System requirements — bRRAIn Docs

What a customer-run bRRAIn host needs: platform, tools, GPU for the Handler, disk, network and ports.

System requirements

These are the requirements the installer and the service actually check or depend on. They apply to Sovereign On-Prem hosts you run yourself; hosted pods are sized and provisioned by bRRAIn.

bRRAIn does not publish fixed CPU, RAM or GPU sizing tiers. Hardware for a customer-run host is agreed as part of the hosting quote, based on your user count, workload and the Handler configuration.

Platform

| Requirement | Detail | |---|---| | OS and architecture | Linux on amd64 (x86_64). The installer exits with "unsupported platform" on anything else. bRRAIn publishes a linux/amd64 artifact only. | | Privileges | Root. The installer exits unless it runs as root. | | Service manager | systemd. The installer writes and enables a brrain unit. | | Package manager | apt-get or dnf, so the installer can add missing curl, tar, gzip and zstd. On other distributions, install those yourself first. | | Tools | curl, tar, and sha256sum or shasum |

Not supported for the brain: macOS, Windows, arm64, and container or cluster deployment (Docker Compose, Helm, Kubernetes, Terraform).

GPU and model runtime

The Handler, bRRAIn's own model, is served locally by Ollama on the same host. The installer installs Ollama with Ollama's own installer if it is missing, and the brrain unit starts after ollama.service. Provide a GPU and drivers that Ollama supports; check Ollama's documentation for current GPU support.

Disk

  • The release artifact is a tarball of several gigabytes (it carries the Handler's weights).
  • Upgrades stage the new release beside the install root and keep the outgoing one in /opt/brrain/.previous for rollback, so the install root's filesystem needs room for about three copies of the release.
  • The vault (/var/lib/brrain/vault by default) grows with your organization's content. Plan it on its own volume, with snapshot space on a different one (see Backup & restore).

Network

| Direction | Purpose | |---|---| | Outbound HTTPS to bRRAIn's artifact origin | Release manifests and the tarball (or a mirror you set with BRRAIN_MANIFEST_BASE) | | Outbound HTTPS to ollama.com | Only if Ollama is not already installed | | Inbound HTTPS (your reverse proxy, usually 443) | Users, clients, and bRRAIn's installation verification | | Local :7843 | brrain serve (plain HTTP; change with BRRAIN_LISTEN_ADDR). Keep it behind the proxy. |

Before you install

  • [ ] Linux amd64 host with root access and systemd
  • [ ] GPU and drivers working with Ollama
  • [ ] Vault path decided (BRRAIN_VAULT_ROOT); it is written into the unit on first install
  • [ ] Disk for three release copies plus the vault and snapshots
  • [ ] DNS name and TLS certificate for the reverse proxy
  • [ ] Recovery-phrase holders available at the terminal for the first install

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