If your cluster has no direct access to the internet, you can use the Dark Site LCM bundle, which you can put on a local web server and use it as a source for the LCM downloads.
The web server can be a machine on the same Nutanix cluster that you want to upgrade or any other machine that the cluster will have access to.
In this topic we will be creating a web server on a Linux machine and we will be using Apache Web Server. Note that this guide is for absolute beginners, so you will not need any prior experience. For this example, I have selected CentOS 7 as Linux distribution. If you want to use another distribution, the commands can be slightly different, so you will have to consult the documentation of the selected distribution. However, if you use CentOS, you can simply follow this guide.
So, to start, install the CentOS selecting the “minimal install” and log in as root. Also, you can select in the installer in the Software Selection the Basic Web Server option. Then, you can skip the first command that installs the web server.
To install the Apache web server (needed only if you selected “Minimal Install” option. You can skip this command if you selected “Basic Web Server” in the installer):
yum install httpd -y
If there is no internet access from the Linux machine, you can configure a repository from the CentOS ISO. You can check how to do that here: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1355683
After the repository is set, retry the command above to install the web server.
Then, we will configure the firewall to allow http traffic:
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
And will restart the firewall service for this change to take effect:
firewall-cmd --reload
Then, we will restart the web server daemon:
systemctl restart httpd
After that, we need to run the following command to make sure that the web server will automatically start after the server reboot:
systemctl enable httpd
And then, we will create a directory /var/www/html/release, where the LCM Dark Site bundle will be located:
mkdir -p -m 755 /var/www/html/release
Then, we need to download the LCM Dark Sire bundle from the Nutanix portal. It can be done from here: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/downloads?product=lcm
You will need to download 2 files: the LCM Dark Site bundle and the hardware specific LCM Dark Site firmware bundle. In my example I am using the NX hardware, so I will be downloading the firmware bundle for the NX. You can download it to your local PC and then upload it to the Linux machine using WinSCP.
I will upload my files to the /tmp folder on the Linux VM:
Now, we need to unpack the archives to the /var/www/html/release directory. Just run those commands from the Linux machine:
tar xvf /tmp/lcm_dark_site_bundle_2.3.2.1.19700.tar.gz -C /var/www/html/release/
tar xvf /tmp/lcm_darksite_firmware_nx_1.3.0.tar -C /var/www/html/release/
The web server is now ready to be used with the LCM. You can go to the Prism Element Web Interface of the Nutanix cluster, go to LCM - Inventory - Settings. In the source, select Local Web Server (Dark site). In the URL put the following: http://<your_web_server_IP>/release
Now, the setup is complete and you can perform the inventory and do the firmware upgrades via LCM.