Hi folk,

I'm just starting to experiment with DPDK, but I'm noticing some build issues. I'm using Fedora 36, and DPDK 21.11.1, and following the build instructions at https://core.dpdk.org/doc/quick-start/, building all examples ( meson -Dexamples=all build ).

The first problem is that the build is not finding certain libraries which are installed and known about by pkg-config.

>[mderouss@mark-dt ~]$ pkg-config --modversion jansson

>2.13.1

>[mderouss@mark-dt ~]$ pkg-config --modversion numa

>2.0.14

>[mderouss@mark-dt ~]$ pkg-config --modversion libarchive

>3.5.3

However, using LIBRARY_PATH to specify their location appears to resolve the problem. There is a potentially relevant error in the meson log :

    [Errno 21] Is a directory: '/home/mderouss/Projects/dpdk/dpdk-stable-21.11.1/buildtools/pkg-config'

    Unusable script '/home/mderouss/Projects/dpdk/dpdk-stable-21.11.1/buildtools/pkg-config'

    Program pkg-config found: YES (/usr/bin/pkg-config)

Is this expected behaviour, i.e. LIBRARY_PATH is expected to be set ?

The more taxing problem is that I am using ( for this experiment ) a Mellanox NIC :

>[mderouss@mark-dt ~]$ lspci | grep Mellanox

>06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx]

>06:00.1 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx]

The meson log reports missing dependencies. It isn't clear to me how I am supposed to satisfy the unresolved dependencies with respect to Mellanox related libraries, in particular the 'missing internal dependency' ? The meson log reports the following, but I think I'm only interested in the mlx ones :

    drivers:

          common/mvep:  missing dependency, "libmusdk"

          common/mlx5:  missing dependency, "mlx5"

          net/mlx4:     missing dependency, "mlx4"

          net/mlx5:     missing internal dependency, "common_mlx5"

          net/mvneta:   missing dependency, "libmusdk"

          net/mvpp2:    missing dependency, "libmusdk"

          net/nfb:      missing dependency, "libnfb"

          raw/ioat:     replaced by dmadev drivers

          crypto/armv8: missing dependency, "libAArch64crypto"

          crypto/mlx5:  missing internal dependency, "common_mlx5"

          crypto/mvsam: missing dependency, "libmusdk"

          compress/isal:      missing dependency, "libisal"

          compress/mlx5:      missing internal dependency, "common_mlx5"

          regex/mlx5:   missing internal dependency, "common_mlx5"

          vdpa/mlx5:    missing internal dependency, "common_mlx5"

          gpu/cuda:     missing dependency, "cuda.h"

I read DPDK documentation which seems to suggest that support for Mellanox NICs is somehow 'built in' to DPDK, but this does not appear to be the case ?

The documentation refers to a library 'librte_common_mlx5', but does not explain where this can be found. I've looked at downloads from NVIDIA, but even so I am not clear what I need. I've installed the 'RDMA Core Userspace Library' in my system as they are available from the distro, but I'm not sure if these are even relevant :

>[mderouss@mark-dt ~]$ pkg-config --list-all | grep mlx

>libmlx4                        libmlx4 - RDMA Core Userspace Library

>libmlx5                        libmlx5 - RDMA Core Userspace Library

Could someone possibly clarify what I actually need, and where I should get it from ?

Regards,

Mark de Roussier