System requirements

The following requirements are for typical usage patterns, acknowledging that some patterns may require greater system resources for an N-able N-central server than others. To view previous system requirements, see Changes from 2024.6 CentOS7 to 2025.1 AlmaLinux 9.

If you have any questions about how your needs affect the system requirements of your N-able N-central server, contact your Channel Sales Specialist or email n-able-salesgroup@n-able.com.

System requirements by number of devices managed

The table below lists the minimum specifications required to manage the number of devices indicated (based on average usage). Performance can be improved by exceeding these requirements. When determining your hardware requirements, consider any growth in managed device count that may occur over time.

For Azure requirements, see N-central-sizing for Azure Managed Disk deployment.

These requirements are only for on-premises deployments of N-able N-central and should be considered the bare minimums.

Notes

• Server grade hard drives connected to a RAID controller with a Battery/Capacitor Backed Cache, are required to ensure performance and unexpected power-loss data protection.

• In a virtualized environment, the physical hard drives for the N-able N-central server must not be shared with any other applications or VM guests that have significant I/O workloads.

• For example, Report Manager, SQL Databases, E-Mail Servers, Active Directory Domain Controllers, SharePoint, etc. should not be installed on the same physical hard drive as N-able N-central.

• N-able recommends two or more hard drives be placed in a redundant RAID configuration. With two drives, RAID 1 must be used. With more than two drives, RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 are recommended.

• RAID 6 is an option on servers with less than 1,000 devices (the additional write latency of RAID 6 becomes an issue above 1,000 devices).

• N-able recommends more, smaller disks in a RAID array, as opposed to fewer larger disks. Database-backed applications, like N-able N-central, have better write performance with an increased number of parallel writes (hard drives).

• If using Solid State Drives (SSDs), N-able requires Enterprise Grade, SLC based (or better) SSDs with a SAS interface, or Enterprise Grade NVMes. SSD and NVMe drives must have an endurance rating of at least 0.2 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day), and at least 2 physical disks in a redundant RAID array. On Bare Metal servers, the RAID array must appear to the operating system as a single Block or NVMe Device.

• Currently, many PCIe and NVMe drives do not meet this last requirement and would only work in a virtualized environment.

• Configure the RAID controller to use the default stripe size and a Read/Write cache of 50%/50%.

The underlying version of AlmaLinux 9 has certain hardware limits that are consistent with the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 distribution. Of note are the following:

Due to the ecosystem of different hardware, N-able does not certify specific hardware configurations. Instead we rely on the upstream Red Hat hardware vendor testing and certification.

Please consult with your hardware vendor to ensure that any server to be used for a bare metal installation meets the above requirements and is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 certified, without the need for additional drivers.

N-able recommends that for any bare metal server, two or more SAS 10k or faster hard drives be placed in a RAID array to improve redundancy. RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 are supported (at the hardware RAID controller BIOS level) as long as the RAID array appears to the OS as a single block device. RAID 6 is only an option on servers with less than 1,000 devices (the additional write latency of RAID 6 becomes an issue above 1,000 devices).

Support for virtualized environments

N-able supports VMware ESXi Server 7.0 U2 (UEFI secure boot template) or newer and Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V or newer LTS hypervisor versions. N-able recommends use of the latest stable versions of VMware or Windows Server Hyper-V in order to ensure the best performance, feature set and compatibility with N-able N-central.

About virtualization

Virtualization provides an abstraction layer between the hardware and the Operating System which permits the operation of multiple logical systems on one physical server unit. The table below includes considerations when using this deployment method.

Recommended configuration for the virtualized server

Although provisioning virtual disks as thin or thick results in nearly-identical performance on smaller servers, thick provisioning is recommended, due to the heavy I/O of the N-central database, particularly when more than 1,000 devices will be connected to your N-able N-central server.

• Assign the highest resource access priority to N-able N-central, as compared to other guest VMs.

• Ensure that the system has enough RAM and storage space to provide permanently allocated resources to the N-able N-central guest VM.

• Do not over-provision resources (Memory, CPU, Disk) on the virtualization host.

  • Over-provisioning these resources can cause memory swapping to disk, and other bottlenecks that can impact N-central server performance.

• The physical hard drives for the N-able N-central server VM must not be shared with any other applications or VM guests that have significant I/O workloads.

