XO 6 vs. XO 5
XO 6 and XO 5 are two interfaces to the same Xen Orchestra. They run side by side, on the same server, against the same data: a VM started in one is instantly running in the other, a backup job created in XO 5 immediately shows its health in XO 6. There is no migration step and nothing to synchronize.
- XO 6 is the default interface and the future of Xen Orchestra.
- XO 5 remains fully available for everything XO 6 does not cover yet: use the XO 5 link in the top-right corner, or the marked links that XO 6 shows contextually (they open the right XO 5 page for the object you are on).
What lives where today
XO 6 is under active development, so this table evolves with every release. As a rule of thumb: observing and operating your infrastructure day to day happens in XO 6; deep configuration still happens in XO 5.
| Area | In XO 6 | Still in XO 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation and search | Tree view of all pools, hosts, VMs, with live filtering and a query builder on every major table | Object list pages |
| Dashboards | Global, pool, host and VM dashboards: status, alarms, patches, resources, usage charts, backup health | Global dashboard, health view |
| VM lifecycle | Start (including on a specific host), pause, suspend, resume, reboot, shutdown (normal and forced), duplicate, export as XVA or OVA, delete | Migrate, copy between pools, convert to template, import, self-service |
| VM creation | Full single-VM form: template, cloud-init or SSH key or ISO or PXE install, boot firmware, vTPM, Secure Boot, affinity, HA, vCPUs, RAM, VIFs, disks | Multiple VMs at once, tags at creation |
| Consoles | VM and host consoles: fullscreen, chrome-less dedicated tab, Ctrl+Alt+Del | Console clipboard (coming soon in XO 6) |
| Snapshots | List, take, revert, delete | Snapshot detail view |
| Networks | Inspect pool, host and VM networking; create networks (bonded, host internal), create and manage VIFs, traffic rules | Edit existing networks, SDN controller |
| Storage | Inspect SRs and VDIs; connect, disconnect and delete SRs; create, attach, export, delete VDIs and migrate them between SRs | SR creation, advanced disk operations |
| Performance stats | Usage charts on every dashboard (last week) | Full stats views with granularity control, via the marked Stats link |
| Backups | Job list with run history, per-job pages (runs, configuration, backed up VMs, targets), per-VM protection status, dashboard health panels | Job creation and editing, restore, remotes, mirrors, sequences, health checks |
| Tasks | Full task history at every level, last-24-hours quick view | Task list |
| Users and access | Users list with details, groups and authentication tokens | User creation and editing, groups, roles, LDAP and other auth providers, ACLs |
| Settings | Color mode, five themes, 21 languages | Servers, plugins, proxies, licenses, everything under Settings |
| Pool and host operations | Connect and disconnect pools, host start, shutdown, enable, disable, PIF scan, bug-tools archive | Patching and updates, rolling pool update, host maintenance and evacuation, HA |
One more current limitation to know: XO 6 requires an administrator account. Non-admin users are redirected to XO 5 until delegation lands in XO 6.
Which one should I use?
Start every session in XO 6: navigation, monitoring, consoles, task forensics and backup oversight are simply better there. When you hit an operation XO 6 does not do yet, it will either show you the action marked with an external-link icon, or you switch to XO 5 manually and come right back.
If you prefer to keep XO 5 as your default interface for now, the welcome message of XO 6 links to the procedure to do so.