<![CDATA[XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!]]>This thread is now read-only. Testing feedback now happens on the thread dedicated to the 8.1 RC release.

Hello to everyone.

The beta release of XCP-ng 8.1 is available right now 🚀 .

What changed

Non-exhaustive list:

  • Based on Citrix Hypervisor 8.1 (https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-hypervisor/whats-new.html).
  • Same base version of CentOS (7.5), same base version of kernel (4.19, with more patches of course)
  • Xen 4.13
  • UEFI support for guests is not experimental anymore
  • Support for Secure Boot is NOT INCLUDED because it relies on Proprietary packages. We're raising the issue with the Xen community to see how to provide a FOSS implementation.
  • Citrix announces:
    • "Improved performance for VM imports and exports that use the XVA format" thanks to the use of a very efficient hash algorithm
    • "Storage performance improvements"
    • "New Windows I/O drivers with improved performance"
    • (From https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-951) The next update (apparently not published yet as of 2020-01-27) of the Windows Drivers through Windows Update should at last be compatible with non-english locales!
  • chrony replaces ntp
  • Support for PV guests is now deprecated
    • templates for creating PV guests have been removed
    • existing guests will still run
    • it is advised to convert them to HVM guests
    • a compatibility layer should be provided in the future for PV guests that really can't be converted. But really anyone who can convert to HVM, should
    • due to how 32-bit PV guests work, keeping it functioning on newer hardware with newer features comes with an increasing performance cost, and the linux kernel is about to drop support for 32-bit PV guests
  • Support for AMD EPYC 7xx2(P) added
  • Dynamic Memory Control (DMC) is deprecated and will be removed in the future.
  • VSS and quiesced snapshots support is removed, because it never worked correctly and caused more harm than good.
    • For backups, we are working on support for backups that include the guest RAM to replace the need for quiesced snapshots.
    • Note that Windows guest tools version 9 (the default for recent versions of Windows if you install through Windows Update) already removed VSS support, even for older versions of CH / XCP-ng
  • For new local storage repositories using the EXT filesystem, it now defaults to ext4.
    • The transition from our experimental ext4 storage driver is not automatic so you still need the sm-additional-drivers package if you have such a local storage repository.
    • We will try to provide an automated conversion from the ext4 experimental driver to the ext driver for the RC (release candidate) release of XCP-ng. If we can't, we'll document the transition.
  • Status of our specific packages:
    • Support for XFS in local storage repository still available through the sm-additional-drivers package.
    • ZFS still available as an additional package and updated to 0.8.2. We may update to 0.8.3 for the RC release of XCP-ng.
    • Alternate kernel: none available yet for 8.1, work in progress
    • netdata RPMs are not ready yet: waiting for Xen 4.13 support added by @r1, needs testing: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/issues/7803

2020-02-20 update

Announcement about our former experimental ext4 SR driver:

It is now deprecated in 8.1. For a good reason: in XCP-ng 8.1 and above, following upstream changes, the ext driver now formats new SRs as EXT4.

There is no easy way to convert an existing SR created with our driver, so those using it will need to move the VDIs out (to another SR or to export them), destroy the SR and create an EXT SR instead. Make sure to do this on XCP-ng 8.1.

The sm-additional-drivers package remains available in XCP-ng 8.1 in order to ease the transition. However I've broken the sr-create command on purpose. Any attempt to create a SR of type ext4 will result in an error with a message that explains that you need to use the ext type instead.

Our experimental driver will be completely removed in a later release, possibly XCP-ng 8.2. Unless someone convinces me to delay the removal for a good reason. I will accept reasons such as "I know I shouldn't have used the experimental driver in production, but I did and need more time to convert my SR while at the same time I really need feature xxx from XCP-ng 8.2", but I really would prefer to drop it in 8.2.

Feedback from people doing the transition is welcome to make sure we document the transition in the best way possible.

Documentation

At this stage you should already be aware that our main documentation is in our wiki and you should also know that you can all take part in completing it. It's improving continuously and still has room for improvement.

How to upgrade

Since XCP-ng 8.1.0 is a minor release, both upgrade methods are supported:

  • From the installation ISO
  • From command line using yum

Refer to the upgrade howto: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Upgrade-Howto

Downloads:

If your browser tells you that the page is redirected in a way that prevents from loading the page correctly, this is a know issue. Long story short, it's caused by a wrong security header sent by the forum software, which impacts all non HTTPS requests to the xcp-ng.org domain. Try in Private Navigation mode or use curl or wget.

