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 virtual 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 Windows machine and we will be using Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Services), so you will not need to download and install any third party software. Note that this guide is for absolute beginners, so you will not need any prior experience with this technology.

So, first, we need to enable the IIS. Type the “Server Manager” in the Windows search and launch it.

In the Server Manager click Manage in the top right corner and select “Add Roles and Features”. Click Next until you get to the Server Roles. In the list of Server Roles, select Web Server and click Next. The default options are sufficient. Click Next until the installation is completed.

Now, we need to decide where we want to keep the Dark Site bundle. You can select any place you want. I will use C:\Nutanix\LCM in my example. Just make sure that you have enough space on disk to put the bundle.

Let’s create a folder “release” in the C:\Nutanix\LCM.

Now, let’s download the latest LCM bundle from the Nutanix support portal and we will unpack it to our folder C:\Nutanix\LCM\release. You can download the bundle here: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/downloads?product=lcm

You will need to download 2 files - the LCM Dark Site Bundle and the firmware bundle that is specific for your hardware. My cluster is running on NX hardware, so i will download the LCM Dark Site NX Firmware Bundle. 

First, unpack the LCM Dark Site Bundle and put the contents into C:\Nutanix\LCM\release

Then, unpack the hardware-specific firmware bundle and put it to C:\Nutanix\LCM\release\builds. 

Here is how the C:\Nutanix\LCM\release folder should look like:

And here is how should look the C:\Nutanix\LCM\release\builds:

The next step is to create the virtual directory called “release” in the IIS Web Server settings. 

Type in the Windows search - IIS and start the IIS Manager.

In Sites, right click the Default Web Site and select Add Virtual Directory:

Create the virtual directory like in the screenshot below:

Now, find the “Directory Browsing” and double click it:

On the right side, in the Actions tab, click Enable.

Then, on the same page where you clicked Directory Browsing, double click the MIME Types. In the Actions click Add. Add the following extensions: .sign, .json and .iso with the MIME type: text/plain

Add the following extensions: .BD, .bin, .csv, .exe, .frm, .lod, .md, .std, .tgz with the MIME type: application/x-iso9660-image

Some of them will already be present, but it is good to verify that they all exist.

Now, the web server is ready. 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.