XCP-ng 8.3 updates announcements and testing

ravenet

@gduperrey
Tested on 4 systems in production

Ryzen 1700x, on asrock rack mb w radeon pro GPU pass through
Threadripper 5975wx on asrock rack mb w radeon pro GPU pass through
Epyc 9224 on Asus
Epyc 7313P on Asus

XCP-ng-JustGreat

Applied latest candidate test updates to 3 x Dell OptiPlex 7040 (i7-6700, 48GB, 10Gbps-attached TrueNAS shared-storage) pool. Update process was error-free and successful. Everything appears to be working normally following the update.

gskger

@gduperrey Update some Dell R720s with GPUs and a Dell R730. Update worked without any problem and VMs operate as expected. Will update this post if that changes during day-to-day operation. Great work!

gduperrey

New update candidates for you to test!

In addition to the previous updates, available for testing, here are some new, non-urgent ones, expected to be released in a few days. Below are the details about these.

blktap: Add an option to use backup footer when vhd-util query is called. This will be used in a future storage driver.
intel-igc: Update to version 5.10.226.
xcp-ng-deps: Added vim-minimal as a dependency, so it is always present on XCP-ng systems.

For XOSTOR users:

drbd: Prevent a dead-lock in some situations, plus other improvements

(Reminder: XOSTOR is still in beta stage on XCP-ng 8.3)

Test on XCP-ng 8.3

From an up-to-date host:

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

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

Versions

blktap: 3.54.9-1.2.xcpng8.3
intel-igc: 5.10.226-1.xcpng8.3
kmod-drbd: 9.2.11-1.1.xcpng8.3
xcp-ng-deps: 8.3-13

What to test

Normal use and anything else you want to test. The closer to your actual use of XCP-ng, the better.

Test window before official release of the updates

~ 2 days

flakpyro

@gduperrey Installed on the same 2 hosts as the last batch of test updates released in December.

No issues to report so far, ran a backup job after after without issue.

olivierlambert

Works for me!

gskger

@gduperrey Installed on some R720s with GPUs and everything works as expected. Looks good

Edit: also installed the update on my playlab hosts and a Dell PowerEdge R730. Again no issues and all hosts and VMs are up again.

Clouseau

Upgraded to testing as I had problem with coalesce on 8.3 and VDI of 330GB. Smaller one coalesced fine (50Gb and 100GB) but on 330G it run for 12sec and said something about timeout error. With testing packages coalesce is working fine.

Andrew

@gduperrey Updates installed and running but I don't have 8.3 in production yet...

ph7

Tested OK on
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710MQ CPU @ 2.50GHz

gduperrey

Update published: https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2025/01/23/january-2025-maintenance-update-for-xcp-ng-8-3/

Thank you for the tests!

manilx

@gduperrey On my 2 hosts on the pool I did a yum update on the slave first. Idiot!
It updated and rebooted. Now wanted to do the same on the master. Doesn't show any updates!

How do I install the updates on the master now?

gduperrey

@manilx Have you tried cleaning the yum cache on the master?

yum clean metadata

manilx

@gduperrey YES! Now the updates show. Updating.....

manilx

This post is deleted!

gb.123

This post is deleted!

gb.123

This post is deleted!

stormi

@gb.123 I doesn't seem directly related to this thread, which is dedicated to testing update candidates. Maybe open a new thread?

gb.123

@stormi

Done.
Since this I checked this after a while, I wasn't sure if it was related to update or independent. I have opened the new thread as you suggested in the 'Network' section

gduperrey

New update candidates for you to test!

