Installation requirements

For your Anaconda Enterprise installation to complete successfully, your systems must meet the requirements outlined below. The installation requirements for Anaconda Enterprise are the same whether you choose to install the platform on-premises, hosted VSphere, or on a cloud server. There are cloud-specific requirements related to performance, however, so ensure your chosen cloud platform meets the minimum specifications outlined here before you begin.

The installer performs pre-flight checks, and only allows installation to continue on nodes that are configured correctly, and include the required kernel modules. If you want to perform the system check yourself, before installation, you can run the command on your intended master and worker nodes after you download and extract the installer.

When you initially install Anaconda Enterprise, you can install the cluster on one to five nodes. You are not bound to that initial configuration, however. After completing the installation, you can add or remove nodes on the cluster as needed. For more information, see Adding and removing nodes.

A rule of thumb for determining how to size your system is 1 CPU, 1GB of RAM and 5 GB of disk space for each project session or deployment. For more information about sizing for a particular component, see the following minimum requirements:


To use Anaconda Enterprise with a cloud platform, refer to Cloud performance requirements for cloud-specific performance requirements.

To use Spark Hadoop data sources with Anaconda Enterprise, refer to Installing Livy server for Hadoop Spark access and Configuring Livy server for Hadoop Spark access.

To verify your systems meet the requirements, see Verifying system requirements.


Note

To gain a deeper understanding of the considerations around Anaconda Enterprise system requirements, you may visit our Understanding Anaconda Enterprise system requirements topic.

Hardware requirements

The following are minimum specifications for the master and worker nodes, as well as the entire cluster.

Note

We recommend having 1 master and 1 worker per cluster.

Master node Minimum
CPU 16 cores
RAM 64GB
Disk space in /opt/anaconda 500GB*
Disk space in /var/lib/gravity 300GB**
Disk space in /tmp or $TMPDIR 50GB
Worker nodes Minimum
CPU 16 cores
RAM 64GB
Disk space in /var/lib/gravity 300GB
Disk space in /tmp or $TMPDIR 50GB

*NOTES regarding the minimum disk space in /opt/anaconda:

  • This total includes project and package storage (including mirrored packages).

  • Currently /opt and /opt/anaconda must be an ext4 or xfs filesystem, and cannot be an NFS mountpoint. Subdirectories of /opt/anaconda may be mounted through NFS. See Mounting an external file share for more information.

  • If you are installing Anaconda Enterprise on an xfs filesystem, it needs to support d_type to work properly. If your XFS filesystem has been formatted with the -n ftype=0 option, it won’t support d_type, and will therefore need to be recreated using a command similar to the following before installing Anaconda Enterprise:

    mkfs.xfs -n ftype=1 /path/to/your/device

**NOTES regarding the minumum disk space in /var/lib/gravity:

  • This volume MUST be mounted on local storage. Core components of Kubernetes run from this directory, some of which are extremely intolerant of disk latency. Network-Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions are susceptible to latency, and are therefore not supported.
  • This total includes additional space to accommodate upgrades, and is recommended to have available during installation as it can be difficult to add space after the fact.
  • We strongly recommend that you set up the /opt/anaconda and /var/lib/gravity partitions using Logical Volume Management (LVM), to provide the flexibility needed to accomodate easier future expansion.

To check the number of cores, run nproc.


Disk IOPS requirements

Master and worker nodes require a minimum of 3000 concurrent input/output operations per second (IOPS)–fewer than 3000 concurrent IOPS will fail. Cloud providers report concurrent disk IOPS.

Hard disk manufacturers report sequential IOPS, which are different than concurrent IOPS. On-premises installations require servers with disks that support a minimum of 50 sequential IOPS. We recommend using SSD or better.


Storage and memory requirements

Approximately 50GB of available free space on each node is required for the Anaconda Enterprise installer to temporarily decompress files to the /tmp directory during the installation process.

If adequate free space is not available in the /tmp directory, you can specify the location of the temporary directory to be used during installation by setting the TMPDIR environment variable to a different location.

EXAMPLE:

sudo TMPDIR=/tmp2 ./gravity install

Note

When using sudo to install, the temporary directory must be set explicitly in the command line to preserve TMPDIR. The master node and each worker node all require a temporary directory of the same size, and should each use the TMPDIR variable as needed.

To check your available disk space, use the built-in Linux df utility with the -h parameter for human readable format:

df -h /var/lib/gravity

df -h /opt/anaconda

df -h /tmp
# or
df -h $TMPDIR

To show the free memory size in GB, run:

free -g

Operating system requirements

  • Anaconda Enterprise cannot be installed with heterogeneous versions in the same cluster. Before installing, verify that all cluster nodes are operating the same version of the OS.

    Anaconda Enterprise currently supports the following Linux versions:

    • RHEL/CentOS 7.x, 8.x
    • Ubuntu 16.04
    • SUSE 12 SP2, 12 SP3 Requirement: Set DefaultTasksMax=infinity in /etc/systemd/system.conf.

    To find your operating system version run cat /etc/*release* or lsb-release -a.

