Accelerated Networking

In this tutorial, we will deploy User Plane Function (UPF) in DPDK mode using the sdcore-user-plane-k8s Terraform Module in a VM.

This builds upon the Mastering tutorial. Follow that tutorial until the “Prepare SD-Core User Plane VM”, then come back here.

1. Prepare the SD-Core User Plane VM for DPDK

Log in to the user-plane VM:

lxc exec user-plane --user 1000 -- bash -l

Enable HugePages in the User Plane VM

Update Grub to enable 2 units of 1Gi HugePages in the User Plane VM. Then, the VM is gracefully rebooted to activate the settings.

sudo sed -i "s/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=.*/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX='default_hugepagesz=1G hugepages=2'/" /etc/default/grub
sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Log in to the user-plane VM again:

lxc exec user-plane --user 1000 -- bash -l

Checkpoint 1: Are HugePages enabled ?

You should be able to see the 2 units of Free HugePages with 1048576 kB size by executing the following command:

cat /proc/meminfo | grep Huge

The output should be similar to the following:

AnonHugePages:         0 kB
ShmemHugePages:        0 kB
FileHugePages:         0 kB
HugePages_Total:       2
HugePages_Free:        2
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:    1048576 kB
Hugetlb:         2097152 kB

Take note of access and core interfaces MAC addresses

List the network interfaces to take note of the MAC addresses of the enp6s0 and enp7s0 interfaces. In this example, the core interface named enp6s0 has the MAC address 00:16:3e:87:67:eb and the access interface named enp7s0 has the MAC address 00:16:3e:31:d7:e0.

ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp5s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:16:3e:52:85:ef brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: enp6s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:16:3e:87:67:eb brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: enp7s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:16:3e:31:d7:e0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Load the vfio-pci driver in the User Plane VM

As root user, load the vfio-pci driver. To make it persistent upon VM restarts, add it to the /etc/rc.local file.

cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/bash
sudo echo "vfio-pci" > /etc/modules-load.d/vfio-pci.conf
sudo modprobe vfio-pci
EOF
sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local
sudo /etc/rc.local

Note

Using vfio-pci, by default, needs IOMMU to be enabled. IOMMU support could be checked by running the command ls /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/. If IOMMU groups do not exist in the command output then it is not supported. In the environments which do not support IOMMU, vfio-pci needs to be loaded with additional module parameter persistently using the command below.

Enable VFIO driver unsafe IOMMU mode if IOMMU mode is not supported:

cat << EOF | sudo sudo tee -a /etc/rc.local
sudo echo "options vfio enable_unsafe_noiommu_mode=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/vfio-noiommu.conf
sudo echo "Y" > /sys/module/vfio/parameters/enable_unsafe_noiommu_mode
sudo modprobe vfio enable_unsafe_noiommu_mode=1
EOF
sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local
sudo /etc/rc.local

Bind access and core interfaces to VFIO driver

Get the PCI addresses of the access and core interfaces.

sudo lshw -c network -businfo
Bus info          Device      Class          Description
========================================================
pci@0000:05:00.0              network        Virtio network device
virtio@10         enp5s0      network        Ethernet interface
pci@0000:06:00.0              network        Virtio network device
virtio@11         enp6s0      network        Ethernet interface  # In this example `core` with PCI address `0000:06:00.0` 
pci@0000:07:00.0              network        Virtio network device
virtio@13         enp7s0      network        Ethernet interface # In this example `access` with PCI address `0000:07:00.0` 

Install driverctl:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y driverctl

Bind access and core interfaces to vfio-pci driver persistently:

cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/bash
sudo driverctl set-override 0000:07:00.0 vfio-pci
sudo driverctl set-override 0000:06:00.0 vfio-pci
EOF
sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local
sudo /etc/rc.local

Checkpoint 5: Verify that VFIO-PCI driver is loaded ?

Check the current driver of interfaces by running the following command:

sudo driverctl -v list-devices | grep -i net

You should see the following output:

0000:05:00.0 virtio-pci (Virtio network device)
0000:06:00.0 vfio-pci [*] (Virtio network device)
0000:07:00.0 vfio-pci [*] (Virtio network device)

Verify that two VFIO devices are created with a form of noiommu-{a number} by running the following command:

ls -l /dev/vfio/

You should see a similar output:

crw------- 1 root root 242,   0 Aug 17 22:15 noiommu-0
crw------- 1 root root 242,   1 Aug 17 22:16 noiommu-1
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root  10, 196 Aug 17 21:51 vfio

Install Kubernetes Cluster

Install the Microk8s and enable the hostpath-storage, multus and metallb plugins.

sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.29/stable --classic
sudo microk8s enable hostpath-storage
sudo microk8s addons repo add community https://github.com/canonical/microk8s-community-addons --reference feat/strict-fix-multus
sudo microk8s enable multus
sudo usermod -a -G microk8s $(whoami)
sudo snap alias microk8s.kubectl kubectl
sudo microk8s enable metallb:10.201.0.200/32
newgrp microk8s

Now, update the MicroK8s DNS to point to our DNS server:

sudo microk8s disable dns
sudo microk8s enable dns:10.201.0.1

Configure Kubernetes for DPDK

Create SR-IOV Network Device Plugin ConfigMap by replacing the pciAddresses with the PCI addresses of access and core interfaces:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: sriovdp-config
  namespace: kube-system
data:
  config.json: |
    {
      "resourceList": [
        {
          "resourceName": "intel_sriov_vfio_access",
          "selectors": {
            "pciAddresses": ["0000:07:00.0"]
          }
        },
        {
          "resourceName": "intel_sriov_vfio_core",
          "selectors": {
            "pciAddresses": ["0000:06:00.0"]
          }
        }
      ]
    }

EOF

Deploy SR-IOV Network Device Plugin:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/k8snetworkplumbingwg/sriov-network-device-plugin/v3.6.2/deployments/sriovdp-daemonset.yaml

Checkpoint 6: Check the allocatable resources in the Kubernetes node

Make sure that there are 2 1Gi HugePages, 1 intel_sriov_vfio_access and 1 intel_sriov_vfio_core are available by running the following command:

sudo snap install jq
kubectl get node -o json | jq '.items[].status.allocatable'

You should see the following output:

{
  "cpu": "4",
  "ephemeral-storage": "19086016Ki",
  "hugepages-1Gi": "2Gi",
  "hugepages-2Mi": "0",
  "intel.com/intel_sriov_vfio_access": "1",
  "intel.com/intel_sriov_vfio_core": "1",
  "memory": "14160716Ki",
  "pods": "110"
}

Copy vfioveth CNI under /opt/cni/bin on the VM

Copy the vfioveth CNI under /opt/cni/bin:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/cni/bin
sudo wget -O /opt/cni/bin/vfioveth https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencord/omec-cni/master/vfioveth
sudo chmod +x /opt/cni/bin/vfioveth

Export the Kubernetes configuration and copy it to the juju-controller VM:

sudo microk8s.config > /tmp/user-plane-cluster.yaml
scp /tmp/user-plane-cluster.yaml juju-controller.mgmt:

Log out of the VM and go back to the Mastering tutorial, continuing at the Prepare gNB Simulator VM. When you reach step 5 (Deploy SD-Core User Plane), come back here instead.

2. Deploy User Plane Function (UPF) in DPDK mode

Create a Juju model named user-plane:

juju add-model user-plane user-plane-cluster

Deploy sdcore-user-plane-k8s Terraform Module. In the directory named terraform, update the main.tf file. Please replace the access-interface-mac-address and core-interface-mac-address according your environment. They are advised to be noted in the Checkpoint 4.

cd terraform
cat << EOF >> main.tf
module "sdcore-user-plane" {
  source = "git::https://github.com/canonical/terraform-juju-sdcore//modules/sdcore-user-plane-k8s"

  model = "user-plane"

  upf_config = {
    cni-type               = "vfioveth"
    upf-mode              = "dpdk"
    access-gateway-ip     = "10.202.0.1"
    access-ip             = "10.202.0.10/24"
    core-gateway-ip       = "10.203.0.1"
    core-ip               = "10.203.0.10/24"
    external-upf-hostname = "upf.mgmt"
    access-interface-mac-address = "c2:c8:c7:e9:cc:18" # In this example, its the MAC address of access interface.
    core-interface-mac-address = "e2:01:8e:95:cb:4d" # In this example, its the MAC address of core interface
    enable-hw-checksum           = "false"
    gnb-subnet = "10.204.0.0/24"
  }
}

EOF

Update the Juju Terraform provider:

terraform init

Deploy SD-Core User Plane:

terraform apply -auto-approve

Monitor the status of the deployment:

juju status --watch 1s --relations

The deployment is ready when the UPF application is in the Active/Idle state. It is normal for grafana-agent to remain in waiting state.

Checkpoint 7: Is UPF running in DPDK mode ?

Verify that DPDK BESSD is configured in DPDK mode by using the Juju debug log:

juju debug-log --replay | grep -i dpdk

You should see the following output:

unit-upf-0: 16:18:59 INFO unit.upf/0.juju-log Container bessd configured for DPDK

Go back to the Mastering tutorial and continue from step: 6. Deploy the gNB Simulator.