Skip to main content

First steps in Xen Orchestra

Host installed, XOA deployed, trial running: here is the tour of your first real actions in Xen Orchestra, from connecting a host to a tested backup.

Connect your first host​

From the homepage, click Add server and enter your XCP-ng host's IP address and root credentials. Connecting the pool master gives you the whole pool at once.

Find your way around​

The main view lists all your virtual machines with their description, running state and pool. The blue menu on the left is the entry point for everything else: VM creation, backup management, self-service and infrastructure navigation. The user icon (top right) opens the UI settings, where you can personalize the interface and set default filters.

Use tags early: they let you categorize VMs by purpose, environment or owner, act on whole groups at once, and drive Smart Backup so the right VMs are included in backup jobs automatically.

Create your first VM​

  1. Open the New VM section, pick the pool and a template. Around 50 pre-configured templates ship with Xen Orchestra, and you can create your own from an existing VM later.
  2. Set the name, CPU and RAM, attach the OS installation ISO (from an ISO storage repository on your host), size the virtual disk and pick the network.
  3. Start the VM and install the OS from the Console tab, as you would on any machine.
  4. Install the guest tools for full performance and hypervisor integration. For Windows guests, use the Microsoft-signed XCP-ng PV drivers, the recommended choice. Then visit the VM's Advanced tab: auto power-on, dynamic RAM, and protection against accidental deletion or shutdown live there.

Protect your Xen Orchestra configuration​

Before building anything serious, schedule an export of the configuration itself: in Backup, click + New and choose XO config & Pool metadata backup. It can save the Xen Orchestra configuration, the pool metadata, or both, on a schedule. If XOA is ever lost, you restore your whole setup in minutes (also available on demand from Settings → Config).

Set up your first backup​

From the Backup section, click + New and pick the type that fits:

  • Rolling snapshot: frequent point-in-time snapshots, fast to run.
  • Full backup: a complete copy of the VM, for daily or weekly protection.
  • Incremental backup: only the changes since the last run, storage-efficient.
  • Full or incremental replication: a standby copy on another XCP-ng host, for disaster recovery.

Name the job, select the VMs (directly or through tags), define one or more schedules, choose the target storage and the retention policy. Enable the backup health check if you want each backup automatically validated. The Backup view then shows upcoming runs, history and status in one place.

Test a restore before you need it: in Backup → Restore, pick the remote, click the eye icon to list the available VMs, choose a backup and a destination SR, and confirm. File-level restore is also available when you need one file back, not the whole VM.

Keep an eye on health​

Dashboard → Health consolidates what deserves attention: unhealthy or orphan VDIs, orphan snapshots, and storage warnings. Review it regularly, and keep free space on your storage repositories: at least 10% on thin-provisioned SRs (NFS, EXT), 20% on thick-provisioned ones (iSCSI, HBA).

Where to get help​

With a trial or subscription, open a support ticket. Otherwise, ask on the XCP-ng forum.

This page condenses the Getting started with Vates VMS guide; read it for the full walkthrough with screenshots.