host-reqs.md

copyright	years 2020, 2026
lastupdated	2026-08-27
keywords	satellite, hybrid, multicloud, endpoint capacity, endpoint limits, location endpoint limits, location endpoints, cloud endpoints, IBM Cloud Satellite, host setup, host system requirements
subcollection	satellite

{{site.data.keyword.attribute-definition-list}}

Host system requirements for {{site.data.keyword.satelliteshort}}

{: #host-reqs}

Review the host system requirements for {{site.data.keyword.satellitelong_notm}}, including OS support and compute characteristics. {: shortdesc}

You can add hosts from other cloud providers to your location. For more information, see Cloud infrastructure providers.

• If you plan on deploying {{site.data.keyword.redhat_openshift_notm}} clusters, make sure the operating system that you want to use for your hosts is supported for your location type and cluster version. For more information, see {{site.data.keyword.redhat_openshift_notm}} version information.
• Make sure that you use official Red Hat certified hardware{: external}.
• If you cannot meet these host requirements, contact {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} Support and include the following information: the host system configuration that you want, why you want the system configuration, and how many hosts you intend to create.

You can verify your host setup with the satellite-host-check script. For more information, see Checking your host setup. {: tip}

Host operating system support

{: #host-os-support-table}

Review the following operating system support table for each Location type.

Host OS	Satellite Control Plane support	Worker node OS support
RHCOS	Yes	Yes
RHEL 9	Yes	OpenShift 4.17 and later
RHEL 8	No	OpenShift 4.17 and earlier
{: class="simple-tab-table"}
{: caption="CoreOS enabled locations" caption-side="bottom"}
{: #os-support-1}
{: tab-title="CoreOS enabled locations"}
{: tab-group="os-table"}

Host OS	Satellite Control Plane support	Worker node OS support
RHCOS	No	No
RHEL 9	Yes	OpenShift 4.17 and later
RHEL 8	No	OpenShift 4.17 and earlier
{: class="simple-tab-table"}
{: caption="Non-CoreOS enabled locations" caption-side="bottom"}
{: #os-support-2}
{: tab-title="Non-CoreOS enabled locations"}
{: tab-group="os-table"}

Computing characteristics

{: #reqs-host-compute}

• Hosts must support x86-64-v2 architecture.

• Hosts must run the latest OS with a kernel that is supported by {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} Cloud Satellite. Other operating systems like Windows, other mainframe systems like IBM Z or IBM Power, or other kernel versions are not supported.

  • For the latest kernel information, see {{site.data.keyword.redhat_openshift_notm}} on {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} Cloud version information.

• Make sure that you use minimal RHEL images. Do not install the LAMP stack. Do not install virtualization technologies on the hosts, including libvirtd or docker.

• Hosts can be physical or virtual machines. However, if your hosts are cloned virtual machines, be sure that each one has a unique network identity. For more information, see Why aren't my hosts attaching to my location?.

• Red Hat CoreOS hosts must meet minimum sizing requirements and sufficient storage capacity.

• RHEL hosts must meet minimum sizing requirements and sufficient storage capacity.

• RHEL hosts must have the SELINUX=enforcing policy set. You can verify that this policy is set by running the sestatus command and looking for SELinux status: enabled in the output.

• If your host includes GPU compute, make sure that you install the Node Feature Discovery and NVIDIA GPU operators. For more information, see the prerequisite steps in Deploying an app on a GPU machine.

• Hostnames can contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters, -, or ..

• Hosts must have an ext4 file system for the boot disk.

Red Hat CoreOS (RHCOS) packages and other machine configurations

{: #reqs-host-packages-rhcos}

Find a Red Hat CoreOS image{: external} for your system and make it available to your cloud provider. You can use any supported RHCOS image for your host.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) packages and other machine configurations

{: #reqs-host-packages}

Hosts must have access to RHEL updates and the following packages. {: shortdesc}

For RHEL 9

Repository 'rhel-9-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms' is enabled for this system.
Repository 'rhel-9-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms' is enabled for this system.

{: screen}

After the host is created, do not install any additional packages, configuration, or other customizations to your hosts. For more information, see Why can't I install extra software like vulnerability scanning tools on my host?. {: important}

If required packages are missing, refresh your packages on the host machine. For example, in {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} Cloud infrastructure you can run the following commands to add the required packages.

1. Refresh the {{site.data.keyword.redhat_notm}} packages on your machine.

   subscription-manager refresh

   {: pre}

2. Enable the package repositories on your machine.

   RHEL 9:

   subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-9-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms
   subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-9-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms

   {: pre}

   RHEL 8:

   subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms
   subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms

   {: pre}

For more information about how to enable the RHEL packages in hosts that you add from other cloud providers, see Cloud infrastructure providers.