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Version: 3.1

Prerequisites in airgapped EKS

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 typeBare metal and virtual machine (VM)
Network
Open needed portsPortworx requires different open ports depending on how it's installed:
  • Spec-based installations require all Portworx nodes to have open TCP ports at 9001-9022 and an open UDP port at 9002.
  • Telemetry components require the following open ports: 9024, 12001, and 12002. If you are on Portworx version 2.13.7 and older, open port 9024 for telemetry. If you are on Portworx version 2.13.8 and newer, use port 9029 for telemetry. Ensure you are running Portworx Operator version 23.7.0 and higher to configure this port for Telemetry.
  • Portworx also requires an open KVDB port. For example, if you're using etcd externally, open port 2379.
  • If you intend to use Portworx with sharedv4 volumes, you may need to open your NFS ports.
Domain AllowlistingFor environments with locked down network connectivity, Portworx requires different domains to be allowlisted depending on how it's installed:
  • Telemetry requires the following domains to be allowlisted: pxessentials.portworx.com:443, register.cloud-support.purestorage.com:443, and rest.cloud-support.purestorage.com:443
Software
Linux kernel and distroKernel version 3.10 or greater.
To check if your Linux distro and kernel are supported, see Supported Kernels.
DockerVersion 1.13.1 or greater.
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 swapDisable swap on all nodes that will run the Portworx software. Ensure that the swap device is not automatically mounted on server reboot.
Network Time Protocol (NTP)All nodes in the cluster should be in sync with NTP time. Any time drift between nodes can cause unexpected behaviour, impacting services.

Supported disk types

Cloud providerDisk types
AWS
  • GP2
  • GP3
  • IO1

Supported Kubernetes versions

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

Portworx Enterprise supported Kubernetes versions

note

K3s users: You must use CSI integration to generate/use PVCs.

TypeSupported Versions
EKS
  • 1.23
  • 1.24
  • 1.25
  • 1.26.10
  • 1.27.9
  • 1.28.5
  • 1.29.3
KOPS
  • 1.28.0
  • 1.29.0

Air-gapped prerequisites

If you intend to use the sharedv4 feature, your host systems must be running the NFS service. For more information on options for installing the NFS service, refer to the installation article for air-gapped clusters.

Best practices

Prevent Accidental Deletion: If your virtualization software has a feature to prevent accidental deletion, you should enable it for the instances 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 instance deletion can result in a loss of quorum and an outage. For more information on how to prevent accidental deletion of instance, refer to Enable termination protection on Amazon EC2 instance.

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