Set up DPDK on On-Premises Worker Nodes

1. Install the following dependencies:

   Run all commands on the worker node on which you would like to set up DPDK.

   • For CentOS:

     yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' -y
     yum install net-tools pciutils -y
     yum install git gcc make -y
     yum install numactl-devel -y
     yum install which -y
     yum install -y sudo libhugetlbfs-utils libpcap-devel kernel kernel-devel kernel-headers
     yum update -y
     yum install epel-release -y
     yum install python36 -y

   • For Ubuntu OS:

     sudo apt install build-essential
     sudo apt-get install libnuma-dev
     

2. After installing the dependencies:

   • Download the DPDK tar file from https://fast.dpdk.org/rel/. See DPDK documentation for compilation steps.

     wget https://fast.dpdk.org/rel/dpdk-19.11.9.tar.xz

   • Untar the file.

     tar -xvf dpdk-19.11.9.tar.xz
     cd  dpdk-stable-19.11.9

   • Compile the file. The compiled file will be in the x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc subfolder

     make install T=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc

3. Insert the compiled kernel module statistically or dynamically during runtime (modprobe/insmod). For more information, see kernel module.

   cd x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc/kmod
   insmod igb_uio.ko
   insmod rte_kni.ko

   On Ubuntu, if you see the error—insmod: ERROR: could not insert module igb_uio.ko, insert uio module first.

   modprobe uio

4. Use distribution specific ways to insert modules during boot. Alternatively, you can create a service that runs the modprobe/insmod commands every time the system boots.

   cp <service-file> to /etc/systemd/system
   sudo systemctl daemon-reload

5. Activate and mount 2M hugepages of size 2048K.

   You can also activate hugepages using the service script in Step 4.

   echo 2048 > /sys/devices/system/node/node0/hugepages/hugepages-2048/nr_hugepages
   echo 4292967296 > /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb/kubepods.slice/hugetlb.2MB.limit_in_bytes
   mkdir /mnt/huge
   mount -t hugetlbfs nodev /mnt/huge

6. Create a snapshot of the VM for future use.