Installation & Configuration

AOS is in 5.10.8, We need to install NGT on Windows Server 2016 with only VSS feature enabled and not SSR. However, after installation, even though the SSR feature is not enabled, there is the SSR icon on the desktop. It can be opened and bring us to “http://localhost:5000”. I can understand that the feature is not active but I would like to avoid having it displayed on the desktop. How to avoid to have this on the desktop ? (I’m looking for another way than deleting the icon manually after NGT installation). What about this local web server ? Could it be stopped ?

When it comes to migrating your environment into AHV the recommended way would be to use Nutanix Move. Much being said and written and more is coming. Nutanix understand however that using Move may not be an option for whatever reason. Freedom of choice is important after all, right?  In case you are looking for an alternative way to migrate your VMs’ disks into AHV then keep reading.The article referred to in this post covers three scenarios:Source virtual disk files can be accessed directly by the Acropolis cluster over NFS (or HTTP). This scenario is generally possible when: The source environment is a Nutanix ESXi cluster. The source environment is a Nutanix Hyper-V cluster. The virtual disk files are hosted on an NFS server and the Acropolis cluster can be provided access to the NFS server export. (Common in non-Nutanix NFS based ESXi environments.)  Previously exported virtual disk files are hosted by any NFS or HTTP server and the Acropolis cluster has access to them. Source vi

In our previous post “Time Synchronisation on Nutanix Cluster”, we highlighted time sync importance and some commands to check status of time-sync on a Nutanix Cluster.In this post, we will briefly go through some important recommendations in selecting a time-source for your Nutanix Cluster.Nutanix recommends using at least 5 stable time sources that have a high degree of accuracy and that can be reached over a reliable network connection. Generally, the lower the stratum of an NTP source, the higher its accuracy. If lower stratum time sources (e.g. stratum 0, stratum 1) are difficult to gain access to, then higher stratum time sources (e.g. stratum 2, stratum 3) may be used.For more details, see Nutanix Recommendation for Time Synchronization. For a list of Stratum One Servers: http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/StratumOneTimeServersIf you have to select a Off-Site time-source, following is a good selection of points to consider:http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Support/SelectingOf

AHV VM High Availability (HA) is a feature built to ensure VM availability in the event of a host or block outage. In the event of a host failure the VMs previously running on that host will be restarted on other healthy nodes throughout the cluster. The Acropolis Master is responsible for restarting the VM(s) on the healthy host(s). But we already know that, right? First, let us be reminded that there are three types of AHV High Availability configuration within AHV Cluster: Best effort Reserved Segments Reserved Host (only available via acli and not recommended in AOS 5.0 and newer) To read about each type as well as to find configuration steps, logs location and common issues with their explanation please read KB-4636 AHV | VM High Availability (HA).   For a refresh on AHV VM HA: Acropolis Virtual Machine High Availability Resources Nutanix University: Tech TopX: VM High Availability in AHV Prism Web Console Guide - Virtual Machine Management - VM High Availability in Acropolis Tech

Hi everyone, I have an issue with a newly purchased NX-1175S-G6 that need to deploy at the EU environment.The system doesn’t allow to raise a case to the support portal.The installation just can’t seems to pass through the foundation stage.The latest place it stuck is at the screenshot. That is still just a small part. Before this when I try to put in VLAN to setup, it just can’t get through it. Anyone can guide me to a correct direction? Thanks 

While at the time of posting this article neither the process referred to nor Windows 2003 OS itself are supported within AHV environment, Nutanix understands that there are situations where customers might find themselves in a position of not being able to move away from certain OS version.To help customers with the process of migration of Windows 2003 servers from ESXi to AHV we share this post by Artur Krzywdzinski where he explains the process in details. We would like to thank Artur for sharing the solution.Share your own ideas and processes that worked (and did not) with community - help someone, encourage cooperation!Please note that Nutanix Xtract referred to in the post is currently known as Nutanix Move.vmwaremine.com: Migrate Windows 2003 to Nutanix AHV by Artur Krzywdzinski

