Nutanix Nodes – Initial Configuration in non-flat network

Do you have a complex network (IPv6 disabled, IGMP snooping disabled, etc) and you do not want to make the required changes for the node auto-discovery to be seamless?

Not a problem! There are a few steps that you need to follow in order to prep the nodes to be discoverable in that case.

IPMI Configuration

  1. Login to IPMI directly from the BIOS (Crash Cart) and configure network settings (ip address, subnet, gateway)
  2. Login to IPMP from web portal
  3. https://ipmi_ip_address (configured on step 1)
  4. Username = ADMIN (Case Sensitive)
  5. Password = Serial Number found on the IPMI network port (back of the chassis)
  6. Open KVM session from IPMI web console
  7. Login as = root / nutanix/4u
  8. Configure host VLAN tag
  9. Command = ovs-vsctl set port br0 tag=host_vlan_tag
  10. Now login to the CVM directly from that KVM session
  11. Command = ssh nutanix@192.168.5.254
  12. Check for configured bonds, command = ovs-appctl bond/show
  13. Execute the following command several times to gather which ports are active = ethtool ethX (X = port number)
  14. Example: ethtool eth1
  15. Once you have identified your active uplinks, proceed to create the network bond
  16. In order to tell which uplinks are active, you need to look for the “Link detected: yes” message
  17. Now you need to re-configure the bond and use all active uplinks you just identified before
  18. Command: allssh "manage_ovs --bridge_name br0 --interfaces eth2,eth3 --bond_mode active-backup --bond_name bond0 update_uplinks"
  19. Update CVM VLAN tag to match the Host VLAN tag as well
  20. Command = change_cvm_vlan 1234
  21. Done!
  22. You can now login to your Prism management console, perform a discovery and discover the new node
  23. Select node and specify the IP settings for CMV, Hypervisor and IPMI
  24. Proceed to the next screen and add to the cluster
  25. Your datastore has been successfully expanded, and you now have more compute resources as well!