Install XCP-ng (Brief)

While I’m more familiar with Proxmox and QEMU/KVM, I want to give XCP-ng a try to get my hands dirty with Xen. This will be a quick and dirty how-to outlining how I got my first Xenserver up and running.

Don’t get lost on the Xenserver documentation or the Xen Project documentation, XCP-ng is a distinct product and has its own website with instructions.

I downloaded the XCP-ng ISO and dropped in on a Ventoy drive. It booted successfully. The installation was easy and intuitive. I was able to pick a network interface and set a VLAN, then I opted for DHCP. Last, I was prompted to provide a password for XO Lite/Xen Orchestra.

When the installation was complete, I was prompted to remove the install media and reboot. After an initial display of scrolling text, I was met with a black screen and a single line stating “efi_memmap is not enabled”. The message was only displayed for about 30 seconds or so, but it felt like a long time, and I nearly forced a reboot because I though the host was hung.

Eventually I was greeted with a menu where I was able to specify the management interface. I thought that was something I setup during install, but maybe not.

GUI Access to XCP-ng with XO Lite

Everything was pretty intuitive, and even though there was little indication of a built-in GUI, I put the IP of the host in a web browser anyway to see what might come up and I was pleased to find XO Lite. Next, I’ll install Xen Orchestra and do a comparison with XO Lite.