Installation & Configuration

There is an ever-increasing chance that the next time you will need to add a node to the cluster or build a brand new cluster using new nodes – they will be bare metal nodes. What that means is that there is neither AHV nor CVM pre-installed on the node (unlike with factory imaged nodes). The process of imaging differs slightly from handling a factory imaged nodes hence this post. Bare metal nodes might come with a Discovery OS - small footprint software which allows for the node to be discovered by AOS 5.11 and later and thus imaged by an existing cluster CVM. When building a new cluster standalone (bare metal) imaging is performed from a workstation with access to the IPMI interfaces of the nodes in the cluster. Imaging a cluster in the field requires first installing certain tools on the workstation and then setting the environment to run those tools. This includes setting up Foundation VM and uploading Nutanix software images to the Foundation VM.

Hi   I want to monitor our Nutanix environment by Nagios XI. Is there a neat guide on how to do this?   Thanks Jeru

Hi there, i need some help with my Dell OptiPlex Micro Cluster. I wanted to build up a four node cluster but everytime i try to install the Nutanix CE, right at the finish line it says: “Waiting for the Nutanix Controller VM to start up………...…” followed by: “A Problem was encountered. Please review the contents of /home/install/firstboot.out for details, and refer to the documentation or the Nutanix NEXT community for next steps. Press <Enter> to return to the login prompt.” Now if i restart the installation and try to repair the CVM this error appears: “ FATAL: AN exception was raised: Traceback (most recent call last): File “./phoenix”, line 96, in <module> main() File “./phoenix”, line 74, in main params = gui.get_params(gui.CEBootDiskConfirm) File “./phoenix/gui.py”, line 1675, in get_params if guitype(args=args).skip_get_params:  File “./phoenix/gui.py”, line

Sorry if this topic has already been covered. I have been trying to use the new "Portable Foundation" app that runs on windows to image a cluster without using a VM. Every time I try (three so far) I get errors that the IPs I have provided are already used. I am using a flat switch and the 10G and 1G are unplugged from the customers switches. I have tried with my laptop in and out of airplane mode, with the firewall on and off and still receive the errors. The only difference is that each time I try, the listed IP conflicts are never the same. It will tell me in the first try that x, y, and z are in use, then the second time it may say that a, b, and y are in use. Any ideas? I really like the idea of this app working. Thanks, -David

Hello, If I have 3 Nutanix nodes and I cluster them together. How can I make a separate VPC for a test stack and a separate VPC for a Production stack? So that way I can build my VM's on the test stack and once they are good to go...I can do the same steps on my Production stack. I would like to have 2 isolated stacks for testing and production. Is this possible? Thanks

For a customer i'm managing a AHV cluster. One of the virtual machines needs to have direct access to a network interface for monitoring traffic (port mirroring). Is this possible with the current releases of AHV? With kind regards, Ruud

According to the documentation, Backplane traffic segmentation is not supported in a configuration for "ESXi clusters in which the CVM is connected to a VMware distributed virtual switch" . What I'd like to understand is whether this is related to technical reasons, or it is just a configuration limitation of the CVM installer/Prism management? So far I counldn't find a comprehensive guide/document about setting up a Nutanix cluster with vSphere distributed switches, and nodes with 2x10gbps each. It doesn't seem to make sense to me to set this up with standard swtches (i.e. no Network I/O control) where all traffic (VM, storage, vMotion, ...) use the same physical uplinks.

Warning: Use of Phoenix to re-image or reinstall AOS with the Action titled "Install CVM" on a node that is already part of a cluster is not supported by Nutanix and can lead to data loss. Use of Phoenix to repair the AOS software on a node with the Action titled "RepairCVM" is to be done only with the direct assistance of Nutanix Support. Use of Phoenix to recover a node after a hypervisor boot disk failure is not necessary in most cases. Please refer to the Hardw

I just deployed Prism central scale out on my ESXi cluster and see that the two additional PC appliances have an iso mounted to their CDROM drives. Does this need to stay connected? I’d like to spread these 3 appliances across different datastores. (And ideally, I’d like to move these across sites but I understand that this is a future feature: https://next.nutanix.com/product-ideas-61/multi-cluster-scale-out-prism-central-28305)

I’vejust set up AFS 3.5.5, I’ve enabled SMB protocol and the FS joined AD. The home share has not been created! Why?  