A new batch of non-urgent updates is ready for user tests before a future collective release. Below are the details about these.

edk2: Fix "Guest has not initialized the display (yet)." error.
intel-igc: Fix a possible update issue due to a recent package name change.
intel-microcode:
- Latest Intel release microcode-20250211:
  - Security updates for: INTEL-SA-01166, INTEL-SA-01213, INTEL-SA-01139, INTEL-SA-01228
  - Updates for multiple functional issues
  - Upstream update drops files for older Sapphire Rapids steppings, we kept the previous versions
netdata:
- Update to Netdata v1.47.5
  - Fix dmesg warnings due to setuid+capabilities on xenstat plugin
  - Improve systemd service restart with a custom script waiting for Netdata to be fully up-and-running before stopping it.
openssl: Add security fixes from upstream: CVE-2019-1547, CVE-2019-1551, CVE-2019-1563
qemu: Backport a security fixe (CVE-2023-3354) for QEMU VNC server vulnerability
r8125-module: Disable some performance functionalities in the driver (TXchecksum/SG/TSO) by default to workaround bugs on Windows Server 2022 guests. These can be re-enabled using 'ethtool -K eth0 tx on tso on sg on'
sm:
- Fix issue where users may encounter problems with HPE Nimble arrays: unable to mount iSCSI LUNs, non-functional or imperfect multipathing.
- Regarding Large Block driver, always enable the VG on the emulated device.
- Prevent corruption in the LINSTOR KV-store caused by a race condition between user calls and GC.
systemtap: No functional changes. Fix compilation for compatibility with new gcc version.
xapi: Re-enabled nested virtualization in 8.3, with the same limitations as in 8.2.
xcp-emu-manager: No functional changes, Fix rpm spec file for new cmake version
xcp-ng-release: Update cipher list in .curlrc
xcp-ng-xapi-plugins:
- Add new service plugin to manage (start, stop, ...) XCP-ng services
- Add a new ipmitool plugin to get information from ipmitool that:
  - Returns information about sensors
  - Returns ipmi lan information
xen:
- Re-enabled nested virtualization in 8.3, with the same limitations as in 8.2.
- Fix XSA-467 / CVE-2025-1713
xo-lite: update to version 0.8.0. For more information you can read latests posts on the Xen Orchestra blog: 0.7.1 & 0.8.0.

Regarding the nested virtualization, Xen-Orchestra is not yet updated to allow this in 8.3, even if we see the option in the advanced tab of the VM. They are working on it and this will come in a future update.

To actually enable the nested possibility, it must be done on the command line with xe.

Once your VM is created:

xe vm-param-set platform:nested-virt=true uuid=<vm-uuid>

To check this:

xe vm-param-get param-name=platform uuid=<vm-uuid>

You should have a line similar to below, with the nested-virt: true parameter visible:

nested-virt: true; timeoffset: 0; exp-nested-hvm: true; secureboot: false; device-model: qemu-upstream-compat; viridian: true; nx: true; acpi: 1; apic: true; pae:true; hpet:true

To deactivate it:

xe vm-param-remove param-name=platform param-key=nested-virt uuid=<vm-uuid>

For XOSTOR users:

See the description for sm above.

(Reminder: XOSTOR is still in beta stage on XCP-ng 8.3)

Optional packages:

Alternate Driver: Updated to newer version.
- atlantic-module-alt:
  - Update vendor version of driver 2.5.12
  - Disable LRO for reliable bridging per README
  - More information about drivers and current versions is on the drivers page: (https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Drivers).

Test on XCP-ng 8.3

From an up-to-date host:

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

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

Versions

edk2: 20220801-1.7.7.2.xcpng8.3
intel-igc: 5.10.226-2.xcpng8.3
intel-microcode: 20250127-1.xcpng8.3
netdata: 1.47.5-4.1.xcpng8.3
openssl: 1.0.2k-26.2.xcpng8.3
qemu: 4.2.1-5.2.10.1.xcpng8.3
r8125-module: 9.012.04-2.xcpng8.3
sm: 3.2.3-1.17.xcpng8.3
systemtap: 4.0-5.1.xcpng8.3
xapi: 24.19.2-1.10.xcpng8.3
xcp-emu-manager: 1.2.0-2.xcpng8.3
xcp-ng-release: 8.3.0-29
xcp-ng-xapi-plugins: 1.12.0-1.xcpng8.3
xen: 4.17.5-4.2.xcpng8.3
xo-lite: 0.8.0-1.xcpng8.3

Optional packages:

Alternate drivers:
- atlantic-module-alt: 2.5.12-1.xcpng8.3

What to test

Normal use and anything else you want to test. The closer to your actual use of XCP-ng, the better.

Test window before official release of the updates

~ 4/5 days