XCP-ng 8.3 updates announcements and testing

bufanda

@stormi Installed on two node Pool. Both nodes are HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Miini. 10 Linux VMs with Secure Boot enabled and 1 Windows Server 2019 with SecureBoot and vTPM enabled. No issues. Migration between nodes worked flawlessly too.

stormi

@flakpyro said in XCP-ng 8.3 updates announcements and testing:

@stormi Installed on my usual test hosts (Intel Minisforum MS-01, and Supermicro running a Xeon E-2336 CPU). Also installed onto a 2 host AMD epyc pool. Updates went smooth, backups continue to function as before.

3 windows 11 VMs had secure boot enabled. In XOA i clicked "Copy pool's default UEFI certificates to the VM" after the update was complete. The VMs continued to boot without issue after.

If you want to go further with the test, you need to clear your pool's secure boot certificates (the ones you probably had installed in the past from XO to "set up the pool for Guest SB"), so that the new pool defaults become the ones we provided with the update.

Then you can try again propagating the certs to the VMs.

gskger

@stormi Update two pools with a total of six host (HP ProDesk 600 G6 and Dell Optiplex 9010) and two Dell R720 with GPUs. Update went smooth and no issues running for two days now (with backup and restore)

Andrew

@stormi After pool update, XO Continuous Replication times dropped by 50%. Before, the hourly CR took about 14-15 minutes, after the update it takes about 7-8 minutes now. Most of the CR time is spent on setup of the VM for transfer, not the actual data transfer bandwidth. Normal delta backup times did not change (data transfer limited). No change/update in XO/hardware/network, just this XCP update.

stormi

@Andrew Nice. What kind of SR?

olivierlambert

I can assume LVM based SR with a reasonable number of VDI, so metadata operation (mounting the VDI) took a lot of time.

Andrew

@stormi Pool source SR is NFS. Destination has local EXT4. It's only around 70 VMs.

olivierlambert

Then IDK why it's a lot faster

stormi

@olivierlambert LVM also plays a role with such SRs, maybe that's it. Or it's another optimization. XAPI had some too.

stormi

New update candidates for you to test! (adding to the previous batch)

New updates join the previous batch of update candidates. I also take this opportunity to call for more feedback on the previous batch of updates, in particular on the changes mentioned in its "What to test" part. Anyway, installing this batch will also install the previous one.

Main changes:

qemu: Fix BSODs on VMs having the Windows Server 2025 September update and emulated NVMe controllers
xcp-ng-pv-tools: FINALLY, we could embed our own, signed, Windows Guest Tools in the guest tools ISO shipped with XCP-ng! See https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2025/10/10/signed-windows-pv-drivers-now-available/
xcp-ng-xapi-plugins:
- Reworked sdncontroller plugin to properly support all network types:
  - Standard networks on physical devices
  - Bonded networks
  - VLAN on top of either standard networks or bonds
  - Private networks
- Support per-VIF rules, as well as network-wide rules (no UI in XO at this time, xo-cli recommended)

Other changes:

Optional packages:

netdata: Minor change in the systemd unit file to avoid minor log pollution. No functional change.

Test on XCP-ng 8.3

yum clean metadata --enablerepo=xcp-ng-testing
yum update --enablerepo=xcp-ng-testing
reboot

The usual update rules apply: pool coordinator first, etc.

Versions:

qemu: qemu-4.2.1-5.2.12.2.xcpng8.3
xcp-ng-pv-tools: xcp-ng-pv-tools-8.3-13.xcpng8.3
xcp-ng-xapi-plugins: xcp-ng-xapi-plugins-1.15.0-1.xcpng8.3

Optional packages:

netdata: netdata-1.47.5-4.2.xcpng8.3

What to test

Normal use and anything else you want to test.

Additional focus can be given to:

Everything we mentioned in the previous batch
Make sure Windows+Linux VM installation and booting works on UEFI without PV drivers (that's when the NVMe emulated disks are used)
XCP-ng's signed Windows Guest tools that are finally available on the guest tools ISO!

Known issues

XAPI's handling of remote logging remains to be fixed before the release.

So: don't attempt to set up remote logging yet. If you set it up previously, then it should continue to work.

Test window before official release of the updates

~5 days.

acebmxer

@stormi

Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

You state to run the below command to test the updates.

yum clean metadata --enablerepo=xcp-ng-testing
yum update --enablerepo=xcp-ng-testing
reboot

How to revert changes if needed to? and/or how to switch back to normal repo?

Andrew

@stormi Update (to the update) installed and running. Buggy Windows 2025 boots now with QEMU update.

olivierlambert

Yay \o/ Thanks for the feedback