Quick starts

Compatibility

Overview

This matrix shows operability of Gremlin on various Linux platforms. You can expect it to expand over time as we add compatibility and/or testing with other platforms. The matrix contains information on the ability to install and available functionality. Below it we list caveats related to installing Gremlin on the specified operating system. At times Gremlin cannot be installed directly on the operating system due to mitigating factors such as dependency issues. In these instances, the matrix shows whether another means of deployment is available and has been tested, such as via Docker. Note that the latest host updates should always be applied to the host before gremlin is installed.

The following tables indicate the operability of Gremlin across popular platforms. We start with Linux distributions, then containers, and finally cloud platforms.

Matrix

You can install Gremlin directly on these Linux distributions.

DistroVersionCPUDiskIOMemoryProcess
Killer
Shut
down
Time
Travel
Black
hole
DNSLatencyPacket
Loss
Ubuntu14.04+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Debian7+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Red Hat6.7+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
CENTOS6.9+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Fedora27+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
SUSE12+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
AWSAL1/2✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

Containers like Docker can be used on operating systems where a direct install is problematic.

DistroVersionCPUDiskIOMemoryProcess
Killer
Shut
down
Time
Travel
Black
hole
DNSLatencyPacket
Loss
Docker17.12.1-ce✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Cri-O1.17.1✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Containerd1.2.13✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
FedoraAtomic✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Alpine3.7✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Photon1+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
CoreOS1649.0.0+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
FreeBSD10.4+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Kubernetes
(K8s)
1.6+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Flatcar2605.12.0+✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

The versions and attacks supported on Microsoft Windows are:

Windows VersionCPUDiskIOMemoryProcess
Killer
Shut
down
Time
Travel
Black
hole
DNSLatencyPacket
Loss
Server 2008 R2 and later✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Windows 7 and later✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

Gremlin is designed to work on any Linux-based cloud platform. Here are some of the popular platforms our customers are currently using.

PlatformVersionCPUDiskIOMemoryProcess
Killer
Shut
down
Time
Travel
Black
hole
DNSLatencyPacket
Loss
GCP✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
AWS✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️
Azure✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

Caveats

The primary focus in these caveats is whether or not Gremlin can operate on the listed host. The following are distribution specific caveats and findings.

Ubuntu

The dependency apt-transport-https must be installed in order to download from repo via HTTPS.

Debian

The following dependencies must be installed:

  • apt-transport-https
  • dirmngr (Debian 9)

SUSE

The following dependencies must be installed:

  • libcap-progs
  • A script is available to take care of these dependencies.

Amazon Linux

The dependency iproute-tc must be installed (AL2).

Fedora Atomic

Latency and Packet Loss attacks do not succeed due to an unavailable dependency:

  • Tc Error: RTNETLINK answers: No such file or directory

Google Container Optimized OS (COS)

When running network attacks, Gremlin recommends using the latest version of COS. Prior versions of COS did not include kernel modules necessary to apply network impacts. For GKE users, the following minimum versions are recommended:

  • 1.15.9-gke.17+
  • 1.16.6-gke.5+

Windows

Azure Windows instances may throttle disk I/O such that large disk attacks will take an excessive amount of time to complete.