Installing and Configuring Citrix Xenserver 6.5 – Part 1

10. Once the verification is completed, if selected during install, the XenServer installer will ask the user to setup some system information.

The first prompt will be to set the root user’s password. Now, since XenServer will be the underlying system to potentially several important virtualized servers, it is imperative that the password be secured as well as sufficiently complex!

Important: Do not forget this password either as there will not be any other users on the system once the installer finishes!

11. The next screen will ask the user to chose a management interface. The number of interfaces that shows up will vary from system to system and the management interface doesn’t have to be a separate interface. A separate interface can be used to secure administrative access to the hypervisor itself.

12. Once the management interface is selected, the system will prompt for how to obtain an IP address for the management interface. This step will obviously vary from site to site as well.

13. After determining the IP address information for the XenServer, the system will ask for a hostname to be set as well as DNS server configuration.

14. The next three screens will go through the steps of setting up time zones as well as the method for keeping track of time. Generally, Network Time Protocol is suggested for keeping system time synchronized on systems but again this will vary from location to location.

If a network time server isn’t available or the XenServer doesn’t have access to the Internet time servers, the installer will allow for manual time setting.

15. At this point all of the initial configuration parameters will be complete and the XenServer installer will be ready to begin the installation of the hypervisor.

WARNING – Continuing at this point WILL ERASE ALL DATA on the target disks!

16. The installation will take some time but a progress bar will be displayed. Once the installer is done, it will prompt the user to restart the system to boot to the newly installed hypervisor (be sure to remove the XenServer installation disk upon reboot).

17. Upon removing the installation media and rebooting the system, the user should be presented with the Citrix XenServer splash page. Allow the system to continue booting.

18. Once the booting has completed, the system will present the XenServer control page.

Congratulations! XenServer was successfully installed and is now ready to have any hotfixes/supplemental packs applied, storage repositories designated, and ultimately virtual machines created. The next step in this series will address the methods available to patch a XenServer system with patches from Citrix.