Troubleshooting
Support
Citrix provides two forms of support: free, self-help support on the Citrix Support website and paid-for Support Services, which you can purchase from the Support site. With Citrix Technical Support, you can open a Support Case online or contact the support center by phone if you experience technical difficulties.
The Citrix Knowledge Center hosts several resources that might be helpful to you in the event of odd behavior, crashes, or other problems. Resources include: Forums, Knowledge Base articles, White Papers, product documentation, hotfixes, and other updates.
If you experience technical difficulties with the XenServer host, this section is meant to help you solve the problem if possible. If it isn’t possible, use the information in this section to gather the application logs and other data that can help your Solution Provider track and resolve the issue.
For information about troubleshooting XenServer installation issues, see Troubleshoot the installation. For information about troubleshooting virtual machine issues, see Troubleshoot VM problems.
Important:
We recommend that you follow the troubleshooting information in this section solely under the guidance of your Solution Provider or the Support team.
In some support cases, serial console access is required for debug purposes. Therefore, when setting up your XenServer configuration, it is recommended that serial console access is configured. For hosts that do not have physical serial port (such as a Blade server) or where suitable physical infrastructure is not available, investigate whether an embedded management device, such as Dell DRAC can be configured.
For information on setting up serial console access, see CTX121442.
XenServer host logs
XenCenter can be used to gather XenServer host information.
Click Server Status Report in the Tools menu to open the Server Status Report task. You can select from a list of different types of information (various logs, crash dumps, and so on). The information is compiled and downloaded to the machine that XenCenter is running on. For more information, see the XenCenter documentation.
By default, the files gathered for a server status report can be limited in size. If you need log files that are larger than the default, you can run the command xenserver-status-report -u in the XenServer host console.
Important:
XenServer host logs may contain sensitive information.
Sending host log messages to a central server
Rather than have logs written to the control domain filesystem, you can configure your XenServer host to write them to a remote server. The remote server must have the syslogd daemon running on it to receive the logs and aggregate them correctly. The syslogd daemon is a standard part of all flavors of Linux and Unix, and third-party versions are available for Windows and other operating systems.
Set the syslog_destination parameter to the hostname or IP address of the remote server where you want the logs to be written:
xe host-param-set uuid=host_uuid logging:syslog_destination=hostname
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Run the command:
xe host-syslog-reconfigure uuid=host_uuid
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To enforce the change. (You can also run this command remotely by specifying the host parameter.)
XenCenter logs
XenCenter also has a client-side log. This file includes a complete description of all operations and errors that occur when using XenCenter. It also contains informational logging of events that provide you with an audit trail of various actions that have occurred. The XenCenter log file is stored in your profile folder at the following path: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\XenServer\XenCenter\logs\XenCenter.log.
To locate the XenCenter log files - for example, when you want to open or email the log file - click View Application Log Files in the XenCenter Help menu.
Provide feedback for XenServer and XenCenter
XenServer 8 and XenCenter 2023.x.x is currently in preview and is not supported for production use. Please help us to improve our product by providing feedback on the features and usability of our new release. To provide feedback, do not contact Citrix support but follow the procedures below to submit a feedback email or report a bug.
Submit a feedback email
Please email any feedback and queries to feedback@xenserver.com. To help us understand the full context of your situation, ensure that you include the following information in your feedback email:
- Your full name
- Your company or business
- Your geographical location
- Your license type
- The number of hosts in your production deployment
- The guest OS where the issue occurred (Windows or Linux)
Report a bug
To report a bug, follow these steps to submit a ticket by using the XenServer 8 Preview Bugs portal:
Create an account
Create an account on the XenServer 8 Preview Bugs portal. When creating your account, ensure that you use a valid contactable email. Although we aim to respond to you on the ticket, in some cases it might be necessary for us to contact you directly by email.
Capture logs
If the issue you encounter relates to XenServer:
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Capture a server status report (SSR) of the host or pool where the issue was encountered before carrying out any recovery steps. For information on how to generate an SSR, see the previous section XenServer host logs.
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Update your pool to the latest update and attempt to reproduce the issue.
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If you are able to reproduce the issue on an up-to-date pool, capture a second SSR for the problem pool.
If the issue you encounter relates to XenCenter:
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Ensure that you are using the latest version of XenCenter available.
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Attempt to reproduce the issue with the latest version of XenCenter.
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Capture any relevant screenshots.
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Note the location of the XenCenter logs. For more information, see the previous section XenCenter logs.
Log a ticket
Log a bug on the XenServer 8 Preview Bugs portal by clicking Report an issue on XenServer. Provide the following information in the ticket:
- Date and time when the issue was encountered
- Pool update channel (Early Access or Normal)
- Pool coordinator’s name
- Date and time when the pool was last synchronized
- Date and time when the pool was last updated
- Any relevant screen shots to help to describe the issue
- Any change or event that might have triggered the issue
- Any known workaround
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The SSR for the problem pool and if applicable, the XenCenter logs
Note:
If you are unable to reproduce the issue on an up-to-date pool, attach the SSR that you captured when the issue first happened and explain why you were unable to apply all updates.
Next steps
After a ticket is logged, a member of the XenServer team investigates the reported issue, updates the ticket with any findings, and provides further instruction if required.
Troubleshooting connections between XenCenter and the XenServer host
If you have trouble connecting to the XenServer host with XenCenter, check the following:
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Is your XenCenter an older version than the XenServer host you are attempting to connect to?
XenCenter is backwards-compatible with Citrix Hypervisor 8.0 and later versions. However, an older XenCenter cannot communicate properly with newer XenServer hosts and to manage your XenServer 8 hosts or pools, you require the latest version of XenCenter.
To correct this issue, install the XenCenter version that is the same, or newer, than the XenServer host version. To manage XenServer 8 hosts, download the latest version of XenCenter.
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Is your license current?
You can see the expiration date for your license access code in the XenServer host General tab under the License Details section in XenCenter.
For more information on licensing a host, see Licensing.
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The XenServer host talks to XenCenter using HTTPS over the following ports:
- Port 443 (a two-way connection for commands and responses using the management API)
- Port 5900 for graphical VNC connections with paravirtualized Linux VMs.
If you have a firewall enabled between the XenServer host and the machine running the client software, ensure that it allows traffic from these ports.
Other troubleshooting information
The following articles provide troubleshooting information about specific areas of the product: