Building the Stratum Dependencies

Stratum is the component of infrap4d that implements the P4Runtime and gNMI (OpenConfig) services. It requires that a number of third-party libraries be built and installed on the system.

This document explains how to build and install the Stratum dependencies.

Note: For the Intel® IPU E2100, see Building Stratum Dependencies for the ACC.

Prerequisites

There are a couple of things to do before you build the dependencies:

Install CMake 3.15 or above

Avoid versions 3.24 and 3.25. There is an issue in cmake that causes the Protobuf build to fail. This problem was fixed in version 3.26.
Install OpenSSL 3.x

P4 Control Plane uses OpenSSL instead of BoringSSL.

Source Code

There are two ways to obtain the source code: from the open-source repository on GitHub, or as a source package.

GitHub repository

The script to build the Stratum dependencies is in the stratum-deps repository. To clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ipdk-io/stratum-deps.git

The source code for the dependencies is not part of the distribution. It is downloaded by the build script.

Source package

You may receive the source code for the Stratum dependencies in the form of an RPM file, a Debian file, or a tarball.

If this is case, use the appropriate command to unpack the source files.

Install Location

You will need to decide where on your system you would like to install the dependencies. This location (the “install prefix”) must be specified when you configure the build.

It is recommended that you not install the dependency libraries in /usr or /usr/local. It is easier to upgrade or do a clean build if packages that are updated on different cadences are kept separate from one another.

The CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX option is used to specify the directory in which the dependencies should be installed.

If you plan to install the dependency libraries in a system directory, you will need to log in as root or run from an account that has sudo privilege.

CMake Build Options

The CMake build script supports the following configuration options.

Option	Type	Description
`CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX`	Path	Directory in which the dependencies should be installed.
`CXX_STANDARD`	Number	C++ standard (11, 14, 17, etc.) the compiler should apply. (Default: None)
`DOWNLOAD`	Boolean	Whether to download the source repositories. (Default: [1])
`PATCH`	Boolean	Whether to patch the downloaded repositories. (Default: [1])
`ON_DEMAND`	Boolean	Whether to build only the specified target(s). If this option is FALSE, all targets will be built. (Default: FALSE)
`USE_LDCONFIG`	Boolean	Whether to use `ldconfig` to update the loader cache[2] after installing a module. Only valid if `USE_SUDO` is enabled. (Default: FALSE)
`USE_SUDO`	Boolean	Whether to use `sudo` to install each module. (Default: FALSE)

Boolean values are (TRUE, YES, ON) and (FALSE, NO, OFF). They may be upper or lower case.

[1] DOWNLOAD and PATCH default to TRUE if you download stratum-deps from GitHub, and FALSE if you receive a distribution that includes the source.

[2] See the ldconfig man page for more information.

Examples

Non-root build

To build and install as a non-privileged user:

cd setup
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=./install
cmake --build build -j8

The source files will be downloaded, built, and installed in the install directory. The targets will be built in parallel, using eight threads.

CMake will generate all of its temporary files in the build directory. This is called an “out-of-source” build.

Non-root build to system directory

To build as a non-privileged user and install the libraries in a system directory:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/deps -DUSE_SUDO=yes
cmake --build build -j6

CMake will build the dependencies as the current user. It will use sudo only when it installs the libraries. The build will be done in parallel, using six threads.

On-demand build

To build and install just gRPC and its dependencies:

cmake -B build -DON_DEMAND=yes -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/hostdeps
cmake --build build -j6 --target grpc

The necessary components will be downloaded, built, and installed in /home/<username>/hostdeps. The build will be done in parallel, using six threads.

Rebuilding without downloading

To instruct cmake not to download the source repositories again:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=deps -DDOWNLOAD=NO -DPATCH=NO
cmake --build build -j6

Alternatively, you can run a script that changes the default values of the DOWNLOAD and PATCH parameters to NO.

./scripts/preconfig.sh

The script writes a preload.cmake file to the source directory that cmake will read the next time it configures the build.

Clean builds

To do a clean build without deleting the source directories:

rm -fr build
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=deps ...

You’ll need to specify -DDOWNLOAD=NO -DPATCH=NO or run the preload.sh script, as described under Rebuilding without downloading, or cmake will download the repositories a second time.

This erases the configuration as well as the binary build artifacts.

To get a fresh start, delete both the build and source directories:

To scrub the directory:

rm -fr build 