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XCP-ng on the Vault

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Overview

XCP-ng is an open source Hypervisor based on Xen Server. The home page can be found at https://xcp-ng.org. The XCP-ng project includes the Xen Orchestra Web Interface for XenServer. XCP-ng has been successfully installed on the Vault with both Legacy and coreboot BIOS. The instructions below describe how to install XCP-ng on the Vault and manage it with Xen Orchestra.

Install XCP-ng

Obtain the Installation Image and Uncompress it

The installation image can be obtained from the homepage mentioned above by selecting the “Download” button or browse directly to https://xcp-ng.org/#easy-to-install Select the “ISO” string to download the IOS image and save it to your PC.

Intel i225 NIC (2.5G) Support

Currently XCP-ng 8.2 does not support Intel i225 network interfaces. If you are attempting to install XCP-ng on a device with i225 interfaces (VP2420, VP4600 series), please use 8.3 Alpha release located here https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2022/11/18/xcp-ng-8-3-alpha/

Burn the installation image to a USB drive

The easiest way to transfer the installation image to a USB drive is by using software called “Rufus” on Windows or “balenaEtcher” on Mac OSX. See this link for  detailed instructions on how to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus or balenaEtcher.

Install XCP-ng on the Vault

There are excellent instructions including screen shots for IOS installation at: https://xcp-ng.org/docs/install.html#iso-installation  We recommend following those instructions during installation.
  • Insert the USB installation drive into a USB port on the Vault
  • Connect the WAN port to the Internet
  • While powering up the Vault, press “F11” key and verify that it boots to the BIOS boot options screen
  • Select the USB drive UEFI partition to boot from if UEFI was configured, else just select the USB drive
  • Verify the Vault boots and begins the installation process
  • Follow the on screen installation prompts to install XCP-ng
  • When prompted for “Network”, verify eth0 is connected to the network and select it
  • When prompted to “Install XCP-ng” confirm  and verify the installation starts
  • Complete the installation and verify the “Installation Complete” message is displayed
  • Follow the on screen instructions to remove the USB and reboot the Vault
  • Verify the Vault boots up and the menu is displayed on the console
At this point XCP-ng has been successfully installed on the Vault.

Xen Orchestra

Xen Orchestra is the Web Interface for XenServer. If desired, Xen Orchestra can be used to manage one or more XCP-ng devices. The Xen Orchestra home page can be found at: https://xen-orchestra.com In order to use Xen Orchestra to manage the Vault that just had XCP-ng installed, follow the instructions below.
  • Verify the IP address of the unit from the installation console.
  • Browse to the IP address
  • Verify the Welcome page is displayed
  • Select the Xen Orchestra “Quick Deploy” button
  • Login using the root password that was configured during installation
  • When prompted for an account, follow the instructions
  • For this example, we did not set up an account, but for “user/password” we used the default “admin@admin.net”/”admin”
  • Login to Xen Orchestra and verify the home page is displayed
  • Select a device and select “Dashboard”
  • Verify the selected device is displayed
At this point XCP-ng has been successfully installed on the Vault and Xen Orchestra can be used to manage the unit. There is extensive documentation available at https://xcp-ng.org/docs/  for configuration and management of XCP-ng. For any hardware or installation issues, feel free to contact Protectli support at: support@protectli.com
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