How It works

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 18-24, 2020.KB 10119 - Alert ID - A130114 - WitnessNotConfigured KB 10120 - Alert ID - A1163 - Volume Group Action Error KB 10134 - File Analytics deployment fails with error: "Cannot connect to File Analytics VM from Prism. Please verify that network details for the VM are correct and the IP is reachable from Prism" KB 10158 - NGT installation fails with the following error message: The system cannot find the file specified. cmd.exe /c net start "Nutanix Self Service Restore Gateway" KB 10166 - Language setting cannot be changed in Prism if logged in as Domain Administrator KB 10179 - Create Image task failed uploading file from URL using FTP protocolNote: You may need to log in to the Support Portal to view some of these articles.

Nutanix provides a suite of utilities for cluster maintenance, including tools and scripts that help you use CVM and Prism resources more efficiently.Latest Version of Cluster Maintenance Utilities is CMU 2.0.3Procedural Notes:Update CMU with the Life Cycle Manager, starting with LCM version 2.3.4. Nutanix supports CMU with AOS 5.10 and later, and with both Prism Central and Prism Element.New Features:Beginning of update Support for CMU Scavenger tool for Cluster Cleanup (Scavenger is not a cluster-level service. It operates per VM)CMU 2.0.3 Release Notes

In VMware vCenter, when a new cluster created, the default  HA configuration is disabled: When opening the HA configuration for this cluster (Select cluster in inventory -> "Configure" tab -> vSphere Availability section -> "Edit" button for vSphere HA) we can see that HA is disabled and the response for "Datastore with PDL" and "Datastore with APD" is pre-defined as "Power off and restart VMs".  While this new cluster is still empty, if vShere HA is turned on from this configuration window, it unlocksconfiguration sections for PDL/APD response: If the response under "Datastore with APD" was not changed to "Disabled" before adding host(s) to the cluster then, later when freshly imaged ESXi host(s) (with Misc.APDhandlingEnable = 0 set by foundation process) are added to cluster, the APD response configuration section is locked and cannot be changed to "Disabled" according our recommendations for standalone clusters. As a result, attempting to enable HA on this cluster fails wit

Nutanix presents us with many management interfaces like HTML5(Prism), REST API, acli and ncli for managing and troubleshooting and maintaining work infrastructure.  We will look into how to access the Nutanix Command line Interface and what the capabilities and purpose of acli and ncli command-lets areaCLI: Acropolis Command Line Interface  Utility to create, modify and manage VMs in AHV. Provides extra abilities(commands) to manage AHV host networking, manual snapshot etc Cannot manage Nutanix Cluster and so we have ncli nCLI:  Nutanix Command Line Interface Utility to manage the entire Nutanix cluster operations. Ncli is more extensive and complex command set To access the CLI, You can install it on your local machine Check out how to install ncli on your local machine here. From any Controller VM SSH to any CVM as a nutanix user and type ncli and hit return to enter the ncli command shell and will be the same process for acli.Once inside the shell, you can view the list o

What is vNUMA?vNUMA (virtual non-uniform memory access) is a memory-access optimization method for VMware virtual machines (VMs) that helps prevent memory-bandwidth bottlenecks.The primary purpose of vNUMA is to give large virtual machines (or wide VMs) the best possible performance. vNUMA helps the wide VMs create multiple vNUMA nodes. Each vNUMA node has virtual CPUs and virtual RAM. Pinning a vNUMA node to a physical NUMA node ensures that virtual CPUs accessing virtual memory can get the expected NUMA behaviorBefore enabling vNUMA on Virtual Machines, see AHV Best Practices Guide.To enable vNUMA on your Virtual Machines, check this guide.

Here are simple steps in order to license the newly added node/nodes to the existing cluster:1. Generate a new cluster summary file from Prism element (cluster)2. Upload this file in the support portal under “manage licenses”.{Menu-->Licenses-->manage licenses}3. Next click on “manually manage licenses” option in blue.4. You will see your previously used up licenses , now you need to select licenses for the new node (click on dropdowns and put a check mark)5. Once you have selected all licenses you will get an option “save” and then “Next” on the bottom right.6. Next page will show you list of licenses which would be consumed, click on “confirm”.7. License file is generated , apply this file to the cluster. All nodes should be licensed now.  

