VM Squared
Docs
VM Squared

Installation Requirements

VM Squared is designed to automate and accelerate your setup process, and will configure itself based on the hardware you provide. Be aware that VM Squared will attempt to utilize all hardware available on the hosts so you should disconnect any disks or network cards that you do not intend to use.

Please read these instructions to ensure you have a smooth start to your VM Squared journey.

System requirements

  • ≥ 2x drives
    • 1x boot drive (at least 8GB)
    • 1x data drive (at least 100GB)
  • ≥ 16GB RAM
  • X86_64 compatible CPU that supports AMD’s AMD-V or Intel’s VT-x
  • 64-bit UEFI-capable System or Legacy BIOS boot as fallback
  • ≥ 1x NIC (at least 1Gb/s, ≥10Gb/s recommended)

Warning - VM Squared will use all available NICs

Only install or activate NICs intended to be part of the VM Squared cluster.

Disconnect NICs that will not be used for VM Squared.

Storage requirements

Prepare your install disks

Connect only disks or LUNs that will be used for VM Squared.

At a minimum VM Squared requires:

  • One disk of at least 8GB for VM Squared
  • At least 3 hosts with additional disks for VM data
  • Additional disks of at least 100GB can be used for VM data

Warning - VM Squared will use all available disks

All discovered disks will be erased as part of the installation process.

All data will be destroyed. This action is irreversible.

Directly attach disks

Dedicated disks or LUNs per node (not shared); as close to raw disk as possible.

Directly attaching disks improves performance and enables VM Squared to automatically respond to disk errors. RAID controllers can hide disk problems and obfuscate details of the underlying disk technology which limits VM Squared’s ability to optimize storage.

Do not use RAID group LUNs unless absolutely necessary.

JBOD mode is recommended, this presents the raw disks to the OS.

If you must use RAID groups then create single-drive RAID0 volumes.

Network requirements

Only install or activate NICs intended to be part of the VM Squared cluster.

Disconnect NICs that will not be used for VM Squared.

Network links will be used in this order of preference

  1. Active LACP bond across multiple NICs will be auto-detected.
  • only a single bond will be detected
  1. Active LACP bonding across multiple NICs will be auto-detected.
  • Multiple NICs without active LACP will use Adaptive Transmit Load Balancing.
  1. A single NIC will be used if it is the only active NIC

TLB will load-balance outbound traffic, inbound traffic will use a single NIC but can failover to alternate inbound NICs. No switch bonding configuration is required.

Load VM Squared Installer

  • Installer can be burned as a CD ROM image
  • Installer can be burned to a USB drive
  • BMC Remote consoles can also mount the Installer

Cluster Management and VM traffic will use the same untagged network by default, VLANs can be used to separate VM traffic as needed.

Next steps

If your system meets the installation requirements you can:

Prev
Learn VM Squared
Next
Introduction