Update NIC driver on XenServer5.0 and 5.5

The way to update NIC driver would be straight or difficult based on what you are trying to do

First confirm the NIC model

Then check the driver version

Once these two thing are confirmed then download the latest driver from the vendor site .

Compiling the file

o Download the latest Broadcom driver from www.broadcom.com and then the XenServer DDK (this is specific to the version of XenServer you are running) from MyCitrix. Note to download the DDK you will need to login.

o After downloading the DDK ISO expand it using 7-Zip then import the appliance using XenCentre. This will import the DDK VM, all you need to do is ensure that you have a DHCP server running on the network you map the VM to.

o Expand the ZIP file downloaded from Broadcom and upload the contents using WinSCP to /root

o Logon to the XenServer console then expand the tar.gz file, for example tar -xzvf <tar file name>

o Traverse the resulting directory structure, for example cd netxtreme2-5.2.55/bnx2-2.0.8e/src

o Whilst in the src directory run make clean then make build

Copying the driver to the XenServer

o Using WinSCP copy the bnx2.ko file to your PC.

o Finally connect to each XenServer using WinSCP and switch to /lib/modules/<<<2.6xen>>>/kernel/drivers/net

o Rename the existing bnx2.ko to bnx2.ko.old

o Drag and drop the bnx2.ko file on your PC to /lib/modules/<<<2.6xen>>>/kernel/drivers/net

o From the XenServer console switch to /lib/modules/<<<2.6xen>>>/kernel/drivers/net and run chmod 0744 bnx2.ko

o Migrate any VMs to other hosts then reboot!

Once host is rebooted the version of driver will change . There are other tweaking which is suggested by blog

This process has to be repeated for all the four nic. This needs to be done on pool master. Above setting is recommended on Broadcom NIC.

Thanks to my fellow blogger and my college Raj

No Packet Drops with XenMotion

I was trying to find out if there are packets drop during the Xenmotion. Surprises there were note even single drop of packet .Within this example Xenmotion took little extra time due to setup , as management interface is running on one NIC and recommendation is to have two nic bonded with ether channeling .
NOTE : Please remember this post is not to compare any other product but to highlight Xenmotion capabilities.

XenCenter console showing all the NIC as disconnected on XenServer

XenCenter console was showing all the NIC as disconnected, though it was connected at the backend

This is because XAPI which is responsible for communicating from XenCenter to XenServer is in hung state. Restart this service from Service console . You can also try "xe-toolstack-restart"

This will correct the GUI status

Error with XenServer: SR backend failed to complete the operation

While creating SR on Xen Server 5.5 U2 with backend storage as MD3000i , I was getting following error message

Troubleshooting steps:

1. I unchecked MP option on host and tried again it was able to see all the lun while doing lun scan

2. I then removed the host from pool and tried enabling MP and see if that worked but while scanning the lun it was still throwing same error message

3. Reconfigure all the virtual disk on MD3000i and check all the setting. Finally we found that on one controller if we change the prefer path then I am able to create SR or else it throws error

4. I had other setup with same storage as background. I moved this host into separate pool and checked the MP functionality. With this host I also copied /etc/multipath.conf file from the host which was working . I then restarted multipath /etc/init.d/multipathd restart

This worked great on different pool

5. Finally I updated multipath.conf on all the Xenhost and restarted multipath demon

6. From the controller side I have disabled IP V6 setting on one of the controller which was enabled

Finally with above two changes all the SR had MP enabled

XenServer: If UI seems stuck or invalid state

The XS API agent/service can be restarted without affecting VMs that are running. This service may need to be restarted after having manually configured host parameters i.e. Management NIC, etc.

•XS Agent runs on top Xen Hypervisor API and XenStore

#service xapi restart