Hi!While reading the documentation for storage QoS the following is mentioned as a limitation:Storage QoS is not supported for Metro Availability, synchronous replication, and AFS virtual machines.What will the actual result be if I apply storage QoS to a VM that I also replicate synchronously? Can I even do this? Or vice versa, what happens if I start replication of a VM with storage QoS?In what way does storage QoS conflict with Metro functionality?Thanks.

Hi,Do PD snapshots eventually all expire on my DR site if I lose the primary site (no communication between)?For instance I have a PD with 5 hourly replication snapshots retained locally and remotely. If I lose the primary site but can’t get to the DR site for say 6 hours, will I still be able to recover the PD?Thanks!

Is there a way using PowerShell to assign a large list of VMs to run from only specific hosts within an AHV cluster?  Basically is there a way to assign host affinity to a list of VMs?  I found commands for anti-affinity using the CLI but could not find anything related to setting affinity.  

Nutanix customers using AHV as their Hypervisor often run into disk space issues on their cluster and need to evaluate how much disk space is being consumed by each entity.  And one of the more important factors that needs to be considered is how much space is being taken up by each VM.  There needs to be an easy way of running one single command and get a listing of the space consumed by each VM, so that at one glance you can figure out which are the VMs that can be removed from the cluster right away in order to get some space reclamation.  As a bonus I have also included the command string that will add up all these numbers and give you the grand total of how much disk space has been consumed by all these VMs put together.I have come up with the following string manipulation to be able to get those numbers:nutanix@CVM:$ for Q in `acli vm.list | awk '{print $1}'`;do echo -n "$Q "; acli vm.get "$Q" | grep vmdisk_size | awk '{sum+=$2} END {print sum}' | awk '{ byte =$1 /1024/1024/10

Hi, Im planning to add 2 more blocks NX-3060-G6 with 2 nodes on each block. Currently i have 2 Block Nutanix NX-3060-G6 with 2 Nodes on each block.Current topology is 2 Block nutanix connected to Cisco 2960X with all eth interfaces connected to it. My question is, In NX-3060-G6 there are 3 Ethernet interfaces, 1 for MGMT (IPMI) and there are other 2 eth interfaces and 2 SFP+. For networking purpose,Do we need to use those 2 eth interfaces from each node in order to work? Or do we need to use only 1 eth interface only on each node? We’re adding 1 more switch Juniper EX4600, so if we need to use those 2 eth interfaces, can we separate them? 1 Eth interface to Cisco 2960X and the other goes to EX4600? Can i have different VLAN on each interfaces (exclude MGMT) that i connect to switch?Sorry if my question isn’t clear enough. But i hope you do understand it. Thank you.NX-3060-G6Networking Topology (Just for Eth Interfaces) 

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 11-17, 2020.KB 9073 - Two-Node Cluster: Unauthorized request to witness after password changed for witness KB 9795 - Advanced NUMA Configuration Options Under AHV KB 9951 - Pre-Upgrade Check: test_spdk_managed_disks_present KB 10003 - Install dot net Framework 3.5 on Windows 10 KB 10052 - VM console access fails with "Connection Error" if the VM name has "#" special character KB 10131 - vGPU VMs may not power on after AHV 20190916.x upgrade KB 10151 - Unable to enable pulse as it is failing with error "not able to communicate to https://insights.nutanix.com:443" KB 10154 - PE and PC custom login UI settings are not Persistent KB 10157 - install_host_package on AHV skips NVIDIA Volta (V100) and Turing (T4) model GPUNote: You may need to log in to the Support Portal to view some of these articles.

Memory allocation and distribution on the AHV Hypervisor is always a tricky equation and not very easy or straight forward to calculate.  I decided to dig deep into this aspect, and the findings were quite intricate.I ran the following command from the Acropolis Master and gathered information for Host 10.21.46.243:$ links http:0:2030 Let us refer to the data obtained for this Host on this listing:Host IP: 10.21.46.243CPUs: 88CPUs used: 37.58CPU free: 50.42Memory: 515822 MB say 512 GBMemory used: 261104 MB say 261 GBMemory Reserved: 0 MBMemory free: 254718 MB say 255 GBPlease note that the output we obtain by running # cat /proc/meminfo on the Host hypervisor will show small numbers for MemFree and MemAvailable fields (less than 0.2%of the Total RAM on the Host): [root@NTNX-16SM76360147-A ~]# cat /proc/meminfo | head -3MemTotal:       528210648 kBMemFree:         1891960 kBMemAvailable:    2619508 kB[root@NTNX-16SM76360147-A ~]#This is because Memory allocations are made in advance by

