Automating Nutanix Cluster Health Checks with Bash and ncli

Introduction

Daily cluster health checks are a best practice for Nutanix administrators. While Prism offers visual insights, Bash scripting combined with ncli allows you to create repeatable, automated health assessments. This guide walks through how to script these checks, log results, and optionally integrate notifications.

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Nutanix Repository on GitHub

Benefits of Automating Cluster Health Checks

• No need to log into Prism for daily visibility
• Logs can be centralized or stored for audits
• Can trigger alerts for failed health states
• Useful for MSPs managing multiple clusters

Diagram: Automated Health Check Flow

Step-by-Step Bash Script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

# Location for health logs
logfile="/var/log/nutanix/cluster_health_$(date +'%F').log"

# Run the health check
echo "[$(date)] Running Nutanix cluster health check" >> "$logfile"
ncli cluster get-health >> "$logfile"

# Basic alert condition
if grep -qi 'FAIL' "$logfile"; then
    echo "[$(date)] ⚠️ Health check FAILED" >> "$logfile"
    # Optional: send email or webhook alert here
else
    echo "[$(date)] ✅ Cluster is healthy" >> "$logfile"
fi

Advanced Enhancements

1. Email Alerts

Integrate with mailx, sendmail, or an SMTP relay:

mailx -s "Nutanix Health Alert" admin@example.com < "$logfile"

2. Push to Monitoring Tools

Forward results to:

• Splunk using HTTP Event Collector (HEC)
• Logstash/Elastic for trend analytics
• Slack via curl webhook for team visibility

Scheduling the Health Check

Add the script to cron:

0 7 * * * /usr/local/bin/nutanix_health.sh

Runs daily at 7:00 AM and appends results to /var/log/nutanix.

Summary

With minimal setup, Nutanix cluster health checks can be fully automated. Bash and ncli provide a reliable, extensible way to gain insight into infrastructure status before users notice problems. Integrating alerts and logs further strengthens the value of this workflow.

External Documentation Link:

• Nutanix ncli Health Check Documentation