Monthly Archives: July 2015

Xenserver install without Local Storage

This was another Xenserver install without Local Storage on the drive after the install completed. I installed new drives to both an HP 1RU server and an HP Blade server. All the drives were 1T SATA and should have formatted identically.

The first server created c0d0 and c0d1 where the c0d1 was the remaining space of the 1Tbyte drive that was installed in an HP server. The /cciss/c0d1 was created with a Xenserver UUID and connecting to it was a simple(ish) process. I wrote up the process I used in another post titled Xenserver has no Local Storage.

So I expected that the other server would be the same issue, but it was different.

This server is a blade server and while the 1Tbyte drive is the same, the installer for some reason created the remaining space as an additional partition, /cciss/c0d0p3, but there was no UUID created.

Using vgs to confirm that the only volume group was the Dom(0) 4G partition:

# vgs
VG                                                 #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize VFree
VG_XenStorage-50423669-52dc-b116-0aae-6cc1545a3013   1   1   0 wz–n- 3.99G 3.98G

Step 1. Create another volume group.

# vgcreate VG-LocalDisk /dev/cciss/c0d0p3
No physical volume label read from /dev/cciss/c0d0p3
Writing physical volume data to disk “/dev/cciss/c0d0p3”
Physical volume “/dev/cciss/c0d0p3” successfully created
Volume group “VG-LocalDisk” successfully created

Step 2. Create the storage repository (SR)

# xe sr-create content-type=”Local SR” host-uuid=bd73aed4-5583-4d3e-94b3-a271c2446d12 type=ext device-config-device=/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 shared=false name-label=”Local Storage”

Noting that I liked the shortcut of host-uuid=<tab key> to get the current host uuid without lookup / copy / paste !

Step 3. Done.

The drive should now be present in the XenCenter details for the server.

The only thing I noted here was an apparent loss of around 14G of storage in the 931G formated drive, less the 8G roughly for Xen Dom(0) should have netted me around 923G but it only reports 909G. I looked at it and decided it was not worth pursuing.

I am also guessing that this may not be an efficient method of using / allocating the disk space, but as with most things I do, it was expedient.

References:

http://xmodulo.com/how-to-change-xenservers-local-storage.html

http://thinkvirt.com/?q=node/283

 

Xenserver has no Local Storage

I added some new disks to a couple of HP servers including a 1RU stand-alone and a blade server recently, but in the end the fresh Xenserver has no Local Storage. Installing Xenserver 6.5 seemed to complete as expected, except that when I looked at the new server there was no Local Storage.

A DVD drive and a USB Removable device were recognised correctly.

I am still not clear on why it did not complete the process of preparing the Local Storage, but the following process resolved it for me.

Postscript: I then went to the second blade server and found a different config partly completed during the install resulting in the same issue but a different method to address it. See my other post Xenserver install without Local Storage.

In a nutshell, Xenserver Dom(0) was installed but did not configure the rest of the disk as a usable device.

Step 1. From the console identify the host uuid like this for the test server DS3001:

# xe host-list
uuid ( RO)                : 4c2e3091-502f-47b8-8f64-64e8feba806b
name-label ( RW): DS3001
name-description ( RW): Default install of XenServer

Step 2. Find the partition/drive configuration:

# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

7        0      57216 loop0
104        0  292935982 cciss/c0d0
104        1    4193297 cciss/c0d0p1
104        2    4193297 cciss/c0d0p2
104        3  284546333 cciss/c0d0p3
104       16  976729816 cciss/c0d1         <<—  this is the one we want as it is the largest partition
11        0    1048575 sr0
11        1     589594 sr1
8        0 1953514583 sda
8        1 1953513559 sda1
8       16 1953514582 sdb
8       17 1953512534 sdb1

and then get the UUID :

# ls -lah /dev/disk/by-id
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 180 Jul  6 12:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 140 Jul  6 12:29 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Jul  6 12:29 cciss-3600508b100103231372020202020000f -> ../../cciss/c0d0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Jul  6 12:29 cciss-3600508b1001032313720202020200010 -> ../../cciss/c0d1

Step 3. Fill in the uuid and the device in to the following command:

# xe sr-create content-type=user device-config:device=/dev/disk/by-id/<cciss-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> host-uuid=<host-uuid> name-label=”Local Storage 2” shared=false type=lvm

Using the examples, to create:
# xe sr-create content-type=user device-config:device=/dev/disk/by-id/cciss-3600508b1001032313720202020200010 host-uuid=4c2e3091-502f-47b8-8f64-64e8feba806b name-label=”Local Storage” shared=false type=lvm

Run that command on Dom(0) console and the new Local Storage will appear in XenCenter.

References:

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121313?_ga=1.168442916.42972411.1435579385