System Requirements

• 1 System Requirements
  • 1.1 Deadline Client
    • 1.1.1 Windows
    • 1.1.2 Linux
    • 1.1.3 Mac OS X
  • 1.2 Deadline Repository
    • 1.2.1 Installer
    • 1.2.2 Hardware
  • 1.3 License Server
  • 1.4 Additional Software Requirements
    • 1.4.1 Microsoft .NET Framework (Windows)
    • 1.4.2 Mono (Linux and Mac OS X)
    • 1.4.3 XQuartz (Mac OS X Mountain Lion and later)

Deadline Client

The requirements for today's 2D/3D applications go far beyond the requirements of the Deadline Client software, so if a machine is powerful enough to be used for rendering, it is more than capable of running Deadline.

Windows

Before installing the Deadline Client on Windows, the Microsoft .NET Framework needs to be installed first. The Deadline Client applications run on 32 and 64 bit Windows, and the following operating systems are supported:

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2008

Note: If you are choosing a machine to run Deadline Pulse on, you should be aware that non-Server editions of Windows have a TCP/IP connection limitation of 10 new connections per second. If your render farm consists of more than 10 machines, it is very likely that you'll hit this limitation every now and then (and the odds continue to increase as the number of machines increase). Therefore, if you are running Pulse on a farm with 10 machines or more, we recommend using a Server edition of Windows, or a different operating system like Linux.

Linux

Before installing the Deadline Client on Linux, Mono needs to be installed first. The Deadline Client applications run on 32 and 64 bit Linux, and the following operating systems are supported:

• Red Hat
• Fedora
• CentOS
• SuSE
• OpenSuSE
• Debian
• Ubuntu

Mac OS X

Before installing the Deadline Client on Max OS X, Mono needs to be installed first. The Deadline Client applications run on Intel Mac OS X only. The following operating systems are supported:

• Leopard (10.5)
• Snow Leopard (10.6)
• Lion (10.7)
• Mountain Lion (10.8)

Note: For Mountain Lion, XQuartz must be installed because X11 is no longer included. See the Additional Software Requirements below for more information.

Deadline Repository

Deadline coordinates network rendering via reading and writing files to a shared directory on the network. Because of this, the Repository can basically be installed to any type of share on any type of operating system. Note that it is not necessary to have the Deadline Client installed on the machine which hosts the Repository, unless you plan on running the Slave or Pulse on this machine.

Common Repository choices include:

• Windows Server editions (2000 and later)
• Any x86-based *nix OS with Samba (we recommend FreeBSD if one has a choice)

Note: If installing the Repository on a non-Server Windows Operating System (XP, Vista, Windows 7), note that in standard configuration these operating systems will not allow more than 10 incoming connections without purchasing additional user access licenses from Microsoft. This means that if more than 10 machines (render nodes or workstations) connect to the Repository, connections will be dropped, which could result in corrupt render jobs and other problems. This is a limitation of the operating systems, and isn't something that Deadline can workaround, so we recommend using a Server edition of Windows, or a different operating system like Linux or FreeBSD.

Installer

While the Deadline Repository can be installed on any operating system, the Repository installer is only available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Note though that machine that you run the Repository installer on doesn't have to be the same machine you're installing the Repository to. For example, if you have an existing share called \\my_server\Repository on a server running FreeBSD, you can run the Repository installer on another machine and choose \\my_server\Repository as the install location.

On Windows, the Repository installer requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework be installed. On Linux and Mac OS X, the Repository installer requires that Mono be installed.

Hardware

Please download the Scaling Whitepaper from the Miscellaneous Deadline Downloads Page. This is a guide for setting up and configuring your network to get the best performance out of your render farm. It contains a section on hardware considerations to help ensure your Repository machine meets the current and future demands of your render farm.

License Server

Deadline ships with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions of the FLEXnet license manager, which are included as part of the Repository installation. The license server applications are extremely lightweight, so you just need to choose a machine that is reliable and is rarely taken offline.

• Windows (only the 32 bit binaries are shipped, but these work fine on 32 and 64 bit)
  • Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8
  • Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008
• Linux (32 and 64 bit)
  • Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS
  • Suse, openSuse
  • Ubuntu, Debian
• Mac OS X (Intel and PPC)
  • Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion

Additional Software Requirements

Microsoft .NET Framework (Windows)

On Windows, Deadline requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework Run-Time v2.0 SP2 be installed, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

Mono (Linux and Mac OS X)

On Linux and Mac OS X, Deadline requires that Mono be installed, which can be downloaded from the Mono Downloads Page (you can find the download link by clicking on the version numbers in the table below). Note that if Mono isn't available for your distribution of Linux, you may have to Compile and Install Mono From Source.

If you're installing Mono on Linux using a package manager, make sure to install the following packages:

• libgdiplus
• mono-core
• mono-winforms

If you are compiling from source, you need to build the following packages:

• libgdiplus
• mono

Note: Mono 2.6.7 is the current Long Term Supported (LTS) version of Mono, and is the version we recommend for Deadline 4.1 and later. Newer versions of Mono are available, but they are not considered LTS, and therefore have not received as much testing as they should. Users seeking absolute stability should stay on Mono 2.6.7. Users switching to newer Mono versions should expect a faster bug turn around time, but they should also plan on upgrading to new releases of Mono as they fix bugs in their stack.

XQuartz (Mac OS X Mountain Lion and later)

X11 is no longer shipped with Mountain Lion, but XQuartz can be installed instead.