Hardware prerequisites
The host machine must have at least 2 GBytes of memory and 8 GBytes free disk space.
Software prerequisites
Linux (redhat5 kernel at least; more recent is better), MacOS and various flavors of Windows are all acceptable host operating systems. Additionally you'll need a virtual machine manager: software which allows you to start and stop the appliance and adjust its configuration. Since VirtualBox is being used to create the appliances, that's what we recommend for users.
Installing VirtualBox
Installing the VM