What’s new

Our goal is to deliver new features and product updates to XenServer 8 customers as soon as they are ready. New releases provide more value, so there’s no reason to delay updates. Through the XenServer 8 release stream, we deliver updates incrementally in waves to help ensure product quality and maximize availability.

Note:

If you previously used XenServer 8 as a preview, apply the latest set of updates to move seamlessly to the production-supported version.

If you are using a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops license with XenServer, you must change to a XenServer Premium Edition license. For more information about getting a XenServer license, see the XenServer website. 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 is back

We are once again releasing our product under the XenServer brand. For more information, see the XenServer website.

As a part of this change, some of the other names and terms used in our product and our documentation are changing:

Frequent and easy-to-apply updates

In XenServer 8, the way we release updates to you has changed. Frequent updates are made available, enabling you to benefit from a more efficient release process that delivers new features and bug fixes at a faster cadence than was previously possible. Use XenCenter or the xe CLI to apply these updates to your XenServer hosts and pools at a time that is convenient to you. For more information, see Update your XenServer hosts.

1. We make frequent updates available for XenServer 8 in our secure CDN.
2. In the XenCenter Notfications > Updates view, see when updates are available for your pool.
3. Using XenCenter or the xe CLI, initiate the process of applying updates to your XenServer pool.

For more information, see Apply updates by using XenCenter or Apply updates by using the xe CLI.

These updates replace hotfixes for delivering bug fixes. In addition, they deliver improvements and new features.

For a list of the latest updates available for your Early Access or Normal pools, see the following pages:

• Early Access channel updates
• Normal channel updates

These pages do not list all changes in the Early Access and Normal channels, just a subset. For the full set of changes available, see the information in the XenCenter Notifications > Updates view.

Windows 11 and vTPM support

Windows 11 is now supported on XenServer. For more information, see Windows VMs.

This feature also includes support for vTPMs. You can create and attach a vTPM to a Windows 10 or Windows 11 VM. For more information, see vTPM.

The vTPM provides a TPM 2.0 compliant API to applications in the VM. TPM 1.2 is not supported.

Citrix Integration (Preview)

Connect XenCenter to your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environment to see information about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops machines and sessions hosted in your XenServer pool. For more information, see Citrix Integration (preview).

Licensing changes

The licensing behavior in XenServer 8 is different to that in earlier versions of Citrix Hypervisor and XenServer. We’ve changed the requirements for Citrix customers, added a new edition, and made some features available to everyone.

For more information, see Licensing.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix DaaS

In XenServer 8, you must have a Premium Edition license to run your workloads on a XenServer pool or host. This is a change from previous versions of Citrix Hypervisor or XenServer, which enabled you to use your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops or Citrix DaaS license directly with XenServer.

For more information about getting a XenServer license, see the XenServer website.

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.

To learn which versions of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (MCS) and Citrix Provisioning (PVS) are supported with XenServer 8, see Supported Hypervisors for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (MCS) and Citrix Provisioning (PVS).

Trial Edition

You can now try XenServer 8 for free with Trial Edition. The Trial Edition lets you try Premium Edition features for up to 90 days, but in a restricted size pool of up to 3 hosts. After the 90-day trial period expires, you cannot start any VMs on your Trial Edition host or pool. For more information about the different editions of XenServer, see XenServer editions.

Feature changes

The following features, which in previous versions were restricted to Premium Edition customers, are now also available with Standard Edition:

• Automated updates to the Windows VM drivers
• Automated updates to the Management Agent
• Live patching
• Conversion Manager

VM anti-affinity

You can now assign your VMs to anti-affinity placement groups that are started on hosts in your pool according to the following anti-affinity placement rules:

1. No single host is the only place all VMs in a particular group are running.
2. The count of VMs within the group for each host is as even as possible.

When a VM in one of these groups is started or evacuated from a host, XenServer chooses to place the VM on a host that enables the VM group to follow these rules as closely as possible.

For more information, see VM placement.

Import a VHDX or AVHDX disk image as a VM

You can now import a VHDX/AVHDX file into a pool or specific host as a VM. VHDX is an improved version of the VHD format that provides better performance, fault tolerance, and data protection features in addition to a larger capacity. For information on how to use the XenCenter Import wizard to import a VHDX/AVHDX file, see Import Disk Images.

