Installing CRC

Minimum system requirements

CRC has the following minimum hardware and operating system requirements.

Hardware requirements

CRC is supported on these architectures:

Table 1. Preset and architecture compatibility
Preset	AMD64	Intel 64	Apple silicon
OpenShift Container Platform	yes	yes	yes
OKD	yes	yes	no
MicroShift	yes	yes	yes

CRC does not support nested virtualization.

Depending on the desired container runtime, CRC requires the following system resources:

For OpenShift Container Platform

4 physical CPU cores
10.5 GB of free memory
35 GB of storage space

For MicroShift

2 physical CPU cores
4 GB of free memory
35 GB of storage space

The OpenShift Container Platform and MicroShift presets require these minimum resources to run in the CRC instance. Some workloads might require more resources. To assign more resources to the CRC instance, see Configuring the instance.

Operating system requirements

CRC requires the following minimum version of a supported operating system:

Microsoft Windows

Fully updated Microsoft Windows 10 or Microsoft Windows 11.
CRC does not work on earlier Microsoft Windows versions.
CRC does not work on Microsoft Windows Home Edition.

macOS

macOS 13 Ventura or later.
CRC does not work on earlier macOS versions.

Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Latest two minor releases.
The host running CRC is registered with the Red Hat Customer Portal.
libvirt and NetworkManager packages are installed.
```
sudo dnf install libvirt NetworkManager
```

CentOS

Latest two 8 and 9 minor releases.
libvirt and NetworkManager packages are installed.
```
sudo dnf install libvirt NetworkManager
```

Fedora

Latest two stable releases.
libvirt and NetworkManager packages are installed.
```
sudo dnf install libvirt NetworkManager
```

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or later and Debian 10 or later

Not supported.
Might require manual set up of the host machine.

libvirt and network-manager packages are installed.

sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon libvirt-daemon-system network-manager

Installing CRC

CRC is available as a portable executable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. On Microsoft Windows and macOS, CRC is available using a guided installer.

Prerequisites

Your host machine meets the minimum system requirements.

Procedure

Download the latest release of CRC for your platform.
On Microsoft Windows, extract the contents of the archive.
On macOS or Microsoft Windows, run the guided installer and follow the instructions.

On Microsoft Windows, you must install CRC to your local C:\ drive. You cannot run CRC from a network drive.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux, assuming the archive is in the ~/Downloads directory, follow these steps:
1. Extract the contents of the archive:
  $ cd ~/Downloads $ tar xvf crc-linux-amd64.tar.xz
2. Create the ~/bin directory if it does not exist and copy the crc executable to it:
  $ mkdir -p ~/bin $ cp ~/Downloads/crc-linux-*-amd64/crc ~/bin
3. Add the ~/bin directory to your $PATH:
  $ export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin $ echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin' >> ~/.bashrc

Upgrading CRC

Newer versions of the CRC executable require manual set up to prevent potential incompatibilities with earlier versions.

Procedure

Download the latest CRC release.
Save any desired information stored in your existing instance.
Delete the existing CRC instance.
```
$ crc delete
```
Replace the earlier crc executable with the executable of the latest release. Verify that the new crc executable is in use by checking its version:
```
$ crc version
```
Set up the new CRC release:
```
$ crc setup
```
Start the new CRC instance:
```
$ crc start
```