Hi, I'm trying to install a 3-node Lenovo HX3321 but I got this issue: Every node gets the following log: It keeps waiting for md arrays to resync but it no longer continues the process and fails. I'm trying to install AOS 5.10.6 and foundation 4.4.1 Do you have any idea how I could fix this issue? Regards,

Regenerating security certificates is always a good security policy and should be strictly implemented in every mission-critical production infrastructure.In the case of Nutanix guest tools, the certificates are scheduled to expire every 3 years.After the certificates are expired, you will notice the NGT link to be false and an alert to be generated saying Guest Service is not reachable.So how do we regenerate the certificates in NGT?First, we get the VM id of the affected NGT VM using the command                  ncli ngt list We delete the VM entity from the ngt cli and recreate using VM id  Go to VM and restart the Guest Agent ServiceGo through the following KB to get the detailed information regarding the procedure and the commands involved.KB-8120 

I have a user who is requesting that we change our VMWare Host Power Management Policy from Balanced to High Performance. Questions 1: Do Nutanix hosts support VMWare Power Management features?Question 2: We are migrating to all AHV early next year. Does Nutanix have a corresponding setting for VMWare Host Power Management Policies?

As we have a strict policy in our company to be always at the latest patches for all services, we are required to upgrade to latest version of VMware "ESXi 6.7 U3" which was released last month, we are already running 6.7 U2 now. we have already upgraded our vCenter to 6.7 U3 which we do not think it has any issues with Nutanix. But to upgrade ESXi itself we do not know about its compatibility, i know about the case of patching ESXi to a higher patch level than the Nutanix certified ones "which we are regularly doing", but for ESXi 6.7 U3 we are afraid of breaking something or being incompatible, and we do not know either if ESXi U's are considered as patches or different versions according to Nutanix.. I searched over Internet and this forum about anything related to 6.7 U3 compatibility but found nothing, at least if we have a road-map from Nutanix about planned compatible version we can wait till its release. Thanks

Nutanix reserves space on the SSD-tier of each CVM for its infrastructure. These files and directories are located in the /home folder that you see when you log in to a CVM. The size of the /home folder is capped at 40 GB so that the majority of the space on SSD is available for user data.Due to the limited size of the /home partition, it is possible for it to run low on free space and trigger Prism Alerts, NCC Health Check failures or warnings, or Pre-Upgrade Check failures. These guardrails exist to prevent /home from becoming completely full, as this causes data processing services like Stargate to become unresponsive. Clusters with multiple CVMs having 100% full /home partition will often result in downtime for user VMs.The Scavenger service running on each CVM is responsible for the automated clean-up of old logs in /home and improvements to its scope were made in AOS 5.5.9, 5.10.1, and later releases. For customers running earlier AOS releases, or in special circumstances, it may

HI Trying to get a definative answere to what I think should be a simple question. Can I map a iSCSI drive to a Virtual Server by attaching a iSCSI Storage array ( Server has a Drive on the nutanix cluster and a second drive mapped to the exsternal array ( NTFS partitions on the MD iSCSI array ( NO VM's running on the array ) just mapping this as a drive Would love to get a formal response from Nutanix if this causes issues within a cluster or will there only be issues with the specific VM's the mappings are assigned to ?

High-Availability(HA) is a life-saver feature which minimises downtime and can save the production environment. What exactly is HA in AHV?  AHV VM High Availability (HA) is a feature built to ensure VM availability in the event of a host or block outage. In the event of a host failure, the VMs previously running on that host will be restarted on other healthy nodes throughout the cluster.  Want to know more about AHV HA? Give the following KB article a read!4636   So, do we ever want to disable HA for few VMs? Yes, there could be situations and architecture constraints which might make us disable HA for a few critical VMs.The reason, you ask? (*voice of Yoda*) One possible situation could be licencing constraints of few application workloads which are tied to host CPU.   So what happens when you disable AHV HA for a particular VM?  In case of a node failure, the VM will not be migrated and started on another Node.    How can we achieve this?    Read more about disabling HA and Agent-V