If you are a Citrix customer, you can also use this feature to migrate your VMs from VMware to XenServer. As part of its software streaming technology, Citrix Provisioning stores a shared disk image (vDisk) as a VHDX/AVHDX file. By using the XenCenter Import wizard to import a VHDX/AVHDX file, you can easily migrate your vDisk from VMware to XenServer. For more information, see Migrating from VMware.

Monitor host and dom0 resources with NRPE

Note:

The NRPE feature is available for XenServer Premium or Trial Edition customers. For more information about XenServer licensing, see Licensing. To upgrade, or to get a XenServer license, visit the XenServer website.

In XenServer 8, you can use any third-party monitoring tool that supports Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) to monitor host and dom0 resources, such as Nagios Core. XenServer integrates NRPE into dom0, enabling you to capture various host and dom0 metrics. For more information, see Monitor host and dom0 resources with NRPE.

Monitor host and dom0 resources with SNMP

Note:

The SNMP feature is available for XenServer Premium or Trial Edition customers. For more information about XenServer licensing, see Licensing. To upgrade, or to get a XenServer license, visit the XenServer website.

You can now use SNMP and any NMS of your choosing to remotely monitor resources consumed by XenServer. With this feature, you can also configure traps to monitor your XenServer hosts, which are agent-initiated messages that alert the NMS that a specific event has occurred in XenServer. For more information, see Monitoring host and dom0 resources with SNMP.

Local XFS

You can now use local storage devices with 4 KB physical blocks without needing a logical block size of 512 bytes by using the new thin-provisioned local SR type: XFS. For more information, see Local XFS.

(Early Access) Changed block tracking now supports GFS2 and XFS SR types

The changed block tracking feature, which offers incremental backup capabilities for customers using XenServer, is now also available for GFS2 and XFS SR types. For more information, see Changed Block Tracking.

Changes to hardware support

XenServer now supports the following hardware:

• AMD Turin CPUs. Install XenServer 8 from an ISO published on or after Dec 10, 2024 to have full support for these CPUs.

Changes to guest operating system support

For the full list of supported guest operating systems in XenServer 8, see Guest operating system support.

Added

XenServer 8 now supports the following new guests:

• Debian Bullseye 11 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu 22.04 (64-bit)
• Windows 11

Removed

XenServer 8 no longer supports the following guests:

• Debian Jessie 8 (32-bit)
• Debian Jessie 8 (64-bit)
• Debian Stretch 9 (32-bit)
• Debian Stretch 9 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu 16.04 (32-bit)
• Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit)
• CoreOS
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP3, 12 SP4 (64-bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3 (64-bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 (64-bit)
• CentOS 8 (64-bit)
• Windows 10 (32-bit)

Deprecated

The following guests are deprecated in XenServer 8:

• Ubuntu 18.04 (64-bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP4 (64-bit)

Conversion Manager 8.4.0

Conversion Manager 8.4.0 - the latest version of the Conversion Manager virtual appliance - introduces the following improvements:

• The Conversion Manager now automatically uninstalls VMware Tools from your VMs and provides the option to install XenServer VM Tools. While VMs can run without XenServer VM Tools, performance might be limited. XenServer VM Tools are installed automatically on Linux VMs, and for Windows VMs, you can configure the Conversion Manager to install them automatically.

• Support for Windows 11 VMs for conversion.

  Note:

  Only UEFI Boot mode or UEFI Secure Boot mode are supported.

• You can now convert Windows VMs that have an attached vTPM. The Conversion Manager automatically removes the existing vTPM and creates a new XenServer vTPM for the VM.

For more information on how to use the Conversion Manager, see Conversion Manager.

Improvements to GFS2

Some restrictions on using GFS2 SRs with Citrix Machine Creation Services have been removed.

• You can now use MCS full clone VMs with GFS2 SRs.
• You can now use multiple GFS2 SRs in the same MCS catalog.

For more information about using GFS2 SRs, see Thin-provisioned shared GFS2 block storage.

Certificate verification

The certificate verification feature ensures that all TLS communication endpoints on the management network verify the certificates used to identity their peers before transmitting confidential data.

Certificate verification is enabled by default on fresh installations of XenServer 8 and later. If you upgrade from an earlier version of XenServer or Citrix Hypervisor, certificate verification is not enabled automatically and you must enable it. XenCenter prompts you to enable certificate verification the next time you connect to the upgraded pool.

