XCP-ng is a Linux distribution of the Xen Project, with pre-configured Xen Hypervisor and the Xen API project (XAPI) working out-of-the-box. The project was born in 2018, following the fork of Citrix XenServer (now Citrix Hypervisor). Since January 2020, it is also part of the Linux Foundation, via the Xen Project.

XCP-ng stands for Xen Cloud Platform – next generation. It is the successor to XCP, initially created as an Open Source version of Citrix XenServer in 2010. At that time XenServer was closed source, with XCP being the open source version containing a subset of features.

As XenServer was open sourced in 2013, the XCP project was halted. Several years later when Citrix stopped delivering XenServer for free and via open source, the project was revived as XCP-ng.

On December 2017, Citrix announced that they would remove important features of XenServer Free edition and make them only available on paid tiers. Also, XenServer wasn’t focused toward community since:

• No public build instructions were available.
• Since XenServer 7.4, it was even impossible to start a virtual machine because of some proprietary components.
• Community feedback was not taken into account.
• No external contributions were accepted or even possible (due to the lack of publicly accessible code repository for various components).

In response, the original founder of Xen Orchestra (an Open Source web management platform for XenServer), Olivier Lambert, announced that he would revive XCP project, with its original goals: providing a Free/libre and 100% community backed version of XenServer.

On March 31st, 2017, XCP-ng was announced as the first official release. After five other releases (see the releases section) and few months in beta, the first Long Term Support (LTS) version was announced in November 2020.

Based on XenServer, XCP-ng is the result of massive cooperation between individuals and companies, to deliver a product without limits. No restrictions on features and every bit available on GitHub!

• Modern Web UI – Use the powerful, web based, Xen Orchestra to manage your hosts
• Live migration – Live migrate your VMs all around the world, without interruption
• Scale – Grow your own Cloud with more hosts when needed
• Secure – Control your VMs on your own baremetal, no neighbors

XCP-ng is a Xen Project incubation project

XCP-ng virtualization platform is a Xen Project incubation project hosted in the Linux Foundation. XCP-ng aims to be the bridge between the users community and the developers and is the default entry point for any user.

Managing pools and hosts

• xe CLI (talking to a host XAPI directly)
• XCP-ng Center (Windows client, only community supported)
• Xen Orchestra web UI (need an XO virtual appliance running)
• Xen Orchestra CLI (xo-cli, same requirement)
• Xen Orchestra API (same requirement)
• XO Lite (future embedded lightweight client)

Development Process Tour

In this document, we will try to give you an overview of the development process as well as guides or pointers to help take part in it.

What XCP-ng is made of

XCP-ng is a collection of components, that put together create a complete turnkey virtualization solution that you can install to bare-metal servers. Those components are packaged in the RPM format.

As usual in the Free Software world, we stand on the shoulders of giants:

• CentOS: many RPM packages come from the CentOS – Linux distribution, which in turn is based on Red Hat’s RHEL, mostly based itself on the work of the Fedora project, all based on the work of all the developers who wrote the FLOSS software that is packaged in those Linux distributions. Examples: glibc, GNU coreutils, openssh, crontabs, iptables, openssl and many, many more.
• EPEL: a few packages come from EPEL
• XenServer: most packages that make XCP-ng what it is have been rebuilt from source RPMs released by the XenServer – project, with or without modifications. This includes xen, a patched Linux kernel, the Xen API, and many others. This also includes redistributable drivers or tools from third party vendors.
• XCP-ng: the remaining packages are additions (or replacements of closed-source components) to the original XenServer distribution.

XCP-ng system requirements

Although XCP-ng is usually deployed on server-class hardware, XCP-ng is also compatible with many models of workstations and laptops.

The system requirements for XCP-ng are:

• CPUs: One or more 64-bit x86 CPUs, 1.5 GHz minimum, 2 GHz or faster multicore CPU recommended. To support VMs running Windows or more recent versions of Linux, you require an Intel VT or AMD-V 64-bit x86-based system with one or more CPUs.
• RAM: 2 GB minimum, 4 GB or more recommended. A fixed amount of RAM is allocated to the control domain (dom0). The optimal amount of RAM for the control domain depends on the workload.
• Disk space: Locally attached storage (PATA, SATA, SCSI) with 46 GB of disk space minimum, 70 GB of disk space recommended. SAN via HBA (not through software) when installing with multipath boot from SAN.
• Network: 100 Mbit/s or faster NIC. One or more Gb, or 10 Gb NICs is recommended for faster P2V and export/import data transfers and VM live migration. We recommend that you use multiple NICs for redundancy. The configuration of NICs differs depending on the storage type. For more information, see the vendor documentation. XCP-ng requires an IPv4 network for management and storage traffic.

XCP-ng can use:

• Up to 5 TB of RAM
• Up to 16 physical NICs
• Up to 288 logical processors per host.

Cloud Computing – How to Install XCP-ng in Proxmox VE | Part-3

Cloud Computing – How to Install, Connect and Operate XCP-ng Center | Part-6

Downloads

Download the official release of XCP-ng.

If you need professional assistance configuring your deployment, you can use our commercial support to help get you up and running.

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Key Terms:

• Open Source Software
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• Turnkey Open Source Hypervisor
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• XCP-ng
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• Xen Cloud Platform
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• Xen Projects