XO updating hosts queries
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Hi,
I'm currently in a trial of XO and trying to understand the update processes for the XCP-ng host servers. Any pointers appreciated if I'm just not looking at the right docs.
The documentation has a screenshot showing a guidance column indicating if a restart is required, however when I view updates either via the pool updates page or directly on a host in Xen Orchestra I have a different set of columns (eg release number instead of release date, Size of update instead of Guidance). How can I easily determine if any of the updates require a host restart? One of the updates I'm offered is the kernel which I would expect to require a restart, another is "Xen Hypervisor Domain 0 libraries" which mentions a restart in its changelog.
The same page also states that "All the hosts in a pool must run the same XCP-ng version" which makes sense. How close does it need to be? eg is 8.2 OK regardless of patches, or do patches for the Xen hypervisor also need to match? If so is there an easy way to get a host to match the updates deployed to a pool (eg new server to add to pool but don't want to do the update/reboot dance on all existing servers right now...).
Thanks in advance,
Neal. -
For now, the best practice is to reboot after updates (there's no distinction that can be done easily via yum updates). That's mainly because in general, we have sec updates that are related to Xen or Linux kernel, requiring a reboot anyway.
About patches: try to get all hosts at the same patch level as possible (I don't see any scenario where you wouldn't for a good reason).
Don't think about matching a certain level, just get all your hosts updated as possible. This way, it's easier.
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Thanks @olivierlambert.
It may be worth updating the documentation and the welcome email when starting a trial then, as the welcome email "10 tips to start with Xen Orchestra" also says to check the guidance column to see if a host needs to be restarted for each update (tip #8).
Cheers,
Neal. -
Indeed, XO doc was built for XenServer (before XCP-ng existed).
@arkbeldin will update this accordingly
