It may happen that you host servers whose operating systems are not supported by Nutanix Move. In these rare cases, you will then have to proceed manually to migrate your virtual machines and you may encounter post-migration network issues.

In my example, I deployed on my ESXi an Ubuntu Server machine in version 24.04LTS, an operating system released only a few months ago. It is not yet officially supported by Nutanix Move according to the documentation:

When creating my migration plan, I did not encounter any errors, I was able to validate the options without any problems, in automatic mode and I start it immediately.

Unfortunately, the automatic preparation of the virtual machine fails:

The message is clear, Nutanix Move cannot install the necessary drivers:

Drivers Installation Failed. Driver(s) virtio_scsi could not be installed for kernel 6.8.0-45-generic

So I delete my migration plan, create a new one manually and shut down the virtual machine without running the scripts:

I then start my migration plan to migrate the virtual machine to my AHV cluster and everything goes well:

Once the data transfer is complete, I launch the switch immediately. The server is migrated:

On the Nutanix AHV side, I can clearly see my freshly migrated virtual machine:

I start the virtual machine to check that the migration went well. The VM starts correctly but it does not take an IP address…

This problem is common with recent operating systems. As a general rule, they integrate the modules and components necessary for full support by Nutanix. However, it is common for the configuration of the network cards not to be correctly resumed after migration.

To correct the malfunction, you must open a console on your VM and perform the configuration manually.

We start by retrieving the name of the interface:

nutanix@ubuntu24e1:~$ sudo lshw -class network
[sudo] password for nutanix:
*-network
description: Ethernet controller
product: Virtio network device
vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
physical id: 3
bus info: pci@0000:00:03.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msix bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=virtio-pci latency=0
resources: irq:11 ioport:c040(size=32) memory:febd1000-febd1fff memory:fe000000-fe003fff memory:feb80000-febbffff
*-virtio0
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 0
bus info: virtio@0
logical name: ens3
serial: 50:6b:8d:c0:82:7b
capabilities: ethernet physical

Here it is ens3. Now we will modify the network card configuration file:

nutanix@ubuntu24e1:~$ sudo vi /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml
This file is generated from information provided by the datasource. Changes to it will not persist across an instance reboot. To disable cloud-init's network configuration capabilities, write a file /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg with the following:
network: {config: disabled}
network:
ethernets:
ens160:
dhcp4: true
version: 2

Correct the “ens” line with the correct name of your network card and save the file. Apply the configuration:

sudo netplan apply

That’s it, the machine retrieves an IP address.

You get the idea, my example is based on Ubuntu but reproducible on other recent Linux distributions, as long as you adapt the commands to the operating system.

You thought it was over and that we would go straight to the migration? Well, not quite! I still have a few things to say and share with you before: my final tips and best practices based on my experience!

Careful preparation

The first and I think most important advice I can give you is to prepare your migration well. List your virtual machines, identify the installed operating systems, check that they are up to date and that the migration prerequisites are met…

It takes time, but it is the key to a successful migration every time.

Measured migration plans

My second piece of advice is to create migration plans of a reasonable size. If the software limit can go up to 100 virtual machines per migration plan, I would advise you to limit yourself to a maximum of twenty machines.

This allows you to better manage your migration, to have fewer potential errors to manage and to be able to correct problems more quickly if you encounter them once the virtual machines have been switched over and to limit the risk of prolonged service interruption.

Homogeneous migration plans

As far as possible, try to create migration plans grouping virtual machines that are similar in terms of operating system. Again, in the event of a problem during the migration, it will always be easier to look for a common error on several servers with the same operating system than between disparate servers.

Take your time

Above all, do not rush! It is better to take your time and make a smooth migration, rather than rushing, encountering problems, being forced to backtrack, etc. Take the time to build your migration plans, to prepare them well, to configure them in their smallest details so that they go smoothly.

Some good practices to follow

Here are some good practices to follow that will allow you to avoid a certain number of inconveniences. There are probably others that I have not mentioned but this already constitutes a solid base:

• Check the compatibility of your operating systems.

• Check that all the prerequisites are respected upstream.

• Check that your clusters can communicate with each other.

• Stop the backup jobs before starting your migrations.

If in doubt, refer to the official documentation: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Move-v5_4:Nutanix-Move-v5_4

Now, you are ready to finalize the migration of your virtual machines…

After the source cluster under VMware ESXi, we must now add the target cluster which run Nutanix AHV.

The process is similar to the one used previously for WMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V clusters and I will start by adding an account dedicated to Move on my cluster.

Adding a Move service account

To add the service account dedicated to Nutanix Move on your Nutanix AHV cluster, connect to Prism Element then go to “Settings > Local User Management” and click on “New User”:

Fill in the fields with the necessary information and check the “Cluster Admin” role. Your service account is ready, now let’s add the Nutanix AHV cluster on Nutanix Move.

Adding the AHV cluster on Nutanix Move

In the “Environments” section of Nutanix Move, click on “+ Add Environment”:

Next, fill in the fields with the information corresponding to the Nutanix AHV cluster to which you want to migrate the VMs from the ESXi and Hyper-V clusters:

The required information is as follows:

• 1 – Environment type, select Nutanix AHV
• 2 – Name the added cluster
• 3 – Enter the IP address of the cluster (Prism Element or Prism Central of your choice)
• 4 – Enter the logins and password of the service account previously created

Wait for a few minutes and your cluster will then be available in NutanixMove :

Your source and destination clusters are now all configured on Nutanix Move, the next step will be to create the migration plans.

