Prerequisites for installing a NetScaler VPX instance on Linux-KVM platform

Last published : Oct 01, 2026
Check the minimum system requirements for a Linux-KVM server running on a NetScaler VPX instance.
CPU requirement:
  • 64-bit x86 processors with the hardware virtualization feature included in Intel VT-X processors.
To test whether your CPU supports the Linux host, enter the following command at the host Linux shell prompt:
*.egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo*
If the BIOS settings for the preceding extension are disabled, you must enable them in the BIOS.
  • Provide at least 2 CPU cores to Host Linux.
  • There is no specific recommendation for processor speed, but higher the speed, the better the performance of the VM application.
Memory (RAM) requirement:
Minimum 4 GB for the host Linux kernel. Add more memory as required by the VMs.
Hard disk requirement:
Calculate the space for Host Linux kernel and VM requirements. A single NetScaler VPX VM requires 20 GB of disk space.
Related information
Install a NetScaler VPX instance on Linux-KVM platform

Software requirements

The Host kernel used must be a 64-bit Linux kernel, release 2.6.20 or later, with all virtualization tools. Citrix recommends newer kernels, such as 3.6.11-4 and later.
Many Linux distributions such as Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora, have tested kernel versions and associated virtualization tools.

Guest VM hardware requirements

NetScaler VPX supports IDE and virtIO hard disk type. The Hard Disk Type has been configured in the XML file, which is a part of the NetScaler package.

Networking requirements

NetScaler VPX supports virtIO para-virtualized, SR-IOV, and PCI Passthrough network interfaces.
For more information about the supported network interfaces, see:

Source Interface and Modes

The source device type can be either Bridge or MacVTap. In MacVTap, four modes are possible - VEPA, Bridge, Private, and Pass-through. Check the types of interfaces that you can use and the supported traffic types, as per the following:
Bridge:
  • Linux Bridge.
  • Ebtables and iptables settings on host Linux might filter the traffic on the bridge if you do not choose the correct setting or disable IPtable services.
MacVTap (VEPA mode):
  • Better performance than a bridge.
  • Interfaces from the same lower device can be shared across the VMs.
  • Inter-VM communication using the same
  • lower device is possible only if the upstream or downstream switch supports VEPA mode.
MacVTap (private mode):
  • Better performance than a bridge.
  • Interfaces from the same lower device can be shared across the VMs.
  • Inter-VM communication using the same lower device is not possible.
MacVTap (bridge mode):
  • Better as compared to bridge.
  • Interfaces out of the same lower device can be shared across the VMs.
  • Inter-VM communication using the same lower device is possible, if the lower device link is UP.
MacVTap (Pass-through mode):
  • Better as compared to bridge.
  • Interfaces out of the same lower device cannot be shared across the VMs.
  • Only one VM can use the lower device.
Note:
For best performance by the VPX instance, ensure that the gro and lro capabilities are switched off on the source interfaces.

Properties of source interfaces

Make sure that you switch off the generic-receive-offload (gro) and large-receive-offload (lro) capabilities of the source interfaces. To switch off the gro and lro capabilities, run the following commands at the host Linux shell prompt.
ethtool -K eth6 gro off ethool -K eth6 lro off
Example:
    [root@localhost ~]# ethtool -K eth6

                     Offload parameters for eth6:

                                       rx-checksumming: on

                                       tx-checksumming: on

                     scatter-gather: on

                     tcp-segmentation-offload: on

                     udp-fragmentation-offload: off

                     generic-segmentation-offload: on

                     generic-receive-offload: off

                     large-receive-offload: off

                     rx-vlan-offload: on

                     tx-vlan-offload: on

                     ntuple-filters: off

                     receive-hashing: on

    [root@localhost ~]#
Example:
If the host Linux bridge is used as a source device, as in the following example, and lro capabilities must be switched off on the VNet interfaces, which are the virtual interfaces connecting the host to the guest VMs.
    [root@localhost ~]# brctl show eth6_br

    bridge name     bridge  id               STP enabled interfaces

    eth6_br         8000.00e0ed1861ae          no         eth6

                                                          vnet0

                                                          vnet2

    [root@localhost ~]#
In the preceding example, the two virtual interfaces are derived from the eth6\_br and are represented as vnet0 and vnet2. Run the following commands to switch off gro and lro capabilities on these interfaces.
ethtool -K vnet0 gro off
        ethtool -K vnet2 gro off
        ethtool -K vnet0 lro off
                 ethtool -K vnet2 lro off

Promiscuous mode

The promiscuous mode must be enabled for the following features to work:
  • L2 mode
  • Multicast traffic processing
  • Broadcast
  • IPV6 traffic
  • virtual MAC
  • Dynamic routing
Use the following command to enable the promiscuous mode.
[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig eth6 promisc
[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig eth6
eth6       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 78:2b:cb:51:54:a3
            inet6 addr: fe80::7a2b:cbff:fe51:54a3/64 Scope:Link
            UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST  MTU:9000  Metric:1
            RX packets:142961 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
            TX packets:2895843 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
            collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
            RX bytes:14330008 (14.3 MB)  TX bytes:1019416071 (1.0 GB)

[root@localhost ~]#

Module required

For better network performance, make sure the vhost\_net module is present in the Linux host. To check the existence of vhost\_net module, run the following command on the Linux host:
lsmod | grep "vhost\_net"
If vhost\_net is not yet running, enter the following command to run it:
modprobe vhost\_net