Accidental replace of XenCenter 6.5.0.1840 with Xencenter 8 that gives error cannot connect to older versions Xenserver

[Felipe Johannesen]

Short:

Hello. Im noob to Xenserver and Citrix, I need to get my hands on the msi installer of the XenCenter 6.5.0.1840. I upgraded to 8 and killed the working app. Have no C drive restore point.

Could anyone share that 4X mb with me. I cannot download it from Citrix. Or is my only chance to use third party manager GUI (would Orchestra XO be good alternative).

 

Extras:

Old fired admin took everything as he left. Wiped his E drive erasing all purchase documentation and account credentials. I have no XenCenter installers, not any license purchase receipt or anything. I have limited credentials to access that legacy download at Citrix. Now Im blind with no GUI TT, I need it, I cant always work at server "butcher storage cold room".

 

 

Optional (loooong background story):

I have a Xenserver 6.5 (production) and new Xenserver 8 (for testing) . I thought I could have both servers on my desktop using same XenCenter GUI.

 

What I did was just install XenCenter 8 on my PC.

What happened is I lost GUI access to the Xenserver 6.5 (production)  Fatality!

 

I never imagined that even if I gave different install path to XenCenter 8 it totally replaced the old one.  It loads the server red icon on the upper left , but cannot work with it as it says server version is too old.

Then I downloaded an older free version (because I cannot access the 6.5 downloads) of the XenCenter 6.2 onto another colleague´s desktop. Fired it up to create roaming folder, close, than replaced the Citrix folder with mine, fire up and now I got the similar but opposite error message: server its to new....!!!!!

 

2019, IOT full connectivity. The possibility of such issues, with no installer warnings, never came into my mind....

Just discovered that the old one GUI was version 6.5.0.1840 as I googled and found info about user.config file to exist in

C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Citrix\XenCenterMain.exe_Url_e3jqcmyhhuvw2c1t3wydiid0qz3e5jr3\6.5.0.1840\user.config

C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Citrix\XenCenterMain.exe_Url_tkqi3we1kcywebv1tbkijm3qyfofkobe\6.5.0.1840\user.config

C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Citrix\XenCenterMain.exe_Url_tkqi3we1kcywebv1tbkijm3qyfofkobe\8.0.0.7086\user.config

Looks like XenCenter only works with its same counterpart XenServer version, and that two XenCenter versions cannot coexist on same desktop.

 

Thought I just need an IP to connect to anything at LAN (validation later), like other web hypervisors, but this one GUI stores passwords and credentials and even desktop profile data to.

 

Plan B, nope, I cannot upgrade Xenserver 6.5 (production) to 8. (don't touch!!) Too many VMs,, no hdd space for any snapshots or backups. I will not tamper with it until I make a successful clone, exporting all vm´s to Xenserver 8 machine.

 

Ty for time to read and help me out! Best regards,

Phillip, opp4i7ov3r@yandex.com

 

 

 

 

[Blaine Anaya]

Just browse to the the IP of the 6.5 server in a browser and the XenCenter installer is there for download.

[Tobias Kreidl]

Yes, it should be embedded within the OS installation, itself.  That said, you can always download XS 7.1 LTSR's XenCenter, which should still work with 6.5.

 

-=Tobias

[Alan Lantz]

Odd, XenCenter has always been very good about backward compatibility. Maybe after you installed XenCenter 8.0 all you needed to

do was remove the XenServer 6.5 pool from XenCenter and re-add the pool. 

 

--Alan--

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

Yes, odd. It shouldn't be necessary to re-add any pools when XC gets upgraded. I can certainly see XS 7.X pools with an 8.0 XenCenter but do not have anything prior to 7 that I can test this with any more.

 

-=Tobias

[Alan Lantz]

Yea, I don't either. I am almost all 7.1 LTSR.

 

--Alan--

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

The documentation at https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-hypervisor/citrix-hypervisor-8.0.pdf

states specifically that Citrix Hypervisor 8.0 XenCenter no longer supports XenServer hosts 6.x and earlier.

 

-=Tobias

[Alan Lantz]

Wow, thats the first as long as I can remember about XenCenter not working.  So if you run 6.x and 8.x 

you have to run two copies of XenCenter. Nice. XenOrchestra may be the way to go in those types of

environments.

 

--Alan--

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

Indeed, I was surprised when I found this. And above all, it's not possible to install different versions of XenCenter on the same PC or WIndows VM, hence you have to have two environments available if you need to do this. This is certainly pushing users away from XS 6.X.

 

-=Tobias

[Alan Lantz]

And probably the plan since 6.x is not officially supported. But how inconvenient. Yea, to run both you 

would have to be creative. It would be easier just to use two different workstations.  

 

--Alan--