Napatech Link-Storage™ Software Installation and Configuration

Getting Started with Napatech Link-Storage™ Software

Platform
Napatech DPU
Content Type
Getting Started
Capture Software Version
Link-Storage™ Software 1.0

Use this information to install and set up a Napatech DPU with Link-Storage™ Software for NVMe™/TCP offloading.

Test setup

As shown in the following figure, the target server contains NVMe™ disks or RAM disks, and an DPU is installed in the host server.


Test setup for the IPU running Link-Storage™ Software showing the topology of the target server, the host server and the test server

where:
  • Test server: The server where the test script runs to execute the performance test on both the target and host servers.
    Note: The test script can be placed and run on the target server if needed. However, be aware that this may affect precise performance measurements due to the utilization of system resources on the target server.
  • Test script: Sets up and executes the performance test.
  • Target server: A server where NVMe devices are installed. The network interface on the target server must support the same port speed as the DPU.
  • Host server (initiator): The server where the DPU is installed and where an application or benchmark tool (for example, fio) to test NVMe storage performance.
  • SoC: The system-on-chip (SoC) on the DPU where NVMe devices of the target server are attached.
IP addresses for the SoC on the DPU and for the target server are configured as follows.
Port Target server DPU

Port 0

172.168.1.2/24 (64:9d:99:ff:ed:dc)

172.168.1.1/24

Port 1

172.168.2.2/24 (64:9d:99:ff:ed:dd)

172.168.2.1/24

The following steps are required to complete the installation and configuration.
  1. To program an FPGA image, see Napatech Link-Storage™ Software FPGA images.
  2. To prepare the host, see Preparing the Host.
  3. To compile and install the SPDK on the target server, see Installing the SPDK on the Target Server.
  4. To compile and install Link-Storage™ Software on the DPU, see Installing the Napatech SDPK on the DPU.
  5. To configure the target server:
  6. To configure the DPU, see Configuring the DPU.
  7. To prepare the test server, see Preparing the Test Server.
  8. To test and validate NVMe performance with the Napatech DPU running Link-Storage™ Software, see Testing NVMe Performance.