Ubuntu: How to get XenCenter running under Wine and connect to a Xenserver
Update 02.06.15: added Tahoma2 fonts to make it look better
Update 05.12.15: Some Issues with disconnects from the server seem to be resolved with Wine 1.8 RC1.staging. Using it now for more than a week without any issues anymore.
This bothered me for quite some while now.
As mentioned before there is no native client GUI for XenServer on Linux. XOA is nice as an appliance, but if that appliance either doesn’t start or you need some features that are not in there you are either stuck to the command line or to XenCenter on Windows.
I spend some time now to get it running under wine, and here is the howto.
You need PlayonLinux for this. You could either install the maintainer version or download the latest and greatest version from their webpage and install it.
apt-get install playonlinux
Once opening Play on Linux you can install under Tools – Manage Wine Version the version of wine to be used. Play on Linux will install them.
Now we install a new program. Follow the guidance.
In the next step were going to reconfigure that container we created. The following settings worked for me.
I used Wine 1.7.37. Other versions may work as well.
Update 05.12.15: Some Issues with disconnects from the server occurred on versions lately.
This seem to be resolved with Wine 1.8 RC1.staging. I’m using it now for more than a week without any issues.
Just to check it, we emulate a Windows XP instance.
We install the 32bit windows installation.
Now comes the important part. There are 3 additional components needed.
POL_install_dotnet40
POL_Install_ie8
POL_Install_tahoma2
select them in the list and click on “Next”
The Component will start to install.
Follow the internet explorer 8 installation as required, at the end click on “Restart now”
You will now be prompted to select your file to be installed. Browse for your XenCenter.exe
Follow the XenCenter installation procedure.
At the end of it, you can select the icon to be used as a launcher.
You have now successfully installed XenCenter on Linux.
As you can see below that works as well with several other applications including Games. (Just in case). You only need to know which additional components are needed. .Net, mono and IE8 for example.
Let’s start XenCenter. Click on XenCenter and on Run
XenCenter starts
And we can connect to our Server / Pool-Master
The important part here is to connect using port 80 since the ssl connect is not working.
Voila, your’re connected to your XenServer Pool.
Hi, I’ve tried that on a LinuxMint LMDE, and once installed it is unable to connecto to the xen servers.
has it happened to you ? any clues?
thank you.
Hi. I tried it on Ubuntu, ElementaryOS and LXLE without issues. I would not expect an issue in Mint.
Which part is not working?
Did you install IE8 (its not working with ie6)
Do you connect to the XenserverIp:80?
yes I have followed your post.
What do you mean with “xenserverlp:80” ? Its installed by default options. By the way I can connect on windows machines.
I mean, when you add new server in Xencenter, you have to connect to the IP address of the poolmaster on port 80. it will look like 192.168.1.99:80 it will not work over the default ssl.
Ahh!!! ok!! it works !
Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome. Glad it worked at the end.
Thanks!
With XenCenter 6.2 (build 1069) and dotnet40 didn’t work, but with dotnet35sp1 it works!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I’m running XenCenter in my Ubuntu 14.04, but from time to time the program lose its connection with the Xen servers… Did you come across this problem?
I actually got similar issues lately and wasn’t yet able to track it down to why. I suspected the service pack or a patch that I applied to the pool, but I have the same issues on a fresh installation without any update too.
I played with several versions of wine without any joy.
There is nothing meaningful in the logs. This is annoying.
If I find something I’ll update here.
Not sure if relevant anymore since it seems that Citrix put the nail into Xen’s coffin. But in case I just made some update to this.
Some Issues with disconnects from the server seem to be resolved with Wine 1.8 RC1.staging. Using it now for more than a week without any issues anymore.
Thanks for the tutorial.
I got to ask: why do you think Citrix put the nail into Xen’s coffin? I’m about to decide what virtualization software to put on new hardware cluster and XenServer looks good so far.
That statement was a bit ago but I’ not sure if this doesn’t still apply.
There were last year several layoffs at citrix to refocus http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2015/11/18/citrix-to-axe-1000-staff-and-spin-off-goto-amid-shareholder-pressure/
and there was little movement to continue to develop the 6.6 xenserver at that time.
However, just in January 6.6 Beta2 has been released, so there seems to be some further development.
But is it enough to compete with the pressure vmware or MS are producing?
I agree Xenserver would still be my choice of hypervisor for certain simple virtualisation tasks but I’m not sure I would recommend it to an enterprise setup right now.
If opensource I would look into Openstack or rather OpenNebula which allows you to manage kvm and Xenserver as well to be more flexible.
Again, this was some time ago. but I feel so sorry when I’m spot on right.
If you follow the XenServer development you realise the strive for irrelevance.
Yes, developers want to be paid, but how Citrix like to compete with far more superior hypervisors by removing the good features if beyond any common sense. “Xenserver is considerably dead”
https://xenserver.org/blog/entry/xenserver-7-3-changes-to-the-free-edition.html
Hi Andreas, I run you tut and it worked great. I have everything working, except for the fact that I cannot see the console. That tab doesn’t show anything (not even the logs). Do you have any idea why? thanks!
Hi Wido,
which console do you try to reach?
The one of the Xenserver itself? I was able to reach it after going to the console tab and hit enter.
The one of the VMs / guests?
That’s one of the new annoyances Fabio and me spotted lately. It crashes sometimes out of XenCenter. But in generally it does work there too.
In my environment I have several pools where each pool has several hypervisors. I have the same ‘blank’ screen when opening the console tab in both the hypervisors and guests
Sorry, no idea, I could only think about maybe graphic driver issues. I have it running on several computers with different flavours of Ubuntu based Linuxes and no issues to access the console. Try the Xen Orchestra virtual appliance I linked in a comment above. The free version gives you access to the consoles too over the browser.
Additionally to XenCenter on Linux, I would like to point out the evolving https://xen-orchestra.com . While the Professional version with loads of great features is a bit pricey, the free version does quite a lot of basic tasks. head over and download the free version.
Hey, the newest xen-center is using dotnet 4.5 instead of 4.0. If you install 4.0 it will give you an error.