By default, at least up until CloudEOS 4.28.2F, Arista CloudEOS will not run on Xenserver as it does not recognize the environment. This is easily fixable by modifying the BIOS strings for the VM.

HOWEVER…

Xenserver does not like it if you modify the BIOS strings of an existing VM once it has booted. Thus, what I did was as follows:

  1. Import the CloudEOS .ova file into Xenserver
  2. Detach the virtual disks
  3. Delete the VM
  4. Create a new VM (4 vCPUs and 4GB of RAM) by using the “Other” template. On the final screen, uncheck the “automatically boot the VM” box.
  5. Attach the virtual disks
  6. On the Xenserver CLI, execute the following commands:
    1. xe vm-list | grep -B1 CloudEOS (or whatever name you gave it). This will provide you the UUID
    2. Using the UUID, add a custom BIOS string: xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> bios-strings:system-manufacturer=qemu
  7. In the VM properties, modify the BIOS boot order to disk first, and uncheck the “network” box
  8. Before you boot, empty the virtual CD rom
  9. Celebrate

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