Release

Xen Orchestra 5.84

Get a taste of the latest Xen Orchestra release! With nifty automatic XOA config cloud backups, clever REST API tweaks, and cool strides in Project Pyrgos and XO Lite, we're sure you'll be eager for more!

Olivier Lambert

Jun 30, 2023 • 5 min read

Hey there! ☀️ Check out the latest Xen Orchestra release. We've got some cool stuff like automatic XOA backups, a few neat tweaks to the REST API, and some solid progress on Project Pyrgos and XO Lite. We think you're gonna like what you see!

Ah and also, while you are here, we are proud to introduce you our new partner program, just take a look here:

As usual, we've encapsulated the highlights of this fresh release in a video tour:

as well as in podcast format:

☁️ XOA Config Cloud Backup

In this release, we're excited to introduce our inaugural version of a new feature that promises significant enhancements in the future: automatic XOA configuration backups to your Vates/xen-orchestra.com account! In essence, this ensures that even if your XOA is lost - whether due to removal, destruction, or any other cause - you can effortlessly restore its configuration.

This includes all user information, backup jobs, connected hosts, and more, without requiring any additional input. This convenience and resilience extend even if you don't have any metadata backups within your infrastructure.

To activate the XO configuration backup, simply navigate to your Settings view from the left-hand menu, select "XO Config" and enable the "Automated backup XO configuration":

🔒

Obviously, before your XOA configuration is transmitted to our servers, it's subjected to robust encryption within your XOA. The data we store on our end remains entirely indecipherable without a decryption key that solely you possess locally. The decryption process occurs only when restoring your configuration on a new XOA, where you'll be prompted to enter your passphrase to decrypt and ultimately restore your data.

📡 REST API

We're back with another round of REST API updates in this June release. Also, since we never had any issue with it, we can officially announce the REST API isn't an alpha feature anymore!

XOA Update

Just last month, we introduced the ability to update your hosts, even enabling Rolling Pool Updates directly from the REST API. The next natural progression? Triggering XOA updates straight from this very API!

To engage the XOA updater and verify the availability of any new versions, use the following method:

curl \
  -b authenticationToken=KQxFkTbs \
  'https://xo.company.lan/rest/v0/appliance/updater'

This should returns { "isUpToDate": true } when your XOA is up to date. You can imagine using this with your alerting system (eg UptimeKuma) to detect when your XOA is NOT fully up-to-date!

To initiate the update itself, use this POST method:

curl \
  -X POST \
  -b authenticationToken=KQxFkTbs \
  'https://xo.company.lan/rest/v0/appliance/updater/actions/upgrade?sync'

That's all there is to it!

☸️ Project Pyrgos (k8s)

For those who might have missed our introduction to Project Pyrgos:

In this update, we've incorporated the functionality for you to select the Kubernetes version you'd like to deploy on your cluster:

This enhancement empowers you with greater control over your Kubernetes cluster assembly. Keep an eye out - we've got a wave of additional features set to roll out this summer!

🔭 XO Lite

Our dedication to enhancing the embedded web UI in XCP-ng continues unabated. As a refresher, the groundwork we're laying here will also form the foundation for Xen Orchestra 6. For those keen on the design elements surrounding it:

This June, our efforts focused on several areas:

We refined the code to eliminate any confusion regarding UUIDs and OpaqueRef.
We introduced a 'closing confirmation' component, enabling a prompt for user confirmation before tab closure in the event of any pending actions.
We revamped XAPI subscriptions (the "events"). Now, record extensions are much simpler, and we've added an immediate option which defers the subscription until the first start() call.
We overhauled the pool dashboard to align it more closely with our original Figma design.
We upgraded the entire XO Lite project to Vue 3.3 and Vite 4. This translates to fresh features for developers and improved performance!

We also implemented minor changes, such as displaying an error when data loading fails, introducing enums for various VM power states and operations, fixing several bugs, and adding new keyboard shortcuts!

Although this effort plays out over the long haul, it's crucial for creating a consistent and appealing UI for both XO Lite and ultimately, XO 6. You can anticipate more noticeable changes in the coming months.

🆕 Misc

This section consolidates other enhancements made for this new XO release.

Allow importing ISO from URL

You can now directly paste the ISO URL into your SR ISO, which will handle the rest of the process and download it. There's no need to clutter your computer with a collection of various ISOs and then manually upload them via Xen Orchestra!

Raw VDI export/import

Although this feature was available in the backend, it was never exposed in the UI. With this release, you have the option to import and/or export any disk (VDI) using the raw format.

RRDs performance improvements

We've significantly improved the RRDs statistics performance from our web UI by addressing requests that bypassed our cache and properly closing certain fetching requests. For infrastructures with more than 20 hosts, this performance boost should be particularly noticeable.

Various dependencies improvements

We made progress with some indirect dependencies (dependencies of a dependency) by internalizing them (directly incorporating them), which gave us the opportunity to patch or update them directly. This approach helped us reduce the number of outdated versions indirectly affected by various security reports.