Service Desk Knowledgebase: XenE

This is the XenE content page of the CL Wiki Service Desk Knowledgebase. Its purpose is to provide information to the Service Desk team on how to handle problems and requests about this CL service. If you are involved with the provision of this CL service please feel free to add to the knowledge about that it.

If CL staff need to tell the Service Desk team about problems with this service please email
sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk.

Return to the Service Desk Knowledgebase SERVICE PORTFOLIO

Key Service Description & URLs

• Xen virtual machine monitor
• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/XenE - - CL Sys-Admin Documentation
• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/XeneAdmin - CL Documentation
• Computer Laboratory News (Twitter use @UC_CL_SysAdm)

CL Customer Documentation

• ???

Further CL Sys-Admin Documentation

• ???

Underpinning Services

• ??? - Any supporting or underpinning services

Customer-base for this Service

• All staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

Costs

• Free to all current staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

SLA

• N/A

Service Desk Call Handling Procedure

• RT tickets can be escalated leaving the queue as Sys-Admin by leaving the Owner as Nobody and the Status as New. Tell the requestor:
  I am passing this request over to the Xen experts who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.

A Xen VM is not running

The procedure below is sufficient to cover the majority of problems reported with VMs not running/available.

1. First make sure you have the Xen console running and the pools visible and connected (see section of Accessing the Xen Console)
2. In the search bar at the top of the left pane type part of the name of the VM you are looking for.
3. Expand any pools and servers that are displayed until you see the VM of interest.
4. If the VM cannot be found then escalate as above.
5. If the machine is stopped then start it and check it boots correctly by selecting the console tab and monitoring progress.
6. If it is running select it and then select the console tab in the main pane.
7. You should then see what is wrong. Linux servers can get stuck performing a file system check and need confirmation before they will fix up errors, allow that to proceed.
8. Any other error needs escalating.

Accessing the Xen Console

1. Use Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) to go to ts01.ad.cl.cam.ac.uk and login using your CRSid@ad.cl.cam.ac.uk account
2. Use [Start] All Programs > Citrix > Citrix XenCenter
3. Wait - Citrix XenCenter takes a long while to start up!

The First time it is run (or if no Xen pools are found) the pools of machines need to be added using:

• Click XenCenter (in left panel)
• Click Add a server (in right panel)
  • Set Server: xene-pool1
  • Set User name: root
  • Set Password: "Enable password"
  • Click [Add]
• Click Add a server (in right panel)
  • Set Server: xene-pool2
  • Set User name: root
  • Set Password: "Enable password"
  • Click [Add]
• Click Add a server (in right panel)
  • Set Server: xene-pool3
  • Set User name: root
  • Set Password: "Enable password"
  • Click [Add]
• Click Add a server (in right panel)
  • Set Server: xene-pool4
  • Set User name: root
  • Set Password: "Enable password"
  • Click [Add]

To finish:

1. Close down Citrix XenCenter with [X]
2. Use [Start] [Log off] to terminate your RDP to the TS01 terminal server

Contacts

Primary

• pb22@cl.cam.ac.uk if URGENT for Piete Brooks
• ???@lists.cam.ac.uk (Goes to ???)
• Tel: ???

Other

• Firstname Lastname

Availability

• Monday:
• Tuesday:
• Wednesday:
• Thursday:
• Friday:
• Saturday: Closed
• Sunday: Closed

Additional CL Staff Resources

• ???

Hints, Tips & Known Issues

Title Person (Date)

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Categorising Keywords

• XenE Xen XenAppliance XenEnterprise XenServer