Install Nutanix CE on an AMD Ryzen CPU

What’s the issue?

Nutanix CE requires an Intel CPU according to Nutanix. (portal.nutanix.com) Although it’s not supported you can modify an installation to run on a modern AMD CPU. I’m using an AMD Ryzen 3700X system running VMware Workstation 15.

You can probably modify this config to run on bare metal just by changing the minimum_reqs.py to allow AMD.

System Used

• AMD Ryzen 3700X
• 32 GB 3200Mhz RAM
• Windows 10 1909
• VMware Workstation 15
• Nutanix CE 2019.11.22 image

Thanks

• The VMware part of this guide is made possible by the work of Tim Smith and his post here (tsmith.co)

Get Started

• Download the “Disk Image-based Full Install” from here (next.nutanix.com)
• Extract ce-2019.11.22-stable.img from ce-2019.11.22-stable.img.gz. I used 7-Zip.

Create the Nutanix CE virtual machine

• Create a new folder for your vm, I called mine nutanix
• Move ce-2019.11.22-stable.img into the folder
• Rename ce-2019.11.22-stable.img to ce-flat.vmdk
• Create a new file called ce.vmdk and insert the following:

The ce.vmdk disk descriptor file, more information here (kb.vmware.com)

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=4a23b86a
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="vmfs"
  
# Extent description
RW 14540800 VMFS "ce-flat.vmdk" 0
  
# The Disk Data Base
#DDB
  
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "905"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.longContentID = "39ab32063800e361c1c248034a23b86a"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 91 19 55 99 b4-0c 1e 38 af 74 3f 10 2d"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "14"

• Open VMware Workstation and create a new virtual machine with the following specs:
  • 1 vCPU, 4 Cores
  • 16 GiB RAM
  • Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI enabled (see fig 2.1)
  • Attach the ce.vmdk as the first hard disk, select SATA as the bus
  • Add a new 250 GiB disk on an SSD backed volume, select SATA as the bus
  • Add a new 500 GiB disk, select SATA as the bus

fig 2.1:

• Start her up

AMD Specifics

• Once the system is booted, login with root and nutanix/4u
• Edit the minimum_reqs.py

code:

nano -c /home/install/phx_iso/phoenix/minimum_reqs.py

• Find line 52, replace vmx with svm
• Find line 70, replace Intel with AMD :)

fig 2.2:

VMware Specifics

• Modify the capabilities xml file:

code:

nano /var/cache/libvirt/qemu/capabilities/3c76bc41d59c0c7314b1ae8e63f4f765d2cf16abaeea081b3ca1f5d8732f7bb1.xml

• Delete the line pc-i440fx-rhel7.2.0 near the very bottom (CTRL+K)
• Edit the line containing pc-i440fx-rhel7.3.0 modify to pc-i440fx-rhel7.2.0

fig 2.3:

• Modify the CVM default.xml

code:

nano /home/install/phx_iso/phoenix/svm_template/kvm/default.xml

• Add <pmu state='off'/> to the <features> section

I believe this is disabling the “Performance Monitoring Unit” (linux-kvm.org) in libvirt

fig 2.4:

Install Nutanix

• type exit to go back to the login screen, login with install no password, then follow the instructions

Troubleshooting

• If the VM doesn’t boot and errors with dracut-initqueue timeout complaining it can’t find disk by UUID. Make sure your disks are all set to SATA on the bus
• If the CVM won’t start after running install make sure you made the relevant VMware specific modifications.
• If the installer won’t run complaining Intel VT-x is not running, make sure you have nested virt enabled on the vCPU - see fig 2.1. Also make sure you made the right changes to the minimum_reqs.py file.

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