diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/testing/user/userguide/hw_requirements.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/testing/user/userguide/hw_requirements.rst | 79 |
1 files changed, 79 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/testing/user/userguide/hw_requirements.rst b/docs/testing/user/userguide/hw_requirements.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acb4c0a --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/testing/user/userguide/hw_requirements.rst @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +.. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0 +.. (c) Cisco Systems, Inc + +Requirements for running NFVbench +================================= + +.. _requirements: + +Hardware Requirements +--------------------- +To run NFVbench you need the following hardware: +- a Linux server +- a DPDK compatible NIC with at least 2 ports (preferably 10Gbps or higher) +- 2 ethernet cables between the NIC and the OpenStack pod under test (usually through a top of rack switch) + +The DPDK-compliant NIC must be one supported by the TRex traffic generator (such as Intel X710, refer to the `Trex Installation Guide <https://trex-tgn.cisco.com/trex/doc/trex_manual.html#_download_and_installation>`_ for a complete list of supported NIC) + +To run the TRex traffic generator (that is bundled with NFVbench) you will need to wire 2 physical interfaces of the NIC to the TOR switch(es): + - if you have only 1 TOR, wire both interfaces to that same TOR + - 1 interface to each TOR if you have 2 TORs and want to use bonded links to your compute nodes + +.. image:: images/nfvbench-trex-setup.svg + + +Switch Configuration +-------------------- +For VLAN encapsulation, the 2 corresponding ports on the switch(es) facing the Trex ports on the Linux server should be configured in trunk mode (NFVbench will instruct TRex to insert the appropriate vlan tag). + +For VxLAN encapsulation, the switch(es) must support the VTEP feature (VxLAN Tunnel End Point) with the ability to attach an interface to a VTEP (this is an advanced feature that requires an NFVbench plugin for the switch). + +Using a TOR switch is more representative of a real deployment and allows to measure packet flows on any compute node in the rack without rewiring and includes the overhead of the TOR switch. + +Although not the primary targeted use case, NFVbench could also support the direct wiring of the traffic generator to +a compute node without a switch (although that will limit some of the features that invove multiple compute nodes in the packet path). + +Software Requirements +--------------------- + +You need Docker to be installed on the Linux server. + +TRex uses the DPDK interface to interact with the DPDK compatible NIC for sending and receiving frames. The Linux server will +need to be configured properly to enable DPDK. + +DPDK requires a uio (User space I/O) or vfio (Virtual Function I/O) kernel module to be installed on the host to work. +There are 2 main uio kernel modules implementations (igb_uio and uio_pci_generic) and one vfio kernel module implementation. + +To check if a uio or vfio is already loaded on the host: + +.. code-block:: bash + + lsmod | grep -e igb_uio -e uio_pci_generic -e vfio + + +If missing, it is necessary to install a uio/vfio kernel module on the host server: + +- find a suitable kernel module for your host server (any uio or vfio kernel module built with the same Linux kernel version should work) +- load it using the modprobe and insmod commands + +Example of installation of the igb_uio kernel module: + +.. code-block:: bash + + modprobe uio + insmod ./igb_uio.ko + +Finally, the correct iommu options and huge pages to be configured on the Linux server on the boot command line: + +- enable intel_iommu and iommu pass through: "intel_iommu=on iommu=pt" +- for Trex, pre-allocate 1024 huge pages of 2MB each (for a total of 2GB): "hugepagesz=2M hugepages=1024" + +More detailed instructions can be found in the DPDK documentation (https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/dpdk/latest/dpdk.pdf). + + +NFVbench loopback VM image Upload +--------------------------------- + +The NFVbench loopback VM image should be uploaded to OpenStack prior to running NFVbench. +The NFVbench VM qcow2 image can be rebuilt from script or can be copied from the OPNFV artifact repository [URL TBP]. |