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+.. 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].