System Requirements

The following table lists minimum recommended specifications for servers intended to support Greenplum Database in a production environment. Greenplum also provides hardware build guides for its certified hardware platforms. It is recommended that you work with a Greenplum Systems Engineer to review your anticipated environment to ensure an appropriate hardware configuration for Greenplum Database.

Table 1. System Prerequisites for Greenplum Database 4.3
Operating System SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2

CentOS 5.0 or higher

RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.0 or higher

Oracle Unbreakable Linux 5.5

Note: See the Greenplum Database Release Notes for current supported platform information.
File Systems
  • xfs required for data storage on SUSE Linux and Red Hat (ext3 supported for root file system)
Minimum CPU Pentium Pro compatible (P3/Athlon and above)
Minimum Memory 16 GB RAM per server
Disk Requirements
  • 150MB per host for Greenplum installation
  • Approximately 300MB per segment instance for meta data
  • Appropriate free space for data with disks at no more than 70% capacity
  • High-speed, local storage
Network Requirements 10 Gigabit Ethernet within the array

Dedicated, non-blocking switch
Software and Utilities bash shell

GNU tar

GNU zip

GNU ed (used by the Greenplum Database installer)
Important: For all Greenplum Database host systems, the SELinux must be disabled. Pivotal recommends that firewall software such as iptables also be disabled. You can enable iptables if it is required for security purposes. For information about enabling and configuring iptables, see Enabling iptables.

For example, this command checks the status of iptables when run as root:

# /sbin/chkconfig --list iptables

This is the output if iptables is disabled.

iptables 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off

This command checks the status of SELinux when run as root:

# sestatus
SELinuxstatus: disabled

One method of disabling iptables is to become root, run this command, and then reboot the system:

/sbin/chkconfig iptables off

You can disable SELinux by editing the /etc/selinux/config file. As root, change the value of the SELINUX parameter in the config file and reboot the system:

SELINUX=disabled

For information about disabling firewall software, see the documentation for the firewall or your operating system. For information about disabling SELinux, see the SELinux documentation.

Important: SSL is supported only on the Greenplum Database master host system. It is not supported on the segment host systems.