System Requirement

EVE-NG System Requirements

EVE-NG is currently released as an OVF files and ISO. An OVF is a Open Virtual Format. It’s an Open Virtualization File for the virtual machine. EVE-NG can be also directly installed on the physical hardware, without any virtualization by use of ISO image. Because EVE-NG runs many hypervisor, it’s strongly recommended a physical server dedicated for it, without any virtualization software. Mind that nested virtualization is not a good thing and can lead to poor performance.

EVE-NG CE and PE Supported platforms and systems:

  • Intel CPU VT-x/EPT
  • One of the following:
    • Ubuntu Focal Fossa 20.04.X LTS 64bit Server as OS for EVE.  
    • VMware ESXi 6.7 or later
    • VMware Workstation 15.0 or later
    • VMware Fusion 8 or later
    • VMware Player 15.0 or later
    • Google Cloud platform VM
    • AMD Ryzen 3900, the newer AMD EPYC  should work as well. Please consult to EVE support for CPU tune before use.  Older series AMD can have issues

NOT supported or have serious issues:

Using platforms or systems listed below, is user responsibiliy and not officially supported.

  • Upgrade your Linux OS to the newer Ubuntu 22.04 or later, will bring you to non-working EVE, roll-back after such upgrade is impossible. Please use only the exact version which is supported
  • MAC OSX Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura currently is not supported
  • MAC M1, M2 and M3 CPUs are not supported due issues with VM Ware Fusion and nested CPU.
  • Oracle VM Virtual Box does not support HW acceleration !!! Avoid to using it !!!! 
  • VM Ware NAS or DAS storages as EVE HDD, please choose local HDD only
  • MS Hyper-V, issues with nested virtualization
  • Proxmox, it has serious issues with nested virtualization, any glitches or issues are not supported by EVE-NG Team.
  • XEN Citrix, it has serious issues with nested virtualization, any glitches or issues are not supported by EVE-NG Team.
  • Azure cloud is not officially supported, because Azure overwrite kernel for EVE VM, and do not accept custom Kernels for VM Machines.
  • AWS cloud is not officially supported due issues with sub-virtualization. It has issues to run Qemu nodes
  • Nutanix, issues with nested virtualization
  • NAS, SAN or DAS is not supported for EVE HDD system
  • USB as external HDD is not supported
  • Other virtual or nested cloud platforms are not officially supported.

Out of EVE-NG Support

  • Modifying EVE and or Ubuntu packages as well as installing any packages other than described in our Cookbook might/will corrupt EVE
  • Modifying EVE files system structure or creating backup other than described in our Cookbook and official EVE documentation will corrupt EVE.

Required CPU and RAM depend on how many nodes are needed to run. 4 vCPU and 6GB of RAM can be enough for IOU/IOL and Dynamips only, but will be insufficient for topology with CSR1000V routers.

In other words the EVE-NG requirements are the same for nested ESXi virtualization or Cisco VIRL/CML. EVE-NG can still work without Intel VT processors and can run installed within other hypervisors also But:

  • Poor performances should be expected with 32 bits (i386) appliances.

  REFERENCES