Chapter 2. System Requirements

Minimum system requirements

• 6 GB free disk space.
• 2 GB of RAM.

Recommended system requirements

• One processor core or hyper-thread for the maximum number of virtualized CPUs in a guest virtual machine and one for the host.
• 2 GB of RAM plus additional RAM for virtual machines.
• 6 GB disk space for the host, plus the required disk space for each virtual machine.
  Most guest operating systems will require at least 6GB of disk space, but the additional storage space required for each guest depends on its image format.
  For guest virtual machines using raw images, the guest's total required space (total for raw format) is equal to or greater than the sum of the space required by the guest's raw image files (images), the 6GB space required by the host operating system (host), and the swap space that guest will require (swap).

  Equation 2.1. Calculating required space for guest virtual machines using raw images

  total for raw format = images + host + swap
  For qcow images, you must also calculate the expected maximum storage requirements of the guest (total for qcow format), as qcow and qcow2 images grow as required. To allow for this expansion, first multiply the expected maximum storage requirements of the guest (expected maximum guest storage) by 1.01, and add to this the space required by the host (host), and the necessary swap space (swap).

  Equation 2.2. Calculating required space for guest virtual machines using qcow images

  total for qcow format = (expected maximum guest storage * 1.01) + host + swap

• an Intel processor with the Intel VT-x and Intel 64 extensions for x86-based systems, or
• an AMD processor with the AMD-V and the AMD64 extensions.

• files on local storage,
• physical disk partitions,
• locally connected physical LUNs,
• LVM partitions,
• NFS shared file systems,
• iSCSI,
• GFS2 clustered file systems,
• Fibre Channel-based LUNs, and
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).