Topics started by nirmal.ravirajan-57912

27 Topics

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

NIC Firmware Upgrades in LCM

As the Nutanix Life Cycle Management (LCM) platform evolves, more firmware entities are added to the module. The latest addition are the NICs associated with Nutanix hardware.Starting in LCM 2.3.4, firmware updates for Mellanox and SuperMicro NICs on AHV and ESXi are supported. Currently, Hyper-V platforms and Intel/Silicom NIC cards are not supported.For more information about this feature and software requirements, take a look at KB 10073 found on the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Discoveries Menu In Portal

The Discoveries menu in Portal is a new feature that allows customers to view critical issues in their environment with a more holistic approach. Using Nutanix Insights, Portal will provide this view based on Field Advisories, constant health checks, end of support equipment, etc.The Discoveries Details View provides the background, analysis, and corrective actions that can be done to remedy these issues. This will also give you the option to create a case based on the specific issue/topic.For more information, take a look at the “Discoveries Menu” in the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

View Security Vulnerabilities from Portal

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) is a list of publicly discovered security defects seen in the IT landscape. Nutanix is always looking to make sure these defects are patched in a timely manner.A new feature available in the Nutanix Portal under the “Security” Pane of the “Documentation” section allows customers to view the current CVEs and garner the security level of each CVE. The table also includes the Product Release in which the patch for each CVE is included and whether that version has been released.For more information about the Nutanix related CVEs, take a looking at the “Vulnerability List” section in the Support Portal and find the corresponding Nutanix product.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

Dispatch Details on Portal

As part of the Nutanix Smart Support, information about dispatches can now be viewed directly from Portal. With this view, you can edit Shipping, Contact, or FE work address details if necessary.Additional information such as the Part Type, Quantity, Part Location/Component Slot are all viewed from the same pane.If you need more clarification on the dispatch specifically, a Comment option is in place to reach out to Nutanix Support directly. These comments will also be placed in the case notes to look back at if necessary.For more information about the dispatch view, take a look at Dispatches Summary View on the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

Redfish Protocol in LCM

LCM 2.4 introduced a new protocol called the Redfish Protocol. It uses a RESTful API interface for server management. While there are many improvements introduced in the backend, there are a couple of improvements done on the frontend as well.The main improvement on the frontend is that LCM now performs the BMC and BIOS updates using Redfish twice as fast as the older method of using a Phoenix ISO. The time gained is due to fewer restarts needed for BMC and BIOS (no restarts needed for BMC updates and one restart for BIOS updates).While there are specific requirements for LCM to utilize the Redfish protocol, the LCM UI in LCM 2.4 displays this information in the Inventory Pane.For more information about the requirements and the LCM UI, take a look at the Redfish Protocol documentation on the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

Chassis Intrusion Feature

When looking through the IPMI event logs, you may come across a “General Chassis instruction” message that is asserted. This is event created when the node needs to be opened to conduct a replacement and the top cover is opened as a result.The chassis intrusion feature makes it difficult for a potential intruder to reset the sensor without authorization. Therefore, there is no physical button to reset the sensor on the node. The user has to reset this sensor in the IPMI web GUI, which is authenticated using administrator credentials.To find more information about this feature and instructions to reset the sensor, look at KB 1362 on the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

LACP Configuration Through Prism

A common networking configuration for servers is to have two network cables going up to redundant upstream switches. The default bond configuration for these two connections is Active-Standby. This means that only one upstream connection would be used at a time. However, utilizing the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) found on both the upstream network switch and AHV servers would allow for both upstream connections to be used concurrently.Previously, to change from the default bond configuration to LACP, the command line interface for each host was the only option. Now, this configuration change can be done directly from the Prism Interface starting in AOS 5.19.For more information about this, following the “Creating or Updating a Virtual Switch” section in the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