Hi, I'm planning a 3 node Lenovo 2320-E node. The most it will ever grow, is to a 4 node. Each node has a 4 x 1/10Gb BaseT network card (IMM/IPMI) connection is separate. The max number of VM's will probably never exceed 16 (Windows 2008R2/Windows 2016 ) The priority of importance in this case is: Reliability Lowest Cost Performance Network Config Option 1 (1 switch 1 GB ports only): Purchase 1 switch with dual hot-swap power supplies. (Not to jinx myself, but switches have a low fail rate) Setup each node as balance-slb, with 4 x 1Gb BaseT Network Config Option 2 (2 switches 1GB ports only) Purchase 2 switches, each with a single power supply Setup each node as balance-slb, with 4 x 1Gb BaseT Network Config Option 3 (1 switch with both 1 & 10Gb BaseT) Purchase a switch that supports mixed 1 & 10Gb BaseT ports

Hi, I want to automate the procedure of node imaging. I have exported the configuration file for foundation. Is there command line to image node with configuration file?

Remote authentication is one of those things that once set up correctly just work. We do not notice it, we simply put in our credentials and use it.It takes some understanding and a tiny bit of thinking ahead when mapping AOS roles and permissions to LDAP/AD users and user groups.So where to start?First, follow Prism Element Security Guide: Configuring Authentication to set up remote authentication.Run NCC Health Check: ldap_config_check.For any issues leverage KBs:KB-2066 Unable to Log In to t

Hello all, i'm trying to build a very simple home lab so i can get through the NCP cert, hopefully prior to our new nutanix gear arrives at my work. at home i have an i7 8700k, 16gb of ram, and several HDDs. i also have a NAS device. i run windows 10 on my one available machine. my issue is this: i can only feasibly spare 12 gb of ram, and i dont have a dedicated 200 GB SSD, but i have several terabytes of HDD storage available. is it possible for me to get a home lab up and running with this config? using VMWare Workstation or something similar? thanks, Tony

Is it possible to create DMZ network VM with single physical UpLink?

purchased 7/15/2016 setup/install 10/24/2016 (by Nutanix tech) office move 4/1/2017 (late april, power outage in San Francisco financial district, was on bus on way to work when power went out, never got to shutdown Nutanix cluster properly, next morning powered up cluster and ran fine. Awesome! no issues since then) hardware: 2 NX-8235-G5 1 NX-8135-G5 NOS: 4.7.2 NCC: 2.3.0 BIOS: 20160516 BMC: 03.28 hypervisor: VMware vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2e (vSphere on Windows Server 2008 R2) I need to upgrade vSphere from 5.5 U2e to whatever latest version of 6.5 and also Nutanix NOS 4.7.2 to 5.5.8 Do I: 1 - upgrade VMware to 6.5 then upgrade Nutanix to 5.5.8 or 2 - upgrade Nutanix to 5.5.8 then upgrade VMware to 6.5 or 3 - upgrade VMware to compatible intermediate version and then upgrade Nutanix to compatible intermediate version.

Hello, Where from i can download prism central ova (for vmware)? I used several links, but always i am redirected to support portal. But i have community account only... Regards Mindaugas

While we the topic of VirtIO drivers has already been touched in Sarab’s post on Installing Windows VM and VirtIO drivers, we would like to bring two more KBs to your attention.One is on AHV | How to install VirtIO drivers for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (KB-5666) and the other one is AHV | Nutanix VirtIO drivers for Windows Server 2019 (KB-6495).N.B! Nutanix does not release or maintain VirtIO drivers for Microsoft Windows Server 2008. However, you can still use stable VirtIO drivers available from Fedora project website.

