This guide can be used to install CoreOS on a XenServer VM. We will use PXE to boot a fresh VM, SSH into the box, run the install script, fix an issue with kexec not being available on XenServer, and rebooting into the installed CoreOS machine. We start with the creation of suitable configuration files […]
Tag Archives: XenServer
Fixing “Another operation involving the object is currently in progress” on XenServer
Sometimes XenServer does not allow you to shutdown or reboot a VM because “Another operation involving the object is currently in progress”. It would be nice to see what that operation is and be able to terminate the operation from XenCenter, but that isn’t the case yet. However, it is possible from the command line […]
Fixing “unable to find partition containing kernel” on XenServer with Ubuntu VM
Sometimes an Ubuntu VM doesn’t start up anymore on XenServer. The following error is shown in XenCenter: Error: Starting VM ‘My VM’ – Using <class ‘grub.GrubConf.Grub2ConfigFile’> to parse /grub/grub.cfg – WARNING:root:Unknown directive load_video – WARNING:root:Unknown directive terminal_output – WARNING:root:Unknown directive else – WARNING:root:Unknown directive elif – WARNING:root:Unknown directive else – WARNING:root:Unknown directive else – WARNING:root:Unknown […]
Restoring backup of VM in XenServer
In a previous article we looked at backing up running VMs in XenServer. In this article, we will see how a backed up VM can be restored. Login to the console of the host machine you want the restored VM to be placed on, and issue the following command: xe vm-import filename=”/path/to/backed-up-vm.xva” preserve=true The path […]
Installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a XenServer VM
The following steps can be taken to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a VM running on XenServer 6. Unfortunately there is no standard template for Ubuntu 12.04 (at least in XenServer 6.0.2 which I used for testing), so we need to make a clone of the “Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04” template and set another value […]
Rebooting a stuck VM on XenServer
Sometimes a VM on XenServer gets stuck. Trying to reboot it from XenCenter results in the error message “Another operation involving the object is currently in progress“. There are some steps that can be taken to reboot the VM from the command line on the XenServer host itself. We start with the UUID of the […]
Increasing CentOS LVM disk size on XenServer
The disk size of a CentOS virtual machine on XenServer can be increased with the following steps. The current VM contains one disk of 8 GB which is divided into a boot partition and an LVM partition: # fdisk -l Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/xvda1 * 1 64 512000 83 Linux /dev/xvda2 […]
Installing Ubuntu 10.04 on XenServer 6.0.2 with guest tools
In a previous article a couple of years ago I wrote about the possibility to install the XenServer guest tools on Ubuntu 10.04. The situation has changed for the better with the release of XenServer 6, which supports Ubuntu 10.04 out of the box. Since a lot of people are still referencing the original article […]
Deleting XenServer templates
Sometimes XenServer doesn’t allow you to delete templates from the XenCenter GUI or even the CLI. Here is how to delete templates from the CLI in three steps: Tell XenServer the template is not a default template Convert the template to a VM Delete the VM xe template-param-set other-config:default_template=false uuid=[uuid] xe template-param-set is-a-template=false uuid=[uuid] xe […]
Creating backups of running VMs in XenServer
With XenServer it is possible to create backups of VMs, even if they are running. The process is as follows: Search for the uuid of the VMs to backup Create a snapshot of each (running) VM Save the snapshot to file Remove the created snapshot First look for the uuid of the VMs to backup. […]