Chapter 7. Upgrading XenServer
This chapter documents how to upgrade your XenServer deployment using XenCenter and the xe CLI. It guides you through upgrading your XenServer hosts — both pooled and standalone — automatically (using the XenCenter Rolling Pool Upgrade wizard) and manually.
XenServer hosts must be running at least version 5.6 in order to upgrade directly to version 6.1.0. For example, to upgrade from version 5.5 to version 6.1.0, you must first upgrade version 5.5 to version 5.6 (or to version 5.6 Feature Pack 1 or 5.6 Service Pack 2), and then upgrade version 5.6 (or version 5.6 Feature Pack 1 or 5.6 Service Pack 2) to version 6.1.0, and so on.
If you are upgrading to a feature pack or service pack, XenServer permits a direct upgrade from the preceding release. For example, you can upgrade directly from version 5.5 to version 5.6 Feature Pack 1, or from version 5.5 to version 5.6 Service Pack 2.
The following table lists the upgrade path from previous versions of XenServer:
Version
Direct upgrade to XenServer 6.1.0?
XenServer 6.0.2 | Yes |
|
|
XenServer 6.0 | Yes |
|
|
XenServer 5.6, 5.6 Feature Pack 1, | Yes |
5.6 Service Pack 2 |
|
|
|
XenServer 5.5 | No. You must first upgrade to XenServer version 5.6 (or to version 5.6 |
| Feature Pack 1 or 5.6 Service Pack 2) and then to 6.1.0. |
|
|
XenServer 5.0.0 | No. You must first upgrade to XenServer version 5.5, then to 5.6 (or to |
| version 5.6 Feature Pack 1 or 5.6 Service Pack 2), and finally to 6.1.0 |
|
|
Note:
System administrators may prefer to perform a clean installation of the most recent version of XenServer rather than performing one or more upgrades. VMs can be exported from all versions of XenServer from 4.0 and directly imported into 6.1.0. For more information, please refer to ???? in the [XS Guest].
Important:
Upgrading a XenServer host — and particularly a pool of XenServer hosts — requires extremely careful planning and attention. Be sure to map your upgrade path carefully, or to use the XenCenter Rolling Pool Upgrade wizard, and to be absolutely sure that you choose the option to upgrade when you are stepping through the installer so as to avoid losing any existing data.
Important:
Boot from SAN settings are not inherited during the upgrade process. When upgrading using the ISO or PXE process, customers should follow the same instructions as used in the installation process below to ensure that multipath is correctly configured. For more information see Appendix B, Boot From SAN Environments.
7.1. Rolling Pool Upgrades
With XenServer, you can perform rolling pool upgrades. A rolling upgrade allows you to upgrade all of the hosts in a pool in such a way that services and resources offered by the pool are available throughout the upgrade
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