This section discusses the deployment prerequisites for installing the NSX Advanced Load Balancer in LSC.

Hardware Requirements

Each Linux server to be managed by the NSX Advanced Load Balancer must meet at least the following physical requirements:

Docker local storage (default /var/lib/docker) must be at least 18 GB to run NSX Advanced Load Balancer containers. If the Load Balancer SE is instantiated through the cloud UI, add 5 GB to run it.

By default, the Docker devicemapper storage driver is configured in loop-lvm storage mode, which is only recommended for testing. NSX Advanced Load Balancer recommends configuration of the driver according to Docker Best Practices for Controller hosts which will be used for production.

Note:

See Docker storage drivers for recommendations on choosing a storage driver.

You need to turn off IOMMU if SE has to be used in DPDK mode.

For details on the minimum hardware requirement details of the Controller, see NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller Sizing section.

Note:

IOMMU can be turned off through BIOS or by specifying intel_iommu=off or amd_iommu=off based on the architecture type in Kernel command line of the host.

Software Requirements

For more information, see Software Requirements for Linux Server Cloud.

The following are the steps to deactivate SE Linux:

  1. Log in to the host machine as root.

  2. Invoke the getenforce command to determine whether SELinux is enforcing, permissive, or deactivated.

  3. If the output of getenforce is either permissive or deactivate, nothing more need be done. If the output is enforcing, perform all subsequent steps.

  4. Open the /etc/selinux/config file (in some systems, open /etc/sysconfig/selinux instead).

  5. Change the line SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=permissive.

  6. Save and close the file.

  7. Reboot the system.

Ports and Protocols

For the latest information about ports and protocols used by the NSX Advanced Load Balancer, see VMware Ports and Protocols.

Operating Systems

NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller can be deployed as virtual machines or containers on bare-metal hosts. NSX Advanced Load Balancer Service Engines can be deployed on the bare-metal hosts. NSX Advanced Load Balancer supports running SEs/ Controller on the following operating systems:

Operating System

OS Version

Kernel Version

Oracle Enterprise Linux

7.0, 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3

3.10

Oracle Enterprise Linux

7.0, 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3

3.10

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

7.0, 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3

3.10

CentOS

7.0, 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3

3.10

Ubuntu

16.04

4.4.0-21, 4.4.0-59