Supported Linux Distributions
Simplyblock requires a Linux Kernel 5.19 or later with NVMe over Fabrics and NVMe over TCP enabled. However,
sbctl, the simplyblock commandline interface, requires some additional tools and expects certain
conventions for configuration files and locations. For plain Linux deployments, which are managed through
sbctl, simplyblock therefore officially only supports Red Hat-based Linux distributions as of now.
Kubernetes deployments do not use sbctl on the nodes. The distributions supported for the Kubernetes
worker nodes are listed below.
While others may work, manual intervention may be required, and simplyblock cannot support those.
Control Plane (Plain Linux)
The following Linux distributions are considered tested and supported to run a control plane:
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Support Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 9 and later | x64 | Fully supported |
| Rocky Linux | 9 and later | x64 | Fully supported |
| AlmaLinux | 9 and later | x64 | Fully supported |
Storage Plane (Plain Linux)
The following Linux distributions are considered tested and supported to run a disaggregated storage plane:
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Support Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Rocky Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| AlmaLinux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
Kubernetes Hyper-Converged: Control Plane and Storage Plane
The following Linux distributions are considered tested and supported to run a hyper-converged control and storage plane:
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Support Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Rocky Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Alma Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Ubuntu | 22.04 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Debian | 12 or later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) | - | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Amazon Linux 2023 | - | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise | 15 SP7 or later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| SUSE Linux Micro | 6.1 or later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Talos | 1.6.7 or later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported1 |
1 Talos is an immutable distribution shipping a minimal kernel module set. It requires a custom node image and additional preparation to load the required kernel modules and reserve huge pages. See Talos for details.
Hosts (Initiators accessing Storage Cluster over NVMf)
The following Linux distributions are considered tested and supported as NVMe-oF storage clients:
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Support Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 8.1 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| CentOS | 8 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Rocky Linux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| AlmaLinux | 9 and later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Ubuntu | 18.04 | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Ubuntu | 20.04 | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Ubuntu | 22.04 | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Debian | 12 or later | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Fully supported |
| Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) | - | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Partially supported2 |
| Amazon Linux 2023 | - | x86-64, ARM64 (AArch64) | Partially supported2 |
2 Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023 have a bug with NVMe over Fabrics Multipathing. That means that NVMe over Fabrics on any Amazon Linux operates in a degraded state with the risk of connection outages. Alternatively, multipathing must be configured using the Linux Device Manager (dm) via DM-MPIO.