AWS or Azure can be configured as a remote site for backup and restore operations, this feature is known as cloud connect. The cloud connect feature enables you to back up and restore copies of virtual machines and files to and from an on-premise cluster and a Nutanix Controller VM located on the Amazon Web Service (AWS) or Microsoft Azure cloud. The Nutanix Controller VM is created on an AWS or Azure cloud in a geographical region of your choice. It is a single-node cluster with a 30 terabyte (TB) disk attached to the node, with a usable disk capacity of 20 TB. Amazon or Azure customers are charged only for capacity that is used (not charged for the full capacity). Once configured through the web console, the remote site cluster is managed and monitored through the Data Protection dashboard like any other remote site you have created and configuredCloud configuration guide at : Cloud Connect (AWS AND AZURE)Step-By-Step Azure Remote Site Configuration for Azure Cloud Backuphttps://port

This article’s motive is to provide you the information required for troubleshooting the alert “iSCSI Configuration Failed” for your Nutanix cluster.What is iSCSI Configuration? To provide access to cluster storage, Nutanix Volumes utilizes an iSCSI data services IP address to clients for target discovery which simplifies external iSCSI configuration on clients. This iSCSI data services IP address acts as an iSCSI target discovery portal and initial connection point. This IP address is also used as a cluster-wide address by clients configured as part of Nutanix Files and other products.The iSCSI Configuration Failed alert can be generated if Nutanix Guest Tools failed to execute some iSCSI commands on the guest VM.For more troubleshooting, check KB-10118.For information on the iSCSI Configuration, check the iSCSI guide.

As of Nutanix Collector release version 3.0 and later, it is now possible to collect statistics for Hyper-V clusters along with AHV and ESX clusters.From the initial home screen, simply select the “Hyper-V” option from the “Run on” drop-down, then enter the IP address or fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of a Hyper-V host, followed by the username and password of an Windows administrator from the administrator group. Thereafter, simply select the entities from which you would like to collect statistics and click the “Collect” button.Please note that any Hyper-V hosts being connected to should be running PowerShell version 5 or later. Also, as Collector currently only collects configuration data from Hyper-V clusters, the Collector performance graphs may appear as blank following a successful collection.You can find more information regarding Nutanix Collector from the Nutanix Collector User Guide.

It's very simple to identify Xi leap from leapFrom the CLI of the PC, run the command "nuclei availability_zone.list" to list the Availability Zones connected to the local AZFor Xi leap availability zone name shows name as US-WEST-1Bnutanix@cvm$ nuclei availability_zone.list "Total Entities : 2""Length : 2""Offset : 0""Entities :"Name UUID State Local AZ e007dd9a-1910-4a82-a4a5-9a9c7110d0f5 COMPLETE US-WEST-1B cce71719-d160-47b0-874a-171a61f8e6ee COMPLETE For leap it should start something likePC_xxx.xx.xx.xxXi leap can be found in PC by clicking on gear icon-->Xi cloud serviceFor details please refer leap administration guideleap guide

We know you care about your infrastructure. Every time and auto support ticket is created for one of Nutanix clusters a Support Engineer contacts the person who is assigned as Support Contact for the asset. You can spread the load within your team, assign the contact based on the time zone the asset is within or use any other method you like. The choice is yours!Help us to choose the right person to work with, shorten the resolution time and avoid the avoidable – configure Support Contact for your Nutanix clusters.Log in to my.nutanix.com. Click Support Portal. Under Products, click Installed Base. Click Assets tab. Select all assets by clicking on the checkbox located at the top left of the table. Click Edit Assets. Update the details and click on the green tick box located at the bottom right of the dialogue box. Click Clusters tab. Select all clusters by clicking on the checkbox located at the top left of the table. Click Edit Clusters. Update the details and click on the green tick

ESXi 7.0 requires a minimum of 4 GB of physical RAM. Provide at least 8 GB of RAM to run virtual machines in typical production environments.4GB only for the HOSTAnd about AHV?What is the minimum memory for AHV only?, without CVMs and VMs

Hi All, Does anyone know if it’s possible to pass variables into the ‘Custom Script’ / cloud-init section, when creating a VM in AHV via Prism Element?Ideally, I’d like to use the REST API to create (clone) a VM from a template, and pass a ‘Custom Script’ perhaps from an ADSF path, that is able to configure the guest’s Hostname / FQDN based off the VM’s name specified in the REST API call.IPAM and some basic cloud-init config is working, just trying to determine the best way to set the hostname!

