In P4Lang P4 for dummies [ #001 ], you learned that behavioural language offers you access to dataplane programming. 

Requirement

  • Basic Linux/Unix knowledge
  • Service provider networking knowledge

image2020-6-29_13-54-48.png

Overview

In order to be able to start P4 programming, we will concretely start setting up a P4 development environment using Open Source P4Lang P4 community software. 

Article objective

This article exposes how to install:

  • Debian 10 (stable aka buster)
  • Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic beaver)
  • Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal fossa)


You can of course use the distribution of your choice as soon as the Operating System you are using has all the necessary third party dependencies required by P4Lang software, mainly:

  • protobuf
  • grpc
  • thrift
  • nanomsg
  • nnpy

You can find the full list here in Launchpad.

Diagram: 

[ #002 ] - Cookbook

In our example we will use the same debian stable image (buster) installed as a VirtualBox VM

and we add a bridge network interface to our laptop RJ45 connection.



deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/frederic-loui:/p4lang:/p4c:/master/Debian_10/ ./


wget https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/frederic-loui:/p4lang:/p4c:/master/Debian_10/Release.key
sudo apt-key add ./Release.key


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install p4c


Installing p4lang software with apt-get will download and install:

  • p4c
  • bmv2
  • p4lang-pi




sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-3rd-party
sudo apt-get update



sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-master-bionic-nightly
sudo apt-get update


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install p4c bmv2 plang-pi


Installing p4lang software with apt-get will download and install:

  • p4lang-3rd-party (bionic)

alongside:

  • p4c
  • bmv2
  • p4lang-pi




sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-3rd-party-focal
sudo apt-get update



sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-master-focal-nightly
sudo apt-get update


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install p4c bmv2 plang-pi


Installing p4lang software with apt-get will download and install:

  • p4lang-3rd-party (focal)

alongside:

  • p4c
  • bmv2
  • p4lang-pi


Verification


dpkg -l | grep p4lang
ii  bmv2                                   20200615~d447b6a~release~nightly-0+57.1 amd64        p4lang behavioral-model
ii  p4c                                    20200628~7c03f854~release~nightly-0     amd64        p4c p4lang project compiler
ii  p4lang-pi                              20200601~822a0d1~release~nightly-0+39.1 amd64        Implementation framework of a P4Runtime server


dpkg -l | grep p4lang
ii  bmv2                                     1.13.0-202006160902-d447b6a~ubuntu18.04.1    amd64        p4lang behavioral-model
ii  p4c                                      1.1.0-rc1-202006191103-3917a1c~ubuntu18.04.1 amd64        p4c p4lang project compiler
ii  p4lang-3rd-party                         1.1~bionic-1                                 all          This package installs 3rd party software needed by p4lang software
ii  p4lang-pi                                0.8-202006020517-822a0d1~ubuntu18.04.1       amd64        Implementation framework of a P4Runtime server


cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/frederic-loui/RARE.git


cd ~/RARE/02-PE-labs/p4src
make build
mkdir -p ../build ../run/log
p4c --std p4-16 --target bmv2 --arch v1model \
        -I ./ -o ../build --p4runtime-files ../build/router.txt router.p4 


ls -l ./build/
total 572
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 448313 Jul 22 10:15 router.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 100912 Jul 22 10:15 router.p4i
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  32764 Jul 22 10:15 router.txt



Conclusion

In this article you learned how to set up a P4 environment development 

And tested the installation by compiling RARE P4 code.


  • P4Lang P4 development environment creation is easy
  • it uses P4Lang packages on Debian and Ubuntu
  • These packages are maintained by RARE project and are nightly built based on P4Lang official GitHub

In the next article we will:

  • compile my_program.p4
  • launch P4Lang virtual switch called simple_switch and load my_program.p4 on it
  • perform basic verification