perfSONAR Hardware and Software Requirements

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Hardware

A perfSONAR node should preferably be a physical node, rather than a VM or container. While these tools will work more or less the same in any case, the fact that other VMs/containers are sharing the same underlying resources can affect the overall accuracy of test data generated.

Minimum (Suitable for < 1Gbps throughput testing)

  • x86 or x86_64 CPU (2-core minimum)

  • Clock speed of at least 2 Ghz

  • At least 4GB of RAM

  • Local Storage

  • If only doing measurements, then no local storage is needed

  • Otherwise, at least 100GB of storage

Recommended (Suitable for 10Gbps+ throughput testing)

  • x86 or x86_64 CPU (4-core minimum)
  • Clock speed of at least 2.7 - 3 Ghz
  • Motherboard: Intel Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge
    • More generally, depends on choice of NIC to have PCI slots with enough lanes to support full bandwidth of the card (see NIC section)
    • Supporting PCI version 3 is preferable
  • At least 4GB of RAM
    • 16GB if being used for a central repository of data (e.x. MaDDash)
  • Local Storage
    • If only doing measurements, then no local storage is needed
    • Otherwise, at least 100GB of storage
  • NIC
    • Prefer PCI-slot NIC to Onboard NIC if throughput tests are used
    • At least a 10G card
    • Main consideration is about having necessary PCI lanes
      • 10G cards usually require x4 - x8 PCI lanes
      • 40G/100G cards usually require more (up to x16)

Software

OS

  • CentOS 7 (recommended)
    • ISOs with perfSONAR pre-installed are available http://downloads.perfsonar.net/toolkit/
      • For systems with a stable network connection available during installation, it’s recommended to use the NetInstall ISO to ensure the systems has up-to-date packages
      • For systems without a stable network connection, a FullInstall ISO is also provided. Packages should be updated as soon as possible after installation
    • Currently, CentOS alternatives like Rocky Linux and Alma Linux do not appear to be viable candidates for perfSONAR, as there are no plans by the developers to create CentOS 8 packages.
      • The next version of perfSONAR will be packaged for Alma Linux at least, with possible compatibility with Rocky Linux.
  • Ubuntu

Firewall Rules

The following ports/services should be allowed through firewalls for perfSONAR to work.

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