Develop for XenServer

Additional Resources

In addition to supplemental packs, a variety of mechanisms are available for partners to interface with XenServer, and add value to the user experience. This chapter overviews the mechanisms, and provides web links to further information.

If pack authors have any questions concerning what or what not to include in a pack, or how a particular customization goal might be achieved, they are encouraged to contact their Citrix technical account manager.

Xen API plug-ins

Whilst the Xen API provides a wide variety of calls to interface with XenServer, partners have the opportunity to add to the API by means of XAPI plug-ins. These consist of Python scripts that are installed as part of supplemental packs, that can be run by using the host.call_plugin XAPI call. These plug-ins can perform arbitrary operations, including running commands in dom0, and making further XAPI calls, using the XAPI Python language bindings.

For examples of how XAPI plug-ins can be used, see the example plug-ins in the /etc/xapi.d/plugins/ directory of a standard XenServer installation.

XenCenter plug-ins

XenCenter plug-ins provides the facility for partners to add new menus and tabs to the XenCenter administration GUI. In particular, new tabs can have an embedded web browser, meaning that existing web-based management interfaces can easily be displayed. When combined with Xen API plug-ins to drive new menu items, this feature can be used by partners to integrate features from their supplemental packs into one centralized management interface for XenServer.

To learn how to create plug-ins for XenCenter, see the samples and accompanying documentation in the XenCenter Plug-in Specification and Examples repository. The XenCenter Plug-in Specification Guide is available on the Developer Documentation site.

XenServer SDK

The Xen API is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) based API providing programmatic access to the extensive set of XenServer management features and tools. Although it is possible to write applications that use the API directly through raw RPC calls, the task of developing third-party applications is greatly simplified by using language bindings exposing the individual API calls as first-class functions in the target language. The XenServer SDK provides language bindings for the C, C#, Go, Java, Python, and PowerShell programming languages.

The XenServer SDK is shipped as a set of compiled libraries and source code, which include a class for every API class and a method for each API call. The libraries are accompanied by a number of test programs that can be used as pedagogical examples. The XenServer SDK can be downloaded from https://www.xenserver.com/downloads.

The XenServer Management API Reference and the [XenServer Software Development Kit Guide](/en-us/xenserver/developer/sdk-guide.html are available on the Developer Documentation site.

Additional Resources