openstack-manuals/doc/config-reference/source/tables/nova-xenserver.rst

Description of xenserver configuration options

Configuration option = Default value	Description
agent_timeout = 30	(Integer) Number of seconds to wait for agent's reply to a request. Nova configures/performs certain administrative actions on a server with the help of an agent that's installed on the server. The communication between Nova and the agent is achieved via sharing messages, called records, over xenstore, a shared storage across all the domains on a Xenserver host. Operations performed by the agent on behalf of nova are: 'version',' key_init', 'password','resetnetwork','inject_file', and 'agentupdate'. To perform one of the above operations, the xapi 'agent' plugin writes the command and its associated parameters to a certain location known to the domain and awaits response. On being notified of the message, the agent performs appropriate actions on the server and writes the result back to xenstore. This result is then read by the xapi 'agent' plugin to determine the success/failure of the operation. This config option determines how long the xapi 'agent' plugin shall wait to read the response off of xenstore for a given request/command. If the agent on the instance fails to write the result in this time period, the operation is considered to have timed out. Related options: agent_version_timeout agent_resetnetwork_timeout
remap_vbd_dev = False	(Boolean) Used to enable the remapping of VBD dev. (Works around an issue in Ubuntu Maverick) Deprecated This option provided a workaround for issues in Ubuntu Maverick, which was released in April 2010 and was dropped from support in April 2012. There's no reason to continue supporting this option.
vhd_coalesce_max_attempts = 20	(Integer) Max number of times to poll for VHD to coalesce. This option determines the maximum number of attempts that can be made for coalescing the VHD before giving up. Related opitons: vhd_coalesce_poll_interval
use_agent_default = False	(Boolean) Whether or not to use the agent by default when its usage is enabled but not indicated by the image. The use of XenAPI agent can be disabled altogether using the configuration option disable_agent. However, if it is not disabled, the use of an agent can still be controlled by the image in use through one of its properties, xenapi_use_agent. If this property is either not present or specified incorrectly on the image, the use of agent is determined by this configuration option. Note that if this configuration is set to True when the agent is not present, the boot times will increase significantly. Related options: disable_agent
vif_driver = nova.virt.xenapi.vif.XenAPIOpenVswitchDriver	(String) The XenAPI VIF driver using XenServer Network APIs. Provide a string value representing the VIF XenAPI vif driver to use for plugging virtual network interfaces. Xen configuration uses bridging within the backend domain to allow all VMs to appear on the network as individual hosts. Bridge interfaces are used to create a XenServer VLAN network in which the VIFs for the VM instances are plugged. If no VIF bridge driver is plugged, the bridge is not made available. This configuration option takes in a value for the VIF driver. Possible values: nova.virt.xenapi.vif.XenAPIOpenVswitchDriver (default) nova.virt.xenapi.vif.XenAPIBridgeDriver (deprecated) Related options: vlan_interface ovs_integration_bridge Deprecated There are only two in-tree vif drivers for XenServer. XenAPIBridgeDriver is for nova-network which is deprecated and XenAPIOpenVswitchDriver is for Neutron which is the default configuration for Nova since the 15.0.0 Ocata release. In the future the "use_neutron" configuration option will be used to determine which vif driver to use.
disable_agent = False	(Boolean) Disables the use of XenAPI agent. This configuration option suggests whether the use of agent should be enabled or not regardless of what image properties are present. Image properties have an effect only when this is set to True. Read description of config option use_agent_default for more information. Related options: use_agent_default
connection_username = root	(String) Username for connection to XenServer/Xen Cloud Platform
ovs_integration_bridge = None	(String) The name of the integration Bridge that is used with xenapi when connecting with Open vSwitch. Note: The value of this config option is dependent on the environment, therefore this configuration value must be set accordingly if you are using XenAPI. Possible values: Any string that represents a bridge name.
login_timeout = 10	(Integer) Timeout in seconds for XenAPI login.
sr_base_path = /var/run/sr-mount	(String) Base path to the storage repository on the XenServer host.
image_upload_handler = nova.virt.xenapi.image.glance.GlanceStore	(String) Dom0 plugin driver used to handle image uploads. Provide a string value representing a plugin driver required to handle the image uploading to GlanceStore. Images, and snapshots from XenServer need to be uploaded to the data store for use. image_upload_handler takes in a value for the Dom0 plugin driver. This driver is then called to uplaod images to the GlanceStore.