  • Optionally create a new directory and set TMPDIR. User 1000 (or the UID for the service account) needs to be able to write to this directory. This means they can read, write and execute on the $TMPDIR.

    For example, to give write access to UID 1000, run the following command:

    sudo chown 1000 -R $TMPDIR

Note

When installing Anaconda Enterprise on a system with multiple nodes, verify that the clock of each node is in sync with the others prior to starting the installation process, to avoid potential issues. We recommend using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) to synchronize computer system clocks automatically over a network. See instructions here.

Security requirements

  • If you use an antivirus scanner, such as Auditd or Antivirus, ensure the scanner excludes the /var/lib/gravity folder from its security scans.

  • Verify you have sudo access.

  • Make sure that the firewall is permanently set to keep the required ports open, and will save these settings across reboots. Then restart the firewall to load these settings immediately.

    Various tools may be used to configure firewalls and open required ports, including iptables, firewall-cmd, susefirewall2, and others.

For all CentOS and RHEL nodes:

  • Ensure that SELinux is not in enforcing mode, by either disabling it or putting it in permissive mode in the /etc/selinux/config file.

After rebooting, run the following command to verify that SELinux is not being enforced:

~]~ getenforce

The result should be either Disabled or Permissive.


Kernel module requirements

The Anaconda Enterprise installer checks to see if the following modules required for Kubernetes to function properly are present, and alerts you if any are not loaded:

Linux Distribution Version Modules  
CentOS 7.2 bridge, ebtable_filter, ebtables, iptable_filter, overlay
RedHat Linux 7.2 bridge, ebtable_filter, ebtables, iptable_filter
CentOS 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 8.0 br_netfilter, ebtable_filter, ebtables, iptable_filter, overlay
RedHat Linux 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 8.0 br_netfilter, ebtable_filter, ebtables, iptable_filter, overlay
Ubuntu 16.04 br_netfilter, ebtable_filter, ebtables, ebtable_filter, iptable_filter, overlay
Suse 12 SP2, 12 SP3 br_netfilter, ebtable_filter, ebtables, iptable_filter, overlay
Module name Purpose
bridge Required for Kubernetes iptables-based proxy to work correctly
br_netfilter Required for Kubernetes iptables-based proxy to work correctly
overlay Required to use overlay or overlay2 Docker storage driver
ebtable_filter Required to allow a service to communicate back to itself via internal load balancing when necessary
ebtables Required to allow a service to communicate back to itself via internal load balancing when necessary
iptable_filter Required to make sure that the firewall rules that Kubernetes sets up function properly
iptable_nat Required to make sure that the firewall rules that Kubernetes sets up function properly

To check if a particular module is loaded, run the following command:

lsmod | grep <module_name>

If the command doesn’t produce any result, the module is not loaded.

Run the following command to load the module:

sudo modprobe <module_name>

If your system does not load modules at boot, run the following—for each module—to ensure they are loaded upon reboot:

sudo echo -e '<module_name>' > /etc/modules-load.d/<module_name>.conf

System control settings

Anaconda Enterprise requires the following sysctl settings to function properly:

System setting Purpose
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables Works with bridge kernel module to ensure Kubernetes iptables-based proxy works correctly
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables Works with bridge kernel module to ensure Kubernetes iptables-based proxy works correctly
fs.may_detach_mounts Can cause conflicts with the docker daemon, and leave pods in stuck state if not enabled
net.ipv4.ip_forward Required for internal load balancing between servers to work properly
fs.inotify.max_user_watches Set to 1048576 to improve cluster longevity

Run the following commands to set system control settings:

sudo sysctl -w <system_setting>=1

To persist system settings on boot, run the following for each setting:

sudo echo -e "<system_setting> = 1" > /etc/sysctl.d/10-<system_setting>.conf

Verifying system requirements

Anaconda Enterprise performs system checks during the install to verify CPU, RAM and other system requirements. The system checks can also be performed manually before the installation using the following commands from the installer directory, ~/anaconda-enterprise-<installer-version>.

Note

You can perform this check after downloading and extracting the installer.

To perform system checks on a master node, run the following command as sudo or root user:

sudo ./gravity check --profile ae-master

To perform system checks on a worker node, run the following command as sudo or root user:

sudo ./gravity check --profile ae-worker

If all of the system checks pass and all requirements are met, the output from the above commands will be empty. If the system checks fail and some requirements are not met, the output will indicate which system checks failed.


GPU requirements

To use GPUs with Anaconda Enterprise, you’ll need to install version 9.2 or 10.0 of the NVIDIA CUDA driver on the host operating system of any GPU worker nodes. You can install the drivers using the package manager or the Nvidia runfile or by using rpm (local) or rpm (network) for SLES, CentOS, and RHEL, and deb(local) or deb (network) for Ubuntu.

