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Nutanix MCP Server

This lab walks through a Nutanix Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to get details from a Nutanix Prism cluster using MCP implementation.

This lab is aimed to illustrate implementing MCP servers on Nutanix using Nutanix solutions (NKP and NAI).

Warning

MCP Nutanix is an experimental project at this time. See Nutanix MCP gitrepo for details.

This project was created as a personal project to explore the capabilities of the Model Context Protocol frameworks in Go. It is:

  • NOT an official Nutanix product or tool
  • NOT supported, endorsed, or maintained by Nutanix
  • NOT suitable for production environments
  • PROVIDED AS-IS with no warranties or guarantees

Lab Duration

Estimated time to complete this lab is 30 minutes provided NKP and NAI are ready to use

Pre-requisites

  • Nutanix Kubernetes Platform NKP cluster v1.16 or later deployed, accessible via kubectl. See NKP Deployment for NKP install instructions.
  • Nutanix CSI driver installed for storage integration. (pre-installed with NKP)
  • Networking configured to allow communication between the Kubernetes cluster and NAI.
  • Envoy Gateway controller installed for external access (pre-installed during NAI install)
  • Optional - Traefik Ingress controller installed for external access (pre-installed during NAI install)
  • Linux Tools VM or equivalent environment with kubectl, helm, curl, and jq installed.
  • NAI v2.4.0 or later server credentials and hosted LLM (gemini 2B as an example)
  • Optional - access to publicly available LLM

High-Level Overview

  1. Deploy Toolhive Operator in NKP (kubernetes) cluster
  2. Deploy MCP server for Nutanix in NKP cluster
  3. Configure Ingress for Nutanix MCP Server
  4. Install VSCode Cline Client with MCP Server
  5. Install n8n AI workflow automation tool
  6. Configure n8n MCP Client to connect to Nutanix MCP Server and chat (ask questions)

Deploy Toolhive Operator in NKP (kubernetes) cluster

Install THV

Toolhive is used to simplify deployment and management of MCP servers.

We will install THV on the jumpbox to build our MCP server.

  1. Log in to your Linux Tools VM (e.g., via SSH as ubuntu).

  2. Download and install stable thv binaries

    mkdir $HOME/mcp
cd $HOME/mcp
curl -o toolhive_0.3.7_linux_amd64.tar.gz "https://github.com/stacklok/toolhive/releases/download/v0.3.7/toolhive_0.3.7_linux_amd64.tar.gz"

    tar -xzf toolhive_0.3.7__amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv thv /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/thv

  3. Verify thv version

    thv version

    ToolHive v0.3.7
Commit:.  abb22d80a5321342530583bbc82aeadef718e943
Built: 2025-10-06 08:45:05 UTC
Go version: go1.24.4
Platform: linux/amd64

Prepare MCP Server Image

  1. Login to VSC on the jumphost VM, append the following environment variables to the $HOME\mcp\.env file and save it

    export REGISTRY_URL=_your_registry_url
export REGISTRY_HOST=_your_registry_host
export REGISTRY_USERNAME=_your_registry_username
export REGISTRY_PASSWORD=_your_registry_password
export REGISTRY_CACERT=_path_to_ca_cert_of_registry  # (1)!
    1. File must contain CA server and Harbor server's public certificate in one file
    export REGISTRY_URL=https://harbor.10.x.x.111.nip.io/nkp
export REGISTRY_URL=harbor.10.x.x.111.nip.io/nkp
export REGISTRY_USERNAME=admin
export REGISTRY_PASSWORD=xxxxxxxx
export REGISTRY_CACERT=$HOME/harbor/certs/full_chain.pem

  2. Create Docker file to build MCP server image for Nutanix

    thv build --tag mcp-nutanix:latest go://github.com/thunderboltsid/mcp-nutanix@latest -o Dockerfile

  3. Create container image

    thv build --tag mcp-nutanix:latest go://.