cache_images = all	(String) Cache glance images locally. The value for this option must be chosen from the choices listed here. Configuring a value other than these will default to 'all'. Note: There is nothing that deletes these images. Possible values: `all`: will cache all images. `some`: will only cache images that have the image_property cache_in_nova=True. `none`: turns off caching entirely.
remap_vbd_dev_prefix = sd	(String) Specify prefix to remap VBD dev to (ex. /dev/xvdb -> /dev/sdb). Related options: If remap_vbd_dev is set to False this option has no impact.
target_host = None	(String) The iSCSI Target Host. This option represents the hostname or ip of the iSCSI Target. If the target host is not present in the connection information from the volume provider then the value from this option is taken. Possible values: Any string that represents hostname/ip of Target.
default_os_type = linux	(String) Default OS type used when uploading an image to glance
torrent_seed_chance = 1.0	(Floating point) Probability that peer will become a seeder (1.0 = 100%) Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
num_vbd_unplug_retries = 10	(Integer) Maximum number of retries to unplug VBD. If set to 0, should try once, no retries.
block_device_creation_timeout = 10	(Integer) Time in secs to wait for a block device to be created
independent_compute = False	(Boolean) Used to prevent attempts to attach VBDs locally, so Nova can be run in a VM on a different host. Related options: CONF.flat_injected (Must be False) CONF.xenserver.check_host (Must be False) CONF.default_ephemeral_format (Must be unset or 'ext3') Joining host aggregates (will error if attempted) Swap disks for Windows VMs (will error if attempted) Nova-based auto_configure_disk (will error if attempted)
torrent_seed_duration = 3600	(Integer) Number of seconds after downloading an image via BitTorrent that it should be seeded for other peers.' Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
torrent_max_last_accessed = 86400	(Integer) Cached torrent files not accessed within this number of seconds can be reaped. Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
ipxe_network_name = None	(String) Name of network to use for booting iPXE ISOs. An iPXE ISO is a specially crafted ISO which supports iPXE booting. This feature gives a means to roll your own image. By default this option is not set. Enable this option to boot an iPXE ISO. Related Options: ipxe_boot_menu_url ipxe_mkisofs_cmd
connection_url = None	(String) URL for connection to XenServer/Xen Cloud Platform. A special value of unix://local can be used to connect to the local unix socket. Possible values: Any string that represents a URL. The connection_url is generally the management network IP address of the XenServer. This option must be set if you chose the XenServer driver.
running_timeout = 60	(Integer) Wait time for instances to go to running state. Provide an integer value representing time in seconds to set the wait time for an instance to go to running state. When a request to create an instance is received by nova-api and communicated to nova-compute, the creation of the instance occurs through interaction with Xen via XenAPI in the compute node. Once the node on which the instance(s) are to be launched is decided by nova-schedule and the launch is triggered, a certain amount of wait time is involved until the instance(s) can become available and 'running'. This wait time is defined by running_timeout. If the instances do not go to running state within this specified wait time, the launch expires and the instance(s) are set to 'error' state.
agent_path = usr/sbin/xe-update-networking	(String) Path to locate guest agent on the server. Specifies the path in which the XenAPI guest agent should be located. If the agent is present, network configuration is not injected into the image. Related options: For this option to have an effect: flat_injected should be set to True compute_driver should be set to xenapi.XenAPIDriver
use_join_force = True	(Boolean) When adding new host to a pool, this will append a --force flag to the command, forcing hosts to join a pool, even if they have different CPUs. Since XenServer version 5.6 it is possible to create a pool of hosts that have different CPU capabilities. To accommodate CPU differences, XenServer limited features it uses to determine CPU compatibility to only the ones that are exposed by CPU and support for CPU masking was added. Despite this effort to level differences between CPUs, it is still possible that adding new host will fail, thus option to force join was introduced.
vhd_coalesce_poll_interval = 5.0	(Floating point) The interval used for polling of coalescing vhds. This is the interval after which the task of coalesce VHD is performed, until it reaches the max attempts that is set by vhd_coalesce_max_attempts. Related options: vhd_coalesce_max_attempts
torrent_listen_port_end = 6891	(Port number) End of port range to listen on Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
torrent_max_seeder_processes_per_host = 1	(Integer) Maximum number of seeder processes to run concurrently within a given dom0 (-1 = no limit). Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
ipxe_boot_menu_url = None	(String) URL to the iPXE boot menu. An iPXE ISO is a specially crafted ISO which supports iPXE booting. This feature gives a means to roll your own image. By default this option is not set. Enable this option to boot an iPXE ISO. Related Options: ipxe_network_name ipxe_mkisofs_cmd
agent_version_timeout = 300	(Integer) Number of seconds to wait for agent't reply to version request. This indicates the amount of time xapi 'agent' plugin waits for the agent to respond to the 'version' request specifically. The generic timeout for agent communication agent_timeout is ignored in this case. During the build process the 'version' request is used to determine if the agent is available/operational to perform other requests such as 'resetnetwork', 'password', 'key_init' and 'inject_file'. If the 'version' call fails, the other configuration is skipped. So, this configuration option can also be interpreted as time in which agent is expected to be fully operational.
