@bishoptf

We have a group of colleges together, and they got the price down to $120 per core for VCF, there are no other levels to buy.

And for the small system that we have, Vates would not be a huge amount less, only a couple thousand a year less which doesn't really push to find a different solution. But again I have not looked into education discounts yet so if that cuts the price in half, then it would be substantial enough that they might think about changing. We also pay for Dell vxrail, not sure how much that costs, but allows us to not employ a person to handle the cluster.

@bishoptf

There are scripts to run that will set up the XO-CE, even an image you can download directly and answer a few questions to set the IP, etc. while downloading it. It's not hard and easy to document. If that user goes away, then it might get more complex, but there are a couple people that have made scripts on github to get the XO-CE running on many Debian based and many RHEL based linux, I think there is even a docker image if you are using docker stuff.

But I agree looking out for "the next guy" is something that needs to be done whenever possible.

As far as pricing for non-profit education, I'll have to contact sales again and see what I can do. I checked several years ago when things were kind of separate, now that support is all encompassing I need to check back and see what it will cost. I've just been running the XO-CE version but I like to support projects where I can, and if I can wedge a little money into my budget for support, I certainly will do that. With only 3 hosts and a handful of VMs, it's hard to come up with the money for the lowest tier.

One thing I really want to work with is XOstor, I think in my system this might be a good way to go forward for me. Cheaper than building new NAS (about $5000 each for two of them).

All that said, if it is a simple enough system, you probably aren't going to need much support beyond these forums.

[edit] Are we allowed to attach PDF documents to a post? I have simple instructions from when I set up 8.2 in my lab. I don't have newer documents made for 8.3 using XO-lite yet, but screenshots to put to words. XO-lite is changing the knowledge burden to get up and running by a significant factor, and I like where it is going!

@marcoi

Has anyone tried turning off delta, and turning off compression?

Not ideal, but its how I'm dealing with some different issues (windows with big empty disks).

@gduperrey

OK, 3 months is good because I'm in a nasty bind right now and this may need to wait until August. I would expect many other places to have the same issues.

@burbilog

Can you simply change the filter to "none" in the vm view to see those that are stopped (red icon)?

This only works if the master host is still running, if that host crashes, you have more work ahead of you.

I also suggest having an XO from sources running somewhere else, like a laptop (VM or hardware), or an old low power server, in a VM on another pool, etc. That way if the host running XOA or XO-CE fails, or the VM just crashes, you will have a backup.

Also keep you XO config backed up since it is pretty quick to deploy a new XO and blast the config onto it.

In version 8.3 you could also log into the XO-Lite and see the VMs that are running and those that are not.

@olivierlambert

So is that June 25, 2025 or 3 months from now as the drop dead date?

@stormi

With 8.3 becoming LTS, what happens to 8.2.x? How long will it still receive security updates?

Trying to decide if this is a drop everything and upgrade moment, or if there is some time available before upgrading is required. While my 8.3 lab has been solid since switching (disregarding user created problems), I'm not sure I want to go through an 8.2 to 8.3 upgrade right now.

Also with 8.3 going LTS, does this mean that a 9.x Beta will be available soon? It looks like Alma just released v10 which I've read is going to be the basis for XCP-ng 9.x, or is this still a mountain of work to overcome to get to a Beta? The newer kernel functions like the NFS options is something I'm looking forward to testing.

Here is some info on setting the disks so that they are no longer removeable, I think the last time I did this I just needed the registry edit to fix it.

https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/9987/secondary-virtual-disks-appearing-as-removable-on-windows-11-vms/6?_=1748973746267

I'm kind of stuck waiting to migrate my firewall before I can get back to fixing my VMs. I only have 5 and one of them is not showing the warning. All of them should have been getting updates from the management agent or from Windows Update, not sure why only 4 give the warning.

Just an FYI,

So far the only 2022 VM I've updated has created new network adapters which defaulted to DHCP, and it has marked the system drive as removeable, which we saw with 2025 almost a year ago.

