Archived/XCP 1.6 test instructions

What needs to be tested

XCP 1.6 has a number of new features, as well as better integration with the latest version of Citrix's XenCenter. Please download the ISO and try it out. Here are some things we would like people to test:

Storage XenMotion

Storage XenMotion (or SXM for short) provides a way to move a VM's disks between SRs, while the VM is running. You can do things like move a VM's disks from local storage to shared storage while the VM is running, move a VM between different hosts with no shared storage at all (from local storage on one host to local storage on the other host), or even migrate a VM between pools. To read more about how SXM works, see Storage XenMotion. The online help for SXM is available by running 'xe help vm-migrate' and 'xe help vdi-pool-migrate' in dom0.

XenCenter integration

XenCenter integration with XCP has been improved. You can test this by downloading XenCenter from the Citrix XenServer downloads page.

Windows PV drivers

Try installing a Windows VM, installing the PV drivers on it, and then performing lifecycle operations such as suspend/resume and migrate. Storage XenMotion will also work with Windows VMs.

Upgrading from XCP 1.1 and XCP 1.5 Beta

We expect this to work, but the XenCenter rolling pool upgrade feature is currently untested with XCP.

UPDATE: There was an issue with upgrading from previous versions of XCP to the first beta release of XCP 1.6. This issue has been resolved in the latest beta release (see [1])

Upgrading from XCP 1.1 directly to XCP 1.6: This works, but you need to add the keys PLATFORM_VERSION=1.1.0 and PLATFORM_NAME=XCP to your /etc/xensource-inventory file before attempting the upgrade.

Integrations with cloud orchestration stacks and other projects

We expect these to work, but we have not tested all 3rd party XCP integrations. Also some documentation related to integrations may need to be updated

• Apache CloudStack
• OpenNebula
• OpenStack
• Other

Getting the beta

XCP 1.6 Beta can be downloaded from the XCP Downloads page. You can burn the ISO to a CD and install it on physical hardware, or you can test it out as a virtual machine, either on a hypervisor like VirtualBox, or on XCP 1.6 itself. If you install XCP in a VM, you will only be able to start PV guests, since nested HVM doesn't work yet.

Reporting Bugs and Issues

• Report any bugs / missing functionality / unexpected results to the xen-api mailing list.
• Please put [XCP-1.6-BETA] in the subject line.
• Make sure to follow the guidelines on Reporting Bugs against Xen.

Thanks for testing XCP!