Experimental update of CentOS packages

stormi

Update: I've removed the updated rsyslog package due to ordering cycle issues between its systemd unit and openvswitch.

See https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-923

xisco

Interesting, would you add packages like apcupsd?? I could use a standard PC to install it and do some test, we only have a production pool and few money

stormi

Adding new packages is not the primary objective here but updating most packages to latest CentOS would clearly help do it.

donato_marcos

Hi.
What is the purpose of leaving XCP-ng closer to CentOS 7.5 ~ 7.6?

Ah... great job guys

olivierlambert

Fixing CVE on non-updated packages of CentOS 7.2 in XCP-ng (like openssh-server or other critical CVEs on samba)

cheese

How XCP-ng keep tracking of rebuild due to updated of dependency? That means if A requires B, and B is updated. How XCP-np decides whether and when to rebuild A?

stormi

Red Hat (and thus CentOS) tries not to make changes to libraries that would then require rebuilding other packages, so usually there's no need to rebuild packages in cascade when updating packages from CentOS 7.

Otherwise we've got the build dependencies in source RPMs.

michael

Updating one of my test servers now. (Dell R610)

If all goes well, I will update another test server (Dell R620) later this week.

michael

So far I have run into one issue. When I force a live migration the VM I migrate gets stuck at 99% and sits there. I let it sit overnight to see if it would go through, but it didn't .

When attempting to cancel the migration it left a copy of the VM frozen on each host. When attempting to reboot/shutdown or even force reboot/shutdown I would get an error saying they did not exist.

Rebooting the hosts fixed the this issue, but left me with a full copy of the VMs on each host. I was also unable to reboot the host I migrated the VM from unless I used the xsconsole window. XCP-NG Center did not work.

If I get time today I will roll back the R610 to 7.6 and see if I have the same results.

Here are a few photos: https://imgur.com/a/wYw6AdL

Other than this edge case issue, everything seems to be working fine so far!

stormi

The live migration issue may, or not, be related to this: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/522/unable-to-migrate-live-vms-after-upgrading-from-xcp-ng-7-4-to-7-5/

michael

@stormi

Do you have any suggestions for me to try to help see if this is related?

stormi

Yes, you could install emu-manager from XenServer 7.6 (present on their installation ISO) and see if live migration works better (note that reproducing the issue may depend on VM load or other factors, so if it does migrate well, try several times to confirm the result).

Once you've got the RPM:

rpm -e --nodeps xcp-emu-manager
yum install emu-manager-version_and_such.rpm
xe-toolstack-restart # may not be needed but doesn't hurt

michael

This fixed the issue for a few migrations. The latest one put the VM into a suspended mode and then disconnected me from the host. I restarted the tool-stack on each host and when I went to reconnect to the host I was migrating the VM from it would let me in for a moment and then kick me out again and it was in a maintence mode according to the icon. To resolve this I rebooted the host. I'm currently seeing if I can replicate this behavior.

Other than this I haven't run into any issues so far.

Let me know if there is anything specific you would like tested.

fibrewire

i know this topic is old, but is this still going on? I would like to participate.

olivierlambert

Problem is considered solved now.

stormi

Since I started this topic, XCP-ng version 8.0 came with updated CentOS packages (to CentOS 7.5). Now the versions remain stable but I'm regularly checking CentOS security updates for important updates that may be necessary to us.

nackstein

@stormi I have a doubt, you say that XCP-ng 8.0 comes with packages updated to CentOS 7.5 plus some custom package like kernel.
If I update the host via yum it goes to the latest CentOS 7.x version plus latest updates, I'm right?
I don't see any yum settings that keep it stuck to 7.5.
I mean, the updates repo have this source:
mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=updates&infra=$infra
and $releasever = 7 widhtout any minor release specification, so I assume an update takes my base OS to the latest minor plus updates.

stormi

@nackstein If you update to latest CentOS you probably basically just break your system. The CentOS repos are not active by default on purpose. We let them as a convenience for those who really really need to (and understand the risk) to cherry-pick additional software that we don't offer in our own repos.

stormi

See also https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Additional-packages

nackstein

@stormi enabled=0, didn't see it! thanks