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Version: 3.1

OpenShift vSphere prerequisites

Deprecation notice

Support for K3s is being discontinued; migrate to a supported Kubernetes platform.

Environment Prerequisites​

The minimum supported size for a Portworx cluster is three nodes. Each node must meet the following hardware, software, and network requirements:

Hardware
CPU4 cores minimum, 8 cores recommended
RAM4GB minimum, 8GB recommended
Disk
  • /var
  • /opt
  • 2GB free
  • 3GB free
Backing drive8GB (minimum required)
128 GB (minimum recommended)
Operating system root partition64 GB is the minimum required size for the root filesystem which contains the operating system
128 GB minimum recommended
Storage drivesStorage drives must be unmounted block storage: raw disks, drive partitions, LVM, or cloud block storage.
Network connectivityBandwidth:
  • 10 Gbps recommended
  • 1 Gbps minimum

Latency requirements for synchronous replication: less than 10ms between nodes in the cluster
Node typeVirtual machine (VM)
Software
Linux kernel and distroKernel version 3.10 or greater.
To check if your Linux distro and kernel are supported, see Supported Kernels.
Key-value storePortworx needs a key-value store to perform its operations. As such, install a clustered key-value database (kvdb) with a three node cluster.

You can also use Internal KVDB during installation. In this mode, Portworx will create and manage an internal key-value store (KVDB) cluster.

If you plan of using your own KVDB, refer to KVDB for Portworx for details on recommendations for installing and configuring a KVDB cluster.
Disable swapPlease disable swap on all nodes that will run the Portworx software. Ensure that the swap device is not automatically mounted on server reboot.
Hypervisor
VMware vSphere
  • Version 7.0
  • Version 8.0

Portworx network requirements​

Portworx runs as a pod in a Kubernetes cluster and uses specific ports for communication, data transfer, and telemetry.

note

Portworx also requires the following ports:

  • An open KVDB port. For example, if you're using etcd externally, open port 2379.
  • An open UDP port at 17002.
OpenShiftDescription
17001Portworx management port [REST]
17002Portworx node-to-node port [gossip]/UDP
17003Portworx storage data port
17004Portworx namespace [RPC]
17009Portworx node-to-node communication port [gRPC]
17010Portworx namespace driver [gRPC]
17011Portworx diags server port [gRPC]
17015Portworx kvdb peer-to-peer port [gRPC]
17016Portworx kvdb client service [gRPC]
17018Portworx gRPC SDK gateway [REST]
17019Portworx health monitor [REST]
17021Telemetry log uploader
20002Telemetry phone home

Supported disk types​

Portworx provides multiple disk types to meet different platform needs.

Cloud providerDisk types
vSphere
  • eagerzeroedthick
  • lazyzeroedthick
  • thin

Supported Kubernetes versions​

Before you install Portworx on Kubernetes, ensure that you're using a supported Kubernetes version:

Portworx Enterprise supported Kubernetes versions​

TypeSupported Versions
Red Hat OpenShift
  • OpenShift version: 4.12, verified up to 4.12.60, Kubernetes version: 1.25
  • OpenShift version: 4.13, verified up to 4.13.44, Kubernetes version: 1.26
  • OpenShift version: 4.14, verified up to 4.14.31, Kubernetes version: 1.27
  • OpenShift version: 4.15, verified up to 4.15.20, Kubernetes version: 1.28
  • OpenShift version: 4.16, verified up to 4.16.16, Kubernetes version: 1.29
  • Note: For OpenShift 4.16, Portworx Enterprise 3.1.3 or newer and Operator 24.1.1 or newer are required
  • Supports both bare metal and VM

Best practices​

Prevent Accidental Deletion: If your virtualization software has a feature to prevent accidental deletion, you should enable it for the VMs hosting PX nodes. While PX is designed to handle the loss of some nodes without issue, losing a significant number of storage nodes due to VM deletion can result in a loss of quorum and an outage. For more information on how to prevent accidental deletion of VM, refer to Maintaining Health of vSphere Cluster Services.

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