Installation¶
Installation of Rockstor is a short and straight forward process. For all types of installations, see Quick start to get started. Please also note that we have a Pre-Install Best Practice (PBP).
Further details are in the following sections:
Quick evaluation using a virtual environment¶
Rockstor can also be evaluated quickly using a virtual machine, see our Rockstor in Virtual Machine Manager guide.
Hardware recommendations¶
There is nothing about Rockstor that requires special hardware. It is build on the Linux operating system:
v4 is “Built on openSUSE” and adds ARM64 compatibility: e.g. Pi4, Ten64, etc.
v3 is now legacy and was based on CentOS and was X86_64 only.
As such Rockstor can be installed on a wide range of commodity hardware. See Minimum system requirements for the basic requirements.
Rockstor developers and the user community share hardware specs known to work well with Rockstor. Visiting our Forum for user stories, example builds, and to request advice on hardware choice or current recommendations. There is also a Hardware tag available.
Updating Rockstor¶
Rockstor is under continuous development and we generally release updates in small batches. These updates are easy to install and distributed in two distinct update channels described in our Software update section. On rare occasions, we roll-out major releases that require a complete re-install; see: Migrating from Legacy V3 to V4 “Built on openSUSE” as an example.
Note
Would you like to see a specific feature added or updated? Come share your idea on our friendly forum or see how you can contribute to Rockstor in our Contributing to Rockstor - Overview section.
Non re-install Rockstor updates can be installed in two ways:
from the Web-UI (recommended):
from the command line
Install updates from the Web-UI¶
Rockstor distinguishes between two types of software updates:
updates of the Rockstor package itself
updates to the base OS (system updates)
The presence of both these updates is signaled on the Rockstor Web-UI, in the top-right corner:
As you can see in the screenshot above, we have:
an upward facing arrow next to the Rockstor version number: this indicates an update to the Rockstor package itself is available.
a flashing WiFi-like icon: this indicates updates for the base OS are available.
To update, simply click on either one of these icons to see details about the update(s) and proceed with their installation.
Note
While an update to the Rocsktor package itself will also be listed among system updates, only clicking the upward facing arrow next to Rockstor’s version will actually update the Rockstor package.
This allows you to choose to only update what you want:
all system updates bar the Rockstor package: WiFi-like icon
only the Rockstor package: upward facing arrow next to Rockstor’s version
Install updates from the command line¶
Alternatively, for advanced users only, one can update from the Command Line Interface (CLI). In Rockstor 4 “Built on openSUSE”, the procedure is as follows:
To update the Rockstor package only:
[root@localhost ~]# zypper update rockstor
To update the entire Rockstor 4 system including all upstream updates (note that our shell login message has a reminder of these commands):
[root@localhost ~]# zypper refresh
[root@localhost ~]# zypper up --no-recommends
Similarly, in our legacy Rockstor 3 version, run yum update rockstor or
yum update to update the Rockstor package itself or the entire system,
respectively.
Warning
On both OS bases a reboot is recommended, but only after the update has completed. This can take some time, depending on how many updates have to be downloaded and established.
If an update is disruptive, the update process prompts for user action and provides the necessary information to choose to update or not. You can safely decide not to update if that makes sense for your environment.
