Awesome Work!! Keep it up. Been using XenServer for a while, but I always learn something new from you! and yes MORE XENSERVER VIDS!

As far as those warnings regarding rebooting and such - good practice to get into would be to put the server into Maintenance mode first before rebooting or doing any configuration changes. Love the videos Tom, keep up the great work!

Thanks so much, this video really got me out of a pinch and taught me everything needed to setup a new network with a low cost solution like Xen. I was in panic mode after my current host sent an email informing me all my VPS servers would be terminated due to high CPU usage. I should be back up and running in less than 24 hours thanks to the thoroughness of this video!

this is not a simple video, it's a course, thank you teacher :-)

My new server made it in & thanks to this video I'm in the middle of getting Xen setup. Waiting on the reboot after applying updates now. Thanks again Tom!!

Well Tom after this video I might reconsider moving my home virtualization from ProxMox instances to Xenservers. I might say I really enjoyed as usual your great approach of reviewing technology in this case virtualization technology.

Another phenomenal video. Thanks Tom!!

You can improve speed by strategically disabling the paging file (where applicable) or moving it to a different storage array. Also, disabled hibernation helps.

Brilliant video. Also taught me how to actually use the freenas iscsi

Great video, I am sold :) Goodbye HyperV and hello Xenserver :)

Note that XenServer VMs have a 2TB minus 4GB size limit. If you want a VM with a hard drive larger than 2TB then you need to span multiple 2TB drives within the VM.

In the "Select Time Zone" screen, I saw a place called "Danmarkshavn". Turns out, that's in Greenland. Apparently that classifies as America... :p

Very good Vid. Just Subscribed. keep up the good work

Very, very good explained 🧠👍👍👍

Do you have an idea of what you're going to use for backup of the VM's? I use Veeam on Esx now and it's fantastic, the only thing that I've found that comes close is Unitrends in the Xenserver arena, but haven't had a chance to test it out yet. Your thoughts?

Great Video, thank you!

You mentioned performance being so-so for 1G networking. Might it be the setup of the vdevs? I had awful performance (20 IOPS) with this exact setup (FreeNAS iSCSI to XenServer) when using a RAIDZ vdev. This improved dramatically (500 IOPS) when using similar disks and 4 mirrored vdevs.

Been waiting for this video. Only skimmed so far until I have time to watch. I know you said the demo install was on a VM. But is it possible to advise on hardware specs with cost effective off the shelf kit?

AMAZING VIDEO!!!

Have you considered moving off of FREENAS to Starwinds? Most people don't recommend FREENAS much more for virtualization.

can you do an iSCSI multipath guide ??!

Awesome video as always - how about a XO/XenOrchestra walkthrough?

Is there a way to setup iScsi with XCP and Xen Orchestra?

Tom, if you are interested in administering XenServer from Linux, the best solution I have found is Xen Orchestra. It installs as a VM, has a good ui available in a browser, and I think it even has backup, though I have never used the built in backup. It's been a couple of years since I have used XenServer, I have since decommissioned it due to business needs. Something something Hyper-V something. But XenServer is my favorite hypervisor.

cd/dvd usb drives are seen pluged in the server

Hello! First I wanted to thank you so much for your great videos about pfSense, XenServer and FreeNas. With the help of your videos I was able to configure all three of these solutions to use in a lab environment which is really helping me grasp other aspects about virtualization. It runs great and I just can't thank you enough for the knowledge that you give out. I am truly great full. Anyway, there is a question I had for you. In my testing I created a VM, booted a live CD (Parted Magic) and found that the NIC was not found. I understand that the Parted Magic obviously does not have the driver that XenServer VM uses before the guest tools are installed but in your experience is there a way to change the NIC type to something general like E1000 so that the NIC will be registered? I did some more testing and found that a WinPE CD that I use can find the NIC but it is only 100Mb/s. This led me on a wild goose chase for about 2 days on Google and Citrix's website to try to find a solution but I am stumped. There has to be a way, right? After watching your update on the 7.3 update this is pushing me towards giving ProxMox a try as I believe emulating NICs is supported. I am with you though as far as the seamless import export features of XenServer you just can't beat how easy this is. Thanks!

Have you tried ProxMox?

Hey Tom. Have you ever looked at Open Xen Manager for your Linux GUI manager to replace XenCenter? Looks like it is very similar.

OpenXenManager - Xenserver manager for linux

Hi, thank you for this great video. I want to setup XCP-NG High Availibility with 3 XCP-NG server. Could you please tell me if I need to create 3 separate iSCSI target or can they all use the same target? thank you

Hi Tom! Just a question, any reason you don't use FreeNAS zvols as extents on iscsi? I can highly recommend doing so because FreeNAS 11 actually supports thin provisioned zvols, so you would use even less physical storage for your XenServer vms! On top of that it's even easier to configure in FreeNAS. Just add a zvol under a Dataset in Storage, and then add it as 'Device' under iscsi Extents. But as usual great vid!

