multipath (via systemctl): [ OK ]
mv: cannot stat ‘/usr/sbin/lvmetad’: No such file or directory

Reboot PASS
Installed v7.5 xcp-ng centre PASS
Test Connection NAS PASS

Import VM created on V7.71 xcp-ng PASS
Passthrough USB Device USB3 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1546:01a8 U-Blox AG FAIL
Passthrough USB Device USB2 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1546:01a8 U-Blox AG FAIL
Passthrough USB Device USB2 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply PASS
UPS Test apcupsd service not starting/will not start FAIL
Failed to start apcupsd.service: Unit apcupsd.service failed to load: No such file or directory.

note Reboot carried out for each USB U-Blox AG test.
note cold start carried out for USB2 U-Blox AG test.
note USB passthru not working for U-Blox AG (not visible in device list in xcp-ng centre)
note USB passthru working for UPS (visible in device list in xcp-ng centre)

Aimee

Adde

Updated and working so far

olivierlambert

Aimdev

I'm not sure to get everything you wrote here.

mv: cannot stat ‘/usr/sbin/lvmetad’: No such file or directory is identified and reported to Citrix. It's not XCP-ng specific.
What do you mean by "test connection"?
Does USB passthrough worked before on 7.4.1?
What kind of modification did you do on 7.4.1 before updating? was it "vanilla" or you installed/configured some stuff on it?
apcupsd doesn't sound coming from vanilla XCP-ng

Aimdev

olivierlambert said in XCP-ng 7.5.0 Release Candidate:

Aimdev

I'm not sure to get everything you wrote here.

mv: cannot stat ‘/usr/sbin/lvmetad’: No such file or directory is identified and reported to Citrix. It's not XCP-ng specific.
Ok

What do you mean by "test connection"?
The hypervisor successfully connected to the NAS, for the purpose of importing a saved VM. The VM started OK.

Does USB passthrough worked before on 7.4.1?
Only showed the UPS usb device, never the U-Blox AG , this is the same situation with 7.5 (Thread USB Passthrough 20 Jun 2018, 14:13)
Both versions show the device U-Blox AG using the lsusb command.

What kind of modification did you do on 7.4.1 before updating? was it "vanilla" or you installed/configured some stuff on it?
Installed apupsd (Thread Apcupsd UPS support 15 Apr 2018, 17:33)
The upgrade appears to have removed the apcupsd daemon, /usr/sbin/apcupsd, but not the service definition
7.5
service apcupsd status
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl status apcupsd.service
● apcupsd.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
Active: inactive (dead)
7.4
service apcupsd status
● apcupsd.service - SYSV: apcupsd monitors power and takes action if necessary
Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2018-08-01 14:54:22 BST; 3h 49min ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 2199 ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CGroup: /system.slice/apcupsd.service
└─2210 /sbin/apcupsd -f /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf
APC : 001,045,1103
DATE : 2018-08-01 18:44:05 +0100

Citrix did not support apcupsd, but Citrix upgrades in the past did not remove it.

apcupsd doesn't sound coming from vanilla XCP-ng
No, but ups support is essential for safeguarding the system.

Aimee

olivierlambert

Yeah but Citrix isn't relying on Yum to upgrade If you want to be "defensive", then upgrade via the ISO on boot, not on a live system

Problably a dependency thing.

Aimdev

olivierlambert
Hi

I do not quite understand your answer, please can you clarify.
The system was clean installed from 7.4, 7.41 to 7.5, all xcp-ng.
The ony addition was the ups yum , as described in my thread.
Are you suggesting that a clean install will

fix the pass through for the Ublox?
To get ups support I must repeat my extra ups software install,?
unless xcp-ng is going to provide an alternative package for UPS support?

Thanks

Aimee

olivierlambert

Nope
Yes.

stormi

This thread is having several discussions in parallel. If nobody minds, I'll move them to separate threads soon.

Update: done.

Update with HA enabled / or not upgrading master first : https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/265/issues-when-upgrading-with-ha-enabled
USB passthrough: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/266/usb-passthrough-test-reports-in-7-5rc1