Tips to install and update SDE

Intel SDE (Software Development Environment) is the prerequisite to leverage Tofino ASIC. Derived from real testing, this article concludes the process and shares some tips to install and update SDE.

Get Software Package

Login in Intel and download packages and documents.

  • Intel P4 Studio SDE x.x.x: SDE source code
  • Intel P4 Studio SDE x.x.x Reference BSP: BSP (Board Support Package) is a need of SDE building.
  • Intel P4 Studio SDE x.x.x Release Notes: Introduce SDE updates.

In Release Notes, check whether the SDE version is compatible with the operating system.

Key: Install Dependencies

Normally, when building SDE with script p4studio_build.py (see next section), the dependencies should be correctly installed. However, manual installation is needed in cases of network failures, stale version having highest priority, etc.

The version of each dependency is certain and fixed. The versions of SDE and dependencies should match. Using new or stale version of dependencies is likely to cause building failure. The dependencies and required versions are listed in bf-sde-x.x.x/p4studio_build/dependencies.yaml.

Pay extra attention to versions of thrift, grpc and protobuf. For thrift and protobuf, the python wrapper version should be consistent with library version:

# thrift - 0.13.0
# library version
wget http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi?path=/thrift/0.13.0/thrift-0.13.0.tar.gz
# python wrapper version
pip install thrift==0.13.0

# protobuf - 3.6.1
# library version
wget https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v3.6.1/protobuf-cpp-3.6.1.tar.gz
# python wrapper version
pip install protobuf==3.6.1

Build SDE

Run p4studio_build.py. The command line options are listed in README of folder p4studio_build.

./p4studio_build.py -up profiles/all_profile.yaml --bsp-path [path/to/bf-reference-bsp-x.x.x]

The libraries, kernel modules, headers, PD API are listed under install folder.

After successful building, set environment variables SDE and SDE_INSTALL:

vim ~/.bashrc
export SDE=[path/to/bf-sde-x.x.x]
export SDE_INSTALL=$SDE/install
export PATH=$PATH:$SDE_INSTALL/bin
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