introduce_vdi_retry_wait = 20	(Integer) Number of seconds to wait for SR to settle if the VDI does not exist when first introduced. Some SRs, particularly iSCSI connections are slow to see the VDIs right after they got introduced. Setting this option to a time interval will make the SR to wait for that time period before raising VDI not found exception.
connection_password = None	(String) Password for connection to XenServer/Xen Cloud Platform
torrent_base_url = None	(String) Base URL for torrent files; must contain a slash character (see RFC 1808, step 6). Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
max_kernel_ramdisk_size = 16777216	(Integer) Maximum size in bytes of kernel or ramdisk images. Specifying the maximum size of kernel or ramdisk will avoid copying large files to dom0 and fill up /boot/guest.
target_port = 3260	(Port number) The iSCSI Target Port. This option represents the port of the iSCSI Target. If the target port is not present in the connection information from the volume provider then the value from this option is taken.
torrent_images = none	(String) Whether or not to download images via Bit Torrent. The value for this option must be chosen from the choices listed here. Configuring a value other than these will default to 'none'. Possible values: `all`: will download all images. `some`: will only download images that have the image_property bittorrent=true. `none`: will turnoff downloading images via Bit Torrent.
console_public_hostname = localhost	(String) Publicly visible name for this console host. Possible values: A string representing a valid hostname
connection_concurrent = 5	(Integer) Maximum number of concurrent XenAPI connections. In nova, multiple XenAPI requests can happen at a time. Configuring this option will parallelize access to the XenAPI session, which allows you to make concurrent XenAPI connections.
sparse_copy = True	(Boolean) Whether to use sparse_copy for copying data on a resize down. (False will use standard dd). This speeds up resizes down considerably since large runs of zeros won't have to be rsynced.
torrent_listen_port_start = 6881	(Port number) Beginning of port range to listen on Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
check_host = True	(Boolean) Ensure compute service is running on host XenAPI connects to. This option must be set to false if the 'independent_compute' option is set to true. Possible values: Setting this option to true will make sure that compute service is running on the same host that is specified by connection_url. Setting this option to false, doesn't perform the check. Related options: independent_compute
ipxe_mkisofs_cmd = mkisofs	(String) Name and optionally path of the tool used for ISO image creation. An iPXE ISO is a specially crafted ISO which supports iPXE booting. This feature gives a means to roll your own image. Note: By default mkisofs is not present in the Dom0, so the package can either be manually added to Dom0 or include the mkisofs binary in the image itself. Related Options: ipxe_network_name ipxe_boot_menu_url
agent_resetnetwork_timeout = 60	(Integer) Number of seconds to wait for agent's reply to resetnetwork request. This indicates the amount of time xapi 'agent' plugin waits for the agent to respond to the 'resetnetwork' request specifically. The generic timeout for agent communication agent_timeout is ignored in this case.
torrent_download_stall_cutoff = 600	(Integer) Number of seconds a download can remain at the same progress percentage w/o being considered a stall. Deprecated The torrent feature has not been tested nor maintained, and as such is being removed.
image_compression_level = None	(Integer) Compression level for images. By setting this option we can configure the gzip compression level. This option sets GZIP environment variable before spawning tar -cz to force the compression level. It defaults to none, which means the GZIP environment variable is not set and the default (usually -6) is used. Possible values: Range is 1-9, e.g., 9 for gzip -9, 9 being most compressed but most CPU intensive on dom0. Any values out of this range will default to None.
sr_matching_filter = default-sr:true	(String) Filter for finding the SR to be used to install guest instances on. Possible values: To use the Local Storage in default XenServer/XCP installations set this flag to other-config:i18n-key=local-storage. To select an SR with a different matching criteria, you could set it to other-config:my_favorite_sr=true. To fall back on the Default SR, as displayed by XenCenter, set this flag to: default-sr:true.