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Related: vhd, virt
==XEN and Citrix XenServer
Support image file conversion to Xen format (.xva)
VMware Converter
XenConvert forums.citrix.com/forum.jspa?forumID=876
Project Kensho community.citrix.com/display/xs/Kensho
OVF support.citrix.com/article/CTX121652 >>OVF is the natural successor to XVA
www.jolokianetworks.com/70Knowledge/Virtualization/Converting_from_Citrix_XenServer_to_Xen_open_source/Xenmigrate.py
www.jolokianetworks.com/70Knowledge/Virtualization/Converting_from_Citrix_XenServer_to_Xen_open_source/Citrix_.XVA_%28Xen_Virtual_Appliance%29_Format
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In Citrix 4.1 the .xva file is pretty simple, yet stupid. It is a tar file, with screwed up dates, your old friend ova.xml and then a directories starting with Ref that are full of parts of your logical volumes that make up the drives of your virtual. The ova.xml file has relevent metadata in it, but some moron laid out the xml in a format fit only for an incessently looping xml reading script -- you can read it, but you'll want to smack someone after you do.
In 4.1 the files are numbered starting at 00000000 going up in blocks of 1MB. When there is blank space on the drive, the files are skipped. Pretty damned spiffy way of saving space compared to something like, I donno, compression? Anyway, you can paste those files back together assuming you put the blank space back in and then use the file as a raw. The xenmigrate.py program will do this for you:
python xenmigrate --convert=myfiles/ref\: myfiles/output.raw
That's it, it'll take some time, but you'll end up with a usable raw file.
I thought 5.0 would introduce compressed files and segements up to 1GB. It doesn't appear that any of that made it into 5.0 -- its files are the same as 4.0.
I'd love it if someone would chime in here and tell me why someone would make a stupid file format like this. What would be wrong with just tarring the up raw file? Why break it into small bits if you are going to pack it into one file anyway? Why not compress it? Why is his head so big? Why?
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Forums.Citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=248957&tstart=0 >>XenConvert can consume a VMware created OVF, however, VMware can (currently) only consume their own OVF.
Mediakey.dk/~cc/howto-install-windows-xp-vista-on-xen
Developer.Novell.com/wiki/index.php/Xenfire >>Xenfire is a soft appliance that can be used to auto-install multiple virtual machines on a single physical server using the Xen virtualization technology. It can be useful for small and medium enterprises to consolidate their intranet servers and gateway server into one single physical server, while still preserving the administrative and security advantages of running two separate systems.
DSG.CS.UBC.ca/secondsite >> SecondSite is a project to provide high availability services via the Xen virtual machine monitor. Its mechanisms include: * frequent virtual machine checkpoints (using iterative copy to minimize downtime) * group-wide checkpoint consistency via network interposition * low-overhead persistent storage checkpointing using the Parallax block device
xen-tools.org >>xen-tools is a collection of software which allow you to create new guest domains.
Community.Citrix.com/display/xs/Kensho >>Citrix Project Kensho provides administrators with highly usable tools that facilitate the export and import of virtual machines and virtual machine based workloads (virtual appliances) using the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) and Common Information Model (CIM) industry standards developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). The Project Kensho OVF Tool utilizes the OVF standard for the export and import of virtual appliances. The Open Virtual Machine Format is an XML document that describes the metadata of virtual machine(s) that are stand alone or part of a virtual appliance along with pointers to the location of the virtual disks. Citrix Project Kensho also provides a CIM interface to the XenServer™ API. As well as introducing a WSMAN interface to XenServer™. The Xen-CIM component is required by the Project Kensho OVF Tool and installs directly on the XenServer™.
Community.Citrix.com/blogs/citrite/simoncr/2009/04/16/XenConvert+v2+Tech+Preview+-+OVF+and+VMDK+Support+for+XenServer >>XenConvert 2.0 supports direct import of VMware VMDK virtual hard disks into XenServer, including all v2v operations. It has also productized the Citrix Project Kensho implementation of the DMTF portable application packaging format, OVF (Open Virtual machine Format), which Citrix has helped to develop and standardize. OVF virtual appliance packages will now directly import in to XenServer to instantiate a complex virtualized application stack, together with all of its relevant infrastructure resource requirements. XenConvert's v2v capabilities mean that even VMware dependent OVFs will be able to be imported into XenServer, which in turn means zero switching cost to XenServer. Since XenServer itself is also free, my guess is XenConvert 2.0 puts you well into the black on your next virtualization project. Finally, any VM you import into VHD files for use by XenServer can also be used in our provisioning services engine (the artist formerly known as Citrix Provisioning Server for Data Centers) to allow you to dynamically stream a VM onto any hypervisor and even bare metal!