Environment¶

This section explains how to configure the controller and one compute node using the example architecture.

Although most environments include Identity, Image service, Compute, at least one networking service, and the dashboard, the Object Storage service can operate independently. If your use case only involves Object Storage, you can skip to Add the Object Storage service after configuring the appropriate nodes for it. However, the dashboard requires at least the Image service, Compute, and Networking.

You must use an account with administrative privileges to configure each node. Either run the commands as the root user or configure the sudo utility.

For best performance, we recommend that your environment meets or exceeds the hardware requirements in Hardware requirements. However, OpenStack does not require a significant amount of resources and the following minimum requirements should support a proof-of-concept environment with core services and several CirrOS instances:

• Controller Node: 1 processor, 2 GB memory, and 5 GB storage
• Compute Node: 1 processor, 2 GB memory, and 10 GB storage

To minimize clutter and provide more resources for OpenStack, we recommend a minimal installation of your Linux distribution. Also, you must install a 64-bit version of your distribution on each node.

A single disk partition on each node works for most basic installations. However, you should consider Logical Volume Manager (LVM) for installations with optional services such as Block Storage.

For first-time installation and testing purposes, many users elect to build each host as a virtual machine (VM). The primary benefits of VMs include the following:

• One physical server can support multiple nodes, each with almost any number of network interfaces.
• Ability to take periodic “snap shots” throughout the installation process and “roll back” to a working configuration in the event of a problem.

However, VMs will reduce performance of your instances, particularly if your hypervisor and/or processor lacks support for hardware acceleration of nested VMs.

For more information about system requirements, see the OpenStack Operations Guide.