8.2 LTSR (Initial release)
About this release
Citrix Hypervisor is a high-performance hypervisor optimized for virtual app and desktop workloads and based on the Xen Project hypervisor.
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is a Long Term Service Release which seeks to maximize stability in terms of the feature set.
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is available in the following editions:
- Premium Edition
- Standard Edition
For information about the features available in each edition, see the Citrix Hypervisor Feature Matrix.
New features and improvements in Citrix Hypervisor 8.2
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 introduces enhanced features and functionality for application, desktop, and server virtualization use cases. All Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 features are available to all licensed Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers or Citrix DaaS customers.
Increased configuration limits
The following configuration limits have been increased:
- The maximum host RAM is now 6 TB
- The maximum number of logical processors per host is now 448 CPUs
For more information, see Configuration limits.
Enable and disable read caching from within XenCenter
The read caching feature improves performance on NFS, EXT3/EXT4, SMB, or GFS2 SRs that host multiple VMs cloned from the same source. This feature can now be enabled and disabled for each individual SR from the XenCenter console. You might want to disable read caching in the following cases:
- You have no file-based SRs
- You do not have any cloned VMs
- You have insufficient memory available to allocate to dom0 to derive any performance benefits
For more information, see Changing SR Properties.
Changes to guest operating system support
The set of guest operating systems that Citrix Hypervisor supports has been updated. For more information, see Guest operating system support.
Added
Citrix Hypervisor now supports the following additional guest operating systems:
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 (64-bit)
- Ubuntu 20.04 (64-bit)
- Gooroom 2 (64-bit) - requires Hotfix XS82E021 - For Citrix Hypervisor 8.2
Removed
- Windows 7
- Windows Server 2008 SP2
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Changes to processor support
The following processors are now supported:
- Xeon 83xxH(L)/63xxH(L)/53xxH (Cooper Lake SP)
- Xeon 83xx/63xx/53xx/43xx (Ice Lake SP)
- AMD EPYC 7xx3 Zen3 (Milan)
To get the full benefits of these processors, ensure that you install the latest hotfixes for Citrix Hypervisor 8.2.
For more information, see the Hardware Compatibility List.
Security improvements
Install a TLS certificate on your Citrix Hypervisor server
Citrix Hypervisor now enables easy installation of server TLS certificates.
The Citrix Hypervisor server comes installed with a default TLS certificate. However, to use HTTPS to secure communication between Citrix Hypervisor and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, you must install a new certificate. The certificate authority issuing the certificate must be trusted by the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop installation.
This feature provides a mechanism to update host certificates that does not require the user to have access to the Citrix Hypervisor server file system. It also verifies that the certificate and key files are valid and in the correct format.
You can install a TLS certificate on the Citrix Hypervisor server by using one of the following methods:
- XenCenter. For more information, see Install a TLS certificate on your server in the XenCenter documentation.
- xe CLI. For more information, see Install a TLS certificate on your server.
- API. For more information, see the Management API guide.
This feature also provides XenCenter alerts when a server TLS certificate is about to expire. For more information, see System Alerts in the XenCenter documentation.
Enforcing use of the TLS 1.2 protocol
Citrix Hypervisor now enforces the use of the TLS 1.2 protocol for any HTTPS traffic between Citrix Hypervisor and an external network. All Citrix Hypervisor components use the TLS 1.2 protocol when communicating with each other.
As part of this feature the legacy SSL mode and support for the TLS 1.0/1.1 protocol have been removed. Ensure you disable legacy SSL mode in your pools before upgrading or updating them to Citrix Hypervisor 8.2. If you have any custom scripts or clients that rely on a different protocol, update these components to use TLS 1.2.
Disaggregation of the XenServer VM Tools
The XenServer VM Tools (formerly Citrix VM Tools) are now provided as two separate components on the Citrix Hypervisor downloads page:
- XenServer VM Tools for Windows
- Citrix VM Tools for Linux
As a result, the guest-tools.iso file has been removed from the Citrix Hypervisor installation.
