1.4. Build Images

As explained in Getting Started section, container image is built with build/main.py. This script is for running docker build with a set of --build-args options for building DPDK applications.

This script supports building application from any of repositories. For example, you can build SPP hosted on your repository https://github.com/your/spp.git with DPDK 18.02 as following.

$ cd /path/to/spp/tools/sppc
$ python build/build.py --dpdk-branch v18.02 \
  --spp-repo https://github.com/your/spp.git

Refer all of options running with -h option.

$ python build/main.py -h
usage: main.py [-h] [-t TARGET] [-ci CONTAINER_IMAGE]
               [--dist-name DIST_NAME]
               [--dist-ver DIST_VER] [--dpdk-repo DPDK_REPO]
               [--dpdk-branch DPDK_BRANCH] [--pktgen-repo PKTGEN_REPO]
               [--pktgen-branch PKTGEN_BRANCH] [--spp-repo SPP_REPO]
               [--spp-branch SPP_BRANCH] [--only-envsh] [--dry-run]

Docker image builder for DPDK applications

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t TARGET, --target TARGET
                        Build target ('dpdk', 'pktgen' or 'spp')
  -ci CONTAINER_IMAGE, --container-image CONTAINER_IMAGE
                        Name of container image
  --dist-name DIST_NAME
                        Name of Linux distribution
  --dist-ver DIST_VER   Version of Linux distribution
  --dpdk-repo DPDK_REPO
                        Git URL of DPDK
  --dpdk-branch DPDK_BRANCH
                        Specific version or branch of DPDK
  --pktgen-repo PKTGEN_REPO
                        Git URL of pktgen-dpdk
  --pktgen-branch PKTGEN_BRANCH
                        Specific version or branch of pktgen-dpdk
  --spp-repo SPP_REPO   Git URL of SPP
  --spp-branch SPP_BRANCH
                        Specific version or branch of SPP
  --only-envsh          Create config 'env.sh' and exit without docker build
  --dry-run             Print matrix for checking and exit without docker
                        build

1.4.1. Version Control for Images

SPP container provides version control as combination of target name, Linux distribution name and version. Built images are referred such as sppc/dpdk-ubuntu:latest or sppc/spp-ubuntu:16.04. sppc is just a prefix to indicate an image of SPP container.

Build script decides a name from given options or default values. If you run build script with only target and without distribution name and version, it uses default values ubuntu and latest.

# build 'sppc/dpdk-ubuntu:latest'
$ python build/main.py -t dpdk

# build 'sppc/spp-ubuntu:16.04'
$ python build/main.py -t spp --dist-ver 16.04

Note

SPP container does not support distributions other than Ubuntu currently. It is because SPP container has no Dockerfiles for building CentOS, Fedora or so. It will be supported in a future release.

You can build any of distributions with build script if you prepare Dockerfile by yourself. How Dockerfiles are managed is described in Dockerfiles section.

App container scripts also understand this naming rule. For launching testpmd on Ubuntu 16.04, simply give --dist-ver to indicate the version and other options for testpmd itself.

# launch testpmd on 'sppc/dpdk-ubuntu:16.04'
$ python app/testpmd.py --dist-ver 16.04 -l 3-4 ...

But, how can we build images for different versions of DPDK, such as 17.11 and 18.05, on the same distribution? In this case, you can use --container-image or -ci option for using any of names. It is also referred from app container scripts.

# build image with arbitrary name
$ python build/main.py -t dpdk -ci sppc/dpdk17.11-ubuntu:latest \
  --dpdk-branch v17.11

# launch testpmd with '-ci'
$ python app/testpmd.py -ci sppc/dpdk17.11-ubuntu:latest -l 3-4 ...

1.4.2. Dockerfiles

SPP container includes Dockerfiles for each of distributions and its versions. For instance, Dockerfiles for Ubuntu are found in build/ubuntu directory. You notice that each of Dockerfiles has its version as a part of file name. In other words, the list of Dockerfiles under the ubuntu directory shows all of supported versions of Ubuntu. You can not find Dockerfiles for CentOS as build/centos or other distributions because it is not supported currently. It is included in a future release.

$ tree build/ubuntu/
build/ubuntu/
|--- dpdk
|    |--- Dockerfile.16.04
|    |--- Dockerfile.18.04
|    ---- Dockerfile.latest
|--- pktgen
|    |--- Dockerfile.16.04
|    |--- Dockerfile.18.04
|    ---- Dockerfile.latest
---- spp
     |--- Dockerfile.16.04
     |--- Dockerfile.18.04
     ---- Dockerfile.latest

1.4.3. Inspect Inside of Container

Container is useful, but just bit annoying to inspect inside the container because it is cleaned up immediately after process is finished and there is no clue what is happened in.

build/run.sh is a helper script to inspect inside the container. You can run bash on the container to confirm behaviour of targetting application, or run any of command.

This script refers ubuntu/dpdk/env.sh for Ubuntu image to include environment variables. So, it is failed to build/run.sh if this config file does not exist. You can create it from build/build.py with --only-envsh option if you removed it accidentally.