VPP in AWS¶

Warning: before starting this guide you should have a minimum knowledge on how AWS works!

First of all, you should log into your Virtual Machine inside AWS (we suggest to create an instance with Ubuntu 16.04 on a m5 type) and download some useful packages to make VPP installation as smooth as possible:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install python-pip
$ sudo apt-get install libnuma-dev
$ sudo apt-get install make
$ sudo apt install libelf-dev

Afterwards, types the following commands to install VPP:

$ curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/fdio/1807/script.deb.sh | sudo bash

In this case we downloaded VPP version 18.07 but actually you can use any VPP version available. Then, you can install VPP with all of its plugins:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install vpp
$ sudo apt-get install vpp-plugins vpp-dbg vpp-dev vpp-api-java vpp-api-python vpp-api-lua

Now, you need to bind the NICs (Network Card Interface) to VPP. Firstly you have the retrieve the PCI addresses of the NICs you want to bind:

$ sudo lshw -class network -businfo

The PCI addresses have a format similar to this: 0000:00:0X.0. Once you retrieve them, you should copy them inside the startup file of VPP:

$ sudo nano /etc/vpp/startup.conf

Here, inside the dpdk block, copy the PCI addresses of the NIC you want to bind to VPP.

dev 0000:00:0X.0

Now you should install DPDK package. This will allow to bind the NICs to VPP through a script available inside the DPDK package:

$  wget https://fast.dpdk.org/rel/dpdk-18.08.tar.xz
$  tar -xvf dpdk-18.08.tar.xz
$  cd ~/dpdk-18.08/usertools/

and open the script:

$ ./dpdk-setup.sh

When the script is running, you should be able to execute several options. For the moment, just install T=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc and then close the script. Now go inside:

$ cd ~/dpdk-18.08/x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc/

and type:

$ sudo modprobe uio
$ sudo insmod kmod/igb_uio.ko

In this way, the PCIs addresses should appear inside the setup file of DPDK and therefore you can bind them:

$ ./dpdk-setup.sh

Inside the script, bind the NICs using the option 24.

Finally restart VPP and the NICs should appear inside VPP CLI:

$ sudo service vpp stop
$ sudo service vpp start
$ sudo vppctl show int

Notice that if you stop the VM, you need to bind again the NICs.