Note
As of AOS 5.1, Nutanix AHV supports the following Windows guest operating systems:
Open https://<NUTANIX-CLUSTER-IP>:9440 in your browser to access Prism. Log in as a user with administrative priveleges.
Click the Settings icon and select Image Configuration from the drop down menu.
Click Upload Image and fill out the following fields:
Click Save and wait for the image upload to Complete.
Once prompted that the image was successfully created, click Upload Image to upload your desired OS .iso image.
Once prompted that the image was successfully created, click Close.
Click Home in the navigation bar and select VM from the drop down menu.
Click + Create VM and fill out the following fields:
Under Disks, click the Pencil icon of the pre-populated CD-ROM drive.
Fill out the following fields and click Update:
Under Disks, click Add New Disk. Fill out the following fields and click Add:
Under Disks, click Add New Disk. Fill out the following fields and click Add:
Note
All virtual disks created on AHV are thin provisioned.
Select Boot Device for the CD-ROM device mounting your Windows installation media.
Under Network Adapters (NIC), click Add New NIC. Select a network from the VLAN Name drop down menu and click Add.
Click Save.
In Prism > VM > Table, select the VM you’ve created and click Power on from the actions menu below the VM table.
Once the VM is powered on, click Launch Console to access your VM.
Note
You may need to allow pop-ups in your browser for the VM console to appear.
Proceed with Windows installation. When prompted for installation location, select Load driver.
Browse for the Nutanix VirtIO CD Drive and select the folder appropriate OS and architecture. Click OK.
Select all available drivers and click Next.
Select your virtual disk (Drive 0) and click Next.
Complete the Windows installation. In Prism > VM > Table, select the VM you’ve created and click Update. Click the Eject icon next to each of the CD-ROM devices to unount your OS and VirtIO .iso images. Click Save.
In Prism > VM > Table, select the VM you’ve created and click Manage Guest Tools. Select Enable Nutanix Guest Tools and Mount Nutanix Guest Tools. Click Submit.
Note
Nutanix Guest Tools can also be mounted programmatically with nCLI. Using nCLI or connecting to <NUTANIX-CLUSTER-IP> via SSH:
> ncli vm list | grep <VM-Name> -B 2
> ncli ngt mount vm-id=<VM-Id>
In your VM console, log in and launch setup.exe for the Nutanix Guest Tools installation.
Accept the End User Licensing Agreement and click Install.
Complete the installation, click Close and reboot the VM.
Note
Nutanix Guest Tools can also be installed silently via command line using the following syntax:
DRIVE:\> setup.exe /quiet ACCEPTEULA=yes
Note
If you’re prompted by the BIOS that the boot volume cannot be found, ensure your scsi.0 disk is now configured as the Boot Device.
At this point you can patch your template image and install any other applications you’d like to include in your base disk image.
Following any patching or application installations, the next step in creating the template is to generalize the VM with Sysprep. In your VM console, open Command Prompt as Administrator and run the following command:
> sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown
Once the template VM has powered off following sysprep, we want to push the associated disk image to the Image Service for our cluster. Using an SSH client, execute the following:
> ssh nutanix@<NUTANIX-CLUSTER-IP>
> acli
<acropolis> image.create <IMAGE-NAME> clone_from_vmdisk=vm:<VM-NAME>:scsi.0 image_type=kDiskImage annotation="<IMAGE-ANNOTATION>"
Verify in Prism that the image is available and in an Active state.