XCP-ng on xen 4.13 !?? where actual XEN-version is 4.16 !?

Louis

Hello,

I am new to XCP-ng and XEN. So perhaps my remark is not correct.

However when I checked the XEN-version in dom0 (console xl info) I was quit surprised to see that was 4.13 (18 dec 2019) where the actual version is 4.16 !!! ????

I assume that that version was installed with XCO-ng. I additionally installed a "build from source" Xen Orchestra version as well.

Should I upgrade XEN!? (I assume so) or do I break something!?

Forza

@louis you can't upgrade. Xcp-ng is a full solution based on xen so you likely cannot replace the xenkernel just like that.

But you are right too. We're far behind upstream which means some feature or performance enhancements are missing.

olivierlambert

Not that far, because we are not using 4.13 as it was for the initial release:

there's multiple backport from upstream since then (so it's more recent than that in terms of code base)
there's also XenServer/XCP patches on top of it

But yes, it's not using the latest Xen upstream version, for various reasons (also as 8.2 is an LTS, we try to be conservative in terms of new versions/features, stability is more important than latest Xen features).

Finally, Xen ABI isn't stable (yet), so having a more recent Xen version also means breaking stuff with other components inside XCP-ng (XAPI/xenopsd)