Hardware drivers
We collaborate with partner organizations to provide drivers and support for a wide range of hardware. For more information, see the Hardware Compatibility List.
To support this hardware, your installation of XenServer 9 includes third-party drivers that have been certified as compatible with XenServer.
Updates to drivers
We regularly deliver updated versions of these drivers, which can enable new hardware or resolve issues with existing hardware. Most driver updates are delivered through the updates mechanism. For more information, see Update your XenServer hosts.
Even though we distribute the drivers and their source code for our customers to use, the hardware vendor owns the driver source files.
When updating drivers either from the updates mechanism, review the information in the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) and your hardware vendor documentation to ensure that your hardware is installed with a firmware version that is compatible with the updated driver.
Support for drivers
XenServer supports only drivers that are delivered in-box with the product or are downloaded from https://support.citrix.com. Drivers provided by third-party websites, including drivers with the same name or version number as those drivers provided by us, are not supported.
Note:
The only exception to this restriction are the drivers that NVIDIA provides to enable vGPU support. For more information, see NVIDIA vGPU.
Other drivers provided by NVIDIA, for example, the Mellanox drivers, are only supported with XenServer® when distributed by us.
Do not download drivers from your hardware vendor website, even if the driver has the same version number as the one provided by XenServer. These drivers are not supported.
Before a driver can be supported with XenServer, it must be certified with us and released through one of the approved mechanisms. This certification process ensures that the driver is of a format required to be installable in a XenServer environment and that it is compatible with XenServer 9.
What if a driver I need isn’t supported?
If your hardware vendor recommends that you install a specific driver version that is not available in-box or on the https://support.citrix.com website, request that the vendor contacts us to certify this version of the driver with XenServer.
We provide the vendors with certification kits that they can use to test updated versions of their drivers that are required by the shared customer base of XenServer and the hardware vendor. After the vendor provides us with the certification test results, we validate that those results show no issues or regressions in the updated version of the driver. The driver version is now certified with XenServer and we publish the driver through our regular updates.
For more information about the certification process the vendor must follow, see the article Hardware Compatibility List explained.
Driver multi-versioning
Driver multi-versioning (DMV) in XenServer 9 lets you discover, select, install, and switch between approved driver versions and variants delivered through the streamed host updates. DMV removes the need for most third-party “driver disks”, simplifies lifecycle operations when the kernel ABI (kABI) changes, and enforces signatures to block unapproved third-party binaries.
DMV is available in XenServer 9 only. In XenServer 8.4, the latest driver version installs through the standard streamed host updates.
How DMV changes driver management
- XenServer 8.4
- Third-party drivers are delivered in the standard host update stream and the latest driver installs with other updates.
- This approach reduces the engineering overhead of building and maintaining separate driver disks.
- XenServer 9 with DMV
- You can choose among approved driver versions that appear in the updates stream.
- DMV eliminates most “special” driver disks because drivers ship through the streamed updates channel.
- DMV is hardware‑aware and presents only variants that apply to the current device.
- If you install the wrong driver, you can select and install the correct version without reinstalling the host.
Key capabilities
- Driver version choice. Select from multiple approved driver versions in the host update stream.
- Driver variant awareness. Only variants that match the present hardware are offered.
- Safe reinstallation. You can install a different variant or version; a host reboot is required for it to become active.
- Signed‑driver enforcement. XenServer 9 blocks drivers that do not have a XenServer‑recognized signature.
- Streamed updates integration. All driver updates ship through the streamed updates channel.
Requirements and limitations
- Only one variant can be active for a device at a time.
- Changing a driver variant requires a host reboot.
- The active variant is the driver currently in use by the kernel.
- DMV is not available in XenServer 8.4; only the latest driver installs through streamed updates.
- Some OEM-specific drivers (for example, Dell OEM) might still require a driver disk until a streamed version is available.