micro-nf

Microservices for building network functions.

Kernel configurations

Hugepage configuration

• Open /etc/grub
• Append the following at the end of GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT variable's value to allocate 8 1G hugepages.

default_hugepagesz=1G hugepagesz=1G hugepages=8

• Reboot the machine
• Mount hugetlbfs

$ mkdir /mnt/huge
$ mount -t hugetlbfs nodev /mnt/huge

The mount point can be made permanent across reboots, by adding the following line to the /etc/fstab file:

nodev /mnt/huge hugetlbfs defaults 0 0

For 1GB pages, the page size must be specified as a mount option:

nodev /mnt/huge_1GB hugetlbfs pagesize=1GB 0 0

CPU Isolation

Set CPU scaling governer to "performance"

Disable Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)

To temporarily disable ASLR:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space

To make the change permanent across boots add the following at the end of /etc/sysctl.conf:

kernel.randomize_va_space=0

To immidiately apply changes run:

sysctl -p

BUILD and RUN

$ make clean && make
$ sudo ./build/micronf -c <cpumask> -n <num-memory-channels> --proc-type <primary|secondary|auto> -- --config-file=<config-file-path>``

BUILD protobuf

$ cd micro-nf/src/packet-processors
$ protoc --proto_path=./ --cpp_out=./ ./packet_processor_config.proto    

Example:

$ sudo ./build/micronf -c 0x20 -n 2 --proc-type secondary -- --config-file=./confs/mac_swapper.conf