Vagrant XenServer Provider

This is a Vagrant plugin that adds a XenServer provider, allowing Vagrant to control and provision machines on a XenServer host.

Dependencies

• Vagrant >= 1.5 (http://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html)
• qemu-img

Installation

vagrant plugin install vagrant-xenserver

XenServer setup

Make sure the default_SR is set, and that a VHD-based SR is in use. Currently the NFS SR is the recommended storage type.

Usage

Boxes

Vagrant-xenserver supports 3 types of boxes today. These are:

1. XVA URL - the box simply contains a URL that points to an XVA (XenServer export) file.
2. XVA - the box contains an XVA (XenServer export).
3. VHD - the box contains a VHD file.

The recommended format is either 1 or 2, and it is suggested that Packer is used to create the XVA files, which is available from https://github.com/xenserver/packer-builder-xenserver . If this is not available, there is an example script in the example_box directory that automatically installs a Debian Wheezy guest and exports it. Once an XVA file has been built, this can be turned into a box by archiving it with tar with an included metadata.json and optionally a Vagrantfile. For example, assuming an XVA has been created called ubuntu-15.10-amd64.xva, to create an XVA URL box, upload the XVA to your webserver and execute the following:

echo "{\"provider\": \"xenserver\"}" > metadata.json
cat > Vagrantfile <<EOF
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.provider :xenserver do |xs|
    xs.xva_url = "http://my.web.server/ubuntu-15.10-amd64.xva"
  end
end
EOF
tar cf ubuntu.box metadata.json Vagrantfile

Or to create an XVA box:

echo "{\"provider\": \"xenserver\"}" > metadata.json
cp /path/to/ubuntu-15.10-amd64.xva box.xva
tar cf ubuntu.box metadata.json box.xva

VHD based boxes are useful if you are converting from a box from another provider. For example, to convert a VirtualBox box file:

• Download the box file (e.g. https://vagrantcloud.com/ubuntu/trusty64/version/1/provider/virtualbox.box)
• Unpack it:

mkdir tmp
cd tmp
tar xvf ../virtualbox.box

• Convert the disk image using qemu-img

qemu-img convert *.vmdk -O vpc box.vhd

• Remove the other files

rm -f Vagrantfile box.ovf metadata.json 

• Make a new metadata file

echo "{\"provider\": \"xenserver\"}" > metadata.json

• Create the box:

tar cf ../ubuntu.box .

Note that since v0.0.12, vagrant-xenserver will assume by default that boxes have the XenServer tools installed, which may not be the case for converted boxes.

Add the box

Once you've created your box, this can simply be added to vagrant with the following:

vagrant box add ubuntu xenserver.box

Create a Vagrantfile

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

# Vagrantfile API/syntax version. Don't touch unless you know what you're doing!
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"

Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu"

  config.vm.provider :xenserver do |xs|
    xs.xs_host = "st29.uk.xensource.com"
    xs.xs_username = "root"
    xs.xs_password = "xenroot"
    xs.pv = true
    xs.memory = 2048
    xs.use_himn = false
  end

  config.vm.network "public_network", bridge: "xenbr0"
end

Note that by default there will be no connection to the external network, so most configurations will require a 'public_network' defined as in the above Vagrantfile. To bring the VM up, it should then be as simple as

vagrant up --provider=xenserver

XenServer host setup for HIMN forwarding

Since v0.0.12, boxes are assumed to have XenServer tools installed to report the IP address. If the tools are not installed in the box, the plugin supports using the 'host internal management network' (HIMN), which is an internal-only network on which a DHCP server runs. Use of this requires additional setup of dom0:

N.B. Currently this will only work on XenServer 6.5 and later. You will need to copy your ssh key to the Xenserver host:

ssh-copy-id root@xenserver

Changes since 0.0.11

Note that since v0.0.11 the use of the host internal management network is now not default. For backwards compatibility, add use_himn = true to the provider specific settings in the Vagrantfile. For example:

  config.vm.provider :xenserver do |xs|
    xs.use_himn = true
  end