Ansible on Nutanix AHV Automation Complete Guide

Nutanix AHV is the native KVM-based hypervisor in the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCI). It's managed through Prism Central (multi-cluster) and Prism Element (per-cluster). Ansible automates AHV via the official nutanix.ncp collection, which targets Prism Central v3 and v4 APIs and covers VMs, categories, projects, images, subnets, and NCM Self-Service (formerly Calm) blueprints. This is the master Ansible guide for Nutanix AHV.

Nutanix release facts

| Item | Value | |---|---| | Hypervisor | AHV (KVM-based) | | Management | Prism Central (multi-cluster), Prism Element (per-cluster) | | APIs | v3 (mature), v4 (modern, OpenAPI) | | Ecosystem | NCM Self-Service (Calm), Flow Networking, Files, Objects |

See also: Ansible AWS: Complete Guide to Cloud Automation (2026)

Ansible-core compatibility

Use ansible-core 2.18 LTS:

collections:
  - name: nutanix.ncp
    version: ">=2.0.0"

Inventory / connection vars

# group_vars/nutanix.yml
nutanix_host: pc.lab.example.com
nutanix_username: admin
nutanix_password: "{{ vault_nutanix_password }}"
nutanix_port: 9440
validate_certs: false

See also: Ansible Become: Privilege Escalation with sudo, su & runas (Complete Guide)

Create a VM

- name: Create AHV VM via Prism Central
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Provision VM
      nutanix.ncp.ntnx_vms:
        nutanix_host: "{{ nutanix_host }}"
        nutanix_username: "{{ nutanix_username }}"
        nutanix_password: "{{ nutanix_password }}"
        validate_certs: false
        state: present
        name: app-01
        cluster:
          name: PROD-CLUSTER
        memory_gb: 8
        vcpus: 4
        cores_per_vcpu: 1
        networks:
          - is_connected: true
            subnet:
              name: vlan100
        disks:
          - type: DISK
            size_gb: 80
            bus: SCSI
        boot_config:
          boot_type: UEFI
          boot_order:
            - DISK
            - CDROM
            - NETWORK
        guest_customization:
          type: cloud_init
          script_path: ./cloud-init/app-01.yaml

Categories and projects

- name: Tag VM with categories
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Apply categories
      nutanix.ncp.ntnx_vms:
        nutanix_host: "{{ nutanix_host }}"
        nutanix_username: "{{ nutanix_username }}"
        nutanix_password: "{{ nutanix_password }}"
        validate_certs: false
        state: present
        name: app-01
        categories:
          Environment:
            - Production
          AppType:
            - Web

See also: Ansible check_mode: Dry Run & Test Playbooks Without Making Changes

Image upload

- name: Upload image to Prism Central
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Upload Ubuntu 24.04 cloud image
      nutanix.ncp.ntnx_images:
        nutanix_host: "{{ nutanix_host }}"
        nutanix_username: "{{ nutanix_username }}"
        nutanix_password: "{{ nutanix_password }}"
        validate_certs: false
        state: present
        name: ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg
        image_type: DISK_IMAGE
        source_uri: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/24.04/release/ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img"
        clusters:
          - name: PROD-CLUSTER

Run a Calm blueprint

- name: Launch a NCM Self-Service blueprint
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Launch blueprint
      nutanix.ncp.ntnx_blueprints:
        nutanix_host: "{{ nutanix_host }}"
        nutanix_username: "{{ nutanix_username }}"
        nutanix_password: "{{ nutanix_password }}"
        validate_certs: false
        state: present
        name: bp-three-tier-web
        project:
          name: WebApps

Best practices

• Manage Nutanix at the Prism Central layer, never per-Prism Element, for multi-cluster consistency. • Tag everything with categories; use them in Flow security policies and Self-Service entitlements. • Use API keys / service accounts with role-based access; avoid admin. • Pin to v4 API where supported; fall back to v3 for older modules. The collection abstracts this transparently.

Conclusion

Nutanix AHV + nutanix.ncp provides a clean Ansible interface for the entire Nutanix Cloud Platform — VMs, networking, images, categories, projects, and Self-Service blueprints. Standardize on Prism Central, categories, and version-pinned blueprints to manage Nutanix HCI at scale.