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Nutanix AHV install on UEFI only bios

How to make nutanix community installation image bootable from uefi

About

Trying to install Nutanix AHV Hypervisor on recent NUC models fails because the nutanix installation image cannot be booted from UEFI BIOS without legacy mode.

This short howto shows a way to create a bootable medium from the downloadable Nutani AHV Installation image, using the EFI components from Centos7.

Prerequisites

  • Nutanix installation image (ce-2019.02.11-stable.img)
  • Centos 7 Installation image (CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1810.iso)
  • Linux system to perform steps and test via qemu

Steps

All steps are executed with UID 0 (root)

Append 40 MB to the existing Nutanix installation image using fallocate (note that the offset represents the size of the image used in this example, might differ in future relases):

 fallocate -o 7444889600 -l 40m ce-2019.02.11-stable.img

Create a new partion using (g)parted or cfdisk in the free 40 MB region of the disk image:

 cfdisk ./ce-2019.02.11-stable.img
 -> Perform steps to create the partition

Map the image into loopback device using kpartx:

 kpartx -av ./ce-2019.02.11-stable.img
 add map loop0p1 (254:0): 0 14538752 linear 7:0 2048
 add map loop0p2 (254:2): 0 81920 linear 7:0 14540800

Format the created 40 mb loopback partition device matching your output with vfat.

 mkfs.vfat /dev/mapper/loop0p2

Mount the loopback partition and mount the iso image:

 mkdir /nutanix_vfat
 mkdir /nutanix_root
 mkdir /centos
 mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /nutanix_root
 mount /dev/mapper/loop0p2 /nutanix_vfat
 mount -o loop CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1810.iso /centos

Copy the needed EFI components from the Centos installation media to the vfat partition:

 cp -r /centos/EFI /nutanix_vfat/

Edit the grub.cfg to have following contents (kernel verisons and initrd versions might differ. I did this to work around video garbage issues.

/nutanix_vfat/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg:

set default="1"

function load_video {
  insmod efi_gop
  insmod efi_uga
  insmod video_bochs
  insmod video_cirrus
  insmod all_video
}


menuentry 'Nutanix Community Edition AHV (4.4.77-1.el7.nutanix.20190211.279.x86_64) 7 (Core)' --class nutanix --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --unrestricted $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-4.4.77-1.el7.nutanix.20190211.279.x86_64-advanced-4d8b0f1e-e014-4058-a050-c6d2ed188094' {
    load_video
    set gfxpayload=keep
    insmod gzio
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ext2
    if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
      search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root  4d8b0f1e-e014-4058-a050-c6d2ed188094
    else
      search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4d8b0f1e-e014-4058-a050-c6d2ed188094
    fi
    linuxefi /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.77-1.el7.nutanix.20190211.279.x86_64 root=UUID=4d8b0f1e-e014-4058-a050-c6d2ed188094 ro crashkernel=128M rhgb quiet hugepages=0 intel_iommu=on,igfx_off iommu=pt elevator=noop vga=791 vfio_iommu_type1.allow_unsafe_interrupts=1
    initrdefi /boot/initramfs-4.4.77-1.el7.nutanix.20190211.279.x86_64.img
}

Umount everything, remove the loopback mappings and enjoy booting nutanix AHV installer from UEFI BIOS without legacy mode.

To test with qemu use something like this:

  qemu-system-x86_64 --enable-kvm --bios /usr/share/qemu/OVMF.fd ce-2019.02.11-stable.img -hda  -m 15000 -hdb installme.img -hdc installme2.img