Thursday, August 10, 2017

Step by Step deploying Citrix Netscaler VPX 12.0 on Nutanix AHV

Citrix Netscaler VPX is available for different Hypervisors including KVM hypervisors.  Since Nutanix AHV is based on KVM, it is possible to run the Netscaler VPX on the Nutanix native Acropolis hypervisor AHV.


Here is the Step by Step guide that I followed and it worked for me.

1.  Download the Netscaler VPX for KVM build from download.citrix.com

2.  The download file will be in a .tgz format.  This file needs to be extracted.   I used 7-Zip to extract the NSVPX-KVM-12.0-51.24_nc.qcow2 file.  This is the only file that you will need to deploy the Netscaler VPX on Nutanix Hypervisor

3.  You will need to upload this file (disk image) to the Image Configuration in Prism.  You can place the image in the container where you want your Netscaler VPX Disk.


4.  Now we will create a VM from this disk.  The Netscaler VM must have atleast 2 vCPUs and 4GB memory.  Make sure to remove CDROM from the disk section and add a NIC sitting in your VLAN.  If you don't remove the CDROM from the disk you will receive errors when you try to login into the Netscaler once the VM boots up.  So very important:  Remove the CDROM.  


5.  Add a disk by cloning from Image Services and selecting your uploaded disk image that was created.  Make sure to choose IDE as a bus type.  After this click to save.

6.  Now we have to add a serial port to our Netscaler VM so that we can boot it up.  This can only be done via the CLI.  Now we will use Putty to connect to the Nutanix Controller VM via Putty and execute the following command.  Make sure to replace the name of your Netscaler VM that you created in step 4.
acli vm.serial_port_create type=kServer index=0



7.  Now we can power on the VM.  At this point the Netscaler VPX should boot and we can then work on the IP configuration through command line


8.  You will come to a login screen.  Here you will login into the Netscaler with the default username and password of nsroot/nsroot. 



9.  After you Login, type the command Configns to start configuring an IP address for the Netscaler so you can Login into the Web interface via the IP.  Make sure to add the Subnet Mask also 


10.  Most likely your Netscaler is not on the same subnet as your computer so you will also need to set a default gateway via CLI

The command for this is:   add route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 X.X.X.X   (Where X.X.X.X) is the gateway address.




11.  Now make sure to save your Configuration by giving the command Save ns config.  Go ahead and reboot the Netscaler to apply all changes.  The command line for reboot is:  reboot


12.  After your Netscaler has rebooted you can browse to the IP that you set for your Netscaler and login into the interface to set up and configure the features 




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