1.1. System Prerequisites

1.1.1. Host

The LOCKSS system runs on a physical or virtual host running the Linux kernel version 5.4 or later [1]. The Operating System section lists numerous suitable operating system choices, including many versions of AlmaLinux OS, Arch Linux, CentOS Stream, Debian, Fedora Linux, Linux Mint, OpenSUSE, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Rocky Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Ubuntu, and others.

1.1.2. CPU

The LOCKSS system runs on a 64-bit CPU with at least 4 CPU cores, preferably 8, depending on which components of the LOCKSS system you choose to run.

1.1.3. Memory

Likewise, the memory requirements also depend on which components of the LOCKSS system you choose to run. We recommend 32 GB of memory for modest applications, more for machines involved in sizeable applications (like the Global LOCKSS Network).

1.1.4. Storage

The LOCKSS system makes use of several storage areas:

  • Content storage areas: This is where all the preserved content preserved in the LOCKSS node is stored.

  • State data storage area: This is where databases (unless LOCKSS is configured to use external PostgreSQL and/or Solr databases) and other state data files used by the LOCKSS system are stored.

  • Temporary storage area: This is where temporary data files are written. LOCKSS makes heavy use of temporary storage.

  • Log storage area: This is where software logs generated by the LOCKSS system's components are written.

During configuration, the administrator must specify the location of these storage areas by supplying one or more directory paths. By default, the state data storage area, the temporary storage area, the log storage area, and the first content storage area go under a single directory, but different storage areas have different size and performance requirements:

  • For acceptable performance, we strongly recommend that the state data, temporary, and log storage areas be placed on locally-attached storage, not network-attached storage. Ideally, the content storage areas should also use locally-attached storage, but if necessary can use network-attached storage, such as NFS and iSCSI.

  • Depending on the characteristics of the preservation activities undertaken by the system, in some circumstances content processing may require a substantial amount of temporary space, up to tens of gigabytes. Do not use a RAM-based tmpfs volume, or a directory in a space-constrained partition, for the temporary storage area.

What's the Minimum for Experimentation?

To review the installation instructions and test the installation of K3s in various operating systems, we routinely install and bring up minimal LOCKSS 2.0-beta1, with no metadata services or Web replay engines, and with empty embedded PostgreSQL and Solr databases, in Vagrant virtual machines with Virtualbox using 2 CPU cores and 3 GB of memory. These minimal VMs would not support a production load, but it can be a useful tool to try out the installation instructions or evaluate the system.

Footnotes