Installing BCC

Kernel Configuration

In general, to use these features, a Linux kernel version 4.1 or newer is required. In addition, the kernel should have been compiled with the following flags set:

CONFIG_BPF=y
CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL=y
# [optional, for tc filters]
CONFIG_NET_CLS_BPF=m
# [optional, for tc actions]
CONFIG_NET_ACT_BPF=m
CONFIG_BPF_JIT=y
CONFIG_HAVE_BPF_JIT=y
# [optional, for kprobes]
CONFIG_BPF_EVENTS=y

Kernel compile flags can usually be checked by looking at /proc/config.gz or /boot/config-<kernel-version>.

Packages

Ubuntu Xenial - Binary

Only the nightly packages are built for Ubuntu 16.04, but the steps are very straightforward. No need to upgrade the kernel or compile from source!

echo "deb [trusted=yes] http://52.8.15.63/apt/xenial xenial-nightly main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iovisor.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bcc-tools

Ubuntu Trusty - Binary

Kernel

Install a 4.3+ kernel from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline, for example:

VER=4.5.1-040501
PREFIX=http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.5.1-wily/
REL=201604121331
wget ${PREFIX}/linux-headers-${VER}-generic_${VER}.${REL}_amd64.deb
wget ${PREFIX}/linux-headers-${VER}_${VER}.${REL}_all.deb
wget ${PREFIX}/linux-image-${VER}-generic_${VER}.${REL}_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-*${VER}.${REL}*.deb
# reboot

Update PREFIX to the latest date, and you can browse the files in the PREFIX url to find the REL number.

Signed Packages

Tagged and signed bcc binary packages are built for Ubuntu Trusty (14.04) and hosted at http://52.8.15.63/apt/.

To install:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys D4284CDD
echo "deb http://52.8.15.63/apt trusty main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iovisor.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install binutils bcc bcc-tools libbcc-examples python-bcc

Nightly Packages

echo "deb [trusted=yes] http://52.8.15.63/apt/trusty trusty-nightly main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iovisor.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bcc-tools

Test it:

sudo python /usr/share/bcc/examples/hello_world.py
sudo python /usr/share/bcc/examples/tracing/task_switch.py

(Optional) Install pyroute2 for additional networking features

git clone https://github.com/svinota/pyroute2
cd pyroute2; sudo make install
sudo python /usr/share/bcc/examples/simple_tc.py

Fedora - Binary

Install a 4.2+ kernel from http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/rawhide-kernel-nodebug, for example:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/rawhide-kernel-nodebug/fedora-rawhide-kernel-nodebug.repo
sudo dnf update
# reboot

Nightly bcc binary packages are built for Fedora 23 and 24, hosted at http://52.8.15.63/yum/nightly/f{23,24}.

To install (change 'f23' to 'f24' for rawhide):

echo -e '[iovisor]\nbaseurl=http://52.8.15.63/yum/nightly/f23/$basearch\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=0' | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/iovisor.repo
sudo dnf install bcc-tools

Arch - AUR

Upgrade the kernel to minimum 4.3.1-1 first; the CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL=y configuration was not added until this kernel release.

Install these packages using any AUR helper such as pacaur, yaourt, cower, etc.:

bcc bcc-tools python-bcc python2-bcc

All build and install dependencies are listed in the PKGBUILD and should install automatically.

Source

Ubuntu - Source

To build the toolchain from source, one needs:

  • LLVM 3.7.1 or newer, compiled with BPF support (default=on)
  • Clang, built from the same tree as LLVM
  • cmake, gcc (>=4.7), flex, bison
  • LuaJIT, if you want Lua support

Install build dependencies

# Trusty and older
VER=trusty
echo "deb http://llvm.org/apt/$VER/ llvm-toolchain-$VER-3.7 main
deb-src http://llvm.org/apt/$VER/ llvm-toolchain-$VER-3.7 main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/llvm.list
wget -O - http://llvm.org/apt/llvm-snapshot.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update

# All versions
sudo apt-get -y install bison build-essential cmake flex git libedit-dev \
  libllvm3.7 llvm-3.7-dev libclang-3.7-dev python zlib1g-dev libelf-dev

# For Lua support
sudo apt-get -y install luajit luajit-5.1-dev

Install and compile BCC

git clone https://github.com/iovisor/bcc.git
mkdir bcc/build; cd bcc/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

Fedora - Source

Install build dependencies

sudo dnf install -y bison cmake ethtool flex git iperf libstdc++-static \
  python-netaddr python-pip gcc gcc-c++ make zlib-devel \
  elfutils-libelf-devel
sudo dnf install -y luajit luajit-devel  # for Lua support
sudo dnf install -y \
  http://pkgs.repoforge.org/netperf/netperf-2.6.0-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm
sudo pip install pyroute2

Install binary clang

wget http://llvm.org/releases/3.7.1/clang+llvm-3.7.1-x86_64-fedora22.tar.xz
sudo tar xf clang+llvm-3.7.1-x86_64-fedora22.tar.xz -C /usr/local --strip 1

Install and compile BCC

git clone https://github.com/iovisor/bcc.git
mkdir bcc/build; cd bcc/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

Older Instructions

Build LLVM and Clang development libs

git clone http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git
cd llvm/tools; git clone http://llvm.org/git/clang.git
cd ..; mkdir -p build/install; cd build
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="BPF;X86" \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$PWD/install ..
make
make install
export PATH=$PWD/install/bin:$PATH