XenCenter

Change Pool Properties

Select any resource pool in the Resources pane and select the General tab to see its properties and status. Click Properties on the General tab to change the properties of a pool.

General properties - name, description, folder, tags

Edit Properties icon - a gray square with lines in it.

On the General Properties tab you can change the pool’s name and description, place it in a folder, and manage its tags.

  • To change the pool name, enter a new name in the Name box.
  • To change its description, enter new text in the Description box.
  • To add the pool to a folder or to move it to a different folder, select Change in the Folder box. Choose a folder. For more information, see Using folders.
  • To tag and untag the pool and to create and delete tags, see Using tags.

Custom fields

Fields icon

Custom fields allow you to add information to managed resources to make it easier to search and organize them. See Using custom fields to find out how to assign custom fields to your managed resources.

Email options

Email icon

Use this tab to configure the email notification for system alerts that are generated on any servers or VMs in the pool. For more information, see XenCenter Alerts. Users who want to receive performance alert emails can choose the preferred language from the list. The languages available are English, Chinese, and Japanese.

The default language for configuring performance alert email language for XenCenter is English.

Power on

Power on icon - a green circle with a power icon overlaid in white.

The Power On feature allows you to configure power management preferences for servers that support power management. Servers can be powered off and on automatically depending on the pool’s total workload (through Workload Balancing).

  • In the list of servers at the top of the tab, select the servers for which you want to configure power management.
  • Under Power On mode, specify the Power On settings (Disabled, Wake-on-LAN, DRAC, or custom script) for the selected servers.
  • Under Configuration options, specify either the IP address and credentials or key-value pairs for a host power-on script. The options you must specify depend on the Power On mode option you chose.

For more information about prerequisites and configuration options for the Host Power On feature, see Configuring Host Power On.

GPU

GPU icon

This tab allows you to set a pool-wide policy to assign VMs to available GPUs to achieve either maximum density or maximum performance. Select an option based on your requirements.

The GPU tab displays Mixed setting only when different settings are used for different GPU groups. That is, when you configure certain GPU groups within a pool for maximum density, and configure the other GPU groups for maximum performance. It is not possible to set or edit the Mixed setting using XenCenter. To use different settings for different GPU groups, use the xe CLI.

Note:

GPU Virtualization is available for Citrix Hypervisor Premium Edition customers, or customers who have access to Citrix Hypervisor through their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops entitlement. XenCenter displays the GPU tab when the pool meets the license requirements and also has GPUs that support various virtual GPU types. For more information, see About Citrix Hypervisor Licensing.

Security

Security icon - a padlock.

The Security tab enables you to specify a security protocol to use for communication with the pool.

  • TLS 1.2 only: This option accepts communication from Management API clients and appliances (including third-party appliances) that can communicate with the Citrix Hypervisor pool using the TLS 1.2 protocol. The TLS 1.2 only option uses the following cipher suites:

  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384 (Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 and later)
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 and later)
  • TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256 (Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 and later)
  • TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256

    Important:

    Ensure that all Management API clients and appliances that communicate with the Citrix Hypervisor pool are compatible with TLS 1.2 before choosing this option.

    In Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 and later, this option is the only option provided.

  • Backwards compatibility mode (TLS 1.2 and earlier protocols): (Citrix Hypervisor 8.1 and earlier) Choose this option to allow both TLS and SSL protocols for pool-wide communication. For example, you might need both protocols for backward compatibility reasons. This option uses the following cipher suites as specified to stunnel:

    • TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
    • TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
    • TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
    • TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
    • TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5
    • TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA

Live patching

Live patching icon

This tab allows you to enable or disable live patching. Live patching enables customers to install some Linux kernel and Xen hypervisor updates without having to reboot the hosts. It is enabled by default.

Note:

Citrix Hypervisor Live Patching is available for Citrix Hypervisor Premium Edition customers, or customers who have access to Citrix Hypervisor through their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops entitlement. For more information about licensing, see About Citrix Hypervisor Licensing.

Network options

Network options icon

This tab allows you to enable or disable IGMP snooping. Citrix Hypervisor sends multicast traffic to all guest VMs. This behavior leads to unnecessary load on host devices by requiring them to process packets they have not solicited. If you enable IGMP snooping, it prevents hosts on a local network from receiving traffic for a multicast group that they have not explicitly joined. This action improves the performance of multicast. IGMP snooping is especially useful for bandwidth-intensive IP multicast applications such as IPTV. This option is disabled by default.

Note:

  • IGMP snooping is available only when the network back-end uses Open vSwitch.
  • When enabling this feature on a pool, it might also be necessary to enable IGMP querier on one of the physical switches. Or else, multicast in the sub network falls back to broadcast and can decrease Citrix Hypervisor performance.
  • When enabling this feature on a pool running IGMP v3, VM migration or network bond failover results in IGMP version switching to v2.
  • Citrix Hypervisor IGMP snooping is available for Citrix Hypervisor Premium Edition customers, or customers who have access to Citrix Hypervisor through their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops entitlement. For more information about licensing, see About Citrix Hypervisor Licensing.

Clustering

Clustering icon

This tab allows you to enable or disable clustering. Enable clustering on a pool to use thin provisioned storage repositories with GFS2.

Note:

Citrix recommends that you apply clustering only on pools that contain three or more servers and a GFS2 SR.

Do not enable clustering on pools that don’t include a GFS2 SR.

When enabling this feature on a pool, specify a network. The clustering mechanism uses this network to communicate with all servers in the pool. If a server cannot communicate with most other servers in the clustered pool, after a timeout that server self-fences. To decrease the chance of a host self-fencing unnecessarily, ensure the network you use for clustering is reliable. Citrix recommends you use a physically separate bonded network. For more information, see Add a new network.

Change Pool Properties