MaxScale Dependencies

How to obtain the complete list of MariaDB MaxScale runtime dependencies on Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, SLES, and container images.

MariaDB MaxScale does not require any external software at version-pinned ranges that you must track separately from the package itself. The platform packages (RPM, DEB) and the container image declare their runtime requirements through the standard packaging metadata, and your package manager resolves and installs the right versions for your operating system release.

This page describes how to enumerate those dependencies on each supported platform, so you can answer questions such as "Which exact libraries does MaxScale link against on this host?" or "What needs to be available before I can install or upgrade?" without guessing.

If you need a CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for compliance purposes such as SOC 2, FedRAMP, or the EU Cyber Resilience Act, contact MariaDB Support.

Debian and Ubuntu

Before installation, query the package's declared dependencies from the repository or a downloaded .deb file.

# From the configured MariaDB repository
apt-cache depends maxscale

# Recursive (the full transitive dependency tree)
apt-rdepends maxscale

# From a downloaded .deb file
dpkg-deb --info maxscale_*.deb | grep -E '^ (Depends|Recommends|Suggests):'

After installation, inspect the installed package metadata:

dpkg -s maxscale
dpkg -s maxscale-common

The Depends: and Recommends: lines list both the package-internal dependencies (for example, maxscale-common) and the system libraries pulled in by dpkg-shlibdeps at build time.

RHEL, Rocky Linux, and Alma Linux

Before installation:

# From the configured MariaDB repository
dnf repoquery --requires maxscale
dnf repoquery --requires --resolve maxscale       # show concrete package versions

# From a downloaded .rpm file
rpm -qpR /path/to/maxscale-*.rpm

After installation:

rpm -qi maxscale
rpm -qR maxscale
rpm -qR maxscale-common

The Requires: entries cover both the internal maxscale-common dependency and the system libraries that rpmbuild detected as needed at link time.

SLES

The commands match RHEL because SLES also uses RPM. The repository query uses zypper:

zypper info --requires maxscale
rpm -qR maxscale

Container images

For MariaDB-published MaxScale container images, the dependencies are baked into the image layers. Use either the standard Docker tooling or a scanner that understands image layers:

# Inspect image labels and history
docker image inspect mariadb/maxscale:latest
docker image history mariadb/maxscale:latest

# Generate an SBOM from the running image (no MariaDB tooling required)
syft mariadb/maxscale:latest -o cyclonedx-json
trivy image --format cyclonedx mariadb/maxscale:latest

syft and trivy produce CycloneDX 1.6 output covering all OS packages plus any bundled language-level dependencies (for example, the maxctrl and MaxGUI Node.js trees).

Shared library dependencies

To see exactly which shared libraries the running MaxScale binary and its loaded modules link against on a given host, use ldd:

ldd /usr/bin/maxscale
ldd /usr/lib/*/maxscale/*.so       # adjust path for your distribution layout

This is the most reliable way to answer "Does my host have everything MaxScale needs?" — ldd reports any unresolved symbols as not found.