This article lists the current system requirements for Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 or later for Linux.

Note: This article will be updated as additional platforms or other system requirements are tested and added for Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 or later for Linux. To receive email notifications when this article is updated with new information, click Subscribe.

Supported platforms

Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 or later for Linux runs on the following platforms:

• Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS, 14.04.4 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 12.04.5 LTS, 12.04 LTS (32-bit and 64-bit versions)
  NOTE: Starting from April 30, 2019, Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux version 10.4.2 or later will not be supported on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or any earlier versions because Ubuntu 14.04 LTS reached end of standard support.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7.6 (64-bit), 7.5 (64-bit), 7.2 (64-bit), 7.1 (64-bit), 6.7 (32-bit and 64-bit), 6.6 (32-bit and 64-bit) (all versions support BIOS mode only)
  NOTE: There are known issues when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5. See Known issues while downloading and installing RHEL 7.5 later in this article for details.
  NOTE: Starting from the release of version 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports only the 64-bit architecture.

Important: Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux runs on the above platforms when all of the latest hotfixes and security patches have been applied.

Upgrade

If you are upgrading your operating system (with Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux 3.3.x installed) from an earlier supported version of Ubuntu to version 12.04 LTS or version 14.04 LTS, be sure to do the following:

1. Decrypt your system disk.
2. Upgrade to Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux 10.4.x.
3. Upgrade your operating system to Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
4. Re-encrypt your system disk.

Note: Directly upgrading to Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 or later for Linux is not supported. Before you upgrade to version 10.4.2 or later, ensure to decrypt your disk, and then upgrade your current version of Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux to version 10.4.2 or later.

System requirements

The system requirements for Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.x for Linux are:

• Generic Linux kernel. Kernels modified for PAE, Xen, or RT are not supported.
• 512 MB of RAM
• 64 MB hard disk space
• Internet access during installation, except on systems that have the required packages pre-installed or have access to a local repository of packages. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS, the required packages are dkms, gcc, make, and patch. For Ubuntu, they are dkms, gcc, make, and libc6-dev. Both platforms also require the development package for the currently running kernel.

Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux is compatible with the default Logical Volume Manager (LVM) installation. That is, for systems using LVM, the /boot directory must reside on a normal (non-LVM) partition. This constraint can be satisfied by one of two ways: (a) The root (/) is a normal (non-LVM) partition, or (b) /boot itself is a mount point for a normal partition.

Note: CentOS is free, open source software based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For the purposes of supporting Symantec Drive Encryption for Linux, the two are functionally equivalent.

Known issues while downloading and installing RHEL 7.5

Issue 1: The Symantec Encryption Management Server 3.4.2 MP1 console provides an option to download RHEL 7.1 and RHEL 7.2 but not RHEL 7.5.

Resolution: Administrators can use the 7.2 option from the Symantec Encryption Management Server 3.4.2 MP1 console to download the RHEL 7.5 package.

Issue 2: After registering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 with subscription manager, the installer supported packages may fail to get installed during the installation of Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 MP1 for Linux .

Resolution: To successfully install Symantec Drive Encryption 10.4.2 MP1 for Linux on RHEL 7.5, administrators must install the dependent packages by running the following commands:

# yum install perl gcc patch
# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm. Alternatively, download the package from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm and open the Downloads directory on the system, and then run the command: # yum install epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm.
# subscription-manager repos --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms" --enable "rhel-*-extras-rpms"
# yum install dkms