xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/linux_gsg/sys_reqs.rst (revision 131a75b6e4df60586103d71defb85dcf9f77fb17)
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30
31System Requirements
32===================
33
34This chapter describes the packages required to compile the DPDK.
35
36.. note::
37
38    If the DPDK is being used on an Intel® Communications Chipset 89xx Series platform,
39    please consult the *Intel® Communications Chipset 89xx Series Software for Linux Getting Started Guide*.
40
41BIOS Setting Prerequisite on x86
42--------------------------------
43
44For the majority of platforms, no special BIOS settings are needed to use basic DPDK functionality.
45However, for additional HPET timer and power management functionality,
46and high performance of small packets, BIOS setting changes may be needed.
47Consult the section on :ref:`Enabling Additional Functionality <Enabling_Additional_Functionality>`
48for more information on the required changes.
49
50.. note::
51
52   If UEFI secure boot is enabled, the Linux kernel may disallow the use of
53   UIO on the system. Therefore, devices for use by DPDK should be bound to the
54   ``vfio-pci`` kernel module rather than ``igb_uio`` or ``uio_pci_generic``.
55   For more details see :ref:`linux_gsg_binding_kernel`.
56
57Compilation of the DPDK
58-----------------------
59
60**Required Tools and Libraries:**
61
62.. note::
63
64    Testing has been performed using Fedora 18. The setup commands and installed packages needed on other systems may be different.
65    For details on other Linux distributions and the versions tested, please consult the DPDK Release Notes.
66
67*   GNU ``make``.
68
69*   coreutils: ``cmp``, ``sed``, ``grep``, ``arch``, etc.
70
71*   gcc: versions 4.9 or later is recommended for all platforms.
72    On some distributions, some specific compiler flags and linker flags are enabled by
73    default and affect performance (``-fstack-protector``, for example). Please refer to the documentation
74    of your distribution and to ``gcc -dumpspecs``.
75
76*   libc headers, often packaged as ``gcc-multilib`` (``glibc-devel.i686`` / ``libc6-dev-i386``;
77    ``glibc-devel.x86_64`` / ``libc6-dev`` for 64-bit compilation on Intel architecture;
78    ``glibc-devel.ppc64`` for 64 bit IBM Power architecture;)
79
80*   Linux kernel headers or sources required to build kernel modules. (kernel - devel.x86_64;
81    kernel - devel.ppc64)
82
83*   Additional packages required for 32-bit compilation on 64-bit systems are:
84
85    * glibc.i686, libgcc.i686, libstdc++.i686 and glibc-devel.i686 for Intel i686/x86_64;
86
87    * glibc.ppc64, libgcc.ppc64, libstdc++.ppc64 and glibc-devel.ppc64 for IBM ppc_64;
88
89    .. note::
90
91       x86_x32 ABI is currently supported with distribution packages only on Ubuntu
92       higher than 13.10 or recent Debian distribution. The only supported  compiler is gcc 4.9+.
93
94*   libnuma-devel - library for handling NUMA (Non Uniform Memory Access).
95
96*   Python, version 2.7+ or 3.2+, to use various helper scripts included in the DPDK package.
97
98
99**Optional Tools:**
100
101*   Intel® C++ Compiler (icc). For installation, additional libraries may be required.
102    See the icc Installation Guide found in the Documentation directory under the compiler installation.
103
104*   IBM® Advance ToolChain for Powerlinux. This is a set of open source development tools and runtime libraries
105    which allows users to take leading edge advantage of IBM's latest POWER hardware features on Linux. To install
106    it, see the IBM official installation document.
107
108*   libpcap headers and libraries (libpcap-devel) to compile and use the libpcap-based poll-mode driver.
109    This driver is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_PCAP=y`` in the build time config file.
110
111*   libarchive headers and library are needed for some unit tests using tar to get their resources.
112
113
114Running DPDK Applications
115-------------------------
116
117To run an DPDK application, some customization may be required on the target machine.
118
119System Software
120~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
121
122**Required:**
123
124*   Kernel version >= 3.2
125
126    The kernel version required is based on the oldest long term stable kernel available
127    at kernel.org when the DPDK version is in development.
