XO Pool Management

coolsport00

@olivierlambert - if I do run into such an issue again with my Hosts in the Pool and it's "offline" or "halted" or whatever, I can't "detach" it from the Pool, I can't disable Maint Mode (I never put it in this Mode, nor did I disable it...even tho it showed in these states)... how can I get the Host back to normal without a complete XCP reinstall? For the Host that lost network, I tried to reconfigure/reset it from xsconsole, but after I went through that process..added the NIC info (IP, etc) and the Host rebooted, when it got back to the Console, there NIC settings again didn't show/were lost.

I think I saw on another post where you told someone to delete the Local Storage, then re-add? But in XO, all of the Storage showed as disconnected? With no NIC or settings, I guess the only way to do so was from iLO console?

lawrencesystems

@coolsport00

Sounds like you have some issues either because you are changing the IP's after you setup the pool or you are having

I cover how to deal with host failures in this video:

Level Up Your XCP-ng & XO Knowledge: Tips for System Management & Recovering Hosts From Failure
https://youtu.be/WvXTq3adN08?si=ruaG2tMuC9iBSmTq

coolsport00

@lawrencesystems I'll give that vid a watch & see if it has any info for what I'm experiencing. Thanks!

coolsport00

@lawrencesystems Well...I liked your video...showed me features XO has similar to vCenter (UUID mgmt, Tagging, Maint Mode behavior, etc).

Nothing there really pertained to the netwk issue I experienced. My Slave host somehow completely lost its network & I couldn't recover it (tried to from the Console). Because XO could no longer 'see' this Host, I couldn't even Detach it from the Pool. Maybe if there was some way to 'reset' the Host (manual Pool removal), I then wouldn't have needed to completely reinstall XCP. But, this process isn't in the documentation, and I didn't really search for it online...thought it would just be quicker to reinstall and start from scratch again.

And again...I didn't do much to either Host. All I was doing was changing Network Names and adding Descriptions. Issue may have been I was doing directly on a Host and not at the Pool level, although I forgot where specifically I was attempting this. In your video you just shared, you mention making any & all Network changes on Hosts directly before adding to the Pool...is that correct? Don't make NIC changes within a Pool?
Thanks.

DustinB

@coolsport00 From your master over SSH (or console)

xe host-list
xe forget-host uuid=<Slave-UUID>

coolsport00

@DustinB Thanks Dustin. If my Slave loses network again...I'll run that cmd. Hopefully not though!

Question if I may - does it matter where I configure my Host networking? Meaning (not my Mgmt ntwk..that's upon install), but if I want to change Network names/desc's, do I do that after adding Hosts to a Pool, or just go ahead and do it on the Hosts before adding them to a Pool? When I had my issue mentioned earlier above..I literally hadn't done anything but added 1 Host to my other in a Pool and just began homogenizing Networks, as well as adding a couple other VLAN networks. That was it..then bam!...issues on my Slave.
Thanks.

DustinB

@coolsport00 said in XO Pool Management:

@DustinB Thanks Dustin. If my Slave loses network again...I'll run that cmd. Hopefully not though!

Question if I may - does it matter where I configure my Host networking? Meaning (not my Mgmt ntwk..that's upon install), but if I want to change Network names/desc's, do I do that after adding Hosts to a Pool, or just go ahead and do it on the Hosts before adding them to a Pool? When I had my issue mentioned earlier above..I literally hadn't done anything but added 1 Host to my other in a Pool and just began homogenizing Networks, as well as adding a couple other VLAN networks. That was it..then bam!...issues on my Slave.
Thanks.

I've always configured and setup my hosts into a pool, then went in and made any descriptive changes once the environment is setup.

Making changes on a per host basis doesn't really work or make any sense as they would be superseded by changes made at the pool.

coolsport00

@DustinB Yep...makes total sense, especially when you have multiple Hosts. Make 1 config or change and let Pools propagate to all Pool Hosts is my thought too. I'm just trying to pinpoint how my Slave Host got corrupted...if there was some issue configuring a Host directly vs it being in a Pool.
Thanks.

coolsport00

@coolsport00 Ok...just found in XCP docs, it says you "should" rename NICs before joining Hosts to a Pool:
https://docs.xcp-ng.org/networking/#renaming-nics

Though, that's for XCP directly and says the eth's need to be down to make the change. I'm not entirely sure this is the same process when doing via XO? Is that really needed? I would think a simple Name/Descr change doesn't require a downed eth and changes can simply be done in a XO Pool?

Danp

@coolsport00 These are two different features. The XCP one involves renaming the physical NICs. Any changes you make in XO doesn't rename the physical NIC.

coolsport00

@Danp Ah ok, understood. Does XCP use netplan for Linux networking mgmt? I know how to rename pNics in that. Maybe I just do that and it'd be easier? I rename pNics for other Linux devices I use for Veeam backup components; so it would be no big deal to do here if possible before I even start adding the XCP Hosts to XO. But, I guess as long as "logically" within XO I see the pNic name what I want so I know what it is...all good.
Thanks.

Danp

@coolsport00 Please stick with the documented method to be safe.

coolsport00

@Danp Understood...and that's what I did (in XO). Thanks!

coolsport00

@lawrencesystems @olivierlambert
Thought I'd provide an update here...only fair

After getting everything running again, I was able to add 2 physical XCP Hosts to XO and get things going -> create a Pool; create some VMs; test Live Migration (not VDI-based yet); import from VMW (an issue there with Linux); but overall...able to dive into it a bit deeper and see how things in XCP/XO work vs VMW. So far, after getting through my initial issues...I think it's ok

I think my Host2 network issue may have stemmed from attempting to add it back into XO when I was no longer seeing it in the Settings > Servers area after adding it to a Pool. I wasn't aware it would disappear from that area when adding it to a Pool. I don't think the documentation states this (unless I overlooked it? if not, would be helpful I think). Anyway...thanks to all for chiming in!