How to install xenserver tools on Ubuntu 14.04

Citrix Xenserver is a very under valued and under used production quality tool, in my opinion.  Maybe because there is not nearly as much “stuff” about it on the web as there is for other more popular hypervisors.. or shall i say hypervisor. Whatever the reason, you can greatly increase vm performance of both paravirtual and full hardware virtualized or HVM for short vm’s. On Ubuntu 14.04 and older 12.04 the process is the same.

 

1. After installing the operating system load up the xs-tools.iso into the vm.

2. Mount the iso (on a paravirtual Ubuntu vm)

sudo mount /dev/xvdd /tmp

On a Full HVM or a appliance imported from a different hypervisor the command will be.

sudo mount /dev/cdrom /tmp

3. Change into the directory that contains the Linux tools.

cd /tmp/Linux

4. Run the installer.

sudo ./install.sh

5. At the confirmation prompt, press “y”.

6. Move out of the directory.

cd ~/

7. Unmount the image.

sudo umount /dev/xvdd

If a full HVM, unmount with

sudo umount /dev/cdrom


8. Reboot

sudo reboot

9. Eject the CD.

Enjoy full 1000 MB/s on your NIC speed!