Software:XCP-ng

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Short description: An Open Source virtualization platform, based around Xen hypervisor
XCP-ng
XCP-ng Install screen.png
XCP-ng 8.2 installation screen
DeveloperVates SAS, Linux Foundation
Written inC (Xen, Linux kernel)
OS familyLinux/Unix-like
Working stateIn development
Source modelOpen source
Initial release31 March 2018; 5 years ago (2018-03-31)
|Final release|Latest release}}8.2.1 LTS / 28 February 2022; 23 months ago (2022-02-28)
Repositorygithub.com/xcp-ng/
Marketing targetServers
Update methodYum
Package managerRPM
Platformsx86-64
Kernel typeXen (hypervisor)
UserlandGNU
Default user interfaceBash, API
LicenseGPLv2 and others
Preceded byXenServer
Official websitexcp-ng.org

XCP-ng is a Linux distribution of the Xen Project,[1] 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.[2][3][4]

Name

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,[5] 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.

History

In December 2017, Citrix announced that they would remove important features of XenServer Free edition and make them only available on paid tiers.[6] Also, XenServer wasn't focused toward community because:

  • no public build instructions were available[lower-alpha 1]
  • since XenServer 7.4, it was even impossible to start a virtual machine because of some proprietary components[7]
  • community feedback was not taken into account[8][9][10]
  • no external contributions were accepted or even possible (due to the lack of publicly accessible code repository for various components)[11]

In response, the original founder of Xen Orchestra[12] (an Open Source web management platform for XenServer), Olivier Lambert, announced that he would revive the XCP project, with its original goals: providing a Free/libre and 100% community backed version of XenServer.[13][14][15][16]

Soon after, a Kickstarter campaign was started[17] and quickly exceeded the original milestone.[18][19]

On March 31, 2018, XCP-ng was announced as the first official release.[20] After five other releases (see the releases section) and few months in beta,[21] the first Long Term Support (LTS) version was announced in November 2020.[22]

Components

XCP-ng can be compared to a Linux distribution,[23] but meant to run Xen out-of-the-box. It is a collection of components creating a coherent system that you can install on any x86 bare-metal server. It is based on multiple projects, like CentOS for user space packages, XAPI project for the API, Xen project for the hypervisor, Open vSwitch for the networking and so on. XCP-ng provides also extra packages that aren't available elsewhere, because non-existent or closed-sources in Citrix Hypervisor.

As a fork of XenServer with an "upstream first" philosophy,[24] XCP-ng stays pretty close to the original Citrix project, and can be considered as a "friendly fork".[25]

XCP-ng architecture diagram

Releases

XCP-ng version Hypervisor version Release date Support until
scope="row" 7.4 Xen 4.7.5 2018-03-31 2018-10-31
scope="row" 7.5 Xen 4.7.5 2018-08-10 2019-07-25
scope="row" 7.6 Xen 4.7.6 2018-10-31 2020-03-30
scope="row" 8.0 Xen 4.11.1 2019-07-25 2020-11-13
scope="row" 8.1 Xen 4.13.0 2020-03-31 2021-03-31
scope="row" 8.2 LTS Xen 4.13.1 2020-11-18 2025-06-25
scope="row" 8.3 (beta) Xen 4.17.x Planned in 2023 Probably 2024

XCP-ng 8.2 (LTS)

XCP-ng version Release date
scope="row" 8.2.0 LTS 2020-11-18[26]
scope="row" 8.2.1 LTS 2022-02-28[27]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ No instructions available on official Citrix documentation nor on the legacy XenServer community website.

