Question

XenServer cannot see NICS or Host Version

Asked by: Gavilan123

Hello,

I upgraded one of my XenServer Hosts from 5.0 HF 3 to 5.5 this weekend.  When the host came back up, it cannot see any of the NICS on the server and displays "Unknown" for everything under XenServer Licensing and Details.  It seems to have retained some information as the DNS settings that were previously there are intact.  Obviously, it is a paper weight right now and I need to get it up and running.

I could try running the upgrade again and see what happens but I'm scared to make these issues permanent on the host.  I've checked the BIOS and the NICS are enabled and link lights are flashing on the server and the switch.

I've got four NICS on the server with 2 of them multi-pathed to the iSCSI device and 2 of them attached to the network.  I originally made the 2 that are attached to the iSCSI device unavailable to the XenServer host so I could isolate the iSCSI traffic and regular network traffic to the VM's.

As for why XenServer can't even identify what version it's running, I suspect it is related.  Keep in mind that I purchased XenServer Enterprise back in February 2009 and that's what version this is supposed to be.

I can't find anything on this issue and would really appreciate the help.  Thank you!

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Asked On
2009-11-07 at 16:40:51ID24881050
Tags

Citrix

,

Xenserver 5.5

Topics

Citrix

,

XenServer

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Answers

 

by: ToxicPigPosted on 2009-11-09 at 12:46:34ID: 25779871

Will it take a license if you reapply it?  

Worst case, you could back up your server/pool metadata and/or export your VM's if they are on local disk (root disk that would be formatted), and then reinstall.  Fully depends on your setup.  I make sure all of my VM's are on shared storage, and then I can just treat my XS hosts as throw-away.  I've done clean installs on pool members several times to fix hardware issues.

 

by: Gavilan123Posted on 2009-11-09 at 13:39:25ID: 25780412

I received a reply from a Citrix representative - here's what they said:
Whenever there is no network found, it is because the XenServer is unable to reach the pool master. The XenServer console display network information from the pool database. How can this happen? When a slave is upgraded before the pool master. Another way this can happen, is if the pool master has been placed into maintenance mode (thereby making it a slave). How to resolve? Upgrade the pool master and then the slaves will rejoin the pool and display the network information. The upgrade steps for upgrading a pool are discussed in the XenServer installation guide "rolling pool upgrade". If you log into the XenServer, and type "ifconfig", you will indeed see an IP address on an interface. Looking at /etc/xensource/pool.conf will show that it is a slave, followed by the IP address of the pool master. The pool master is always backwards compatible to an previous version, but is not forward compatible to a newer (unknown) version of XenServer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It looks like I just installed the upgrade in the wrong order.  I rolled back the server that was hosed to 5.0 and I"m going to upgrade the Pool Master here the first chance I get.  Thanks for your response though.

 

by: ToxicPigPosted on 2009-11-10 at 19:10:37ID: 25792059

no worries.  Should have caught the upgrade order thing.  Glad you found the answer.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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