  • For example, Report Manager, SQL Databases, E-Mail Servers, Active Directory Domain Controllers, SharePoint, etc. should not be installed on the same physical hard drive as N-able N-central.

Microsoft Azure

To deploy N-able N-central to Microsoft Azure using the deployment script, you require PowerShell 7.x.

See:

• N-able N-central sizing for Azure deployments for Microsoft Azure VM system requirements

• N-able N-central deployment script for Microsoft Azure for details on the PowerShell 7.x deployment script.

Supported Software

Browsers

N-able N-central supports the latest desktop versions of:

• Microsoft Edge®
• Mozilla Firefox®
• Google Chrome®
• Apple Safari®
• Mobile phone browsers are not supported.

Remote Control

Remote control connections require the following software on the computers that initiate connections:

• .NET Framework 4.5.2 on Windows devices
• Oracle Java 1.8 versions that include Java Web Start

Report Manager

To use Report Manager with N-able N-central, ensure that you upgrade to the latest version of Report Manager.

Automation Manager

• .NET Framework 4.6
• PowerShell version 5.1 or later is the minimum PowerShell version required to run automation manager:
  • PowerShell 5.1 or later is backwards compatible with previous versions of PowerShell
  • You can run both PowerShell 5.1 or later and 7.x on your endpoints, however Automation manager objects will depend on PowerShell 5.1 or later and its backwards compatibility with previous versions.
  • Currently to-date, we do not have any objects that call PowerShell version 7.x

Microsoft Azure - Managed Disks

To deploy N-able N-central to Azure with Managed Disks using the deployment script, you require PowerShell 7.x. See Deployment script for Microsoft Azure - Managed Disks for details.

SNMP Community String

On HPE ProLiant Generation 9 or older Physical Servers, when monitoring the N-able N-central server using SNMP, the community string used for SNMP queries to the server must use N-central_SNMP, not public. SNMP is only enabled on HPE ProLiant Generation 9 or older Physical Servers. All other installs do not enable SNMP on the N-able N-central server.

Supported Operating Systems

This section describes the supported operating systems for N-able N-central.

Windows Agents:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 (or later)

Windows Server 2022

• Windows Server 2022 Standard
• Windows Server 2022 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure

Windows Server 2019

• Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2019 Standard
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019

Windows Server 2016

• Windows Server 2016 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2016 Standard
• Windows Server 2016 Essentials
• Windows Storage Server 2016
• Windows Server 2016 MultiPoint Premium Server
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016

Windows Server 2012

• R2 Datacenter
• R2 Essentials
• R2 Foundation
• R2 Standard

Windows 11

• Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise & Professional
• Microsoft Windows 11 Education editions
• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for Workstations

Windows 10

• Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise & Professional
• Microsoft Windows 10 Education editions
• Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

macOS Agents

• 15.x (Sequoia)

• 14.x (Sonoma)

• 13.x (Ventura)

• 12.x (Monterey)

Linux Agents

Independent Agents are required for 64-bit Linux OS installations.

The probe performs an SSH connection to a Linux device. To discover a Linux OS device, the device must have openssh installed.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 8 (64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 (64-bit)

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (64-bit)

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (64-bit)

• Debian 12 (64-bit)

• Debian 11 (64-bit)

AV Defender

Workstation Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows 11
• Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
• Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Tablet And Embedded Operating Systems

• Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
• Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry
• Windows Embedded 8 Standard
• Windows Embedded Enterprise 7
• Windows Embedded POSReady 7
• Windows Embedded Standard 7
• Windows Embedded Compact 7

Server Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2022

• Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Core Mode)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2019
• Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2016 (Core Mode)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2

For Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7, TCP/IP, Filter Manager, and Windows Installer must all be enabled.

Patch Manager

Workstation Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows 11

• Microsoft Windows 10 version 1607 and later

Server Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2022
• Microsoft Windows Server 2019
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012

The following operating systems are not supported with N-able N-central patch manager:

• Home Editions of Windows Desktop Operating Systems

Windows Update Agent

The minimum version of the Windows Update Agent (WUA) needs to be greater than 7.6.7600.320. The base NT build version of Windows should be 6.1 or later. Older versions of the base NT build cannot upgrade past version 7.6.7600.256 of the Windows Update Agent.

Automation Manager

Workstation Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows 11

• Microsoft Windows 10 (32/64-bit)

Server Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2022

• Microsoft Windows Server 2019

• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (32/64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (32/64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (32/64-bit)

Disk Encryption Manager