Software requirements

IBM Spectrum Scale planning includes understanding the latest software requirements.

Note: This topic lists the additional software requirements to use specific functions after successful installation. It does not list the dependencies for installing IBM Spectrum Scale packages.
  • GPFS is supported on AIX®, Linux®, and Windows.
  • Kernel development files and compiler utilities are required to build the GPFS portability layer on Linux nodes. The required RPMs or packages for each supported Linux distribution are as follows:
    • Red Hat Linux RPMs
      • kernel-devel
      • cpp
      • gcc
      • gcc-c++
      • binutils
    • SLES Linux RPMs
      • kernel-default-devel
      • cpp
      • gcc
      • gcc-c++
      • binutils
    • Ubuntu Linux packages
      • linux-headers
      • cpp
      • gcc
      • g++
      • binutils

Software requirements for specific IBM Spectrum Scale functions

Additional software requirements to use specific functions after successful installation are as follows.
Required package for active file management (AFM)
nfs-utils

Required packages for Cluster Export Services (CES) and CNFS
  • ethtool
  • nfs-utils (on Ubuntu: nfs-common)
  • rpcbind
  • psmisc
  • iputils (on Ubuntu: iputils-arping)
  • ifupdown (only on Ubuntu:; there is no additional package requirement for RHEL/SLES)
Note: On a Linux node that is not a protocol node running the NFS service, it is recommended to disable the port mapper service (also called rpcbind).

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Requirements for file authentication

Before configuring file authentication, ensure that prerequisites are met to avoid installation failure. For more information, see Configuring authentication and ID mapping for file access.

You can use Active Directory (AD) authentication. For more information, seeIntegrating with AD server..

You can use LDAP authentication. For more information, see Integrating with LDAP server.

Required packages for performance monitoring
  • boost-regex on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • libboost_regex on SLES
  • libboost-regex-dev on Ubuntu Linux
Important: Ensure that these packages are installed on the system before the installation of the performance monitoring tool.
Required package for the IBM Spectrum Scale monitoring service on AIX and Linux
  • python 3.6
Requirements for the management GUI
The following packages must be installed on the node on which GUI needs to be installed:
  • PostgreSQL server including contrib package. The PostgreSQL server must be specific to the Linux distribution.
  • IBM Spectrum Scale Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) (gpfs.java RPM).
  • IBM Spectrum Scale performance collector (gpfs.pmcollector RPM).
  • openssl for HTTPS certificate management.
  • gpfs.gskit to use CCR.
Required packages for IBM Spectrum Scale for object storage
When the IBM Spectrum Scale object protocol is installed, the following SELinux packages are also installed:
  • selinux-policy-base at 3.13.1-23 or higher
  • selinux-policy-targeted at 3.12.1-153 or higher
Attention:
  • The object protocol is not supported in IBM Spectrum Scale 5.1.0.0. If you want to deploy object, install the IBM Spectrum Scale 5.1.0.1 or a later release.
  • If SELinux is disabled during installation of IBM Spectrum Scale for object storage, enabling SELinux after installation is not supported.
Required packages for clustered watch folder
Every node that is mounting the audited or watched file system must have the following packages installed:
  • For RHEL, the librdkafka package requires the openssl-devel and cyrus-sasl-devel packages.
  • For Ubuntu, the librdkafka package requires the libssl-dev and libsasl2-dev packages.
  • librdkafka (gpfs.librdkafka rpm/package).
For more information, see Requirements, limitations, and support for clustered watch folder.

Required package to use the mmchconfig numaMemoryInterleave parameter
numactl

Required package to use the mmhealth command on Ubuntu Linux
sqlite3

Required packages for mmprotocoltrace

Some of the advanced tracing components of the mmprotocoltrace command require specific packages to be installed on all nodes that need to participate in tracing related operations.

  • To enable network tracing with mmprotocoltrace, you need to install the tcpdump package.
  • To enable the syscalls-tracing for SMB, you need to install the strace package.

Prerequisites for the installation toolkit

For information on prerequisites for using the installation toolkit, see Preparing to use the installation toolkit.

For additional prerequisites on Linux, see Installation prerequisites.

Consult the IBM Spectrum Scale FAQ in IBM® Documentation for the latest list of:
  • AIX environments
  • Linux distributions
  • Linux kernel versions
  • Windows environments