📋 Hardware Requirements

Linux Distribution

To install and configure, you must use the operating system Debian 12 Bookworm (clean install).

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Containers

  • I do not recommend using containers (LXC)
  • There may be issues compiling some packages.

Hardware Requirements

Data Flow ~1GB ~5GB to 15GB +~20GB
Memory 2 GB 6 GB > 16 GB
CPU 4x ~2.0 GHz > 6x ~2.0 GHz > 16x ~2.0 GHz >
CPU (Proxflow enabled) 8x ~2.0 GHz > 16x ~2.0 GHz > 32x ~2.0 GHz >
Storage HDD/SSD/NVMe SSD/NVMe SSD/NVMe
Connectivity IPv4 + IPv6 IPv4 + IPv6 IPv4 + IPv6
  • As you increase the number of CPUs and use high-speed disks, your experience improves significantly.
  • Having many CPUs and a lot of memory is useless if disk read speed is slow. See here how to test.

During Debian installation, you will not be able to configure the IPv6 address, but it’s very simple. Just edit the /etc/network/interfaces file.

See an example and adjust according to your setup. Don’t forget to change ens18 to your interface name.

allow-hotplug ens18
iface ens18 inet static
    address 192.168.0.2/24
    gateway 192.168.0.2

iface ens18 inet6 static
    pre-up modprobe ipv6
    address 2001:db8:cafe::2/64
    gateway 2001:db8:cafe::1

You can find more about network interface configuration here.

About Storage

It is recommended to use SSD or NVMe disks for superior performance.

Size

Have at least 80 GB of storage. The required space and performance depend on the following factors:

  • Storage Duration: The number of days data is kept affects the required space.
  • Number of Data Sources: More sources sending flows increases disk load.
  • Bandwidth of Each Source: The speed of flow transmission affects transfer rate and disk write capacity.

Consider these factors when sizing and configuring your storage system to ensure adequate performance.

You can set the maximum storage size. Also read about maximum_disk_gb.

Recommendations

Configure CPU to use the physical processor resources directly.

Proxmox

Set CPU to “Host”.

  1. Select the virtual machine in the Proxmox panel and click Hardware.
  2. Click Processors, then Edit.
  3. In the Type field, select host from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click OK to save changes.
  5. Restart the virtual machine.

VMware

Set Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to the guest OS

  1. Select the virtual machine, Edit Settings.
  2. Edit the CPU settings.
  3. Under Hardware Virtualization, check Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to the guest OS
  4. Save the settings and restart the VM to apply.

XenServer

Set the CPU mode to Passthrough.

  1. Access the Virtual Machine:

    • In XenCenter, select the desired virtual machine.

  2. Edit VM Settings:

    • Go to the CPU & Memory or VM Settings tab, depending on the version.

  3. Enable CPU Passthrough:

    • Look for the CPU Mode option.
    • Change it to Host CPU Passthrough or an equivalent setting.

  4. Apply and Restart:

    • Save the changes and restart the virtual machine to apply the new configuration.