xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/linux_gsg/sys_reqs.rst (revision 18aa32725ebb662f73b004ffd061eeb780e4de78)
1..  BSD LICENSE
2    Copyright(c) 2010-2014 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
3    All rights reserved.
4
5    Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
6    modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
7    are met:
8
9    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
13    the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
14    distribution.
15    * Neither the name of Intel Corporation nor the names of its
16    contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
17    from this software without specific prior written permission.
18
19    THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
20    "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
21    LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
22    A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
23    OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
24    SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
25    LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
26    DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
27    THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
28    (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
29    OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
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 on 40G NIC, 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
50Compilation of the DPDK
51-----------------------
52
53**Required Tools:**
54
55.. note::
56
57    Testing has been performed using Fedora 18. The setup commands and installed packages needed on other systems may be different.
58    For details on other Linux distributions and the versions tested, please consult the DPDK Release Notes.
59
60*   GNU ``make``.
61
62*   coreutils: ``cmp``, ``sed``, ``grep``, ``arch``, etc.
63
64*   gcc: versions 4.5.x or later is recommended for ``i686/x86_64``. Versions 4.8.x or later is recommended
65    for ``ppc_64`` and ``x86_x32`` ABI. On some distributions, some specific compiler flags and linker flags are enabled by
66    default and affect performance (``-fstack-protector``, for example). Please refer to the documentation
67    of your distribution and to ``gcc -dumpspecs``.
68
69*   libc headers, often packaged as ``gcc-multilib`` (``glibc-devel.i686`` / ``libc6-dev-i386``;
70    ``glibc-devel.x86_64`` / ``libc6-dev`` for 64-bit compilation on Intel architecture;
71    ``glibc-devel.ppc64`` for 64 bit IBM Power architecture;)
72
73*   Linux kernel headers or sources required to build kernel modules. (kernel - devel.x86_64;
74    kernel - devel.ppc64)
75
76*   Additional packages required for 32-bit compilation on 64-bit systems are:
77
78    * glibc.i686, libgcc.i686, libstdc++.i686 and glibc-devel.i686 for Intel i686/x86_64;
79
80    * glibc.ppc64, libgcc.ppc64, libstdc++.ppc64 and glibc-devel.ppc64 for IBM ppc_64;
81
82.. note::
83
84    x86_x32 ABI is currently supported with distribution packages only on Ubuntu
85    higher than 13.10 or recent Debian distribution. The only supported  compiler is gcc 4.8+.
86
87.. note::
88
89    Python, version 2.6 or 2.7, to use various helper scripts included in the DPDK package.
90
91
92**Optional Tools:**
93
94*   Intel® C++ Compiler (icc). For installation, additional libraries may be required.
95    See the icc Installation Guide found in the Documentation directory under the compiler installation.
96
97*   IBM® Advance ToolChain for Powerlinux. This is a set of open source development tools and runtime libraries
98    which allows users to take leading edge advantage of IBM's latest POWER hardware features on Linux. To install
99    it, see the IBM official installation document.
100
101*   libpcap headers and libraries (libpcap-devel) to compile and use the libpcap-based poll-mode driver.
102    This driver is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_PCAP=y`` in the build time config file.
103
104*   libarchive headers and library are needed for some unit tests using tar to get their resources.
105
106
107Running DPDK Applications
108-------------------------
109
110To run an DPDK application, some customization may be required on the target machine.
111
112System Software
113~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
114
115**Required:**
116
117*   Kernel version >= 2.6.34
118
119    The kernel version in use can be checked using the command::
120
121        uname -r
122
123*   glibc >= 2.7 (for features related to cpuset)
124
125    The version can be checked using the ``ldd --version`` command.
126
127*   Kernel configuration
128
129    In the Fedora OS and other common distributions, such as Ubuntu, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
130    the vendor supplied kernel configurations can be used to run most DPDK applications.
131
132    For other kernel builds, options which should be enabled for DPDK include:
133
134    *   UIO support
135
136    *   HUGETLBFS
137
138    *   PROC_PAGE_MONITOR  support
139
140    *   HPET and HPET_MMAP configuration options should also be enabled if HPET  support is required.
141        See the section on :ref:`High Precision Event Timer (HPET) Functionality <High_Precision_Event_Timer>` for more details.
142
143.. _linux_gsg_hugepages:
144
145Use of Hugepages in the Linux Environment
146~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
147
148Hugepage support is required for the large memory pool allocation used for packet buffers
149(the HUGETLBFS option must be enabled in the running kernel as indicated the previous section).
150By using hugepage allocations, performance is increased since fewer pages are needed,
151and therefore less Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs, high speed translation caches),
152which reduce the time it takes to translate a virtual page address to a physical page address.
153Without hugepages, high TLB miss rates would occur with the standard 4k page size, slowing performance.
154
155Reserving Hugepages for DPDK Use
156^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
157
158The allocation of hugepages should be done at boot time or as soon as possible after system boot
159to prevent memory from being fragmented in physical memory.
