Updated February 23, 2010 to include XenServer 5.5 Update 2
In Part 1 of this 10-part series, you learned how to create a MyCitrix.com account, download a copy of XenServer 5.5 Enterprise, download an evaluation copy of XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 and download a new license file for XenApp 5. In Part 2 of this series, you will learn how to install XenServer 5.5, XenCenter 5.5, activate XenServer and do some optional configuration of XenServer.
XenServer is a enterprise-class and cloud-proven server virtualization platform that delivers features such as live migration of Virtual Machines and centralized multi-server management for FREE. XenServer hosts are managed through XenCenter. Simon Crosby, the CTO of Citrix, is famous for his saying of “Ten to Xen”. Meaning you should be able to have XenServer installed and ready for use in ten minutes or less. I have installed XenServer many times in my lab and it has never taken more than ten minutes.
When you completed Part 1, you had downloaded the XenServer 5.5 ISO file. XenServer can be installed a variety of ways but for the purposes of this article, XenServer will be burned onto a CD for installation. You can use your favorite ISO burner to burn the XenServer image to a CD. I will be using Windows 7’s built-in ISO burner.
Right-click the XenServer 5.5 ISO file and select Open with -> Windows Disc Image Burner (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Insert a blank CD into the required drive and then click Burn (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Wait while the disc imaged is burned (Figure 3).
Figure 3
When the disc image burning is complete, click Close (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Remove the new XenServer 5.5 boot CD and insert it into the CD drive of your soon-to-be XenServer.
You will need to predetermine several pieces of information before installing XenServer:
1. The password for the root user account.
2. If you have multiple network interfaces in your XenServer, the MAC address of each interface.
3. The IP address, subnet mask and default gateway for the management interface.
4. The IP address and subnet mask for the second interface.
5. The name to assign to your XenServer.
6. The IP address for DNS.
7. If using Network Time Protocol, the host name or IP address of the NTP server.
Note: Most recent servers have two or more gigabit Ethernet NICs embedded on the motherboard. You can take advantage by using one NIC for XenCenter to XenServer management traffic and another NIC for Virtual Machine traffic. More advanced XenServer installation may also have NICs dedicated to storage and backup traffic.
The physical box for my XenServer host has two network interfaces. XenServer uses the Linux convention of naming the first network interface eth0, the second eth1 and so forth. For my server, eth0 will be the management interface and eth1 will be used for the Virtual Machine (VM) traffic.
Network Configuration Information
|
Interface Name
|
MAC Address
|
IP Address
|
Subnet Mask
|
Default Gateway
|
|
eth0
|
00-e0-81-c0-af-66
|
192.168.1.60
|
255.255.255.0
|
192.168.1.1
|
|
eth1
|
00-e0-81-c0-af-67
|
192.168.1.61
|
255.255.255.0
|
N/A
|
|
Server Name
|
XenServer1
|
|
DNS1
|
192.168.1.1
|
|
NTP Server
|
0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
|
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