1 INSTALLING DPDK USING THE MESON BUILD SYSTEM
2 ---------------------------------------------
4 NOTE: Compiling and installing DPDK using ``meson`` and ``ninja``, rather
5 than using ``make`` (GNU make) is EXPERIMENTAL. Official builds of DPDK
6 should always be done using ``make``, as described in the ``Getting Started
7 Guide`` documentation, and at "http://dpdk.org/doc/quick-start".
11 For many platforms, compiling and installing DPDK should work using the
12 following set of commands::
19 This will compile DPDK in the ``build`` subdirectory, and then install the
20 resulting libraries, drivers and header files onto the system - generally
21 in /usr/local. A package-config file, ``libdpdk.pc``, for DPDK will also
22 be installed to allow ease of compiling and linking with applications.
24 After installation, to use DPDK, the necessary CFLAG and LDFLAG variables
25 can be got from pkg-config::
27 pkg-config --cflags libdpdk
28 pkg-config --libs libdpdk
30 More detail on each of these steps can be got from the following sections.
36 The ``meson`` tool is used to configure a DPDK build. On most Linux
37 distributions this can be got using the local package management system,
38 e.g. ``dnf install meson`` or ``apt-get install meson``. If meson is not
39 available as a suitable package, it can also be installed using the Python
40 3 ``pip`` tool, e.g. ``pip3 install meson``. Version 0.42 of meson is
41 recommended - if the version packaged is too old, the latest version is
42 generally available from "pip".
44 The other dependency for building is the ``ninja`` tool, which acts similar
45 to make and performs the actual build using information provided by meson.
46 Installing meson will, in many cases, also install ninja, but, if not
47 already installed, it too is generally packaged by most Linux distributions.
48 If not available as a package, it can be downloaded as source or binary from
49 https://ninja-build.org/
53 ----------------------
55 To configure a build, run the meson tool, passing the path to the directory
56 to be used for the build e.g. ``meson build``, as shown above. If calling
57 meson from somewhere other than the root directory of the DPDK project the
58 path to the root directory should be passed as the first parameter, and the
59 build path as the second. For example, to build DPDK in /tmp/dpdk-build::
61 user@host:/tmp$ meson ~user/dpdk dpdk-build
63 Meson will then configure the build based on settings in the project's
64 meson.build files, and by checking the build environment for e.g. compiler
65 properties or the presence of dependencies, such as libpcap, or openssl
66 libcrypto libraries. Once done, meson writes a ``build.ninja`` file in the
67 build directory to be used to do the build itself when ninja is called.
69 Tuning of the build is possible, both as part of the original meson call,
70 or subsequently using ``meson configure`` command (``mesonconf`` in some
71 older versions). Some options, such as ``buildtype``, or ``werror`` are
72 built into meson, while others, such as ``max_lcores``, or the list of
73 examples to build, are DPDK-specific. To have a list of all options
74 available run ``meson configure`` in the build directory.
76 Examples of adjusting the defaults when doing initial meson configuration.
77 Project-specific options are passed used -Doption=value::
79 meson --werror werrorbuild # build with warnings as errors
81 meson --buildtype=debug debugbuild # build for debugging
83 meson -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd fwdbuild # build some examples as
84 # part of the normal DPDK build
86 meson -Dmax_lcores=8 smallbuild # scale build for smaller systems
88 meson -Denable_docs=true fullbuild # build and install docs
90 Examples of setting the same options using meson configure::
92 meson configure -Dwerror=true
94 meson configure -Dbuildtype=debug
96 meson configure -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd
98 meson configure -Dmax_lcores=8
100 NOTE: once meson has been run to configure a build in a directory, it
101 cannot be run again on the same directory. Instead ``meson configure``
102 should be used to change the build settings within the directory, and when
103 ``ninja`` is called to do the build itself, it will trigger the necessary
106 As well as those settings taken from ``meson configure``, other options
107 such as the compiler to use can be passed via environment variables. For
110 CC=clang meson clang-build
112 NOTE: for more comprehensive overriding of compilers or other environment
113 settings, the tools for cross-compilation may be considered. However, for
114 basic overriding of the compiler etc., the above form works as expected.
118 ---------------------
120 Use ``ninja`` to perform the actual build inside the build folder
121 previously configured. In most cases no arguments are necessary.
123 Ninja accepts a number of flags which are similar to make. For example, to
124 call ninja from outside the build folder, you can use ``ninja -C build``.
125 Ninja also runs parallel builds by default, but you can limit this using
126 the ``-j`` flag, e.g. ``ninja -j1 -v`` to do the build one step at a time,
127 printing each command on a new line as it runs.
130 Installing the Compiled Files
131 ------------------------------
133 Use ``ninja install`` to install the required DPDK files onto the system.
134 The install prefix defaults to ``/usr/local`` but can be used as with other
135 options above. The environment variable ``DEST_DIR`` can be used to adjust
136 the root directory for the install, for example when packaging.
138 With the base install directory, the individual directories for libraries
139 and headers are configurable. By default, the following will be the
142 headers -> /usr/local/include
143 libraries -> /usr/local/lib64
144 drivers -> /usr/local/lib64/dpdk/drivers
145 libdpdk.pc -> /usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig
147 For the drivers, these will also be symbolically linked into the library
148 install directory, so that ld.so can find them in cases where one driver may
149 depend on another, e.g. a NIC PMD depending upon the PCI bus driver. Within
150 the EAL, the default search path for drivers will be set to the configured
151 driver install path, so dynamically-linked applications can be run without
152 having to pass in ``-d /path/to/driver`` options for standard drivers.
158 To cross-compile DPDK on a desired target machine we can use the following
161 meson cross-build --cross-file <target_machine_configuration>
163 For example if the target machine is arm64 we can use the following
165 meson arm-build --cross-file config/arm/arm64_armv8_linuxapp_gcc
167 where config/arm/arm64_armv8_linuxapp_gcc contains the following
171 c = 'aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc'
172 cpp = 'aarch64-linux-gnu-cpp'
173 ar = 'aarch64-linux-gnu-ar'
177 cpu_family = 'aarch64'
182 Using the DPDK within an Application
183 -------------------------------------
185 To compile and link against DPDK within an application, pkg-config should
186 be used to query the correct parameters. Examples of this are given in the
187 makefiles for the example applications included with DPDK. They demonstrate
188 how to link either against the DPDK shared libraries, or against the static
189 versions of the same.
191 From examples/helloworld/Makefile::
193 PC_FILE := $(shell pkg-config --path libdpdk)
194 CFLAGS += -O3 $(shell pkg-config --cflags libdpdk)
195 LDFLAGS_SHARED = $(shell pkg-config --libs libdpdk)
196 LDFLAGS_STATIC = -Wl,-Bstatic $(shell pkg-config --static --libs libdpdk)
198 build/$(APP)-shared: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
199 $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_SHARED)
201 build/$(APP)-static: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
202 $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_STATIC)