¿Installing RHEL 6 without Hardware Certification?

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Hello everyone, one discussion-forum newbie here.

I am going to acquire an used Dell Precision 490 with two Intel Xeon E5345 (4x 2,33Ghz each processor) with 16GB DDR2 RAM as KVM Virtualization host for a production environment in a 50 users school. I know it's an old hardware, but it's cheap enough and it's ok for the price.

I've checked that the Dell Precision 490 is hardware-certified for RHEL 5 64bit and RHEL 4.3 64bit. I want to install RHEL 6.5 as native OS, and then run KVM VMs in it (not RHEV in any way, just group-install VH Host platform). If the hardware is not certified, will RHEL 6.5 run if I install it? In other words, is hardware certification a must, or just a way to be sure that it will run with no troubles at all?

Intel Xeon E5345 does have VT-X capabilities, and this server been used as VM host with VMWare in the past, so I think there woudn't be any troubles, but I want to be sure before purchasing it.

Thank you very much,

As English is not my native language, please excuse typing errors,

Jorge Garcia

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ir. Jan Gerrit Kootstra's picture Guru 6222 points
2 April 2014 9:56 AM

Hi Jorge,

Hardware certification: if it fails you can open a support case both at Red Hat and the hardware vendor.

No hardware certification: if it works be happy, if it fails do not complain to the hardware vendor. Just open a support case at Red Hat and see if there is a fix.

So like you state, no hardware certification does not mean it will not work.

e.g. I run RHEL server 6.5 on a DELL Latitude E6410 laptop, it works fine.

Kind regards,

Jan Gerrit

ko Active Contributor 107 points
2 April 2014 10:34 AM

Hi Jan,

Thank you very much for your fast answer. Now I got the idea. I suposse that if it's certified for RHEL 5, there will be no critical issues with RHEL 6 (I know sometimes those things could happen). I'm glad that you use 6.5 in your laptop, that's pretty enough compatibility :)

Thank you very much,

Kind regards,

Jorge Garcia

andriusb's picture Red Hat Guru 3695 points
2 April 2014 1:26 PM

Clarification:

No hardware certification: Support from Red Hat is "commercially reasonable" - as Red Hat takes direction from the hardware vendor and relies heavily on the hardware certification test suite to immediately understand and/or rule out known issues. If the hardware vendor does not certify on a RHEL release, it's most likely that they don't support the hardware for some reason - usually older hardware is EOL from the hardware vendor. Just FYI: RHEL 4 Update 3 was released on 12-Mar-2006, so it sounds like a hardware life cycle issue.

My recommendation if you must use this hardware and require full support is to install the latest RHEL 5 - which is RHEL 5.10, and run this through 2017.

RHEL 6 might Just Work, but older/uncertified hardware is not tested by Dell on newer RHEL versions, which could be a risk to understand before planning and deployment.

Hope this helps!

ko Active Contributor 107 points
2 April 2014 9:15 PM

Thanks Andrius for your clarification. I've searched on Dell website and it seems that Dell Precision 490 reached its EOL some years ago, so that's maybe why Dell didn't certify it for RHEL 6.

I like both recommendations of using RHEL 5.10 and trying RHEL 6.5. I'll buy this server and then make some tests with both versions. In my opinion using it as VM Host, one installed software updates are not a must.

Thank you so much for your fast and expert answers, of course this helped! Understanding the risks make decisions much easier.

Jorge Garcia

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