GPU deployments should use one of the following models:

  • Tesla V100 (recommended)
  • Tesla P100 (adequate)

Network requirements

Anaconda Enterprise requires the following network ports to be externally accessible:

Port Protocol Description
80 TCP Anaconda Enterprise UI (plaintext)
443 TCP Anaconda Enterprise UI (encrypted)
32009 TCP Operations Center Admin UI

These ports need to be externally accessible during installation only, and can be closed after completing the install process:

Port Protocol Description
4242 TCP Bandwidth checker utility
61009 TCP Install wizard UI access required during cluster installation
61008, 61010, 61022-61024 TCP Installer agent ports

The following ports are used for cluster operation, and therefore must be open internally, between cluster nodes:

Port Protocol Description
53 TCP and UDP Internal cluster DNS
2379, 2380, 4001, 7001 TCP Etcd server communication
3008-3012 TCP Internal Anaconda Enterprise service
3022-3025 TCP Teleport internal SSH control panel
3080 TCP Teleport Web UI
5000 TCP Docker registry
6443 TCP Kubernetes API Server
6990 TCP Internal Anaconda Enterprise service
7496, 7373 TCP Peer-to-peer health check
7575 TCP Cluster status gRPC API
8081, 8086-8091, 8095 TCP Internal Anaconda Enterprise service
8472 UDP Overlay network
9080, 9090, 9091 TCP Internal Anaconda Enterprise service
10248-10250, 10255 TCP Kubernetes components
30000-32767 TCP Kubernetes internal services range

You’ll also need to update your firewall settings to ensure that the 10.244.0.0/16 pod subnet and 10.100.0.0/16 service subnet are accessible to every node in the cluster, and grant all nodes the ability to communicate via their primary interface.

For example, if you’re using iptables:

iptables -A INPUT -s 10.244.0.0/16 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s 10.100.0.0/16 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s <node_ip> -j ACCEPT

Where <node_ip> specifies the internal IP address(es) used by all nodes in the cluster to connect to the AE5 master.


If you plan to use online package mirroring, you’ll need to whitelist the following domains:

  • repo.anaconda.com
  • anaconda.org
  • conda.anaconda.org
  • binstar-cio-packages-prod.s3.amazonaws.com

If any Anaconda Enterprise users will use the local graphical program Anaconda Navigator in online mode, they will need access to these sites, which may need to be whitelisted in your network’s firewall settings.


TLS/SSL certificate requirements

Anaconda Enterprise uses certificates to provide transport layer security for the cluster. To get you started, self-signed certificates are generated during the initial installation. You can configure the platform to use organizational TLS/SSL certificates after completing the installation.

You may purchase certificates commercially, or generate them using your organization’s internal public key infrastructure (PKI) system. When using an internal PKI-signed setup, the CA certificate is inserted into the Kubernetes secret.

In either case, the configuration will include the following:

  • a certificate for the root certificate authority (CA),
  • an intermediate certificate chain,
  • a server certificate, and
  • a certificate private key.

See Updating TLS/SSL certificates for more information.


DNS requirements

Web browsers use domain names and web origins to separate sites, so they cannot tamper with each other. Anaconda includes deployments from many users, and if these deployments had addresses on the same domain, such as https://anaconda.yourdomain.com/apps/001 and https://anaconda.yourdomain.com/apps/002, one app could access the cookies of the other, and JavaScript in one app could access the other app.

To prevent this potential security risk, Anaconda assigns deployments unique addresses such as https://uuid001.anaconda.yourdomain.com and https://uuid002.anaconda.yourdomain.com, where `` yourdomain.com`` is replaced with your organization’s domain name, and uuid001 and uuid002 is replaced with dynamically generated universally unique identifiers (UUIDs), for example.

To facilitate this, Anaconda Enterprise requires the use of wildcard DNS entries that apply to a set of domain names such as *.anaconda.yourdomain.com.

For example, if you are using the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) anaconda.yourdomain.com with a master node IP address of 12.34.56.78, the DNS entries would be as follows:

  anaconda.yourdomain.com IN A 12.34.56.78
*.anaconda.yourdomain.com IN A 12.34.56.78

The wildcard subdomain’s DNS entry points to the Anaconda Enterprise master node.

The master node’s hostname and the wildcard domains must be resolvable with DNS from the master nodes, the worker nodes, and the end user machines. To ensure the master node can resolve its own hostname, any /etc/hosts entries used must be propagated to the gravity environment.

Existing installations of dnsmasq will conflict with Anaconda Enterprise. If dnsmasq is installed on the master node or any worker nodes, you’ll need to remove it from all nodes before installing Anaconda Enterprise.

Run the following commands to ensure dnsmasq is stopped and disabled:

  • To stop dnsmasq: sudo systemctl stop dnsmasq
  • To disable dnsmasq: sudo systemctl disable dnsmasq
  • To verify dnsmasq is disabled: sudo systemctl status dnsmasq

Browser requirements

Anaconda Enterprise supports the following web browsers:

  • Chrome 39+
  • Firefox 49+
  • Safari 10+

The minimum browser screen size for using the platform is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high.

Note

JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebook don’t currently support Internet Explorer, so Anaconda Enterprise users will have to use another editor for their Notebook sessions if they choose to use that browser to access the AE platform.