Xen Orchestra - Remote Manage Host

Tom’s new video got me thinking about how I’m managing my XCP-NG server. Can you remotely, and securely, manage an XCP-NG server via XOA over WAN?

Based on their announcement, this looks like it was already possible, and now they are improving upon it: Xen Orchestra 5.70

Right now, I have a server with two public IPs. One IP is assigned to the XCP-NG management interface*, and the other is assigned to my pfSense VM. Behind the pfsense is my HTTPS proxy, and behind the proxy is XOA. So XOA is several VMs and virtual networks deep which is not super ideal for reliability. If one of the things in the chain breaks, I can’t access XOA. I figure having XOA remotely hosted on Digital Ocean or something would be a lot better in terms of reliability, but can I do this securely?

*I know having a public IP on the management interface isn’t ideal, BUT do to the setup it’s the only way I’d have direct access to the host in the case that pfSense, or anything XOA related breaks. This has saved me many times because I can use the XCPNG Manager app and connect to the host directly to fix issues with XOA

Ahh, I see the tab in my XOA. I know why I never used it, it’s a paid feature LOL. Took a look at the pricing and it’s way too much for just my small lab. Oh well.

Don’t put XOA on a public IP, use a VPN solution.

Also, no reason you can’t run XOA on a small computer, I have mine in my lab running on an old HP T630 computer. As long as it has connection to the XCP-NG servers, any computer or VM can manage things.

Also you can run it on a Raspberry Pi 4/4gb or 400, I think I used plain old Raspberry Pi OS in the 64 bit flavor (might have been 32 bit, can’t remember), this was on my 400. When my ClockworkPi Devterm arrives, I might see if it will run on this device too, just for fun. Running it on the Pi was not tested very hard, just wanted to see if it would work because I have a devil of a time trying to get it to work on a Pi3 b+ (failed for me every time). The 4 installed just like any other low power computer. Ram is a big issue and the 3b+ just doesn’t have enough to do the job without a bunch of messing around.