Splendid video ...... two questions though.,... while you are assigning cpu's to a vm selecting one core means that xenserver knows which the corresponding hyper threating brother is and assigns that one also? Coming from Unraid and found it easier to understand which cpu is running in which os since here cpu cores (physical or logical) don't have an id number to be identified.......my second question is in xenserver whats the best practice to setup hdds (lets say 4 - 3 of the same size and one bigger).... i didnt see a menu for soft raid support or am I missing something here?.....and lastly something extra xenserver runs directly from storage device than in ram after it laods. So how much disk much disk space needs to be given in order to run smoothly? thank you in advance ps Passthrough gpu?

Can we see a video on Citrix XenServer networking? General and advanced, bridged, NAT etc. Also, USB repository.

I am thinking of moving away from hyper-v to xenserver does xenserver support clustering ?

So this configuration is two machines connected with 10GbE... What is the benefit over a single machine with a virtualized NAS? I think Proxmox can be configured with ZFS for boot drive, why not have your VMS run off that instead of over a network connection?

I have been an end-user client management systems engineer for a few years but as for other networking systems (and products), I'm pretty much at entry level. I'm would like to create a lab and manage my home networking environment but I'm starting with old junk in my basement until I can afford to buy more equipment and expand. Would you you say that the virtualization that freeNAS offers today is a better way to go, or do you still recommend XenServer to create the virtual network environments? Do you install Xen virtually over freeNAS creating more overhead or should a completely separate machine be dedicated separate from my NAS?

I'm running the free version of XenServer right now. Am I right to say that in order to move a VM, I need to activate the trial license?

Xencenter is on linux, its called openxenmanager

Great video. I have never used XenServer but this is very interesting. I do find it a little scary it installs on disk, instead of installing on USB(s) like FreeNAS or ESXi Vmware. So I guess FreeNas is taking the full responsibility of the backups away from Xen Server? I been thinking (dangerous) that I would run Xen Server locally with VMs and then send backups to FreeNas box is there an issue with this setup? I would be interested in backup system and recovery process for a Xen Server if possible?

One more Q Tom, does XenServer (metal) have any advantage or need for ECC RAM?

Hence is my Question. I've got a spare i7, 32GB RAM, 4* 1TB hard drivers, 1GB Network card and Nvidia (I can't remember but about 4GB very good graphics card) computer. As well as I have Intel PRO/1000 PT 4 Port Gigabit Network Adapter EXPI9404PTG1P20. Can I make a home server with pfSense as firewall + Free NAS for keeping data of my family, wife, kids and me? As well as kids love to play, so I need a virtual Windows and for me Linux. All will be on one machine. Is this ok or better take another computer ( I found old Pentium 4) and install there pfSense + this 4 port network card and rest make on the i7 computer? Did this 32GB will be ok or better update to 64 or 128GB? Or just give up and the try to found cheap Hp, Dell or another server 2 x 6 cores with exactly (how?) amount of RAM? If this option is better should I do on Citrix pfSense and FreeNAS or again firewall make on a separate machine?

Does all versions of XenServer limit storage to ~2TB? If you pay for the support or enterprise solution is that limit removed?

is it possible to passtrough raw drive to vm ? Thanks

Where is your "XenCenter" installed? You said its on a Windows server, did you install this on a physical Windows server or a VM on another host?

I have one question. I am using XenServer 7.2. I have one VM of 300GB virtual disk. But this VM is not using 50GB of space. So the 250GB space is wastage on this VM and these are on SSD. I wanted to shrink the VM to 50GB so that I can vacate the 250 GB space and that can be used somewhere else. I have tried many solution but none of them is working. Can you please help me of any working solution.

Hey tom please guide me for using xencentre in linux or any alternative

After install error message show: pcilib:sys_read_vpd: read failed: Input/output error. What can I do?

Great video. What can be done to boost performance between a Xen server and FreeNas?

how is this comparing to proxmon?

Why not discover your videos earlier???? ;)

how much vps/vm can make with this server??

give an extra thumbs up for the time zone

Hey Tom, am I wrong to assume that one needs a paid license for XenServer? I can't see to find a free download link on the site. Thanks!!

have you upgraded to 7.4 or are you still running 7.2

Xenserver HA ! :)

what does this mean "SM has thrown a generic python exception"...

Does this work over WiFi

theres a linux package called openxenmanager. xmodulo.com/how-to-install-xencenter-on-linux.html