An alternative approach would be leave the file unprotected, and re-applying this modification after Citrix-supplied updates have been applied. However, this may cause updates provided by Citrix to fail at the point of installation. This means that the file cannot be overwritten, prevents the loss of this modification in the event of a system update. The “chattr” line above makes the replacement file “immutable”. If you now shutdown and re-start your Citrix virtual machines, they will have an emulated e1000 device. Then chmod (to make it executable) and chattr it (to stop it being overwritten): # chmod 755 /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm Then make a replacement /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm file like this /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm.orig $newstring Then do the following:įirst rename /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm to /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm.orig # mv /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm /usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm.orig You’ll need to ssh into your Citrix server and become root.
#XENSERVER 6.5 INTEL E1000 NIC DRIVER#
This emulation mode is available under Citrix XenServer, but is a hidden feature, due to hard-coding of the Realtek driver option. Apart of the additional speed, this device also supports jumbo ethernet frames. This is usually not an issuebut it certainly can be. XenServer uses a Realtek RTL8139 10/100 card when you don’t have integration services installed. Sometimes, virtual appliances or other random VMs in your lab need a simple, widely supported NIC and just wont boot (or install) without one. Those familiar with the open source version of Xen will know that the underlying QEMU device emulation that Xen uses can emulate an Intel 1Gbit/sec adapter, called “e1000”. Note: This is not officially supported do this at your own risk. Sure, you can go and rebuild your kernel with the right paravirtualised drivers, but that’s not always an option. However, if you’re running a system with a customised non-standard kernel that doesn’t support Citrix Xen paravirtualisation, you’ll be stuck with a 100Mbit/sec bottleneck in your network.
The paravirtualised drivers will outperform any emulated device. Under these Linux operating systems, your entire kernel must be replaced by a Citrix supplied kernel. This is usually a very good idea and just fine if you’re using Windows, or a major supported OS such as Red Hat, CentOS or Ubuntu.
#XENSERVER 6.5 INTEL E1000 NIC INSTALL#
The standard device that is emulated is a Realtek 8139 (RTL8139), which is a 100Mbit/sec Fast Ethernet card.Ĭitrix themselves do not view this as a major issue, as they expect you to install paravirtualised drivers within your guest operating system. The commercial version of the Citrix XenServer does not allow you to choose the type of ethernet adapter to emulate within your VM. If you choose to follow this guide, you do so at your own risk. The following howto describes modification to critical system software.