How to install EMC Navisphere Host Agent on Citrix XenServer 5

If you are integrating Citrix XenServer with EMC Clariion storage the Navisphere Host Agent (naviagent) can be installed in the Linux management OS (domain 0) so that the host registers with Navisphere.

1. Download the Navisphere Host Agent 6.28 from here (requires Powerlink login) – http://tinyurl.com/n5cbu2
2. Unzip and copy the RPM to the /tmp folder of the XenServer host. I use a tool from Bitvise called Tunnelier to do this – http://dl.bitvise.com/Tunnelier-Inst.exe
3. From the SSH shell go to the /tmp folder and give give yourself execute permissions to the rpm with this command “chmod 755 *.rpm”
4. Type this command to install “rpm -i naviagent-6.28.20.1.40-1.noarch.rpm”
5. Open the firewall ports using these commands

iptables -D RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6389 -j ACCEPT –src SPA-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p udp –dport 6389 -j ACCEPT –src SPA-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6389 -j ACCEPT –src SPB-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p udp –dport 6389 -j ACCEPT –src SPB-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6390 -j ACCEPT –src SPA-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6390 -j ACCEPT –src SPB-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6391 -j ACCEPT –src SPA-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6391 -j ACCEPT –src SPB-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6392 -j ACCEPT –src SPA-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -p tcp –dport 6392 -j ACCEPT –src SPB-IP-ADDRESS
iptables -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
iptables-save >/etc/sysconfig/iptables

Reboot the host and then check Navisphere to see if the host registered.

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Citrix XenConvert

Citrix XenConvert is a tool to migrate (P2V) physical (or virtual) Windows systems to XenServer.

XenConvert is similar to VMware Converter but without some of the advanced features and functions differently.

XenConvert is installed and executed on the source system and only one local disk can be converted at a time.

You must have 115% free space to convert a disk, the free space doesn’t have to be on the same local disk but cannot be a mapped network drive. XenConvert creates a local VHD file, mounts it as a new drive and then copies the contents of the local drive you are converting to the new VHD file.

If during the XenConvert wizard you chose to migrate to XenServer it then takes the VHD and creates an XVA (XenServer Virtual Applicance) and then moves it up to the XenServer and creates the new VM.

The process takes at least twice as long as it does with VMware Converter. Most of this time is spent copying the local disk to the local VHD file.

XenConvert does not have a feature that lets you resize the destination VHD, if your local disk is 72 GB then the virtual disk will be 72 GB.

Some other features of XenConvert include the ability to convert an offline VMDK to either a VHD or OVF and Microsoft VMs to OVF.

http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/simoncr/2009/04/16/XenConvert+v2+Tech+Preview+-+OVF+and+VMDK+Support+for+XenServer

XenServer Troubleshooting for VMware Engineers Part 1

I thought it would be helpful for all of the engineers out there that have a VMware ESX background and are starting to implement Citrix XenServer. There are a lot of similarities between the two virtualization platforms.

One of the issues I ran into recently was the changes made to a host via the cmd line not displaying in the XenCenter management console. To fix this you can issue the “xe–toolstack–restart” command to restart the management stack on the XenServer host.

This command is the first thing you should try if there is any type host connectivity or pool issue in XenCenter.

This is similar to the VMware ESX cmd “service mgmt-vmware restart”.