PFPSim

This repository contains the core PFPSim library of common utilities, base classes, and SystemC support infrastructure which PFPSim-based projects depend on. Additionally, it links to a fork of P4, an emerging programming language for packet processing applications, which can be used to program the applications that run on PFPSim models.

The PFPSim methodology and workflow is described in detail here.

Contents

• Installation
  • Using the PFPSim GUI Installer
  • Using Prebuilt Package
  • Building from Source
    • Dependencies
    • Building
    • Installing
    • Building Package
    • Building API Docs
• Running Tests
• Support
• Contributing
• License
• Authors

Installation

Using the PFPSim GUI Installer

We provide a text-based GUI installer for the PFPSim library, compiler, debugger, and required dependencies. This is the recommended method for installing this library.

Using Prebuilt Package

We provide pre-built deb packages on our releases page. These packages contain both the PFPSim core library, and the PFP P4 fork. They can be installed on Debian-based distributions using

sudo dpkg -i pfpsim-X.Y.Z-Linux-COMPILER.deb

Currently our automated releases upload packages tagged with the name of the compiler used to build them. Both the clang (clang++) and g (g++) packages are built against libstdc++-4.8 and both should work regardless of which compiler you use, but we have not tested this extensively.

To use the installed library, it's still necessary to install most of the dependencies mentioned below. The build-time dependencies (flexc++, bisonc++, protobuf-compiler) are no longer needed, but all the rest are.

Building from Source

Dependencies

You will need CMake and a C++11 compliant compiler to build PFPSim. More information about CMake and build systems that we like and how to install them can be found on our wiki.

The following required dependencies can be installed using apt-get under Debian or Ubuntu:

• libprotobuf-dev
• bisonc++
• flexc++
• protobuf-compiler

Additionally SystemC and nanomsg must be installed from source:

Due to SystemC's licensing terms, it must be downloaded manually. Download it from this page. Follow the link for "SystemC 2.3.1 (Includes TLM) | Core SystemC Language and Examples".

Once you have the archive downloaded, SystemC can be built and installed as follows:

tar -xzf systemc-2.3.1.tgz
cd systemc-2.3.1
./configure --prefix=/usr --with-unix-layout
make
sudo make install

Next we need to install nanomsg. It can be downloaded, built and installed as follows

wget http://download.nanomsg.org/nanomsg-0.5-beta.tar.gz
tar -xzf nanomsg-0.5-beta.tar.gz
cd nanomsg-0.5-beta
./configure
make
sudo make install

If you also plan on installing the P4 library, there are some additional required dependencies. More information is available in the p4-behavioral-model repository.

Building

Once all of the dependencies are installed, building from source is straightforward.

git clone https://github.com/pfpsim/PFPSim.git
mkdir PFPSim/build
cd PFPSim/build
cmake ..
make

By default, both the PFPSim Core library, and the PFPSim P4 fork are built. To select which components to build, the following flags may be passed to cmake:

• -DPFPSIMCORE=ON or -DPFPSIMCORE=OFF to enable or disable building PFPSim core
• -DPFP-P4=ON or -DPFP-P4=OFF to enable or disable building the PFPSim P4 fork

Installing

Once the project is built, it can be installed with sudo make install. In order to selectively install components, they should be enabled or disabled during the build step as specified above.

Building Package

CPack is used to generated various source/pre-built packages which make it possible to install PFPSim without building from source.

Once the project is built, packages can be generated with make package. Because we use Travis CI to automate building and deploying releases, the version number of the generated package is controlled by the TRAVIS_TAG environment variable. If you wish to build a package with a specific version number, then in the build step above, replace the cmake command with TRAVIS_TAG=vX.Y.Z cmake .. where X.Y.Z is your desired version number.

Building API Docs

We use doxygen to generate API docs. The following dependencies can be installed from apt-get

• doxygen
• graphviz

Then docs can be built with make doc

Running Tests

To validate your installation, we provide a very simple test project. It can be built as follows:

cd tests/simple-pfp/simple/
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../src
make

Running the simulation model with ./simple-sim -v debug should then produce the following output:

        SystemC 2.3.1-Accellera --- Feb 17 2016 16:19:54
        Copyright (c) 1996-2014 by all Contributors,
        ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
config root is: ./Configs/
Verbostiy Level is: debug
Output dir is: ./
0.000 ns @  Got: 0
10.000 ns @  Got: 1
20.000 ns @  Got: 2
30.000 ns @  Got: 3
40.000 ns @  Got: 4
50.000 ns @  Got: 5
60.000 ns @  Got: 6
70.000 ns @  Got: 7
80.000 ns @  Got: 8
90.000 ns @  Got: 9

Support

If you need help using the PFPSim Framework, please send us an email at pfpsim.help@gmail.com - we'd be happy to hear from you!

If you think you've found a bug, or would like to request a new feature, please open an issue using github - we're always trying to improve PFPSim!

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute code back to PFPSim, please fork this github repository and send us a pull request! Please make sure that your contribution passes our continuous integration build.

Any contribution to the C++ core code must respect the coding guidelines as stated on the wiki. We rely heavily on the Google C++ Style Guide, with some differences listed in this repository's wiki. Our Travis builds include running cpplint to ensure correct style and formatting.

License

This project is licensed under the GPLv2 - see LICENSE for details

Authors

Copyright (C) 2016 Concordia Univ., Montreal

• Samar Abdi
• Umair Aftab
• Gordon Bailey
• Faras Dewal
• Shafigh Parsazad
• Eric Tremblay

Copyright (C) 2016 Ericsson

• Bochra Boughzala