Skip to content

Setup QAT in-tree

Intel® QuickAssist Technology allows data encryption and compression. In-tree setup is described in this document.

QAT In-tree Driver Setup For 4xxx Device

Check System Prerequisites

  • Platform must have Intel® QuickAssist Technology QAT device such as "4xxx"
  • QAT Physical Functions (PF's) can be determined as under:

lspci -d 8086:4942
76:00.0 Co-processor: Intel Corporation Device 4942 (rev 40)
...
or
lspci -d 8086:4940
6b:00.0 Co-processor: Intel Corporation Device 4940 (rev 40)
...
* Firmware must be available.

check that these files exist:

/lib/firmware/qat_4xxx.bin or /lib/firmware/qat_4xxx.bin.xz

/lib/firmware/qat_4xxx_mmp.bin or /lib/firmware/qat_4xxx_mmp.bin.xz

if not, download form:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/qat_4xxx.bin
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/qat_4xxx_mmp.bin

On updating these files run

sudo rmmod qat_4xxx
sudo modprobe qat_4xxx
sudo dracut --force
to update kernel modules and initramfs.

Required Kernel Information

  • Linux kernel v5.11+ (This is for crypto, for compression use v5.17+)
  • Fedora 34+ (for compression use 36+)
  • RHEL 8.4+ (for compression use 9.0+)

BIOS Settings

  • Intel VT-d and SR-IOV must be enabled in the platform (BIOS).

Grub Settings

Fedora:

  • sudo grubby --update-kernel=DEFAULT --args="intel_iommu=on vfio-pci.disable_denylist=1 iommu=pt default_hugepagesz=2M hugepagesz=2M hugepages=4096"
  • Reboot system

Ubuntu:

  • sudo vim /etc/default/grub
  • move to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX add intel_iommu=on vfio-pci.disable_denylist=1 iommu=pt default_hugepagesz=2M hugepagesz=2M hugepages=4096
  • sudo update-grub
  • Reboot system

Install QATLib

Fedora 34+, using software package manager

# Install QATLib
sudo dnf install -y qatlib-devel

# Add your user to qat group and re-login to make the change effective
sudo usermod -a -G qat `whoami`
sudo su -l $USER

# Make sure qat service is started properly and ready for use.
sudo systemctl stop qat.service
sudo systemctl enable qat.service
sudo systemctl restart qat.service
sudo systemctl status qat.service

Other Distributions: Building From Source

Fedora

# Install dependencies
sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install -y gcc systemd-devel automake autoconf libtool
sudo dnf install -y openssl-devel zlib-devel yasm

Ubuntu

# Install dependencies
sudo apt update -y
sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake g++ pkg-config wget make yasm nasm libboost-all-dev libnl-genl-3-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev
apt install -y systemd m4 pkg-config libudev-dev libssl-dev autoconf libtool tar git libssl-dev

Build & install

git clone https://github.com/intel/qatlib
cd qatlib
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-service
make -j
sudo make -j install
sudo make samples-install

# Make sure qat service is started properly and ready to use
sudo systemctl stop qat.service
sudo systemctl enable qat.service
sudo systemctl restart qat.service
sudo systemctl status qat.service

QAT Drivers Uninstall

Remove / clean-up of drivers / configurations. Especially helpful if QAT setup needs to be re-configured

sudo systemctl stop qat.service
# Move to dir location in which drivers / configuration are saved such as "/opt/intel/QAT" and execute mentioned below commands:
make uninstall
make clean
make distclean

References

Please refer to the following links for detailed information on QAT In-tree Driver Setup For 4xxx Device

For more information on setting up PFs / VFs for specific QAT devices, please visit

  • https://doc.dpdk.org/guides/cryptodevs/qat.html