1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2 Copyright(c) 2018 Intel Corporation.
4 Installing DPDK Using the meson build system
5 ============================================
9 For many platforms, compiling and installing DPDK should work using the
10 following set of commands::
17 This will compile DPDK in the ``build`` subdirectory, and then install the
18 resulting libraries, drivers and header files onto the system - generally
19 in /usr/local. A package-config file, ``libdpdk.pc``, for DPDK will also
20 be installed to allow ease of compiling and linking with applications.
22 After installation, to use DPDK, the necessary CFLAG and LDFLAG variables
23 can be got from pkg-config::
25 pkg-config --cflags libdpdk
26 pkg-config --libs libdpdk
28 More detail on each of these steps can be got from the following sections.
34 The ``meson`` tool is used to configure a DPDK build. On most Linux
35 distributions this can be got using the local package management system,
36 e.g. ``dnf install meson`` or ``apt-get install meson``. If meson is not
37 available as a suitable package, it can also be installed using the Python
38 3 ``pip`` tool, e.g. ``pip3 install meson``. Version 0.49.2 of meson is
39 required - if the version packaged is too old, the latest version is
40 generally available from "pip".
42 The other dependency for building is the ``ninja`` tool, which acts similar
43 to make and performs the actual build using information provided by meson.
44 Installing meson will, in many cases, also install ninja, but, if not
45 already installed, it too is generally packaged by most Linux distributions.
46 If not available as a package, it can be downloaded as source or binary from
47 https://ninja-build.org/
49 It is best advised to go over the following links for the complete dependencies:
51 * :doc:`Linux <../linux_gsg/sys_reqs>`
52 * :doc:`FreeBSD <../freebsd_gsg/build_dpdk>`
53 * :doc:`Windows <../windows_gsg/build_dpdk>`
57 ----------------------
59 To configure a build, run the meson tool, passing the path to the directory
60 to be used for the build e.g. ``meson build``, as shown above. If calling
61 meson from somewhere other than the root directory of the DPDK project the
62 path to the root directory should be passed as the first parameter, and the
63 build path as the second. For example, to build DPDK in /tmp/dpdk-build::
65 user@host:/tmp$ meson ~user/dpdk dpdk-build
67 Meson will then configure the build based on settings in the project's
68 meson.build files, and by checking the build environment for e.g. compiler
69 properties or the presence of dependencies, such as libpcap, or openssl
70 libcrypto libraries. Once done, meson writes a ``build.ninja`` file in the
71 build directory to be used to do the build itself when ninja is called.
73 Tuning of the build is possible, both as part of the original meson call,
74 or subsequently using ``meson configure`` command (``mesonconf`` in some
75 older versions). Some options, such as ``buildtype``, or ``werror`` are
76 built into meson, while others, such as ``max_lcores``, or the list of
77 examples to build, are DPDK-specific. To have a list of all options
78 available run ``meson configure`` in the build directory.
80 Examples of adjusting the defaults when doing initial meson configuration.
81 Project-specific options are passed used -Doption=value::
83 meson --werror werrorbuild # build with warnings as errors
85 meson --buildtype=debug debugbuild # build for debugging
87 meson -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd fwdbuild # build some examples as
88 # part of the normal DPDK build
90 meson -Dmax_lcores=8 smallbuild # scale build for smaller systems
92 meson -Denable_docs=true fullbuild # build and install docs
94 meson -Dmachine=generic # use builder-independent baseline -march
96 meson -Ddisable_drivers=event/*,net/tap # disable tap driver and all
97 # eventdev PMDs for a smaller build
99 meson -Denable_trace_fp=true tracebuild # build with fast path traces
102 Examples of setting some of the same options using meson configure::
104 meson configure -Dwerror=true
106 meson configure -Dbuildtype=debug
108 meson configure -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd
110 meson configure -Dmax_lcores=8
112 meson configure -Denable_trace_fp=true
116 once meson has been run to configure a build in a directory, it
117 cannot be run again on the same directory. Instead ``meson configure``
118 should be used to change the build settings within the directory, and when
119 ``ninja`` is called to do the build itself, it will trigger the necessary
123 machine=generic uses a config that works on all supported architectures
124 regardless of the capabilities of the machine where the build is happening.
126 As well as those settings taken from ``meson configure``, other options
127 such as the compiler to use can be passed via environment variables. For
130 CC=clang meson clang-build
134 for more comprehensive overriding of compilers or other environment
135 settings, the tools for cross-compilation may be considered. However, for
136 basic overriding of the compiler etc., the above form works as expected.
140 ---------------------
142 Use ``ninja`` to perform the actual build inside the build folder
143 previously configured. In most cases no arguments are necessary.
145 Ninja accepts a number of flags which are similar to make. For example, to
146 call ninja from outside the build folder, you can use ``ninja -C build``.
147 Ninja also runs parallel builds by default, but you can limit this using
148 the ``-j`` flag, e.g. ``ninja -j1 -v`` to do the build one step at a time,
149 printing each command on a new line as it runs.
152 Installing the Compiled Files
153 ------------------------------
155 Use ``ninja install`` to install the required DPDK files onto the system.
156 The install prefix defaults to ``/usr/local`` but can be used as with other
157 options above. The environment variable ``DESTDIR`` can be used to adjust
158 the root directory for the install, for example when packaging.
160 With the base install directory, the individual directories for libraries
161 and headers are configurable. By default, the following will be the
164 headers -> /usr/local/include
165 libraries -> /usr/local/lib64
166 drivers -> /usr/local/lib64/dpdk/drivers
167 libdpdk.pc -> /usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig
169 For the drivers, these will also be symbolically linked into the library
170 install directory, so that ld.so can find them in cases where one driver may
171 depend on another, e.g. a NIC PMD depending upon the PCI bus driver. Within
172 the EAL, the default search path for drivers will be set to the configured
173 driver install path, so dynamically-linked applications can be run without
174 having to pass in ``-d /path/to/driver`` options for standard drivers.
180 To cross-compile DPDK on a desired target machine we can use the following
183 meson cross-build --cross-file <target_machine_configuration>
185 For example if the target machine is arm64 we can use the following
188 meson arm-build --cross-file config/arm/arm64_armv8_linux_gcc
190 where config/arm/arm64_armv8_linux_gcc contains settings for the compilers
191 and other build tools to be used, as well as characteristics of the target
194 Using the DPDK within an Application
195 -------------------------------------
197 To compile and link against DPDK within an application, pkg-config should
198 be used to query the correct parameters. Examples of this are given in the
199 makefiles for the example applications included with DPDK. They demonstrate
200 how to link either against the DPDK shared libraries, or against the static
201 versions of the same.
203 From examples/helloworld/Makefile::
205 PC_FILE := $(shell pkg-config --path libdpdk)
206 CFLAGS += -O3 $(shell pkg-config --cflags libdpdk)
207 LDFLAGS_SHARED = $(shell pkg-config --libs libdpdk)
208 LDFLAGS_STATIC = $(shell pkg-config --static --libs libdpdk)
210 build/$(APP)-shared: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
211 $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_SHARED)
213 build/$(APP)-static: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
214 $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_STATIC)