====================
 OS Recommendations
====================

Ceph Dependencies
=================

As a general rule, we recommend deploying Ceph on newer releases of Linux. 
We also recommend deploying on releases with long-term support.

Linux Kernel
------------

- **Ceph Kernel Client**

  If you are using the kernel client to map RBD block devices or mount
  CephFS, the general advice is to use a "stable" or "longterm
  maintenance" kernel series provided by either http://kernel.org or
  your Linux distribution on any client hosts.

  For RBD, if you choose to *track* long-term kernels, we recommend
  *at least* 4.19-based "longterm maintenance" kernel series.  If you can
  use a newer "stable" or "longterm maintenance" kernel series, do it.

  For CephFS, see the section about `Mounting CephFS using Kernel Driver`_
  for kernel version guidance.

  Older kernel client versions may not support your `CRUSH tunables`_ profile
  or other newer features of the Ceph cluster, requiring the storage cluster to
  be configured with those features disabled. For RBD, a kernel of version 5.3
  or CentOS 8.2 is the minimum necessary for reasonable support for RBD image
  features.


Platforms
=========

The chart below shows which Linux platforms Ceph provides packages for, and
which platforms Ceph has been tested on. 

Ceph does not require a specific Linux distribution. Ceph can run on any
distribution that includes a supported kernel and supported system startup
framework, for example ``sysvinit`` or ``systemd``. Ceph is sometimes ported to
non-Linux systems but these are not supported by the core Ceph effort.


+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
|               | Reef (18.2.z) | Quincy (17.2.z) | Pacific (16.2.z) | Octopus (15.2.z) |
+===============+===============+=================+==================+==================+
| Centos 7      |               |                 |         A        |      B           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Centos 8      |    A          |     A           |         A        |      A           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Centos 9      |    A          |                 |                  |                  |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Debian 10     |    C          |                 |         C        |      C           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Debian 11     |    C          |     C           |         C        |                  |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| OpenSUSE 15.2 |    C          |                 |         C        |      C           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| OpenSUSE 15.3 |    C          |     C           |                  |                  |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Ubuntu 18.04  |               |                 |         C        |      C           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Ubuntu 20.04  |    A          |     A           |         A        |      A           |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Ubuntu 22.04  |    A          |                 |                  |                  |
+---------------+---------------+-----------------+------------------+------------------+

- **A**: Ceph provides packages and has done comprehensive tests on the software in them.
- **B**: Ceph provides packages and has done basic tests on the software in them.
- **C**: Ceph provides packages only. No tests have been done on these releases.

.. note::
   **For Centos 7 Users** 
   
   ``Btrfs`` is no longer tested on Centos 7 in the Octopus release. We recommend using ``bluestore`` instead.

.. _CRUSH Tunables: ../../rados/operations/crush-map#tunables

.. _Mounting CephFS using Kernel Driver: ../../cephfs/mount-using-kernel-driver#which-kernel-version