Infrastructure Impact While Using LCM

LCM (Life Cycle Manager) is a tool provided by Nutanix to upgrade firmware and software across a Nutanix environment. Depending upon the type of firmware that needs to be upgraded, a reboot of a node may be required.While reviewing the inventory of software/firmware that needs to be upgraded, you may not know which upgrades require a reboot of a node (or not). This information might be crucial in determining the impact and precautions that need to be taken in planning for the upgrade event (change windows, time allocated, etc.).KB 6107 details which upgrades require a node or CVM reboot and which ones do not. Navigate to the

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Finding the Version of Nutanix Products

During a support case, an engineer might inquire about the version of one or more Nutanix products for which the case has been opened. If the version inquiry is done through email, you may need to find the version of a product without live assistance.While most versions can be found from the Prism or the product’s graphical UI, there are some product versions that can be found via the CLI if necessary. For example, Foundation and Calm versions can also be found using the CLI.KB 8926 provides a single resource for finding any version of a Nutanix Product. This KB can be found in the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Create Windows Installation ISO with Built-In VirtIO Drivers

Typically, while deploying a new Windows VM on AHV, the VirtIO driver ISO needs to be mounted to allow the Windows Setup to discover the associated vDisk. Therefore, for each VM that needs to be created, 2 ISOs need to be mounted (the Windows installation ISO and VirtIO ISO).In order to simplify and expedite the deployment process, the VirIO drivers can be injected into the Windows installation ISO to create a single customized ISO.The prerequisites for this process are the following tools/files:PowerShell Windows ADK (Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment) Windows installation ISO Nutanix VirtIO driver package (It is recommended to use the latest version which can be downloaded from Support Portal) Administrative privileges on your Windows workstation.For detailed steps and screenshots regarding this process, please review KB 10290 in the Nutanix Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Using the Command Line for LCM Upgrade Status

While some users might prefer the GUI (Prism Element) to keep tabs on an LCM upgrade, others might prefer the command line interface (CLI) method. Since LCM is a more GUI based product, it was not easy to track the status of an upgrade without skimming through the logs.However, starting in LCM 2.2, a command line utility was introduced to monitor the progress of an LCM upgrade. To use this, run the following command from any CVM that is currently up: lcm_upgrade_statusTo view sample outputs, check what various states mean, or different options that can be used with the above utility, take a look at KB 7914 in the Support Portal

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Nutanix Disaster Recovery

What Happens When Restoring Protection Domain Entities with Volume Groups

When performing a restoration of a VM with a volume group on a different cluster, changes are made to the guest OS in order to connect to the restored volume group.Since the primary site’s data services IP address will no longer be valid, the guest OS will connect to the volume groups using the secondary site’s data services IP address. Also, all other SCSI target IP addresses on the guest OS will be removed.Another change that occurs is the IQN of the VM. When the volume group is restored, the IQN is updated with the timestamp of when the volume group was recovered. This allows for multiple restorations of the volume group if necessary. Therefore, the IQN needs to be changed in the guest OS iSCSI configuration as well. The Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) CD is mounted on the VM to facilitate this iSCSI configuration change so that no manual changes are required.More information about the above restoration process can be found in the Support Portal here.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Generate Crash Dump Files for Linux Guest VMs

There are times when working with your environment that one of the Linux guest servers will go unresponsive. Nutanix Support may ask for crash dump files from the Linux VM to further analyze the cause.One such method is to use “sysrq”. This utility found on the Linux Guest OS allows access to several essential kernel commands and allow Nutanix Support to take a more holistic approach in trying to find a root cause.NOTE: If the VM is hung/inaccessible and "sysrq" has not already been activated, you may not be able to generate a core dump with the following method. You can configure the "sysrq" when VM is up and running and wait for the future occurrence.For more information on how to activate this feature, take a look at the KB 9066 on the Support Portal