Once the deployment of the Nutanix Move appliance is complete, it remains to carry out its initial configuration in order to begin setting up future migration plans.

Network setup

To configure the network and switch to fixed IP, you must connect to the Move VM in SSH with the account “admin” and the password “nutanix/4u”. As this is the first connection, you will be asked to change the password.

Once the new password is configured, the network configuration tool launches automatically and you just have to follow the instructions:

Alpine Linux v3.16 (3.16.2) - Nutanix Move

Welcome to Nutanix Move. Please refer to the Move documentation
to know more about the console usage and troubleshooting.

https://www.nutanix.com/products/move/

Do you want to configure static IPv4 address? (y/N)
y
Enter Static IPv4 Address (e.g. 192.168.1.3)
192.168.2.240
Enter Netmask (e.g. 255.255.255.0)
255.255.255.0
Enter Gateway IP Address (e.g. 192.168.1.254)
192.168.2.254
Enter DNS Server 1 IP Address (e.g. 128.91.2.13)
8.8.8.8
Enter DNS Server 2 IP Address (e.g. 128.91.2.14)
8.8.4.4
Enter Domain (e.g. my.dc.domain)
homelab.local

Static IPv4 configuration provided:
ipaddress * 192.168.2.240
netmask * 255.255.255.0
gateway * 192.168.2.254
dns1 * 8.8.8.8
dns2 * 8.8.4.4
domain * homelab.local

Configuring static IPv4 …

WARNING: you are stopping a boot service
WARNING: you are stopping a boot service

Stopping busybox ntpd … [ ok ]
Stopping networking …
lo … [ ok ]
eth0 …

First login

In the “My Apps” menu of the Admin Center, you can click on “Open” to access the Nutanix Move web interface:

The first thing you will be asked to do is accept the End User License Agreement:

You will then be asked to set up a password to secure access to Move:

And finally, choose the type of migration you want to perform. This choice has no impact on the rest of the events, you will be able to perform the 2 types of migration regardless of your choice:

Congratulations, Nutanix Move is now deployed on your Nutanix cluster:

But that’s not all!

Nutanix Move Basic Configurations

There are still a few small configurations to be done to have an optimal Nutanix Move deployment. The appliance configuration is located in the gear menu at the top right, then in “Appliance Settings”:

Among the options that can be customized, the only one that is of real interest to me is the NTP part to ensure consistent time synchronization across your entire Nutanix cluster:

For the NTPs, no problem since you just need to enter the same NTPs as those you configured on the Prism Element side:

The “Prism Central Registration” part is intended to override the Move authentication that you configured at the first connection by authentication via the accounts present in Prism Central that you wish to authorize to connect to the Nutanix Move appliance:

That’s it, your Nutanix Move is now ready to use. In the next blog posts we will see how to add ESXi, Hyper-V and AHV clusters and how to configure the first migration plan.

In the previous article I gave you a presentation of the infrastructure that I set up to produce my series of articles on Nutanix Move.

In this new article, we will see how to deploy the Nutanix Move virtual machine on our Nutanix AHV cluster.

Prerequisites and update of the Move image

The deployment of Nutanix Move on the latest versions of AHV with a Prism Central 2024 must be done from the marketplace, one of the new features of recent versions of Prism Central.

If you have not yet deployed Prism Central on your cluster in AOS 6.8: https://juliendumur.fr/nutanix-ce-2-1-deployer-prism-central-pc-2024/

Then, before deploying Nutanix Move, it is necessary to update the disk image integrated into Prism Central. To download the latest version of Move, go to the following link: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/downloads?product=move

You need to download the file “Move QCOW2 file for AHV”:

Then go to Prism Central, in “Infrastructure > Compute and Storage > Images” and click on “Add Image”:

On the next page, click on “+ Add file”, select the image that has just been downloaded from the Nutanix website and click on “Next”:

On the next page, leave as default and click “Save”:

Please wait while the image is transferred and processed:

Once this is done we can move on to deployment.

Nutanix Move deployment

To deploy Nutanix Move, you need to log in to Prism Central and go to the Marketplace menu in the Admin Center. In the drop-down menu at the top of the interface, select “Admin Center” and then click on “Marketplace”:

Then, simply click on the “Get” button in the “Move” box and then on the “Deploy” button on the Move page to start the deployment process:

The page that is then displayed allows you to configure all the parameters that we want to assign to the Move virtual machine that we are going to deploy. The first field to modify is the “Application Name” field that must be filled in:

In the following fields, no changes are needed to the VM name or its hardware configuration:

For disk configuration, modify the image to select the one we transferred to the cluster previously:

Select the network on which to place the Move virtual machine:

Then enter the identifiers to assign to the SSH account:

The virtual machine deployment start:

You can track the VM deployment on the “My Apps” page of the Admin Center, if you click on “Manage”:

Once the deployment is complete and Nutanix Move is functional, the status will change to “Running”: