Operating systems - Amazon ParallelCluster
Operating system considerations
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Operating systems

Amazon ParallelCluster supports Amazon Linux 2, Amazon Linux 2023, Ubuntu24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL8), Rocky 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL9), and Rocky 9. Amazon ParallelCluster offers pre-built AMIs for select operating systems, for more details on AMIs provided by Amazon ParallelCluster refer to Image section.

Operating system considerations

Ubuntu 22.04 & Ubuntu 24.04

Ubuntu 22.04 & Ubuntu 24.04 require more secure keys for ssh and do not support RSA keys by default. Please generate an ed25519 key and use that for cluster creation.

Ubuntu 22.04 cannot be updated to the latest kernel because there is no FSx client for that kernel.

RHEL 8

RedHat Enterprise Linux 8.7 (rhel8) is added starting in Amazon ParallelCluster version 3.6.0. If you configure your cluster to use rhel8, the on-demand cost for any instance type is higher than when you configure your cluster to use other supported operation systems.

For more information about pricing, see On-Demand Pricing and How is Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud offered and priced?.

Rocky 8

Amazon ParallelCluster 3.8.0 supports Rocky Linux 8, but pre-built Rocky Linux 8 AMIs (for x86 and ARM architectures) are not available. Amazon ParallelCluster 3.8.0 supports creating clusters with Rocky Linux 8 using custom AMIs using the CustomAmi property. For more information about building custom AMIs, refer to Amazon ParallelCluster AMI customization.

To build your custom AMI from a base Rocky Linux 8 AMI, you can consider subscribing to the Rocky Linux 8 AMIs available on the Amazon Marketplace. Make sure to review the pricing and subscription costs for Rocky Linux 8 AMIs on the Amazon Marketplace. Alternatively you can also use the official Rocky Linux 8 AMIsas your base AMI.

Rocky9

Amazon ParallelCluster 3.9.0 supports Rocky Linux 9, but pre-built Rocky Linux 9 AMIs (for x86 and ARM architectures) are not available. Amazon ParallelCluster 3.9.0 supports creating clusters with Rocky Linux 9 using custom AMIs using the CustomAmi property. For more information about building custom AMIs, refer to Amazon ParallelCluster AMI customization. To build your custom AMI from a base Rocky Linux 9 AMI, you can also use the official Rocky Linux 9 AMIs as your base AMI. Custom Rocky Linux 9 AMI build may fail if the base AMI does not have the latest kernel. To upgrade the kernel before building the AMI:

  • Launch an instance using a rocky9 AMI id from here: https://rockylinux.org/cloud-images/

  • ssh into the instance and run the following command:sudo yum -y update

  • Create an image from the instance to use as ParentImage