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
