RHEL Minimum Requirements

RHEL 5 To RHEL 8 Minimum Requirement and Maximum Limit of Hardware

RHEL Minimum Requirements

RHEL 5 To RHEL 8 Minimum Requirement and Maximum Limit of Hardware

 In this article, we will talk about the minimum requirement and maximum limit of our production favorite OS in maximum datacenters. For any system admin, these are the most important things when they working in any production environment where any amount of resource can generate revenue.

As we all know who work in Linux system in any production environment, the common issue we face is system load. So before designing any solution for production we have to know about hardware requirements for OS and their applications. 

The minimum requirement will help us in stating a project that minimum cost to start a project because there will be no revenue generated from a new project.

The maximum limit helps us to forecast for new hardware and cluster which help the production environment to run smoothly.

Maximum logical CPUs

Architecture RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
x86 32 32 Not Applicable Not Applicable
Itanium 2 256 [1024] Not Applicable Not Applicable Not Applicable
x86_64 160 [255] 448 [4096]13 768  768 [8192]
POWER 128 128 768  POWER8: 768 
        POWER9: 1536 
System z 64 (z13) 64 (z13) 256 (z13) 340 (z14)
ARM N/A N/A N/A 256

Minimum logical CPUs

We can use 2 CPU for any RHEl version OS installation 

Maximum memory

Architecture RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
x86 16GB2 16GB2 Not Applicable Not Applicable
Itanium 2 2TB Not Applicable Not Applicable Not Applicable
x86_64 1TB 12TB [64TB] 12TB [64TB] 24TB [64TB]
POWER 512GB [1TB] 2TB 32TB17 POWER8: 32TB [128TB]
        POWER9: 64TB [128TB]
System z 4TB (z13) 4TB (z13) 10TB (z13) 16TB (z14)
ARM N/A N/A N/A 1.5TB [256TB]
Maximum x86 per-process virtual address space Approx. 3GB2 Approx. 3GB Not Applicable Not Applicable
Maximum x86_64 per-process virtual address space 2TB 128TB 128TB 128TB
Maximum POWER per-process virtual address space       4PB19

Minimum Required Memory

Architecture RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
x86 512MB minimum, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended 512MB minimum, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended Not Applicable Not Applicable
Itanium 2 512MB, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended Not Applicable Not Applicable Not Applicable
x86_64 512MB minimum, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended 1GB minimum, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended 1GB minimum, 1 GB per logical CPU recommended18 1.5GB minimum, 1.5GB per logical CPU recommended18
POWER 1GB minimum, 2GB recommended 2GB minimum, 2GB required per install 2GB minimum, 2GB required per install 2GB minimum, 2GB required per install
System z 512MB 512MB 1GB 1GB minimum, 2GB required for installation
ARM N/A N/A N/A 2GB

Minimum Required Disk Space

RHEL 3 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
800MB 1GB minimum, 5GB recommended 10GB minimum, 20GB recommended 10GB minimum, 20GB recommended

File Systems And Storage Limits

Ext3        
         
Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum file size 2TB 2TB 2TB 2TB
Maximum file system size 16TB 16TB 16TB 16TB
Maximum subdirectories 32000 32000 32000 32000
Maximum symlink depth 8 8 8 8
ACL support Yes Yes Yes Yes
         
Ext4        
         
Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum file size 16TB 16TB 16TB 16TB
Maximum file system size 16TB [1EB] 16TB [1EB] 50TB [1EB] 50TB [1EB]
Maximum subdirectories 65000/unlimited 65000/unlimited 65000/unlimited 65000/unlimited
Maximum symlink depth 8 8 8 8
ACL support Yes Yes Yes Yes
         
GFS        
         
Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum file size 16TB [8EB]4 N/A N/A N/A
Maximum file system size 16TB [8EB]4 N/A N/A N/A
Maximum subdirectories unlimited
Maximum symlink depth unlimited
ACL support Yes
         
GFS2        
         
Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum file size 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB]
Maximum file system size 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB]
Maximum subdirectories unlimited unlimited unlimited
Maximum symlink depth unlimited unlimited unlimited
ACL support Yes Yes Yes
         
XFS        
         
Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum file size 100TB [8EB] 100TB [8EB] 500TB [8EB] 8EB
Maximum file system size 100TB [16EB] 300TB [16EB]15 500TB [16EB] 1PB
Maximum subdirectories unlimited unlimited unlimited unlimited
Maximum symlink depth 8 8 8 8
ACL support Yes Yes Yes Yes

Storage

Feature RHEL 5 RHEL 6 RHEL 7 RHEL 8
Maximum Boot LUN size (BIOS) 2TB 2TB 2TB 2TB
Maximum Boot LUN size (UEFI) N/A 32bit (i686) – 2TB 50TB 8EB
    64bit – 16TB (tested limit)    
Maximum number of device paths (SDX devices) 1,024  8,192  10,000  10,000 
These requirements are at the time of article. As per our experience, only RHEL 8 requirement will change because RHEL8 is still in development mode. 
Hope this article will help you and your company solution architect to design an optimal solution for customers. If you are going to startup with RHEL os then you know how much minimum required hardware you need to purchase for your production and testing.
Sharing is Caring

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *