VxRail: How to Provision the Primary Storage of a Dynamic Node Cluster

Summary: This article provides the guide on how to mount and provision the primary storage of Dynamic Node Cluster and enable runtime operations.

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Instructions

After deploying the cluster, it is necessary to follow the below steps to provision the primary storage and enable Day2 functionalities.

  1. Set up the vSAN network on the client cluster to access the remote datastore using vSphere UI.
VxRail Restrictions:
  • The Port Group for vSAN traffic must have two uplinks.
  • The VMK for vSAN traffic must be a dedicated one.
  • In case the VDS for vSAN HCI mesh is user provided, the VDS supports only two or four uplinks
  1. Enable HCI mesh function and mount remote datastore for Dynamic Node Cluster, refer to: Sharing Remote Datastores with HCI MeshThis hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies.
  2. Call the VxRail API to provision the primary storage and enable VxRail Day2 operations:
    1. Access VxRail onboard API documentation by entering the following address in a web browser
https://<VxRail_Manager_IP_or_FQDN>/rest/vxm/api-doc.html
 
In our example, the VxRail Manager IP is 172.16.10.200 so the URL becomes: https://172.16.10.200/rest/vxm/api-doc.html
 
Screenshot of API URL becoming https://172.16.10.200/rest/vxm/api-doc.html
  1. Go from the left side menu to System information → Provision and finalize a dynamic node cluster
Screenshot of dynamic cluster selection 
  1. From the right panel, enter necessary information for the API call. Complete the "Auth" section with vCenter administrator username and password.
Complete the "Body" section with:
  • primary_storage_type: "VSAN_HCI_MESH" for a vSAN HCI mesh cluster, or "EXTERNAL" for other storage type
  • primary_storage_name: Name of primary storage mounted to the cluster.
  • storage_policy_profile_name: The storage policy that is applied to VxRail Manager. This filed is optional, if not provided, by default it is "vSAN Default Storage Policy"
Screenshot of the API call
  1. Click Send Request, check the API response, ensure that it is returned with 200 OK. 

Alternatively, you can also run below command from VxRail manager SSH session with root account to call the API.

curl -k -u "<vc_user_name>:<vc_password>" --request POST 'https://127.0.0.1/rest/vxm/v1/system/primary-storage' --header 'Content-Type:application/json' --data-raw '{"primary_storage_type": "<storage_type>","primary_storage_name": "<storage_name>","storage_policy_profile_name": "<storage_policy_name>"}'

Additional Information

Dell Developer Documentation

Full developer documentation for the VxRail REST API and other Dell products is found on https://developer.dell.com/apis, filter by Hyperconverged Infrastructure to find the VxRail specific API.

screenshot of Dell Developer location 

Specific documentation for Provision and finalize a dynamic node cluster is found under System Information - Provision and finalize a dynamic node cluster:

specific documentation example 

Affected Products

VxRail, VxRail Appliance Series, VxRail Software
Article Properties
Article Number: 000185917
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 06 Mar 2026
Version:  8
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