Hardware requirements
Pithyx installs on a 64-bit x86 computer with UEFI firmware, at least 2 GB of memory and a system disk of at least 32 GB. The installer checks all of this before it lets you begin. Your data goes on additional disks, which you turn into pools after the installation.
Supported platforms
Section titled “Supported platforms”The installer checks five things on its first page and refuses to start if one fails:
| Check | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Processor | 64-bit x86 with x86-64-v2 (needs among others SSE4.2 and POPCNT) |
| Firmware | Started in UEFI mode. Legacy BIOS and CSM mode do not work. |
| Memory | At least 2 GB (the check allows about 400 MB of tolerance for memory the firmware reserves); 4 GB or more recommended |
| Secure Boot | Switched off. The ZFS module is not signed. See Firmware and boot. |
| System disk | At least one suitable disk sold as 32 GB or more (the check allows 2 GB of tolerance) |
The base system is Debian 13. There is no 32-bit version.
Reference hardware
Section titled “Reference hardware”The reference machine is an Intel N100 or N305 with 8 GB of memory. The daemon is held to below 200 MB of memory and below 1 percent of CPU when idle. These numbers are budgets for the project’s own tests, not requirements. The installer only enforces the 2 GB minimum.
Disks and pools
Section titled “Disks and pools”System disk. The installer writes the system to one disk, or to two disks as a mirror (btrfs on an mdadm RAID 1). It never uses more than two.
- The disk must be at least 32 GB. From 40 GB on, Pithyx uses 36.5 GiB of it (a 512 MiB boot partition, 32 GiB for the system and 4 GiB of swap) and leaves the rest unused. On a smaller disk the swap has 2 GiB and the system gets what remains, about 26 GiB on a 32 GB disk; that is enough for the system, its update snapshots and the logs. With two disks the smaller one decides.
- With 2 to 4 GB of memory a box runs a few users and apps; the installer says so. ZFS keeps less in its cache then, and large app images or updates may use the swap.
- Read-only disks, disks in use and the installer stick itself are not offered.
- Built-in eMMC (common in small computers) works like any internal disk.
- A USB stick, a USB disk or a memory card can hold the system, and the installer warns about it: the system writes logs and its database to the system disk all the time, and cheap flash wears out within months. If you choose one, use a USB SSD or a fast USB 3 stick of a known brand (for a card, one made for continuous use), best two of them as a mirror, and keep a configuration backup. The stick has to stay plugged in.
- A hard disk is allowed, but the installer hints that an SSD is faster, quieter and uses less power.
- A disk that already holds data is shown with a warning. Installing erases it.
- With one disk the system is still built as a mirror with one member. Adding the second disk later is not possible in the interface yet.
Data pools. After the installation you create pools in the Storage app, on disks other than the system disk.
| Layout | Minimum disks |
|---|---|
| Single disk | 1 |
| Stripe | 2 |
| Mirror | 2 |
| Mirror pairs | 4 (an even number) |
| RAID-Z1 | 3 |
| RAID-Z2 | 4 |
| RAID-Z3 | 5 |
New pools are created with 4 KiB sectors (ashift=12), lz4 compression and atime=off. A pool name starts with a lowercase letter and may contain lowercase letters, digits, hyphens and underscores, up to 32 characters. Pools are not encrypted. See Storage.
Network
Section titled “Network”- Every wired network card asks for an address by DHCP (IPv4 and IPv6) on first boot. You can set a fixed address in the installer.
- The web desktop is served over HTTPS on port 7484; ports 80 and 443 redirect to it, except for domains you set up in the reverse proxy. Browsers warn about the box’s own certificate until a device trusts its root.
- The box has a firewall that lets in only the web interface and the file services you switch on. See Security.
- Wi-Fi is not supported.
- The box does not announce a name on the network. Use its IP address, which the console shows after boot.
Community platforms
Section titled “Community platforms”There is no image for arm64 (for example the Raspberry Pi 5): the image and the installer are x86-64 only. The installer is tested in virtual machines with QEMU and KVM (UEFI firmware); other hypervisors and real hardware have not been tested systematically.