Requirements

Panel host

• OS: a current Linux distribution (Ubuntu/Debian, RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, or openSUSE).
• Docker (or Podman) with Compose, installed or installable by install.sh.
• Resources: at least 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, and 20 GB free disk for the panel, PostgreSQL, and Redis. Production panels serving many servers want more.
• Network: a public IP or LAN address, plus a DNS name if you want TLS (recommended — see installation).
• Outbound HTTPS to pull container images.

Node hosts

Each node runs game containers through the Catalyst agent (containerd-based):

• OS: Linux with systemd (or OpenRC on Alpine).
• Resources: whatever your game servers need, plus ~1 GB RAM overhead for the agent and system. CPU and memory are the usual bottlenecks; disk fills up with backups and images.
• Network: stable connectivity back to the panel (the agent calls home — nodes do not need public IPs unless players connect directly to them).
• Root access for the agent installer.

Note

Sizing is workload-dependent: a handful of small Minecraft servers fits on a 4-core/16 GB node, while modded servers and many slots need substantially more. Start with headroom and watch monitoring.

What you do not need yet

PostgreSQL, Redis, Caddy/Traefik — the Docker installer provisions all panel dependencies. You only configure them when you outgrow the defaults (configuration).