Documentation/vhost-user-ovs-dpdk

Vhost-user with OVS/DPDK as backend

The purpose of this document is to describe the steps needed to setup a development machine for vhost-user testing. All the information here is taken from various sources available online.

The goal is to connect guests' virtio-net devices having vhost-user backend to OVS dpdkvhostuser ports and be able to run any kind of network traffic between them.

Prerequisites

• Ensure you have hugepages enabled in kernel command line:

 default_hugepagesz=2M hugepagesz=2M hugepages=1024

Build from sources

DPDK build

• Get the sources

git clone git://dpdk.org/dpdk
cd dpdk

• Edit the configuration file:

diff --git a/config/common_linuxapp b/config/common_linuxapp
index 0de43d5..5260501 100644
--- a/config/common_linuxapp
+++ b/config/common_linuxapp
@@ -81,12 +81,12 @@ CONFIG_RTE_ARCH_STRICT_ALIGN=n
 #
 # Compile to share library
 #
-CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_SHARED_LIB=n
+CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_SHARED_LIB=y

 #
 # Combine to one single library
 #
-CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_COMBINE_LIBS=n
+CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_COMBINE_LIBS=y

 #
 # Use newest code breaking previous ABI

• Build it

export RTE_SDK=<dpdk-dir>
export RTE_TARGET=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc
make -j<cpu num> T=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc config
make -j<cpu num> T=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc EXTRA_CFLAGS='-g'
yes | cp -f ./x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc/lib/libdpdk.so /lib64/libdpdk.so (if you use system installed ovs with default ld path)
(cd lib/librte_vhost/eventfd_link && make)

OVS build

• Get the sources:

 git clone https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs
 cd ovs

• Build it:

./boot.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --with-dpdk=<dpdk dir>/x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc  --disable-ssl --with-debug  CFLAGS='-g'
make install -j <cpu num>

QEMU build

• Get the sources:

git://git.qemu.org/qemu.git
cd qemu

• Build it:

./configure --target-list=x86_64-softmmu --enable-debug --extra-cflags='-g'
make -C bin -j <cpu num>

Setup

System setup

• Prepare directories

mkdir -p /var/run/openvswitch
mount -t hugetlbfs -o pagesize=2048k none /dev/hugepages

• Load kernel modules

modprobe openvswitch
cd dpdk
insmod lib/librte_vhost/eventfd_link/eventfd_link.ko

• Handle cgroups

mkdir /dev/cgroup
mount -t cgroup none /dev/cgroup -o devices

OVS setup

• Clean the environment

killall ovsdb-server ovs-vswitchd
rm -f /var/run/openvswitch/vhost-user*
rm -f /etc/openvswitch/conf.db

• Start database server

export DB_SOCK=/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock
cd <ovs-dir>/ovsdb
ovsdb-tool create /etc/openvswitch/conf.db /usr/share/openvswitch/vswitch.ovsschema
ovsdb-server --remote=punix:$DB_SOCK --remote=db:Open_vSwitch,Open_vSwitch,manager_options --pidfile --detach

• Start OVS

cd <ovs-dir>/utilities
ovs-vsctl --no-wait init
cd <ovs-dir>/vswitchd
ovs-vswitchd --dpdk -c 0xf -n 3 --socket-mem 1024 -- unix:$DB_SOCK --pidfile --detach --log-file=/var/log/openvswitch/ovs-vswitchd.log

• Configure the bridge

cd <ovs-dir>/utilities
ovs-vsctl add-br ovsbr0 -- set bridge ovsbr0 datapath_type=netdev
ovs-vsctl add-port ovsbr0 vhost-user1 -- set Interface vhost-user1 type=dpdkvhostuser
ovs-vsctl add-port ovsbr0 vhost-user2 -- set Interface vhost-user2 type=dpdkvhostuser

QEMU setup

• Start 'n' VMs

cd <qemu-dir>/bin/x86_64-softmmu/
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 1024 -smp 2 \
    -chardev socket,id=char0,path=/var/run/openvswitch/vhost-user<n> \
    -netdev type=vhost-user,id=mynet1,chardev=char0,vhostforce \
    -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=mynet1,mac=52:54:00:02:d9:0<n> \
    -object memory-backend-file,id=mem,size=1024M,mem-path=/dev/hugepages,share=on \
    -numa node,memdev=mem -mem-prealloc \
    -net user,hostfwd=tcp::1002<n>-:22 -net nic \
    /path/to/img

• VM setup

 ssh root@localhost -p1002<n>
 ifconfig <eth interface> 192.168.100.<n>

Notes

• I want to keep it as simple as possible. If you see steps that can be skipped or unneeded configuration feel free to update the document.
• I intend to add steps for enabling multi-queue.