For a nutanix cluster to be able to install a newly released hypervisor, the information about it must be already in iso_whitelist file.  This file can be downloaded from Nutanix portal (search for ESXi 6.7 U3) and is required when installing/upgrading hyperviosr using prism one-click.ESXi 6.7 U3 (built number 14320388),  has been out as of Aug, 20, 2019. It is Nutanix policy to support newly release hypervisors within 90 days after they are release by the hyperviosr vendors.As of this writing (Nov 18, 2019), nutanix has released the iso file for this release and is supporting installation of this built on Nutanix clusters 5.10..6 and above.Below is a public KB regarding the support for this release:

Security is the backbone of any infrastructure, so it is always recommended to set a strong industry-standard password for different components in your environment.Let’s say you want to implement a strong security password policy and have a need to modify the CVM and IPMI password in your environment but confused from where to start.Let us break the components for you: Modifying the CVM PasswordLogin in to the CVM.Change the admin password using the commandadmin@cvm$ passwd After you have successfully changed the password, the new password is synchronized across all Controller VMs in the cluster so you only need to follow the steps on just one CVM. Want to know more about the Nutanix password policy guidelines and steps for the above procedure 

At the end of guest OS installation the VM is rebooted but it doesn't automatically boot to the vHDD. How can I set it to boot automatically from the disk with installed guest OS? By default, AHV uses CD-ROM as the first boot device for VMs, followed by hard disk, then NIC. Please follow steps described below to override this behavior and choose a specific boot device. Things to consider:CD-ROM or hard disk can be selected as boot device in Prism UI. Network adapter can only be configured as boot device via acli. Selecting NIC as boot device may be required to boot VM from PXE server. Power cycle is required to apply boot device change. Resetting or rebooting VM is not enough. If boot device not explicitly selected, then all VMs will try to boot from all CD-ROM devices. If all CD-ROMs are empty or do not contain bootable image, then VM will only try to boot from hard disk with lowest

I am having an issue adding a share to a new AFS instance where it reports “iSCSI discovery of targets failed to iSCSI portal xxx.xxx.10.5. Ensure that the stargate external data services IP and the CVM IPs are reachable from FSVM.” I have confirmed the CVM IP’s and FSVM IP’s are all bound to the eth0 interface of there respective devices and are all in the same xxx.xxx.10.xxx network segment.  All devices can ping all IP’s in the range so at least basic comms are working. I am sure I am missing something obvious but not sure where to go from here.  Suggestions please!

I just deployed a Witness VM (ESXi) for our first 2 node cluster and after setting the IP and reboot it gets the host name NTNX-<IP NUMBER>-A-CVM.Since it seems the witness VM is a kind of CVM I assume it wants to use the NTNX-<NAME>-CVM naming convention or it is OK to set the host name to whatever?Worked fine using  “sudo /usr/local/nutanix/cluster/bin/change_cvm_hostname <hostname>” to set the host name. 

For Files Analytics, are the ports required TCP or UDP?  I know that the ports to open are 7, 3000, 29092 but just wanted to be clear on tcp or udp. Thanks

Good Morning:We are in the process of deploying new NX-8235-G7 nodes that are connected to a pair of Cisco Nexus switch. Everything seems to be working well, with the exception of the switch occasionally receiving RX Pause frames from the servers. While this may not necessarily be a problem, I am doing my due dilligence.The switch ports the nodes are connected to are configured as follows:Connected as active/standby NICs Connected via 1 meter 10GE DAC cables 802.1Q trunk Speed/duplex auto-negotiation Flow control auto-negotiationThe nodes themselves are configured with the default network configuration that comes from the factory with the exception of anything that is necessary to support the use of ESXi and our network environment.Any suggestions or validations of how the switch ports should be configured? Thanks!