Debian 7 Wheezy was installed by first installing Debian 6 Squeeze and then adding testing repo to /etc/apt/sources.list.
# cat sources.list # deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze main deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ testing main contrib non-free deb-src http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ testing main contrib non-free #deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze main #deb-src http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze main deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main #deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main #deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main # squeeze-updates, previously known as 'volatile' deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze-updates main deb-src http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze-updates main
Before you do a dist-upgrade, make sure to install xe-tools.
Then do a dist upgrade:
apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get dist-upgrade
Before reboot to new 3.2.x kernel, make sure you add nobarrier option to each virtual disk in /etc/fstab or you may see errors.
Disks used:
xvda – Intel 320 SSD RAID1
xvdb – Seagate Savvio 10K.5 ST9900805SS SAS RAID1
Performance results:
# hdparm -tT /dev/xvda /dev/xvda: Timing cached reads: 14152 MB in 1.99 seconds = 7116.64 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 1794 MB in 3.00 seconds = 597.91 MB/sec # hdparm -tT /dev/xvdb /dev/xvdb: Timing cached reads: 14210 MB in 1.99 seconds = 7145.46 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 1834 MB in 3.00 seconds = 611.16 MB/sec
Hi, great post. I’m looking into using ssd’s with xenserver as well. And it seems I’ll have to go this way as well, as I don’t like the idea of underperforming disk in the server. The question to your set up is, did you install from citrix xen 6.0.2 cd? How save such upgrade may be? I mean are there any errors or problems with XS in further operation. Did you try to use this setup in production?
Yes, I installed from a XenServer 6.0.2 install cd. If you have many compute modules in your server you can use live migration and move all vm-s to other compute modules with minimal downtime and then update the software of the compute module you just moved the vm-s away from. This should be a pretty safe way to update XenServer software. I use this setup in a production environment for about 2 months now without probems.