We all know that the data never shrinks, only expands. As of AOS 5.0, hot expand of VM disks is supported. All you have to do is expand the volume group via Prism UI or CLI (either aCLI or nCLI - chose your preferred method) and then extend the disk in the disk manager within guest OS itself.aCLI:nutanix@cvm$ acli vg.disk_update <Volume Group name> <disk index> new_size=<size of disk>nCLI:nutanix@cvm$ ncli volume-group update-disk uuid=<Volume Group UUID> index=<disk index> size-mib=<Size of disk in MiB>For detailed explanation and caveats please refer to:KB-3638 Expand volume group disk size on Windows OSKB-5832 AHV | How to expand a Windows VM disk 

After updating era on my dev system from 1.1 to 1.1.1.1 it is continually creating systems task for era_auto_snapshot  which are all stuck in waiting. I now have over 2000 tasks since the update 10 minutes ago

Have multiple Windows VMs running in your environment and want to install Nutanix Guest Tools silently in the Windows VM?You can absolutely do it with a little help from Nutanix and the power of automation scriptsSo how can you achieve this?There are two methods If you are a nerd techy, you can write a custom script using silent installer package.  If writing scripts giving you chills, we still have a procedure to install NGT silently with reduced clicks.Procedure Go to command prompt and browse to the drive where NGT is mounted Execute the following command  drive:\> setup.exe /quiet ACCEPTEULA=yes /norestart Use this command to ensure that VMs are not restarted after installing NGT. Note that if you use this command driver will not be updated. You need to manually restart the VMs to update the drivers.  drive:\> setup.exe /quiet ACCEPTEULA=yes If you use this command, VMs are restarted and drivers are automatically updated.Want to see the logs?In Event Viewer and in the %TEMP% 

Hello, I'm ssh'd into our CVMs and trying to change the default "nutanix" password using the passwd command. I'm getting the following error: passwd: Authentication token manipulation error Am I doing this incorrectly? Any suggestions? Thank you

Should you need to access container’s content directly, upload files to or download files from a container on AHV there is a simple guide with few things to remember: Do not delete any data from the container via WinSCP or any similar tool. Appropriate Prism or CVM command line workflows should be leveraged for doing the cleanup if needed. Deleting VM disk files directly from Nutanix container may affect Acropolis service, which can result in inability to manage user VMs.How to upload VM disk files from your workstation to Nutanix containerUsing WinSCP, connect to a CVM using SFTP protocol and port 2222 using Prism element credentials. Enable the option to show hidden files by going to Options > Preferences > Panels and then selecting the “Show hidden files”  option under the common settings. Select desired Nutanix container and upload file. How to download VM disk files from Nutanix container to your workstationPower off user VM, which disks will be exported, to avoid data corru

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) enables administrators to monitor network-attached devices for conditions that warrant administrative attention. In the Nutanix SNMP implementation, information about entities in the cluster is collected and made available through the Nutanix MIB (NUTANIX-MIB.txt). The Nutanix enterprise tree is located at 1.3.6.1.4.1.41263.The Nutanix MIB is divided into the following sections:Cluster information. Status information about the cluster as a whole. Software version information. Version information about the software packages that comprise the Controller VM. Service status information. Information about the status of essential services on each Controller VM. Hypervisor information. Information about each hypervisor instance. Virtual machine information. Information about hosted virtual machines. Disk information. Status information about the disks in the cluster. Controller VM resource information. Indicate how much CPU and memory capacity is

While migrating nutanix VM to AWS it is giving me error while launching it which is Could not find /.nutanix_active_svm_partition Aside to this while converting into the AWS image it is giving me this error : "ClientError: Multiple different grub/menu.lst files found Can you help is sorting this out? how it support to be deployed on AWS.

