The purpose of this blog post (in collaboration with fellow Nutanix NTC Al Rasheed) is to provide the guidance and the steps needed to configure the Nutanix Community Edition (CE) on vSphere 7. The community edition ISO, metadata file, and the Prism Central tar files can be found and downloaded from the Nutanix Community site.
This VM will be configured on a physical server (Dell PowerEdge R720) which includes the following hardware:
· 384GB RAM
· 2 x e5-2620 v2
· Dual SD module w\ 16GB SD cards
· H710 mini perc
· 16 x 2.5 bay system that includes 1TB hard drive in each bay
· Idrac express
· 4 x 1GB on-board NIC
· 2 x 10GB daughter NIC
Once the Nutanix CE ISO was downloaded to my local machine, I created a Nutanix CE folder on my datastore (DS1) and uploaded the ISO to it (see image below):
Datastore Browser
Once the above is complete, the following steps will be used to create the Nutanix CE VM:
· Launch vCenter and begin the process to create a New Virtual Machine using the wizard.
· Select Create a New Virtual Machine then select Next.
· Provide a name for the new VM. In this example, I called it Nutanix CE and then selected Next to proceed.
· Select Next once the Compatibility checks have succeeded.
· Select the appropriate Storage and then Next to proceed.
· Select the Compatibility level. In this example for my vSphere environment, it is ESXi 7.0 U2 and later) and then select Next to proceed.
· For the Guest OS, please select Linux from the Guest OS Family dropdown and CentOS 7 (64-bit) from the Guest OS version drop down.
· Increase the CPU to 4, check the box to enable Expose Hardware Assisted Virtualization to the Guest OS, increase the memory (since I have an abundance of RAM, I increased it to 32GB).
· Select the appropriate Network (VM Network in this example).
VM Network
· Select Datastore ISO File from New CD/DVD Drive dropdown list, browse to the Nutanix CE ISO found on your Datastore, select it, check the Connect at Power On box and then select OK and then Next to proceed.
· Power ON the Nutanix CE VM.
· Images from the VM boot process are found below.
· Once the boot process is complete, you will be presented with the following screen. Please confirm the settings match the settings provided when the VM was created.
CE Settings
· For the following screen, please enter the following:
o Host IP address, subnet mask, and gateway.
o CVM IP address, subnet mask, and gateway.
o Check the Single-Node cluster box.
o Enter the DNS Server IP address.
o Select Next Page to proceed.
CE Settings
· Please hold down the arrow key on your keyboard until you’ve reached the end of the EULA. Then press ENTER to accept the EULA and then tab to START to proceed.
EULA
· The installation process will then proceed and may take up to 15 minutes to complete. Once it’s complete, please select Y to reboot the VM.
If we have missed anything or if you have any suggestions, please let us know.
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