How To Install Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer)

by Lazaro Herrera July 13, 2019

written by Lazaro Herrera July 13, 2019

In this edition of Before the Home Lab we'll look at installing Citrix Hypervisor, formally called XenServer. Citrix Hypervisor is the virtualization platform based on the Xen Project. It used to be the best alternative for getting VMware-like features in an open source product until version 7.3. Since version 7.3, the following features were moved behind Citrix Hypervisor's Standard per core licensing

In this edition of Before the Home Lab we'll look at installing Citrix Hypervisor, formally called XenServer.

What is Citrix Hypervisor?

Citrix Hypervisor is the virtualization platform based on the Xen Project. It used to be the best alternative for getting VMware-like features in an open source product until version 7.3. Since version 7.3, the following features were moved behind Citrix Hypervisor's Standard per core licensing.

Dynamic Memory Control
Xen Storage Motion
Active Directory Integration
Role Based Access Control
High Availability
GPU Pass-Through
Site Recovery Manager (Disaster Recovery)
XenCenter Rolling Pool Upgrade Wizard
Maximum Pool Size Restricted To 3 Hosts

How to Install Citrix Hypervisor

First thing we should do is go download XenServer, and Citrix wants yet another account so we can forget the credentials.

Ready to download.

Citrix would like to remind you not to give this software to terrorists. Thank you, Citrix.

In a physical deployment, you’d make a bootable disk out of this ISO on a flash drive and then install it on your hardware on an SD card or USB drive. Since this is a virtual deployment, we’re going to move this ISO file directly into the main datastore on my ESXi test bed.

For reference, we added 50GB of thin-provisioned hard drive and an ISO file for Citrix Hypervisor. Under CPU, we clicked ‘expose hardware assisted virtualization’ so Citrix Hypervisor can do it’s thing.

We can then start the VM and see the installer.

At this point, Citrix Hypervisor couldn’t detect the SCSI hard drive so I switched the controller to SATA. Signing my soul away… signing my soul away.