  4. Validate that docker architecture matches linux/amd64

    docker image inspect mcp-nutanix:latest --format '{{.Architecture}}{{.Os}}'

    amd64linux

  5. Upload to a private container registry to be able to deploy in Kubernetes

    docker login ${REGISTRY_HOST} -u ${REGISTRY_USERNAME} -p ${REGISTRY_PASSWORD}
docker tag mcp-nutanix:latest ${REGISTRY_HOST}/mcp-nutanix:latest
docker push ${REGISTRY_HOST}/mcp-nutanix:latest

    Login Succeeded

The push refers to repository [harbor.10.x.x.124/nkp/mcp-nutanix]
667e3f0433e8: Pushed 
d03eeff57712: Pushed 
73e1ce48ffe2: Pushed 
06fb002250ae: Pushed 
256f393e029f: Pushed 
latest: digest: sha256:852ca2e96f5a288e10cd058c38dc5a22ffb7003b41cda5faa28ba794d36154e6 size: 1363

  6. Configure kubectl to access your NKP Kubernetes cluster:

    export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/_nkp_install_dir/nkpclustername.conf

    export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/nkp/nkpdev.conf

  7. Install MCP server CRD in Kubernetes cluster

    helm upgrade -i toolhive-operator-crds \
oci://ghcr.io/stacklok/toolhive/toolhive-operator-crds

    oci://ghcr.io/stacklok/toolhive/toolhive-operator-crds
Release "toolhive-operator-crds" does not exist. Installing it now.
Pulled: ghcr.io/stacklok/toolhive/toolhive-operator-crds:0.0.33
Digest: sha256:aa24f2ddcd93b0582a5f9edf3465bdab835d62e6dcbf969f63666604815f502e
NAME: toolhive-operator-crds
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Oct 10 02:30:44 2025
NAMESPACE: n8n
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None

  8. Install Toolhive operator

    helm upgrade -i toolhive-operator \
oci://ghcr.io/stacklok/toolhive/toolhive-operator \
-n toolhive-system --create-namespace

    Release "toolhive-operator" does not exist. Installing it now.
Pulled: ghcr.io/stacklok/toolhive/toolhive-operator:0.2.20
Digest: sha256:ad78fd2ca7c8eac82ac3d071b6a110853095b66c22e0cc4d6f2e6a9d03aea69a
NAME: toolhive-operator
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Oct 10 02:34:29 2025
NAMESPACE: toolhive-system
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None

  9. Verify Toolhive installation

    kubens toolhive-system
kubectl get pods

    NAME                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
toolhive-operator-5bcb8dbfd4-2zmzw   1/1     Running   0          53s

Deploy MCP server for Nutanix in NKP cluster

  1. Append the following variables to .env file for Nutanix Prism information

    export NUTANIX_USERNAME=_your_nutanix_username
export NUTANIX_PASSWORD=_your_nutanix_password
export NUTANIX_ENDPOINT=_your_prism_central_fqdn

    export NUTANIX_USERNAME=admin
export NUTANIX_PASSWORD=xxxxxxxx
export NUTANIX_ENDPOINT=pc.example.com

  2. Create docker registry secret to pull mcp-nutanix image from private harbor repository

    kubectl create secret docker-registry regcred \
--docker-server=${REGISTRY_URL} \
--docker-username=${REGISTRY_USERNAME} \
--docker-password=${REGISTRY_PASSWORD} \
-n toolhive-system

  3. Deploy MCP server for Nutanix using the pushed image from private harbor repository

    cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: toolhive.stacklok.dev/v1alpha1
kind: MCPServer
metadata:
  name: nutanix
  namespace: toolhive-system
spec:
  image: ${REGISTRY_HOST}/mcp-nutanix:latest
  transport: stdio
  port: 8080
  permissionProfile:
    type: builtin
    name: network
  env:
  - name: NUTANIX_ENDPOINT
    value: "${NUTANIX_ENDPOINT}"
  - name: NUTANIX_USERNAME
    value: "${NUTANIX_USERNAME}"
  - name: NUTANIX_PASSWORD
    value: "${NUTANIX_PASSWORD}"
  - name: NUTANIX_INSECURE
    value: "true"
  podTemplateSpec:
    spec:
      imagePullSecrets:
      - name: regcred
      containers:
        - name: mcp
          resources:
            limits:
              cpu: "500m"
              memory: "512Mi"
            requests:
              cpu: "100m"
              memory: "128Mi"
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: "100m"
      memory: "128Mi"
    requests:
      cpu: "50m"
      memory: "64Mi"
EOF

