Huge Pages

VPP requires ‘hugepages’ to run. VPP will overwrite existing hugepage settings when VPP is installed. By default, VPP sets the number of hugepages on a system to 1024 2M hugepages (1G hugepages are no longer supported). This is the number of hugepages on the system, not just used by VPP. When VPP is installed, the following file is copied to the system and used to apply the hugepage settings on VPP installation and system reboot:

$ cat /etc/sysctl.d/80-vpp.conf
# Number of 2MB hugepages desired
vm.nr_hugepages=1024

# Must be greater than or equal to (2 * vm.nr_hugepages).
vm.max_map_count=3096

# All groups allowed to access hugepages
vm.hugetlb_shm_group=0

# Shared Memory Max must be greator or equal to the total size of hugepages.
# For 2MB pages, TotalHugepageSize = vm.nr_hugepages * 2 * 1024 * 1024
# If the existing kernel.shmmax setting  (cat /sys/proc/kernel/shmmax)
# is greater than the calculated TotalHugepageSize then set this parameter
# to current shmmax value.
kernel.shmmax=2147483648

Depending on how the system is being used, this file can be updated to adjust the number of hugepages reserved on a system. Below are some examples of possible values.

For a small VM with minimal workload:

vm.nr_hugepages=512
vm.max_map_count=2048
kernel.shmmax=1073741824

For a large system running multiple VMs, each needing its own set of hugepages:

vm.nr_hugepages=32768
vm.max_map_count=66560
kernel.shmmax=68719476736

Note

If VPP is being run in a Virtual Machine (VM), the VM must have hugepage backing. When VPP is installed, it will attempt to overwrite existing hugepage setting. If the VM does not have hugepage backing, this will fail, but this may go unnoticed. When the VM is rebooted, on system startup, ‘vm.nr_hugepages’ will be reapplied, will fail, and the VM will abort kernel boot, locking up the VM. To avoid this scenario, ensure the VM has enough hugepage backing.