Automating VM Provisioning with Bash and acli

Introduction

Manual VM creation through Prism becomes inefficient at scale. Using acli, Nutanix’s AHV command-line interface, we can script VM deployment workflows that are reusable, fast, and fully automated. This guide shows how to build a Bash script that reads VM definitions from YAML and provisions them via acli.

My Personal Repository on GitHub

Nutanix Repository on GitHub

Architecture Overview

Step 1: Define Your VM Template in YAML

vms:
  - name: web01
    cpu: 2
    memory: 4096
    network: VLAN10
    disk_size_gb: 40
  - name: db01
    cpu: 4
    memory: 8192
    network: VLAN20
    disk_size_gb: 100

Save as vm_spec.yaml

Step 2: Bash Script to Parse YAML and Run acli

Requires yq (a lightweight YAML processor) and acli in the $PATH.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

# Load and iterate through VM definitions
for i in $(yq e '.vms | keys | .[]' vm_spec.yaml); do
  name=$(yq e ".vms[$i].name" vm_spec.yaml)
  cpu=$(yq e ".vms[$i].cpu" vm_spec.yaml)
  mem=$(yq e ".vms[$i].memory" vm_spec.yaml)
  net=$(yq e ".vms[$i].network" vm_spec.yaml)
  disk=$(yq e ".vms[$i].disk_size_gb" vm_spec.yaml)

  echo "Creating VM: $name"

  acli vm.create "$name" num_vcpus=$cpu memory=$mem
  acli vm.disk.create "$name" create_size="${disk}G"
  acli vm.nic.create "$name" network="$net"
  acli vm.on "$name"
done

Step 3: Error Handling and Logging

Enhance reliability:

log="/var/log/nutanix_vm_deploy.log"
{
  echo "[$(date)] Starting VM batch deploy"

  # (insert main loop here)

  echo "[$(date)] VM deploy complete"
} >> "$log" 2>&1

Optional: Add VM Tags for Metadata

acli vm.update "$name" custom_key_value="role:$role,env:$env"

Define tags in YAML and parse with yq the same way.

Summary

This method enables repeatable, scalable VM provisioning from structured input. Use YAML for clarity, acli for control, and Bash to orchestrate. Ideal for hybrid or edge environments needing consistent builds.

External Documentation Link:

• Nutanix acli Documentation