Load the Driver and Start ntservice

Before you begin

The following library is needed to run the ntservice daemon:

glibc version 2.5 or later

Root privileges are required to reconfigure, start and stop the ntservice daemon.

If the system group napatech exists, user access to ntservice (in effect, any use of SmartNICs with Napatech Link-Capture™ Software) requires root privileges or membership of the napatech system group.

To add the system group napatech, execute this command:

# groupadd -r napatech

To add a user to the napatech system group, execute this command:

# usermod -a -G napatech <user>

For each NUMA node it must be possible to allocate 8 Mbytes of memory to be used for performance measurements. Otherwise ntservice cannot be started.

About this task

Note: If a user-defined installation directory has been selected in Compile and Install the Linux Driver and the Tools, /opt/napatech3/bin/ must be replaced accordingly in the procedure.

Steps

To load the driver and start the ntservice daemon:

Procedure

To load the driver, execute this command:
```
# /opt/napatech3/bin/ntload.sh
```
Note: This step can be omitted, since Step 2 will start by loading the driver, if this has not been done.
To start ntservice, execute this command:
```
# /opt/napatech3/bin/ntstart.sh
```
To get information about ntstart.sh options, run /opt/napatech3/bin/ntstart.sh --help.

The --ntpl <file> option applies the NTPL script in the specified file at start-up.

The <configuration file> parameter allows you to select a user-defined configuration file instead of /opt/napatech3/config/ntservice.ini.
The --option allows you to override and supplement configuration file settings. The syntax is:
```
{--option [<section_name>].<setting_name>=<setting_value>}
```
If omitted, the <section_name> will be inferred from the <setting_name> or defaults to [Adapter0]. Repeat --option to specify more settings.
Note: If SELinux is enabled on the system, loading the driver may fail with the following error messages.
```
# fgrep -i 3gd /var/log/audit/audit.log
type=AVC msg=audit(1697038741.725:131): avc:  denied  { module_load } for  pid=10162 comm="insmod" path="/opt/napatech3/driver/nt3gd.ko" dev="dm-6" ino=131397 scontext=system_u:system_r:unconfined_service_t:s0 tcontext=system_u:object_r:usr_t:s0 tclass=system permissive=1
type=KERN_MODULE msg=audit(1697038741.725:131): name="nt3gd"
type=AVC msg=audit(1697038741.774:132): avc:  denied  { module_load } for  pid=10182 comm="insmod" path="/opt/napatech3/driver/nt3gd_netdev.ko" dev="dm-6" ino=131385 scontext=system_u:system_r:unconfined_service_t:s0 tcontext=system_u:object_r:usr_t:s0 tclass=system permissive=1
type=KERN_MODULE msg=audit(1697038741.774:132): name="nt3gd_netdev"
```
This is caused because SELinux resets the context of driver modules ensuring that they comply with the security policies of SELinux. This can potentially prevent the driver from being loaded by systemd during system boot. To resolve this issue, you must configure the correct policies by running the following command:
```
chcon -t modules_object_t /opt/napatech3/driver/*.ko
```
This command is an example on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based operating system. It sets the SELinux security context for the specified driver modules to modules_object_t, aligning them with the necessary policies for the driver modules to function as expected.

Optionally, to verify that ntservice is running and to list installed SmartNICs, run the adapterinfo tool:

$ /opt/napatech3/bin/adapterinfo 
adapterinfo (v. 3.7.1.87-23646)
==============================================================================
System: 3.7.1.87
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adapters:  2
Ports:     6
==============================================================================
Adapter: 0 -
  NT20E3-2-PTP-NEBS-ANL NEBS Analysis Network Adapter PCIe Gen3 2x10Gb SFP+
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bus ID:             0000:00:09.0
PCI ID:             18F4:0175
FPGA ID:            200-9501-09-08-00
Feature level:      N-ANL10
Profile:            Capture
Supported profiles: Capture
. . .

Please refer to DN-0449 for more information about the adapterinfo tool.