In modern IT Infrastructure, data is critical and having a copy of your data from where you can recover from has become an important pre-requisite for system design. To achieve this we use a technology known as Snapshot.So is it possible to even save your system running state while taking a snapshot in Nutanix environment?Absolutely YesIn Nutanix, we provide a technology known as application-consistent snapshot which can be selected when configuring Data Protection Domain.Want to know more about Data Protection with Prism elementGive the following article a readData Protection Guide So Nutanix have some guidelines with regards to Application consistent Snapshot?Absolutely yesNutanix recommends installing NGT on the VMs. Microsoft VSS service should be enabled. The workload running must be able to support to quiesce I/O operations. You must configure one consistency group for each VM. For the protection of VAAI clones with application consistency, each VAAI clone should be in its own pr

Reliable and Accurate Time Sync is mandatory for distributed services to work in a reliable / efficient manner.Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used across different devices and services on a network to maintain reliability and integrity of services, data and other critical functions.Nutanix - AOS, built on web-scale engineering principles, distributes roles and responsibilities to all nodes within the system to form a large cluster of services working together. Accurate time sync becomes a vital requirement for all the different components to work reliably and help keep up system integrity.Accurate time sync, not just offers integrity and smooth operations but offers a lot of value even when things don’t work as they should. During troubleshooting of any service, timestamps are used to understand and co-relate root-cause, impact of the problem.In order for a distributed system such as Nutanix AOS to work smoothly - NTP is of critical importance. CVMs (Controller Virtual Machine) that co

NCC check giving you warning that /home space usage is above the threshold(75%) and now you’re worried how will it affect your production and what all files and directories can you safely delete. Let us guide you through the steps to safely reduce the space usage of /home directory in the CVM. Before let us understand why you’re receiving this warning.Nutanix reserves space in the SSD under /home for its infrastructure and is capped at 40GB, and sometimes it is possible to run low on the space usage and triggering an alert.IMPORTANT NOTE → DO NOT treat the Nutanix CVM (Controller VM) as a normal Linux machine. DO NOT perform "rm -rf /home" on any of the CVMs. It could lead to data loss scenarios. Contact Nutanix Support in case you have any doubts.Now that we got that warning noted on a serious note, let us answer the question :  How can we reduce space usage? First, you need to get an idea of space usage.You can run the following script to parse the usage of /home partition and give u

We have shared a post on upgrade preparations and considerations. What now? When mapping upgrades it is only sensible to account for Nutanix Files as part of the process. What really happens once you click that button?First, the pre-upgrade checks will run to make sure that the cluster is able to be upgraded. If any of the pre-upgrade checks fail, you will see information about this in Prism and the actual File Server upgrade will not start. Users will have to click "Back to Versions" and start the upgrade again after the issue reported by the pre-checks is resolved. Once the File Server upgrade beings, each File Server VM is upgraded one-at-a-time onto the new Nutanix Files version. While an FSVM is down for the upgrade, users connected to shares hosted by this node may experience a loss of connectivity for a duration of roughly 20-30 seconds. After this short period, another FSVM will pick-up on hosting those shares, and users will regain access to their files. After each FSVM comple

While much is shared and posted about LACP configuration in AOS* the questions “How?” remains open. Let’s take a look at the workflow:Connect to CVM via SSH. Make sure you are connected to correct CVM by checking its name and IP. Follow steps from KB 2852 to verify cluster health. Do not proceed if cluster cannot tolerate failure of at least 1 node. Put the node and CVM in the maintenance mode. Connect to host via IPMI, as LACP configuration process might cause network disconnect. Perform required configuration steps (enable/disable LACP). Once configuration is completed, make sure both host and CVM are accessible via network. Please also make sure that all NICs in bond are operational, by shutting down links one by one and verifying connectivity. If all tests are successfully completed remove CVM and node from maintenance mode.For detailed instructions as well as commands examples please refer to KB-3263.For complete command reference Acropolis Command-Line Interface (aCLI).* For more