Migrating from Citrix Netscaler 12.0 on VMware to Nutanix AHV

  • 2 June 2017
  • 7 replies
  • 3353 views

Badge +4
Apologies if I have posted in the wrong area but this seem Citrx related so here goes.

I wil be switching from VMware to Nutanix AHV native hypervisor in the coming weeks.

If anyone has already done this, can they advise on the steps they took to port over a version of Netscaler running on VMware (vSphere 5.5) to Acropolis Hypervisor on Nutanix?

Not aware of any native tools that can handle that.

The only other way would be to back off this config (never tried it) and upload onto a native vanilla install of the Netscaler based on KVM and uploading the config somehow.

Any advice would be grateful.

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7 replies

juanluis.delgado-67016,

Love your work, just tried your process and it worked flawlessly.

No issues encountered at all. Well documented and thanks for taking the time out to share your findings.

 

Badge +1
That is not necesary:

  • Export Netscaler ovf (vmdk) from ESXi
  • Import vmdk in Prism as a Disk.
  • Create new vm with same CPU/RAM.
  • Delete CD-ROM IDE
  • Clone disk from image service, bus type=IDE. This is important, this disk is IDE 0.
  • No attach network.
  • Connect to CVM by ssh. Create a new network with ACLI to configure same MAC Addres than netscaler original.
  • vm.nic_create name_vm mac=Mac_origin network=name_of_network request_ip=false
  • Power on new netscaler.
  • Check Ips and license.
Regards.
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Hi Icebun,

Ok, everything looks good. Just a couple of things

- Make you sure you only restore to a single Netscaler if doing HA do that after you have a single
instance working

- I'm pretty sure you will need to reallocate the license via MyCitrix even if the hostname is the same.
I've never had make luck transfering licenses even when I replicate a Netscaler the license stops working.

Thanks,

Matt
Badge +4
Hi Matt,
I think I have everything I need which I will summerise as follows:-

1. On existing Netscaler
  • Copy /nsconfig/ssl/*.* to temporary location
  • Copy /nsconfig/ns.conf to temporary location
  • Copy the following contents /var/logon/themes/*.* to temporary location
  • Shutdown appliance
2. Download KVM instance of Netscaler VPX. to match the VMware version
3. Configure IP to match orginal VPX as well as name
4. Download licence
5.Upload contents stored in temporay location to matching path

Have I missed anything out?
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Hi Icebun,

Do you still need help with this? I've moved quite a lot Netscalers between DC's.

To answer your question anyway - no the config doesn't contain either the SSL certs or Theme.

I can provide those locations if you need.

Cheers,

Matt
Badge +4
Hi Nickcasa,
Do you know if the config backup will bring across the Themes and SSL cert details as well?
I will probably open a citrix support ticket and get the definative to be on the safe side if all else fails.
Badge +5
thats exactly what i would do. upload the config to the same version of a NS KVM instance, make sure the version# is exactly the same. just disable your NIC on AHV so you can log into console mode and check your config, should be very easy