Make sure to write down your static IP addresses before beginning.

This is from installing Xenserver MA 9.4.1-160

I finally got my lab updated and the two vms started, so far so good. Stats data is present, the first time I've seen any of my hosts pull 100% CPU. Hosts are little HP T740 thin clients with AMD V1756B processors and 64GB of ram, in a 3 host pool.

Sorry I can't bring more detail, not really doing work on my XCP lab right now, and lots of shake up around tech. space at work.

@flakpyro

Off topic, how does XCP handle the E and P cores in that 13900 machine? That was one of the considerations that made me skip these Intel processors in favor of AMD.

I'll get mine updated as soon as possible, on going work to clean out my tech room so it can get cut in half for class space. Goodbye future expansion if we need it!

@Greg_E

No issues so far with my production system (8.2.x) and this batch of important updates, these are on Intel Silver (v2?) processors.

But my system is so vanilla that I doubt there would be any issues anyway. The only "out of normal" thing I've done today is storage migrate a VM off of one Truenas to another so I can apply some updates to Truenas. Then I'll migrate everything to the updated server so I can update the "main" storage.

@bleader

I see this for my 8.2 pool this morning, I'll kick it off when we all go into a meeting so it will be done when we finish.

@stormi

My lab is down for a few days, so no testing for me. And it is AMD so maybe not useful. I probably won't be back running until Friday.

@trobertson

Tom Lawrence has a bit hub with all the artwork that he uses, you might want to find that and check it out.

@olivierlambert

Documentation is the first thing to get pushed to the back burner, same in my area, same in my larger IT department. Never enough time to document things correctly.

I need to get going with Netbox and see if I can make this speed up what I want to document.

@andriy.sultanov

The move is more about spending yet more personal money for something that is primarily used for learning what I need to know for work (a rack, UPS, and some odds and ends at $800). Or half of it is, half of it is a VMware system and that's to let me learn what I need to leave this job and find one that pays more. And then move that work to something easier to use that costs less. Still amazed at how many places just took the price increase and are still not making plans to move to something else, even if they are cutting core counts in half to save half of that new money. But I'm also seeing that the general trend in IT around where I live is to get into a Silo, and never ever take on another task to fill a need. This way you never want to move laterally to other products, just keep doing the same things the same ways until management gets tired of hearing "we can't do that" and fires everyone to replace them with an MSP (or other contractor).

So for the off topic rant, feeling salty again today.

@andriy.sultanov

If still needed, I can probably get you the rrd2csv next week, I need to unrack my system and move it to a new mobile rack. A large expense that I'm not happy to have to do, but now needed going forward (it's a work thing, where I prototype workflows for my production system)

@trobertson

Ummm... Your documentation sure makes a lot of us jealous!

Was that just a layout program like draw.io, or are you using something like Netbox for that work?

I'm starting on GLPI to handle more than just flow paths going forward, need to track serial numbers, date of purchase, maybe installed software as I go forward. A project for the summer.

So there might be two other things to look into if you get bored.

@stormi

My master host hung on reboot, after about 10 minutes I forced the power off, and then back on. Host is HP T740 Thinclient with AMD v1756b processor, 64GB of DDR4 SODIMM, Intel dual x520 PCIe card, and an Intel i226-v in the a+e slot, plus the onboard Realtek NIC, BIOS at 1.20 which I think is still current for this model. All three hosts are identical with possible exception of x520 card revisions, host 3 might have an older revision (donations accepted for x710 based cards )

Otherwise everything went as planned, all three are updated and all three needed to have the toolstack restarted to see the stats. I only have 2 small Linux VMs on this system right now, and both of them started fine.

There were no stats in XO-Lite either, I was doing the second and third hosts from XO-Lite to see if XO was getting mad. The second and third rebooted without issue and something I'll look into with the next update, the delay on master could have been the VMs trying to auto start where I remembered to turn that off for the other two hosts.