Nutanix Community Edition Quick Start Guide – Part 1

So, you want to find out what this Nutanix stuff is about and have a couple of Intel NUCs lying around. This article will show you how to get the Nutanix Community Edition (CE) up and running on your NUCs. The latest versions of CE is based on the current Nutanix commercial releases, meaning that the latest AOS and AHV are bundled, that upgrades to newer versions with LCM are available without needing to wait for a CE-specific version, and the current Prism Central can be used to manage and test the latest Nutanix products.

This also means a few slight differences with the installation method compared to previous versions.

1. The install is now done from a dedicated “Installer ISO,” which allows you to build a “Boot USB.” Previous editions of CE created the boot USB on the same physical media as the one being used to perform the installation.
2. For the installation, we now need four media devices. However, once CE is installed, the “installer USB” is no longer needed. The following disks are needed.
3. 1. Installer USB stick – 16GB
   2. Boot/hypervisor USB stick – 64GB (USB3.1 or later is recommended)
   3. CVM SSD drive – 200GB or more
   4. Data disk(s) SSH or HDD – 512GB or more.

3. Once installed, the running system has three drives. The “boot/hypervisor” USB disk, the CVM disk, and the data disk.

What you’ll need for Nutanix CE.

• Creating bootable USB drives is a breeze with tools like Rufus (www.rufus.ie) or similar. You'll find it's a straightforward process that you can easily master.
• A My Nutanix account (my.nutanix.com)
• Nutanix CE ISO - https://next.nutanix.com/discussion-forum-14/download-community-edition-38417
• Basic network information such as Host IP address, CVM IP address, subnet, gateway, etc.
  • TIP. You will need 4 IPs for a basic setup. Host, CVM, Cluster and iSCSI
• Decide upon a naming convention for hostnames, storage pools, network subnets, etc. This will be more apparent when we configure DR, HA, and the like
  • TIP. I use node plus IP address, i.e., node-160, as the common part of the naming convention.
  • ntnx-node-160 for the hostname
  • ntnx-node-160-cvm for the CVM hostname
  • storage-pool-node-160
  • vlan0-node160 for the network subnet

Preparing the installation of Nutanix CE

1.  Download Rufus https://rufus.ie/ or your preferred ISO burner app.
2. If you’re not part of the CE community (where have you been all these years but welcome), you can register at https://bit.ly/46Qbjlr. This account will verify that the latest build is used whenever you log on to the Prism management console.
3. Downloading the Nutanix CE ISO from the link provided in the 'What you'll need' section is simple and convenient. It’s just a click away on the Community page.
4. Burn the bootable CE ISO with Rufus. I select MBR. Click START to accept the warning, sit back, and enjoy a decent cup of coffee while you watch the progress bar climb slowly towards 100%. It’ll take a few minutes, about 25 in my case.
5. The next step is to configure the NUC. Your mileage WILL vary depending on what type of hardware you have, but I typically turn off all the fancy stuff, such as Audio, IR, etc., as AHV does not need them. I also configure the drives and boot for “legacy USB” wherever possible, disable Secure Boot, enable Power On after Power Failure, and provide Wake On LAN support. Finally, allow the Boot of USB Devices First. These are some screenshots related to one of the NUCs that I typically change.

1. 1. Enable Legacy on USB Config
   2. Disable IR, Audio, WLAN, and Bluetooth as needed
   3. Disable Secure Boot

  Starting the installation of Nutanix CE.

Starting the installation is a straightforward process. Once the NUC is configured, you'll simply save the config, restart the machine, and boot into the Boot Selector via F10. Then, it's just a matter of selecting the USB drive you created earlier and continue with the boot.

1. After a few minutes, you’ll see the Disk Selection Screen. Use the cursor keys to select and map the drives.

• Hypervisor / CE Boot disk (H).
• CVM Drive (C).
• Data Drive(s)

2. Add all the IP information, select the next page, and press Return. Once that’s done, you’ll need to accept the license agreement on the next page (yes, you must scroll through to the end).

3. It’s time for more coffee. The installation took about 20 minutes, in my case. Remove the USB installation media and press Y to reboot.

 Creating & configuring the Nutanix cluster.

After the machine reboots, we can create and configure the cluster. This will be a single-node cluster, but the procedure is the same for a three or four-node cluster. The overall process consists of connecting to the CVM via SSH, creating the cluster, changing the hostname, and the initial login to set a new password. In part two of this series, we’ll perform some post-installation configurations that make sense, such as storage names, network names, updates, etc. But first, let’s create a cluster.

1. Start an SSH terminal and connect to the CVM with ssh nutanix@cvm_ip_addr and the default credentials (nutanix and nutanix/4u). Then, create the cluster using your preferred IP address with the following command.

In my case, it was as follows (spread across multiple lines for easier reading)

cluster

  --dns_servers=172.20.10.200

  --ntp_servers=time1.google.com,time2.google.com,time3.google.com

  --redundancy_factor=1

  --cluster_name=node-160

  --cluster_external_ip=172.20.10.170

  -s 172.20.10.160

create

2. Cluster creation will begin, and services will be started individually, resulting in a new cluster a few minutes later.

3.  Once the cluster is created, I typically update timezones and hostnames. You can do this now or later, but all of the following steps are done in an SSH session on the CVM (ssh nutanix@cvm_ip_addr)

AHV timezone.

AHV / CVM hostnames.

The following steps are not necessary, but changing the hostnames of the AHV host, the Controller VM, and the CVM display name to match your naming convention will help when it comes to knowing which host or CVM you’re working on in the case of a multimode cluster. Assuming you’re still connected to the CVM

1. Change AHV hostname with

“change_ahv_hostname –host_ip=ipaddress –host_name=new-host-name”

Details can be found at https://bit.ly/4eQ9YOa.

2. Change the Controller VM hostname to the following: Note. A reboot is necessary, and the CVM hostname must start with NTNX and end with -CVM (or PCVM for Prism Central, -FSVM for Nutanix Files).

1. 1. sudo -i
   2. change_cvm_hostname new-cvm-hostname

Details can be found at https://bit.ly/3BwSsjS.

4. The final step is to log in to Prism, set up a password for the cluster admin account, and associate it with your My Nutanix account which you created earlier.
   1. Open a web browser and navigate to https://cvm_ip_addr:9440
   2. Login with admin (use the default credentials – Admin – Nutanix/4u) and create a new admin password.

1. 3. You’ll be   redirected back to the login page. Login with the new password and verify your .NEXT account

 5. Once that is complete, you’ll be logged in and can start to configure VMs, etc.

Congratulations and Welcome To Nutanix

That’s the end of the first part. In part two, we’ll explore some post-installation configurations that I think make sense. Until then, have fun exploring Nutanix CE.