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

VirtIO Driver Versions for Windows

Nutanix VirtIO includes device drivers specifically used by Windows VMs hosted in the Nutanix environment to enhance their stability and performance. This concept is very similar to VMware Tools for ESXi environments.The VirtIO bundles various drivers including:Balloon Driver Ethernet Adapter RNG Device SCSI pass-through controller Serial Driver SCSI ControllerThe VirtIO package is found on the Support Portal under AHV (please select “VirtIO” from the corresponding drop-down menu).To note, the device driver versions contained within the various available Nutanix VirtIO packages may be the same if there have been no updates for the drivers between the package releases. To correlate the driver versions associated with each VirtIO package release, please reference KB 5491 in the Support Portal.Further to note, beginning with VirtIO package release version 1.1.6 all driver versions match the VirtIO package version.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

List of VMs restarted due to HA event in AHV

When a host running production workloads can become inaccessible or fails due to an unplanned event, AHV will restart the VMs on other hosts automatically (similar to ESXi). For tracking purposes, it is important to get a list of VMs that were running on the failed node and restarted across other nodes in the cluster.One way to gather this information is via the Prism web page. Each time there is an HA event, a task is generated in Prism that will give you a list of VMs that were restarted.Another method is to use the command line interface to look at the tasks and match the output UUID with the UUIDs of the VMs in Acropolis.More information about the above two methods can be found in KB 8956.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Fixing CVEs due to IPMI

As companies become more security aware, third party security tools are being utilized more heavily than ever before. One such tool is a security scanner which can review open network ports within an environment and report back on certain vulnerabilities (CVEs). This includes the open ports of Nutanix specific components such as the IPMI.While it is important to keep the IPMI/BMC upgraded to the latest version so as to integrate the latest security patches, there are CVEs that will still report as failed by scanners based upon the default IPMI configuration. This is due to the virtual media port (623) and the iKVM port (5900) being opened by default.The virtual media port allows the user to open a remote session to the host console and the iKVM port allows the hosts to query information from the BMC.The specific CVEs affected by these two ports being open can be found in KB 2555. NOTE: If these features are disabled, you will be unable to query any BMC info nor able to open a remote co

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

OVA Management in Prism Central

Previously, adding an OVA image into an AHV cluster was a manual experience, involving un-tarring an OVA file and importing associated VMDK files using AHV’s Image Management.Now, from within Prism Central, you have the ability to natively import and export OVA files. The tasks that can be accomplished with this new feature are listed below:Export a VM as an OVA Upload an OA Deploy an OA as a VM Download an OVA file to your local machine Rename an OVA file Delete an OVA fileAlso to note, there is now a separate OVA dashboard which is used to perform the above tasks (except for the “Export a VM” task, which is located under the VMs Dashboard).More information about this feature and the tasks mentioned above can be found within Ova Management section of the Prism Central Guide located on the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Utilizing the Prism Health Page

The Health Page within Prism is a great resource to keep track of the status of your environment. With a simple dashboard layout, the health page provides checks for many components of the Nutanix environment. This dashboard is dynamically updated with health information based upon Nutanix Cluster Checks (NCC) which execute at specific time intervals.Historical data is also captured and presented in this dashboard using a table and graphical layout. For example, if a check has reported as failed, reviewing the historical data can help determine if the failure was the result of a change within the environment at a particular time. This data also assists Support in determining where to review in logs if further troubleshooting is needed.For more information about the Health Dashboard, please review the associated documentation found in the Support Portal.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Mounting an ISO through a CVM

When maintaining a Nutanix infrastructure, there is sometimes a need to mount an ISO to a host. For example, when performing a SATADOM replacement or booting into Phoenix, an ISO needs to be mounted via the IPMI interface.When using the IPMI GUI, you will likely be attaching an ISO from your local computer which is most likely outside the CVM/Host’s network. Therefore, the IPMI/hosts ability to read from the attached ISO can be hampered by network connectivity issues. This is especially true with many workers currently working from their homes.With the SMCIPMITOOL found on the CVM, you can leverage another CVM in order to mount an ISO. To note, the ISO being mounted would first need to be copied to the local filesystem of the sharing CVM (the path /home/nutanix/tmp could work to store the ISO - just be mindful of the available free space of the /home partition).More information, including procedural steps, can be found in KB 4616

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Editing Contact Details for an Asset in Portal

With automatically generated alert cases, Nutanix will create cases based upon certain alerts and proactively reach out to customers to troubleshoot and resolve these alerts. Accordingly, ensuring that the primary support contact details are correct helps streamline the support process.When a company has personnel that have departed or new personnel are placed in-charge of a specific Nutanix asset, it is important to keep the contact details for the asset up-to-date to ensure that a support agent makes contact with proper personnel.NOTE: The primary support contact is also the default contact for shipping dispatches, although this contact information is re-confirmed throughout the dispatch process.More information about contact details and the procedure for changing them can be found within the Support Contact Details knowledge base article (KB 2307).

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Check Features Violating License

When you are adding new features to your Nutanix environment, there might be a need to update the license or purchase a new one. If you do not update the license, there will be a red banner at the top of the Prism Page indicating that there are licensing violations.Clicking on “View Licensing Details” will show offenders of the current license. Using NCLI, you can see more details about features available in the current license level and features that are not allowed.For more information about disabling features, attaining the correct license, or temporarily removing the banner, look at KB 3443.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Utilizing the cvm_shutdown Script

When performing maintenance on a CVM, it is important to not treat it as a regular guest VM. This is because there are crucial services running on each CVM which need to gracefully respond when a CVM goes offline.If you need to shutdown a CVM and are running ESXi, you might otherwise think to simply go to vCenter, right-click on the CVM, and select the “Shut Down Guest OS” option. However, that procedure will not properly shut down the CVM and allow the services to gracefully respond.Instead, in using the cvm_shutdown script, it will first place a necessary HA route in the hypervisor, to redirect storage requests to another CVM, before shutting down the CVM. This will also allow the services to gracefully respond to the CVM being offline.More information and options regarding this script can be found in KB 3270

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Intelligent Operations

Collecting Hardware information

Keeping track of hardware details across a cluster can be overwhelming. Some information could be found in Portal and other information might be found in IPMI.NCC provides a tool via the command line that allows for the accumulation of all the necessary details into a single output using the following command: ncc hardware_info show_hardware_info.You can use this command to see BIOS/BMC versions, DIMM Serial numbers, Disk firmware versions, etc. More information about the data collected can be found in KB 7084.This information is stored in the CVM for that specific node for access later and is collected by the sysstats utility every 24 hours. More information about the location can be found in the Support Portal Documentation.

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in How It works

Rolling Reboot for CVM/Hosts

While maintaining your Nutanix environment, there is a need to apply patches to keep everything running smoothly. Some of these patches require reboot of the CVM or Hosts to take effect.For example, rebooting all hosts in a cluster means manually putting the host in maintenance mode, evacuating the VMs, turning off the CVM, rebooting the host, waiting for the CVM and host to boot up, and confirming the cluster data resiliency is OK before proceeding to the next host. As you can see, there is a lot of manual work involved.However, there is a simpler solution: leveraging the rolling reboot script. The script utilizes our shutdown token feature to ensure that the node is up and running before proceeding to the next node. If you are using AHV, the script will be available in Prism. For ESXi hypervisors and for more robust options (even for AHV), there is a command line option found in KB 4723More information about the prerequisites (please read this before using) and execution can be found

nirmal.ravirajan-57912Nutanix Employee

posted in Installation & Configuration

Emailing IPMI Event Logs

In Nutanix Hardware, the IPMI (BMC) keeps track of hardware-related events using the Event Log/System Management Feature. If there is a hardware event that needs to be dealt with, Prism will create an alert and send you an email if Alert Email Configuration is set up. However, there are still other events in IPMI that can be useful.For example, a power button assertion, a chassis intrusion, shutdown related events, or session audits (failed login attempts) will be logged by the IPMI events logs and can be forwarded via email using SMTP.If you may be interested in this functionality, check out KB 2581 to find more information on configuring SMTP in the Nutanix IPMI.

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