  4. Check the health of the MCPServer resource and make sure it is running

    kubectl get mcpserver

    NAME      STATUS    URL                                                               AGE
nutanix   Running   http://mcp-nutanix-proxy.toolhive-system.svc.cluster.local:8080   78s

  5. Expose MCP Server Ingress for external access. We will be using the pre-deployed Traefik ingress that comes with NKP and expose MCP server as a subdomain.

  6. Get the IP address of the NKP pre-deployed Traefik Ingress

    INGRESS_IP=$(kubectl get ingress kommander-kommander-ui -n kommander -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')

    kubectl apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: mcp-nutanix-proxy-ingress
  namespace: toolhive-system
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: kommander-traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.tls: "false"
spec:
  rules:
  - host: mcp-nutanix.${INGRESS_IP}.io
    http:
      paths:
      - backend:
          service:
            name: mcp-nutanix-proxy
            port:
              number: 8080
        path: /
        pathType: Prefix
EOF

  7. Check the health of MCPServer resource

    curl -k https://mcp-nutanix.10.x.x.215.nip.io/health

    {"status":"healthy","timestamp":"2025-10-10T02:57:16.51932436Z","version":{"version":"v0.3.7","commit":"abb22d80a5321342530583bbc82aeadef718e943","build_date":"2025-10-06 11:31:07 +0300","go_version":"go1.24.4","platform":"linux/amd64"},"transport":"stdio","mcp":{"available":true,"response_time_ms":0,"last_checked":"2025-10-10T02:57:16.519338081Z"}}

  8. Test the health of SSE endpoints

    curl -k -N -H "Accept: text/event-stream" https://mcp-nutanix.10.x.x.215.nip.io/sse#mcp-nutanix

    event: message
data: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"ping_1760065217411075629","result":{}}

event: message
data: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"ping_1760065222410782180","result":{}}

Testing MCP Server

Using Cline

Tip

Cline Documentation for MCP server setup instructions.

  1. In VSCode > Go to Settings > Extensions
  2. Search for Cline and Install (from the official developer Cline Inc.)
  3. Sign up for Cline (for free LLM usage)
  4. Use your favourtie LLM
  5. Click the MCP Servers icon in the top navigation bar of the Cline extension
  6. Select the Configure tab, and then Click the Configure MCP Servers link at the bottom of that pane.

  7. Cline will open a new settings config file in VSCode. Paste the following after changing your MCP server and Nutanix PC connection details

    {
"mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-name": {
      "disabled": true,
      "timeout": 60,
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp-nutanix.${INGRESS_IP}.nip.io/sse#mcp-nutanix",
        "--allow-http",
        "--transport sse-only"
      ],
      "env": {
        "NUTANIX_ENDPOINT": "$NUTANIX_ENDPOINT",
        "NUTANIX_USERNAME": "$NUTANIX_USERNAME",
        "NUTANIX_PASSWORD": "$NUTANIX_PASSWORD",
        "NUTANIX_INSECURE": "true"
      }
    }
}
}

    {
  "mcpServers": {
    "nutanix-pc": {
      "disabled": true,
      "timeout": 60,
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp-nutanix.10.x.x.215.nip.io/sse#mcp-nutanix",
        "--allow-http",
        "--transport sse-only"
      ],
      "env": {
        "NUTANIX_ENDPOINT": "pc.example.com",
        "NUTANIX_USERNAME": "admin",
        "NUTANIX_PASSWORD": "XXXXXXXXXXX",
        "NUTANIX_INSECURE": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

  8. Save the Cline extension config file

  9. Go to Cline chat and ask questions about the Nutanix PC environment