Licensing overview
Important:
If you are using XenServer to run your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops workloads, you must have a Premium Edition license. For more information about getting a XenServer license, see the XenServer website. This requirement is a change of behavior since the previous version of Citrix Hypervisor/XenServer. For more information, see the licensing FAQ.
XenServer is now an entitlement of the Citrix for Private Cloud, Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud, Citrix Universal MSP, and Citrix Platform License subscriptions for running your Citrix workloads. Read more.
XenServer 8.4 is available in the following editions:
-
Premium Edition is our premium offering, optimized for desktop, server, and cloud workloads. In addition to the features available in the Standard Edition, the Premium Edition offers the following features:
- Dynamic Workload Balancing
- GPU virtualization with NVIDIA vGPU
- Thin provisioning for shared block storage devices
- Support for SMB storage
- Direct Inspect APIs
- Export pool resource data
- In-memory read caching
- PVS-Accelerator
- Enablement for Citrix Virtual Desktops tablet mode
- Changed block tracking
- IGMP snooping
- USB pass-through
- SR-IOV network support
- Monitor host and dom0 resources with NRPE
- Monitor host and dom0 resources with SNMP
-
Trial Edition showcases our Premium Edition feature set on a restricted size pool (maximum three hosts) for up to 90 days, but doesn’t allow rolling pool upgrade through XenCenter. After the 90-day trial period expires, you cannot start any VMs on your Trial Edition host or pool.
-
Standard Edition is no longer available for renewal or to new customers. Existing Standard Edition licenses are supported until their expiry. It has a range of features for customers who want a robust and high-performing virtualization platform, but don’t require the premium features of Premium Edition. Meanwhile, they still want to benefit from the assurance of comprehensive support and maintenance.
For more information, see https://www.xenserver.com/editions and the Feature Matrix.
| Premium Edition | Standard Edition | Trial Edition | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium feature set | Yes | Yes | |
| Rolling pool upgrade through XenCenter | Yes | Yes | |
| Continuous functional and security updates | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Maximum pool size | 64 (16 with GFS2 SRs) | 64 (16 with GFS2 SRs) | 3 |
| Other restrictions | Expires after 90 days |
XenServer is licensed on a per-socket basis. Allocation of licenses is managed centrally and enforced by a standalone Citrix License Server in the environment based on information provided by the License Activation Service in Citrix Cloud. For more information about XenServer licensing, see the Licensing FAQ.
Upgrade to License Activation Service (LAS)
XenServer deployments now transition from file-based licensing to the License Activation Service (LAS), which provides centralized activation and streamlined license management.
-
Install or upgrade Citrix License Server to version 11.17.2 build 53100 or later.
-
Register your License Server with Citrix Cloud and ensure XenServer entitlement is included in your Customer Account of Citrix Cloud that was used in onboarding License Server
-
Install XenCenter version 2025.3 or later.
-
Update XenServer 8.4 to the latest version.
-
If you are using the Early Access channel, the update should occur on or after August 21, 2025.
-
If you are using the Normal channel, the update should occur on or after August 28, 2025.
-
If you are using Offline update, the bundle should be released on or after August 28, 2025.
-
-
Open Tools → License Manager in XenCenter.
-
Click Assign License.
-
Enter the URL/IP address of the license server, then click OK.
Licensing your hosts and pools
XenServer uses the same licensing process as some Citrix products. To use XenServer Premium Edition or XenServer Standard Edition, you require a valid license to be installed on a Citrix License Server and assigned to your XenServer host. This process is covered in detail in the Licensing guide for XenServer.
Note:
XenServer does not currently support licensing hosted on Citrix Cloud. An on-premises Citrix License Server is required.
To license your hosts, you need the following items:
- A Citrix Cloud account with the OrgID that is associated with your XenServer entitlements
- A Citrix License Server
- A XenServer host
- XenCenter
Note:
The previous licensing mechanism that uses a file loaded onto the License Server is still supported. However, in future, only licensing through the License Activation Service is supported.
1. Install or upgrade to Citrix License Server version 11.17.2 build 53100 or later
You can download the Citrix License Server for Windows from the Citrix Licensing downloads page. Ensure that you install or upgrade to version 11.17.2 build 53100 or later.
Install the Citrix License Server on a Windows system according to the instructions in the Citrix Licensing documentation.
The Windows system that you install your Citrix License Server on can be a Windows VM hosted in your XenServer pool.
XenServer operates with a ‘grace’ license until the License Server can boot. This behavior means, after you have licensed the XenServer hosts in your pool, if you reboot the host that has the Citrix License Server running on it, a grace period is applied until the License Server is restarted.
2. Onboard with Citrix Cloud
Ensure that you use the OrgID associated with your XenServer entitlements. For more information, see the Citrix Cloud product documentation.
3. Register your License Server with Citrix Cloud
Register your on-premises Citrix License Server by using short-code activation through Citrix Cloud. After registration, your XenServer entitlement can be found in the Citrix Cloud console. This entitlement enables you to activate XenServer by using the cloud. For more information, see the Citrix Licensing product documentation and Citrix Cloud product documentation.
4. Ensure that your Citrix License Server and XenServer can communicate
For information about the ports and protocols used for communication between these products, see Communication ports used by XenServer product components.
5. Add a root certificate to your XenServer pool that verifies your Citrix License Server
If no certificate is provided for the License Server, XenServer trusts the first certificate it encounters.
When sending telemetry data, XenServer must be able to verify that it is communicating with your Citrix License Server. The License Server certificate verification uses either a self-signed or a root CA-signed server certificate on the Citrix License Server.
If your License Server uses a CA-signed certificate, we recommend that you add the root CA-signed certificate to your XenServer pool:
xe pool-certificate-install filename=<root-ca-for-license-server>.pem
If XenServer cannot verify the Citrix License Server certificate, it is unable to send the telemetry data and you enter your license grace period.
6. Apply the licenses to hosts in your resource pool
You can allocate licenses held in the License Activation Service to your XenServer hosts and pools by using XenCenter or the xe CLI.
Apply a license to all the hosts using XenCenter
A: Follow this procedure to apply a license:
-
On the Tools menu, click License Manager.
-
Select the pool or hosts that you want to license, and then click Assign License.
-
In the Apply License dialog, specify the Edition type to assign to the host.
-
Type the host name or IP address of the Citrix License Server.
-
Click OK.
Apply a license to hosts or pools by using the xe CLI
To apply a license to a single host, run the host-apply-edition command:
xe host-apply-edition edition=cloud \
license-server-address=<license_server_address> host-uuid=<uuid_of_host> \
license-server-port=<license_server_port>
To apply a license to all hosts in a pool, run the pool-apply-edition command:
xe pool-apply-edition edition=cloud \
license-server-address=<license_server_address> pool-uuid=<uuid_of_pool> \
license-server-port=<license_server_port>