For more information, see Certificate verification.

Restrict use of port 80

To improve security, XenServer 8 now allows you to close TCP port 80 on the management interface and exclusively use HTTPS over port 443 to communicate with XenServer. However, before closing port 80, check whether all your API clients (Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops in particular) can use HTTPS over port 443.

By default, port 80 is still open. However, all internal connections for VM migration now use HTTPS over port 443 by default.

For more information about how to close port 80, see Restrict use of port 80.

Migration stream compression

The migration stream compression feature enables you to speed up the memory transfer on slow networks when live migrating a VM by compressing the data stream between the hosts. Enable it from XenCenter or the xe CLI. For more information, see Pool Properties - Advanced and Pool parameters.

Winbind replaces PBIS

Winbind has replaced PBIS for authenticating Active Directory (AD) users with the AD server and encrypting communications with the AD server. This replacement happens automatically when you upgrade. In the unlikely case that external authentication does not work after you upgrade to XenServer 8, leave the AD domain and rejoin it.

There are some minor differences in behavior as a result of this change:

• When using the command xe pool-enable-external-auth to join a domain, the parameter config:disable_modules is now ignored. This parameter is specific to PBIS.

• For the command xe pool-enable-external-auth, the parameter config:ou now supports either of the following formats when specifying a multiple layer OU: config:ou=a/b/c or config:ou=c,ou=b,ou=a.

• Winbind automatically updates the machine account password every 14 days or as specified by the configuration option winbind_machine_pwd_timeout.

• Winbind does not support the following scenarios:

  • Space at the beginning or end of a domain user or domain group name.
  • Domain user names that contain 64 characters or more.
  • Domain user names that include any of the special characters +<>”=/%@:,;`
  • Domain group names that include any of the special characters ,;`

For more information, see Winbind.

Integrated PVS-Accelerator

In previous releases of XenServer or Citrix Hypervisor, the PVS-Accelerator was provided as a supplemental pack. The PVS-Accelerator is now included in the base XenServer installation. In addition, the PVS-Accelerator now supports Provisioning targets that stream over IPv6-based protocols (requires Citrix Provisioning 2402 CU1, Citrix Provisioning 2407, or later).

The behavior of the PVS-Accelerator is otherwise unchanged and you must configure it before use.

For more information about the PVS-Accelerator, see PVS-Accelerator.

Network boot a VM over IPv6

You can now network boot a VM over an IPv6 network. This feature is only supported for UEFI VMs, not BIOS VMs.

Removed features

The following features are no longer supported in XenServer:

• Legacy partition layout
• Health Check
• Measured Boot Supplemental Pack
• Demo Linux virtual appliance

Note:

Logs for the Health Check service are retained by Windows for troubleshooting purposes. To remove these logs, delete them manually from %SystemRoot%\System32\Winevt\Logs on the Windows machine running XenCenter.

Changes to third-party components

PuTTY is no longer bundled with XenCenter. To launch an SSH console to a XenServer host by using XenCenter, you must install an external SSH console tool and ensure that XenCenter is configured to use it. For more information, see Configure XenCenter to use an external SSH console.

The following Broadcom binaries are no longer included in the XenServer installation:

• elxocmcore
• elxocmcorelibs
• hbaapiwrapper

To download these binaries from the Broadcom Emulex download page, complete the following steps:

1. Go to the Management Software & Tools section.
2. Download the Emulex HBA Manager Core Application Kit (CLI) for Citrix XenServer.

The following Marvell command-line binaries are no longer included in the XenServer installation:

• QConvergeConsole CLI for Citrix (QCC)
• QCS

To download QCC from the Marvell QLogic download page, complete the following steps:

1. Select the Adapters tab.
2. In the left panel, choose the type of adapter.
3. In the middle panel, choose the model of your adapter.
4. In the right panel, choose Citrix Hypervisor.
5. Click Go. You are redirected to a page with the available downloads.
6. Download the QConvergeConsole CLI for Citrix (QCC).

To install this application, follow the instructions in the QConvergeConsole Command Line Utility User’s Guide.

Compatibility notes

XenServer 8 is compatible with the following components:

• The latest version of the XenServer VM Tools for Windows
• The latest version of the XenServer VM Tools for Linux
• The latest version of the Workload Balancing virtual appliance
• The latest version of the Conversion Manager virtual appliance

These components are available on the XenServer Downloads page.