It's a good habit to check your downloaded ISO against the SHA256 sum and for better security also check the signature of those sums. Although our mirror redirector does try to detect file changes on mirrors, it's should always be envisioned that a mirror (or in the worst case our source mirror) gets hacked and managed to provide both fake ISOs and SHA256 sums. But they can't fake the signature. See https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/How-to-check-the-authenticity-of-files-downloaded-from-XCP-mirrors.

Stay up to date

Run yum update regularly. We'll fix bugs that are detected regularly until the final release. Subscribe to this thread (and make sure to activate mail notifications in the forum parameters if you need them): we'll announce every important update to the RC here.

What to test

Everything and Anything!

Report or ask anything as replies to this thread.

A community effort to list things to be tested has been started at https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Test-XCP

Feedback is welcome both about successes and failures.

stormi created this issue in netdata/netdata

closed xenstat plugin doesn't build against Xen 4.13 #7803

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/2516/xcp-ng-8-1-0-beta-now-availableRSS for NodeTue, 14 Apr 2026 00:02:44 GMTMon, 27 Jan 2020 14:28:00 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:05:38 GMT]]>This thread is now dead, long live the 8.1 RC thread!

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23304https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23304Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:05:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 02 Mar 2020 22:16:41 GMT]]>I've not imported full VM's but have imported a number of disks and they worked reasonably quickly I guess, although I have only very limited reference from another much more powerful setup to compare with.

Peter.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23149https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23149Mon, 02 Mar 2020 22:16:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:51:38 GMT]]>Did anyone try the performance of VM export/import yet?
I am really excited to see the increase since this was one of the improvements mentioned by Citrix.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23140https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23140Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:51:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:03:03 GMT]]>Same here, a single host as well as two host pool are running fine so far. All upgraded via yum from 7.6.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23097https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23097Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:03:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Sat, 29 Feb 2020 09:28:10 GMT]]>Thanks for the feedback!

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23026https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23026Sat, 29 Feb 2020 09:28:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Sat, 29 Feb 2020 02:16:38 GMT]]>Running two hosts on the beta in my lab and so far have had no issues at all (touch wood). Looking forward to this hitting production.

P.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23020https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23020Sat, 29 Feb 2020 02:16:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 18:01:04 GMT]]>A better label would just be "ext" so that it works both for ext3 and ext4.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23014https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23014Fri, 28 Feb 2020 18:01:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:54:45 GMT]]>@stormi said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

I don't think you should trust XCP-ng Center on this. What do you think @borzel?

Check the output of mount instead.

I think we should not trust 🙂 I assume the ext4 uses internally the same xapi-ID like the old ext.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23011https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23011Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:54:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:33:30 GMT]]>Yes, it was just to be sure it's a XCP-ng Center issue 🙂 Now we are 100% sure.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23003https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23003Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:33:30 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:29:47 GMT]]>@stormi said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

@onur said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

type ( RO): ext

As expected. The ext type has no information of the FS version in its name.
already created bug for XCP-ng center, but it looks like system is not reporting ext type

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23002https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23002Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:29:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:22:59 GMT]]>@onur said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

type ( RO): ext

As expected. The ext type has no information of the FS version in its name.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23001https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23001Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:22:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:21:55 GMT]]>@olivierlambert said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

What's the info reported by xe sr-param-list uuid=<UUID OF THIS SR>?

xe sr-param-list uuid=3fe64d91-5349-ac86-d9b7-aa9dcf813cea
uuid ( RO)                    : 3fe64d91-5349-ac86-d9b7-aa9dcf813cea
              name-label ( RW): ssd240Toshiba
        name-description ( RW):
                    host ( RO): OB1
      allowed-operations (SRO): VDI.enable_cbt; VDI.list_changed_blocks; unplug; plug; PBD.create; VDI.disable_cbt; update; PBD.destroy; VDI.resize; VDI.clone; VDI.data_destroy; scan; VDI.snapshot; VDI.mirror; VDI.create; VDI.destroy; VDI.set_on_boot
      current-operations (SRO):
                    VDIs (SRO): 5da0c967-657f-43f2-8e4a-7cb80b7938ef; 2dd44491-b458-4119-a024-a48ace2a23e3; 05910aa1-8c5e-4af7-8ffc-11dbdcae5116; 60a7602d-ec61-4ef4-9db1-0f3fdbcd43f9
                    PBDs (SRO): 96e685a7-f5cc-32fa-8289-b10e4a8ea4f5
      virtual-allocation ( RO): 481036337152
    physical-utilisation ( RO): 153255415808
           physical-size ( RO): 192280748032
                    type ( RO): ext
            content-type ( RO): user
                  shared ( RW): false
           introduced-by ( RO): <not in database>
             is-tools-sr ( RO): false
            other-config (MRW): i18n-original-value-name_label: Local storage; i18n-key: local-storage
               sm-config (MRO): devserial: scsi-3500080dc0133cdc2
                   blobs ( RO):
     local-cache-enabled ( RO): true
                    tags (SRW):
               clustered ( RO): false
]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23000https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/23000Fri, 28 Feb 2020 14:21:55 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 12:29:54 GMT]]>What's the info reported by xe sr-param-list uuid=<UUID OF THIS SR>?

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22992https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22992Fri, 28 Feb 2020 12:29:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:05:36 GMT]]>Please create an issue there: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xenadmin/issues

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22989https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22989Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:05:36 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:04:44 GMT]]>@stormi said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

@onur said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

/dev/mapper/XSLocalEXT--3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea-3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea on /run/sr-mount/3fe64d91-5349-ac86-d9b7-aa9dcf813cea type ext4 (rw,relatime)

It's ok, the SR is mounted as ext4 so this means it was created as ext4.

great thank you very much @stormi . As you suspected, XCP-ng Center shows wrong format (I guess here is a bug for XCP-ng center devs)

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22988https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22988Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:04:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:02:57 GMT]]>@onur said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

/dev/mapper/XSLocalEXT--3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea-3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea on /run/sr-mount/3fe64d91-5349-ac86-d9b7-aa9dcf813cea type ext4 (rw,relatime)

It's ok, the SR is mounted as ext4 so this means it was created as ext4.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22987https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22987Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:02:57 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:00:35 GMT]]>here is the output. So I assume ext4 should be default when selecting EXT on the setup.

@stormi said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

I don't think you should trust XCP-ng Center on this. What do you think @borzel?

Check the output of mount instead.

 mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,size=1270132k,nr_inodes=317533,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,mode=755)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,relatime)

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime)

debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
xenfs on /proc/xen type xenfs (rw,relatime)
xenstore on /var/lib/xenstored type tmpfs (rw,relatime,mode=755)

/dev/sda5 on /var/log type ext3 (rw,relatime)

/dev/mapper/XSLocalEXT--3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea-3fe64d91--5349--ac86--d9b7--aa9dcf813cea on /run/sr-mount/3fe64d91-5349-ac86-d9b7-aa9dcf813cea type ext4 (rw,relatime)

tmpfs on /run/user/0 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=256416k,mode=700)
]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22986https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22986Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:00:35 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:07:38 GMT]]>I don't think you should trust XCP-ng Center on this. What do you think @borzel?

Check the output of mount instead.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22985https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22985Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:07:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:46:41 GMT]]>@olivierlambert said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

What do you mean? SR file system or root filesystem?

The Local Storage for VM.
![alt text](Ek Açıklama 2020-02-28 124558.png image url)

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22984https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22984Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:46:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:37:45 GMT]]>What do you mean? SR file system or root filesystem?

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22983https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22983Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:37:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:43:49 GMT]]>last week I installed a new server XCP-ng 8.1. But the filesystem is still Ext3. (by the way XO connects without problem but you need XCP-ng Center Development build to access)
Today I will install a new server, what should I do to get ext4 in the filesystem?
Thanks

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22981https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22981Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:43:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:32:04 GMT]]>So, the main remaining development before RC is an updated installer to allow it to boot the alternate kernel in cases where the main kernel has issues. And also an option to boot with only 2G of RAM to workaround Ryzen APU "black screen" issues.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22843https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22843Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:32:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:30:52 GMT]]>@nikade said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

Did anyone try VM export/import to see how much the performance has been improved?
More interesting would be if someone tried it with 10G or making backups with XOA.

Not yet but I'd be really grateful to anyone who could benchmark this!

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22842https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22842Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:30:52 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available! on Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:29:26 GMT]]>@_danielgurgel said in XCP-ng 8.1.0 beta now available!:

@stormi plus this update?
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX269586

That kernel update is already available on 8.1 indeed, through yum update.

]]>https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22841https://xcp-ng.org/forum/post/22841Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:29:26 GMT