Customers can observe cluster issues when they use more than 90 percent of the total available storage on the cluster. This article provides general guidelines on the maximum storage utilization on a cluster. The total available storage capacity on a Nutanix cluster is the sum of all the available storage space across the nodes.Customers should not try to use all the available space in the cluster. Sufficient space should always be available in the cluster in case a failure occurs. For example, when a disk fails in the cluster, the extent groups that were present on that disk have to be copied to other disks to ensure that all the data is at the configured replication factor. If the disk space is unavailable for this activity, then there is a risk of data loss if more failures occur with the data in an under-replicated state. The formula for calculating the maximum recommended usage for clusters is one of the following. Recommended maximum utilization of a cluster with containers using

In some scenarios, when you enable the remote support tunnel, it’ll tell you that it has been temporarily enabled but the status will show “disabled”.To troubleshoot, you can start by checking Basic IP connectivity to nsc01.nutanix.net or nsc02.nutanix.net. If that times out, then it is either a DNS resolution problem or a firewall issue.Check the firewall rules of your system to allow outbound connections to nsc.nutanix.com on port 80 or 8443.For more details on troubleshooting, check KB-1044

Hello Team, I’m running a small 3 node cluster, during an AHV upgrade to the latest version one of the servers failed to reboot so AOS started to rebuild trying to restore HA. After several hours rebuilding failed, looking at the logs I saw the message: “not enough space available”. If I’m not mistaken a 3 node cluster can tolerate only one node down, but lets say the two running nodes had enough space, is it possible to restore HA? It basically means that after some time rebuilding, if one of the 2 remaining nodes fails, cluster is still up in a single node mode.Just curious because it looked like AOS tried to rebuild HA despide only 2 nodes were up

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 4-10, 2020.KB 9646 - Pre-check: test_is_nos_upgrade_supported_on_esx KB 9782 - LCM pre-check : is_cvm_in_maintenance_mode KB 9876 - 1-click Hypervisor Upgrade from ESXi 6.x to ESXi 7.0 fails with "Upgrade bundle is not compatible with current VIBs installed" on Dell platforms KB 9879 - LCM Pre-check: test_nx_ipmi_health_check KB 9892 - NCC check marvell_boss_card_status_check fails on ESXi 7.0 on Dell platforms. KB 10018 - VirtIO 1.1.6 installation on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 KB 10068 - Era 2.0 FAQs KB 10070 - Calm: VM image upload fails with error "Unexpected error: the following NVRAM files cannot be imported: calm-vm-pc-x.x.x-calm-x.1-file1.nvram." KB 10073 - LCM 2.3.4 NIC Firmware Upgrade limitations KB 10094 - Move - Ability to NOT Retain static IP and set it to DHCP on destination cluster KB 10097 - Cassandra Crashing with: "None of the SVM's IPs on interfaces match the service vm external IPs in Zeus

Note -  Nutanix highly recommends using Nutanix Move to migrate VMs to AHV. See the Nutanix Move documentation at the Nutanix Support portal. This KB should only be used if Nutanix Move cannot be used or for reference only. For large scale migrations of business critical systems, Nutanix Global Services organization provides resources to assist with streamlining migration scenarios. For information on available services, see: http://www.nutanix.com/services/consulting-services/.The following high-level steps are required when migrating Linux VMs from another hypervisor to AHV. Determining what VirtIO drivers are available in the Guest OS kernel and deciding which BUS ((IDE, SCSI, etc.) type to use when creating AHV disks for the VM. Determining what VirtIO drivers are built into the Guest OS initial boot image (initrd or initramfs) to allow booting the VM in AHV. Rebuilding the GuestOS initrd or initramfs with VirtIO drivers (If needed). Updating Guest OS boot configuration files