160To reserve hugepages at boot time, a parameter is passed to the Linux kernel on the kernel command line.
161
162For 2 MB pages, just pass the hugepages option to the kernel. For example, to reserve 1024 pages of 2 MB, use::
163
164    hugepages=1024
165
166For other hugepage sizes, for example 1G pages, the size must be specified explicitly and
167can also be optionally set as the default hugepage size for the system.
168For example, to reserve 4G of hugepage memory in the form of four 1G pages, the following options should be passed to the kernel::
169
170    default_hugepagesz=1G hugepagesz=1G hugepages=4
171
172.. note::
173
174    The hugepage sizes that a CPU supports can be determined from the CPU flags on Intel architecture.
175    If pse exists, 2M hugepages are supported; if pdpe1gb exists, 1G hugepages are supported.
176    On IBM Power architecture, the supported hugepage sizes are 16MB and 16GB.
177
178.. note::
179
180    For 64-bit applications, it is recommended to use 1 GB hugepages if the platform supports them.
181
182In the case of a dual-socket NUMA system,
183the number of hugepages reserved at boot time is generally divided equally between the two sockets
184(on the assumption that sufficient memory is present on both sockets).
185
186See the Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt file in your Linux source tree for further details of these and other kernel options.
187
188**Alternative:**
189
190For 2 MB pages, there is also the option of allocating hugepages after the system has booted.
191This is done by echoing the number of hugepages required to a nr_hugepages file in the ``/sys/devices/`` directory.
192For a single-node system, the command to use is as follows (assuming that 1024 pages are required)::
193
194    echo 1024 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
195
196On a NUMA machine, pages should be allocated explicitly on separate nodes::
197
198    echo 1024 > /sys/devices/system/node/node0/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
199    echo 1024 > /sys/devices/system/node/node1/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
200
201.. note::
202
203    For 1G pages, it is not possible to reserve the hugepage memory after the system has booted.
204
205Using Hugepages with the DPDK
206^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
207
208Once the hugepage memory is reserved, to make the memory available for DPDK use, perform the following steps::
209
210    mkdir /mnt/huge
211    mount -t hugetlbfs nodev /mnt/huge
212
213The mount point can be made permanent across reboots, by adding the following line to the ``/etc/fstab`` file::
214
215    nodev /mnt/huge hugetlbfs defaults 0 0
216
217For 1GB pages, the page size must be specified as a mount option::
218
219    nodev /mnt/huge_1GB hugetlbfs pagesize=1GB 0 0
220
221Xen Domain0 Support in the Linux Environment
222~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
223
224The existing memory management implementation is based on the Linux kernel hugepage mechanism.
225On the Xen hypervisor, hugepage support for DomainU (DomU) Guests means that DPDK applications work as normal for guests.
226
227However, Domain0 (Dom0) does not support hugepages.
228To work around this limitation, a new kernel module rte_dom0_mm is added to facilitate the allocation and mapping of memory via
229**IOCTL** (allocation) and **MMAP** (mapping).
230
231Enabling Xen Dom0 Mode in the DPDK
232^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
233
234By default, Xen Dom0 mode is disabled in the DPDK build configuration files.
235To support Xen Dom0, the CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_XEN_DOM0 setting should be changed to “y”, which enables the Xen Dom0 mode at compile time.
236
237Furthermore, the CONFIG_RTE_EAL_ALLOW_INV_SOCKET_ID setting should also be changed to “y” in the case of the wrong socket ID being received.
238
239Loading the DPDK rte_dom0_mm Module
240^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
241
242To run any DPDK application on Xen Dom0, the ``rte_dom0_mm`` module must be loaded into the running kernel with rsv_memsize option.
243The module is found in the kmod sub-directory of the DPDK target directory.
244This module should be loaded using the insmod command as shown below (assuming that the current directory is the DPDK target directory)::
245
246    sudo insmod kmod/rte_dom0_mm.ko rsv_memsize=X
247
248The value X cannot be greater than 4096(MB).
249
250Configuring Memory for DPDK Use
251^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
252
253After the rte_dom0_mm.ko kernel module has been loaded, the user must configure the memory size for DPDK usage.
254This is done by echoing the memory size to a memsize file in the /sys/devices/ directory.
255Use the following command (assuming that 2048 MB is required)::
256
257    echo 2048 > /sys/kernel/mm/dom0-mm/memsize-mB/memsize
258
259The user can also check how much memory has already been used::
260
261    cat /sys/kernel/mm/dom0-mm/memsize-mB/memsize_rsvd
262
263Xen Domain0 does not support NUMA configuration, as a result the ``--socket-mem`` command line option is invalid for Xen Domain0.
264
265.. note::
266
267    The memsize value cannot be greater than the rsv_memsize value.
268
269Running the DPDK Application on Xen Domain0
270^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
271
272To run the DPDK application on Xen Domain0, an extra command line option ``--xen-dom0`` is required.
273