The current instructions are slightly out of date when it comes to
providing information about setting up the system for using DPDK as
non-root, so update them.
Cc: sta...@dpdk.org
Signed-off-by: Anatoly Burakov <anatoly.bura...@intel.com>
---
doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst | 54 ++++++++++++++++++++--------
1 file changed, 39 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
b/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
index b2bda80bb7..78b0f7c012 100644
--- a/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
@@ -58,22 +58,34 @@ The application can then determine what action to take, if
any, if the HPET is n
if any, and on what is available on the system at runtime.
Running DPDK Applications Without Root Privileges
---------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------
-.. note::
+In order to run DPDK as non-root, the following Linux filesystem objects'
+permissions should be adjusted to ensure that the Linux account being used to
+run the DPDK application has access to them:
- The instructions below will allow running DPDK as non-root with older
- Linux kernel versions. However, since version 4.0, the kernel does not
allow
- unprivileged processes to read the physical address information from
- the pagemaps file, making it impossible for those processes to use HW
- devices which require physical addresses
+* All directories which serve as hugepage mount points, for example,
``/dev/hugepages``
-Although applications using the DPDK use network ports and other hardware resources directly,
-with a number of small permission adjustments it is possible to run these applications
as a user other than "root".
-To do so, the ownership, or permissions, on the following Linux file system
objects should be adjusted to ensure that
-the Linux user account being used to run the DPDK application has access to
them:
+* If the HPET is to be used, ``/dev/hpet``
-* All directories which serve as hugepage mount points, for example, ``/mnt/huge``
+When running as non-root user, there may be some additional resource limits
+that are imposed by the system. Specifically, the following resource limits may
+need to be adjusted in order to ensure normal DPDK operation:
+
+* RLIMIT_LOCKS (number of file locks that can be held by a process)
+
+* RLIMIT_NOFILE (number of open file descriptors that can be held open by a
process)
+
+* RLIMIT_MEMLOCK (amount of pinned pages the process is allowed to have)
+
+The above limits can usually be adjusted by editing
+``/etc/security/limits.conf`` file, and rebooting.
+
+Additionally, depending on which kernel driver is in use, the relevant
+resources also should be accessible by the user running the DPDK application.
+
+For ``igb_uio`` or ``uio_pci_generic`` kernel drivers, the following Linux file
+system objects' permissions should be adjusted:
* The userspace-io device files in ``/dev``, for example, ``/dev/uio0``, ``/dev/uio1``, and so on
@@ -82,11 +94,23 @@ the Linux user account being used to run the DPDK application has access to them
/sys/class/uio/uio0/device/config
/sys/class/uio/uio0/device/resource*
-* If the HPET is to be used, ``/dev/hpet``
-
.. note::
- On some Linux installations, ``/dev/hugepages`` is also a hugepage mount point created by default.
+ The instructions above will allow running DPDK with ``igb_uio`` driver as
+ non-root with older Linux kernel versions. However, since version 4.0, the
+ kernel does not allow unprivileged processes to read the physical address
+ information from the pagemaps file, making it impossible for those
+ processes to be used by non-privileged users. In such cases, using the VFIO
+ driver is recommended.
+
+For ``vfio-pci`` kernel driver, the following Linux file system objects'
+permissions should be adjusted:
+
+* The VFIO device file , ``/dev/vfio/vfio``
+
+* The directories under ``/dev/vfio`` that correspond to IOMMU group numbers of
+ devices intended to be used by DPDK, for example, ``/dev/vfio/50``
+