128
129    The kernel version in use can be checked using the command::
130
131        uname -r
132
133*   glibc >= 2.7 (for features related to cpuset)
134
135    The version can be checked using the ``ldd --version`` command.
136
137*   Kernel configuration
138
139    In the Fedora OS and other common distributions, such as Ubuntu, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
140    the vendor supplied kernel configurations can be used to run most DPDK applications.
141
142    For other kernel builds, options which should be enabled for DPDK include:
143
144    *   HUGETLBFS
145
146    *   PROC_PAGE_MONITOR  support
147
148    *   HPET and HPET_MMAP configuration options should also be enabled if HPET  support is required.
149        See the section on :ref:`High Precision Event Timer (HPET) Functionality <High_Precision_Event_Timer>` for more details.
150
151.. _linux_gsg_hugepages:
152
153Use of Hugepages in the Linux Environment
154~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
155
156Hugepage support is required for the large memory pool allocation used for packet buffers
157(the HUGETLBFS option must be enabled in the running kernel as indicated the previous section).
158By using hugepage allocations, performance is increased since fewer pages are needed,
159and therefore less Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs, high speed translation caches),
160which reduce the time it takes to translate a virtual page address to a physical page address.
161Without hugepages, high TLB miss rates would occur with the standard 4k page size, slowing performance.
162
163Reserving Hugepages for DPDK Use
164^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
165
166The allocation of hugepages should be done at boot time or as soon as possible after system boot
167to prevent memory from being fragmented in physical memory.
168To reserve hugepages at boot time, a parameter is passed to the Linux kernel on the kernel command line.
169
170For 2 MB pages, just pass the hugepages option to the kernel. For example, to reserve 1024 pages of 2 MB, use::
171
172    hugepages=1024
173
174For other hugepage sizes, for example 1G pages, the size must be specified explicitly and
175can also be optionally set as the default hugepage size for the system.
176For example, to reserve 4G of hugepage memory in the form of four 1G pages, the following options should be passed to the kernel::
177
178    default_hugepagesz=1G hugepagesz=1G hugepages=4
179
180.. note::
181
182    The hugepage sizes that a CPU supports can be determined from the CPU flags on Intel architecture.
183    If pse exists, 2M hugepages are supported; if pdpe1gb exists, 1G hugepages are supported.
184    On IBM Power architecture, the supported hugepage sizes are 16MB and 16GB.
185
186.. note::
187
188    For 64-bit applications, it is recommended to use 1 GB hugepages if the platform supports them.
189
190In the case of a dual-socket NUMA system,
191the number of hugepages reserved at boot time is generally divided equally between the two sockets
192(on the assumption that sufficient memory is present on both sockets).
193
194See the Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt file in your Linux source tree for further details of these and other kernel options.
195
196**Alternative:**
197
198For 2 MB pages, there is also the option of allocating hugepages after the system has booted.
199This is done by echoing the number of hugepages required to a nr_hugepages file in the ``/sys/devices/`` directory.
200For a single-node system, the command to use is as follows (assuming that 1024 pages are required)::
201
202    echo 1024 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
203
204On a NUMA machine, pages should be allocated explicitly on separate nodes::
205
206    echo 1024 > /sys/devices/system/node/node0/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
207    echo 1024 > /sys/devices/system/node/node1/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
208
209.. note::
210
211    For 1G pages, it is not possible to reserve the hugepage memory after the system has booted.
212
213    On IBM POWER system, the nr_overcommit_hugepages should be set to the same value as nr_hugepages.
214    For example, if the required page number is 128, the following commands are used::
215
216        echo 128 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-16384kB/nr_hugepages
217        echo 128 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-16384kB/nr_overcommit_hugepages
218
219Using Hugepages with the DPDK
220^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
221
222Once the hugepage memory is reserved, to make the memory available for DPDK use, perform the following steps::
223
224    mkdir /mnt/huge
225    mount -t hugetlbfs nodev /mnt/huge
226
227The mount point can be made permanent across reboots, by adding the following line to the ``/etc/fstab`` file::
228
229    nodev /mnt/huge hugetlbfs defaults 0 0
230
231For 1GB pages, the page size must be specified as a mount option::
232
233    nodev /mnt/huge_1GB hugetlbfs pagesize=1GB 0 0
234