XCP-ng Windows PV tools 9.0.9030 Testsign released: now with Rust-based Xen Guest Agent
-
It is probably Trellix, but hard to say since Trellix operates on top of Defender. It blocks the download from starting and I didn't have time to dig into it to see what was happening.
Browser was Chrome if it matters.
Chris Titus has similar problems with the exe version of his windows tool, and he paid to get that tool signed.
-
@dinhngtu said in XCP-ng Windows PV tools 9.0.9030 Testsign released: now with Rust-based Xen Guest Agent:
9.0.9000.0, we're interested in hearing about your upgrade experience to 9.0.9030
I tested the new tools today on a fresh Windows Server 2022 VM.
Coming from 9.0.9000.0 I was given an error message that warned of incompatible drivers already installed and I had to run the XenClean utility first, then reboot and finally install 9.0.9030. Everything went smoothly.
The only thing I would expect differently is a menu entry in the Start Menu that links to the tools installed and repairing or removing them, I guess.
After that I ran some benchmark out of curiosity. The VM storage is on a XFS NVMe. Somehow it seems I used to get better performance with the 9.0.9000.0 version.
XCP-ng Tools v9.0.9000.0 aka
XCP-ng Tools v9.0.9030
Citrix Guest Tools v9.4.0
-
@guiand888 Thanks very much for testing. Did the IP/guest version reporting in XO work for you? The incompatible drivers warning is a bit unexpected, I'll try to fix that.
For the disk performance, did you install with the Xen PV disk drivers option enabled? If yes, it might just be per-test variance (which happens a lot with Xen PV drivers), as the sequential write speed differed a lot between 9000.0 and 9030/Citrix guest tools.
-
@dinhngtu Thank you for your help. Please see this thread. https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/90424
I am using windows server 2025, with the new Alpha to remove the 2TB limit with qcows. I am experiencing a significant speed degradation using your drivers here and the 'official' Xen drivers. My post include videos with details.
My reason for testing this is, we are an SMB with a windows share of 8TB on a server. I would like to move to xcp-ng while being able to use this large volume for our file share. Any ideas? -
Move the shared file to a NAS/SAN and map the drive letter to the clients?
An 8TB drive size is going to be all kinds of unhappy if you want to snapshot or backup that VM.
Exception to this might be a large database that needs fast access to the data, but even there I would expect some kind of shared storage to be at least as fast as a giant VM.
-
@Greg_E said in XCP-ng Windows PV tools 9.0.9030 Testsign released: now with Rust-based Xen Guest Agent:
Move the shared file to a NAS/SAN and map the drive letter to the clients?
An 8TB drive size is going to be all kinds of unhappy if you want to snapshot or backup that VM.
Exception to this might be a large database that needs fast access to the data, but even there I would expect some kind of shared storage to be at least as fast as a giant VM.
I understand. I've been thinking about it. But the windows VM would just see the VDI as a second disk. It will host quickbooks and office files with no virtual machines on the storage drive.
They said to test it, so I did. I may be a corner case, but its testing nonetheless. Worst case I could just do two different VDI's at 2TB each if i decide on xcp-ng.
-
Hi @dinhngtu ,
Yes, I installed the PV drivers. I made sure everything was selected in the list of functions offered by the installer.
IPv4 address reported correctlyI did some additional test, this time starting from a test VM that had the XenServer tools installed.
- Started a test VM with the Xenserver tools installed (version correctly reported in XO as Management agent 9.4.0-146 detected)
- Ran Xenclean
- Had to do another reboot to disable the "Manage Citrix PV drivers via Windows Update"
- VM got a blue screen
- Rebooted again and hit "Continue" after getting the "Windows repair" screen. VM booted successfully
- Had to run XenClean again as some driver still seem to be present
- Then finally I could install v9.0.9030
- The IP is correct. Not sure about the tools version but it seems it's not?
Before XenClean
Step 5
Step 6
v9.0.9030 reporting in XO
v9.0.9030 reporting in XO
Another benchmark with v9.0.9030I ran another benchmark and it seems you are right re. the variance. The host I test on is not an idle host, although the load is low - could that be the reason?
Other suggestions:
You could add a check that the testsign script is run from 64-bit Powershell version. If run from the 32-bit Powershell the following error will occur:The term 'bcdedit.exe' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet.
It is easy to run the 32-bit version by accident because it is usually the first one that comes up in the Windows menu search results.Hope this helps!
-
@guiand888 Thank you for the feedback. Just a note: before running XenClean, please turn off the "Manage Citrix PV drivers via Windows Update" option; otherwise, Windows will try to reinstall Citrix drivers as soon as it's rebooted.
For the storage perf, Xen PV does fluctuate a lot at I/O performance (both network and storage), so the real performance would be better seen with long benchmark runs (depending on your I/O backend).
-
@dinhngtu An issue i ran into in testing the final signed release.
On a Server 2025 VM after installing the tools the version is properly displayed in XOA, however after a migration the version is not displayed and instead "Management agent not detected" is shown, memory stats also stop displaying in XOA. After restarting the Rust tools service in windows however XOA picks up on the tools running within the VM again.
-
@flakpyro It's a known issue, a new version with fixes will be released soon.
-
@dinhngtu Thanks. We plan to migrate all Windows VMs from the Citrix tools down the road and only have a handful of VMs running these so far so will maybe hold off until the next version. Have been running the Linux rust tools for over a year with zero issues..