Providing the tools as a separate component removes the need for hotfixes to apply updates to a tools ISO stored on the Citrix Hypervisor server.
For more information, see Linux VMs and Windows VMs.
Updates to the Workload Balancing appliance and Conversion Manager appliance
Both of these additional components now include the following improvements:
- Platform updated to CentOS 7.7
- Performance gains from using JSON-RPC to communicate with Citrix Hypervisor
- OpenSSL updated to version 1.1.1
- Other third-party libraries updated for security and performance improvements
- TLS 1.2 is now enforced to ensure security
Installation options
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is available to download from the Citrix Hypervisor Product Download page in the following packages:
-
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Update ISO. Use this file to apply Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 as an update to Citrix Hypervisor 8.1 or 8.0.
-
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Base Installation ISO. Use this file to create a fresh installation of Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 or to upgrade from XenServer 7.1 CU2 or 7.0.
Important:
- If you use XenCenter to upgrade your hosts, update your XenCenter installation to the latest version supplied on the Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 download page before beginning.
- Always upgrade the pool master before upgrading any other hosts in a pool.
- Ensure that you update your XenServer 7.1 to Cumulative Update 2 before attempting to upgrade to Citrix Hypervisor 8.2.
- Legacy SSL mode is no longer supported. Disable this mode on all hosts in your pool before attempting to upgrade to the latest version of Citrix Hypervisor. To disable legacy SSL mode, run the following command on your pool master before you begin the upgrade:
xe pool-disable-ssl-legacy uuid=<pool_uuid>- The Container Management supplemental pack is no longer supported. After you update or upgrade to the latest version of Citrix Hypervisor, you can no longer use the features of this supplemental pack.
The vSwitch Controller is no longer supported. Disconnect the vSwitch Controller from your pool before attempting to update or upgrade to the latest version of Citrix Hypervisor.
- In the vSwitch controller user interface, go to the Visibility & Control tab.
- Locate the pool to disconnect in the All Resource Pools table. The pools in the table are listed using the IP address of the pool master.
- Click the cog icon and select Remove Pool.
- Click Remove to confirm.
After the update or upgrade, the following configuration changes take place:
- Cross-server private networks revert to single-server private networks.
- Any Quality of Service settings made through the DVSC console are no longer applied. Network rate limits are no longer enforced.
- ACL rules are removed. All traffic from VMs is allowed.
- Port mirroring (RSPAN) is disabled.
After update or upgrade, if you find any leftover state about the vSwitch Controller in your pool, clear the state with the following CLI command:
xe pool-set-vswitch-controller address=
Before you start
Before beginning installation or migrating from an older version, review the following articles:
For information about the installation, upgrade, or update process, see Install
Licensing
Customers must upgrade their Citrix License Server to version 11.16 or higher to use all Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 licensed features.
For more information about Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 licensing, see Licensing.
Hardware compatibility
For the most recent additions and advice for all hardware compatibility questions, see the Citrix Hypervisor Hardware Compatibility List.
If you have VMs with attached virtual GPUs, ensure that supported drivers are available before upgrading to the latest release of Citrix Hypervisor. For more information, see both the Hardware Compatibility List and the GPU vendor documentation.
Interoperability with Citrix products
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is interoperable with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7.15 LTSR, 1912 LTSR, and 2006.
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is interoperable with Citrix Provisioning 7.15 LTSR, 1912 LTSR, and 2006.
Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 is interoperable with Citrix Cloud.
Localization support
The localized version of XenCenter (Simplified Chinese and Japanese) is also available in this release. In previous releases, the localized version of XenCenter was provided as a separate component. In Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 and later, all localized version of XenCenter are contained in the same .msi installation file as the English version.
Product documentation
To access Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 product documentation, see Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Product Documentation.
To access the latest XenCenter product documentation, see XenCenter Product Documentation.
Documentation can be updated or changed after the initial release. We suggest that you subscribe to the Document History RSS feed to learn about updates.