References

  1. ↑ Xen Project (April 1, 2019). "What is XCP-ng?". Xen Project. https://xenproject.org/developers/teams/xcp-ng/. 
  2. ↑ Xen Project (January 28, 2020). "XCP-ng joins the Xen project as an incubation project". Xen Project. https://xenproject.org/2020/01/28/xcp-ng-joins-the-xen-project-as-an-incubation-project/. 
  3. ↑ Michael Larabel (January 28, 2020). "XCP-ng 8.1 Beta Rolls Out While Becoming Part Of The Xen Project". Phoronix. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=XCP-ng-8.1-Beta-Xen/. 
  4. ↑ "La plate‑forme de virtualisation XCP‑ng rejoint le projet Xen dans la Fondation Linux" (in fr). LinuxFR. January 30, 2020. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=XCP-ng-8.1-Beta-Xen/. 
  5. ↑ Citrix (July 15, 2013). "XenServer 6.2 is now fully open source!". Citrix. https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2013/06/25/xenserver-6-2-is-now-fully-open-source/. 
  6. ↑ Andy Melmed (December 12, 2019). "XenServer 7.3: Changes to the Free Edition". Citrix. https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2017/12/12/xenserver-7-3-changes-to-the-free-edition/. 
  7. ↑ Olivier Lambert (July 31, 2018). "Basic VM operations broken without emu-manager". https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-878. 
  8. ↑ Adam Kamali (April 14, 2016). "Support for 4K block sector size disks". https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-507. 
  9. ↑ Simon Rowe (May 29, 2016). "Install on Linux Software Raid fails". https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-545. 
  10. ↑ Mark Syms (May 29, 2016). "Make sm works with IPv6". https://github.com/xapi-project/sm/issues/527#issuecomment-734740833. 
  11. ↑ Samuel Verschelde (August 29, 2019). "Where to find latest source and git commit history for xsconsole?". https://bugs.xenserver.org/browse/XSO-961. 
  12. ↑ "Xen Orchestra". Xen Orchestra. https://xen-orchestra.com. 
  13. ↑ "Introducing XCP-ng". Xen Orchestra website. December 29, 2017. https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/introducing-xcp-ng. 
  14. ↑ Simon Sharwood (January 16, 2018). "Developer plots server virtualization comeback for XenServer". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/16/xenserver_open_source_fork_xcp_ng/. 
  15. ↑ "XCP-ng une alternative open source à XenServer" (in fr). LinuxFR. January 10, 2018. https://linuxfr.org/news/xcp-ng-une-alternative-open-source-a-xenserver. 
  16. ↑ "Der Xen-Hypervisor XCP-ng" (in de). Linux Magazin. March 2020. https://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgaben/2020/03/xcp-ng/. 
  17. ↑ "XCP-ng is on Kickstarter!". XCP-ng.org. January 31, 2018. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2018/01/31/xcp-ng-is-on-kickstarter/. 
  18. ↑ "XCP-ng successful Kickstarter campaign". XCP-ng.org. March 5, 2018. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2018/03/05/xcp-ng-successful-kickstarter-campaign/. 
  19. ↑ Simon Sharwood (March 6, 2018). "Open source XenServer project is go after crushing crowdcash call". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2018/03/06/xcp_ng_crowdfunding_for_open_source_xen_server_succeeds/. 
  20. ↑ "First XCP-ng release". XCP-ng.org. March 31, 2018. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2018/03/31/first-xcp-ng-release/. 
  21. ↑ "XCP-ng 8.2 LTS To Bring Rewritten UEFI, Core Scheduling To Fend Off Side Channel Attacks". Phoronix. October 18, 2020. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=XCP-ng-8.2-LTS-Beta.. 
  22. ↑ "XCP-ng 8.2 - LTS". XCP-ng.org. November 18, 2020. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2020/11/18/xcp-ng-8-2-lts/. 
  23. ↑ "Other Operating Systems and Related Hypervisors". Distrowatch. https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links. 
  24. ↑ "We are downstream". XCP-ng Documentation. https://xcp-ng.org/docs/develprocess.html#tags-maintenance-branches-in-our-code-repositories. 
  25. ↑ "XCP-ng: building an Open Source and turnkey virtualization platform". FOSDEM. https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/vai_xcp_ng_building_an_open_source_and_turnkey_virtualization_platform/. 
  26. ↑ "XCP-ng 8.2 - LTS". XCP-ng. 18 November 2020. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2020/11/18/xcp-ng-8-2-lts/. 
  27. ↑ "XCP-ng 8.2.1 update for 8.2 LTS". XCP-ng. 28 February 2022. https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2022/02/28/xcp-ng-8-2-1-update/. 

External links



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