How to apply XenServer update patch

Last updated on October 19, 2012 by Dan Nanni

Citrix distributes patches or hotfixes of XenServer (now renamed to "Citrix Hypervisor") on a regular basis, for fixing bugs or updating security features. A given XenServer patch may have dependency on other fixes, in which case you will fail to install the patch without applying all dependent fixes first. If you would like to apply a patch on your XenServer host, you can use either XenCenter client software or XenServer command line interface (CLI).

In this tutorial, I will explain how to install XenServer patches by using XenServer CLI.

I assume that you have already downloaded a patch from Citrix website (e.g., XS602E001.zip). Upload it on any XenServer host and upzip it.

$ unzip XS602E001.zip 

The extracted zip file will contain XS602E001.xsupdate. Using XenServer CLI, upload this patch to the destination XenServer host where the patch is to be applied as follows. It's assume that the XenServer host has an IP address 172.16.244.154.

$ xe patch-upload -s 172.16.244.154 -u root -pw [root-password] file-name=XE602E001.xsupdate

xxxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxx 

In the above command, you can omit "-s 172.16.244.154 -u root -pw [root-password]" parameters if the destination XenServer host is the local host.

Once patch is successfully uploaded, the above command will return the UUID (xxxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxx) of the uploaded patch. Make a note of this UUID since it is needed to apply the patch.

Confirm that the patch has been uploaded successfully as follows. The output should display the uploaded patch.

$ xe patch-list -s 172.16.244.154 -u root -pw [root-password]

Finally, apply the uploaded path using the UUID obtained above.

$ xe patch-pool-apply -s 172.16.244.154 -u root -pw [root-password] uuid=xxxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxx

Once you have installed the patch, you must restart the XenServer host for the patch to take effect. When there are multiple XenServer hosts in a resource pool, you must apply the same patch to all the hosts, one by one in sequence. It is not recommended that you apply a patch to only a subset of all existing XenServer hosts in a pool.

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