Supported Platforms

TNSR software is available pre-installed on Netgate hardware or as a Bare Metal Image (BMI) for use on Commercial Off the Self (COTS) hardware or in virtual environments. For quotes, updates, and more information about TNSR, please visit tnsr.com or contact TNSR sales.

General System Requirements

  • 64-bit x86 processor with SSE4.2 extensions

  • Minimum of 4GB RAM for basic routing functionality

    RAM requirements increase significantly if the installation will need to handle large volumes of connections, large volumes of routing data (e.g. full BGP feeds), or multiple worker threads.

    See also

    See Memory Usage and Tuning for information on how to determine optimal memory sizes based on what the router must handle.

  • Minimum of 20GB Storage

  • Minimum of two network interface ports, three network interface ports recommended (two for dataplane, one for management)

  • Option to disable Secure Boot if using UEFI, as it is incompatible with the TNSR dataplane

Compatibility

TNSR is a platform for high-speed packet processing, delivered as services that run on top of an operating system. TNSR 21.11 and later are based on Ubuntu, currently the 20.04 LTS release for x86 processors. This platform has been tested by Netgate, so that means most compatibility questions can be resolved by checking whether the hardware can run Ubuntu Linux 20.04.

Tested Platforms

These systems and components have been tested extensively by Netgate and are known to work well with TNSR. In addition to the support included with the TNSR license, Netgate warranty and technical support is available for purchase for Netgate-branded appliances.

Cloud Platforms

TNSR Secure Networking software is available in the following Cloud Platforms.

Virtual Machines

A TNSR software Bare Metal Image is available and will run in most virtual x86 environments.

  • VMware - vSphere/ESXi 6.0 and later, running VMXNET3 virtual network adapters.

    Note

    VMware VMXNET3 interfaces are not currently compatible with VRRP. The VMXNET3 interface driver does not support setting virtual MAC addresses, which is required by VRRP.

    Warning

    Secure boot is not compatible with TNSR, it prevents interfaces from being added to the dataplane when it is enabled. If a VMware virtual machine has Firmware set to EFI under VM Options > Boot Options, then Enable UEFI secure boot must be unchecked.

  • KVM - Kernel Virtual Machine on Linux.

  • virtio-net - Paravirtualized network adapter used by other hypervisors such as QEMU and VirtualBox.

Untested Platforms

The best practice is to use a platform tested by Netgate. That said, the underlying components may support additional hardware that has not been tested by Netgate nor confirmed to run TNSR software successfully.

Netgate customers are often on the cutting edge of technology, so they may encounter systems and components that work with TNSR before Netgate has an opportunity to test them.

Warning

Netgate cannot offer any assurance that untested platforms will be compatible with TNSR software or perform at acceptable levels.

Hardware support is primarily determined by The Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) and Vector Packet Processing (VPP) open source projects which are core parts of TNSR. Additionally, the underlying operating system drivers must support the hardware (i.e. boot, load the OS, etc.) and network interfaces used for host management. TNSR may run on a system if these components support the hardware in question, but experiences will vary.

For the latest information on hardware supported by DPDK and VPP, check here: