Getting Started with NFD¶
Installing NFD from Binaries¶
We provide NFD binaries for the supported platforms, which are the preferred installation method. In addition to simplifying installation, the binary release also includes automatic initial configuration and platform-specific tools to automatically start NFD and related daemons. In particular, on OS X NFD is controlled using launchd and on Ubuntu using upstart mechanisms. In both cases, nfd-start and nfd-stop scripts are convenience wrappers for launchd and upstart.
On OS X, NFD can be installed with MacPorts. Refer to Install NFD Using the NDN MacPorts Repository on OS X for more details.
On Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04, NFD can be installed from NDN PPA repository. Refer to Install NFD Using the NDN PPA Repository on Ubuntu Linux.
Future releases could include support for other platforms. Please send us feedback on the platforms you’re using, so we can prioritize our goals. We would also appreciate help packaging the current NFD release for other platforms.
Install NFD Using the NDN MacPorts Repository on OS X¶
OS X users have the opportunity to seamlessly install and run NFD as well as other related applications via MacPorts. If you are not using MacPorts yet, go to the MacPorts website and install the MacPorts package.
NFD and related ports are not part of the official MacPorts repository. In order to use these ports, you will need to add the NDN MacPorts repository to your local configuration. In particular, you will need to modify the list of source URLs for MacPorts. For example, if your MacPorts are installed in /opt/local, add the following line to /opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf before or after the default port repository:
rsync://macports.named-data.net/macports/
After this step, you can use sudo port selfupdate to fetch updated port definitions.
The following command will install NFD using MacPorts:
sudo port install nfd
Note
You have to have XCode installed on your machine. This can be installed from the AppStore (free) on OS X 10.7 or later. Older editions of OS X can download an appropriate version of XCode from http://developer.apple.com.
One advantage of using MacPorts is that you can easily upgrade NFD and other packages to the latest version. The following commands will do this job:
sudo port selfupdate
sudo port upgrade nfd
Install NFD Using the NDN PPA Repository on Ubuntu Linux¶
NFD binaries and related tools for Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 can be installed using PPA packages from named-data repository. First, you will need to add named-data/ppa repository to binary package sources and update list of available packages.
Preliminary steps if you haven’t used PPA packages before¶
To simplify adding new PPA repositories, Ubuntu provides add-apt-repository tool, which is not installed by default on some systems.
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
Adding NDN PPA¶
After installing add-apt-repository, run the following command to add NDN PPA repository.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:named-data/ppa
sudo apt-get update
Installing NFD and other NDN packages¶
After you have added NDN PPA repository, NFD and other NDN packages can be easily installed in a standard way, i.e., either using apt-get as shown below or using any other package manager, such as Synaptic Package Manager:
sudo apt-get install nfd
For the list of available packages, refer to NDN PPA repository homepage.
Building from Source¶
Downloading from Git¶
The first step is to obtain the source code for NFD and, its main dependency, the ndn-cxx library. If you are not planning to work with the bleeding edge code, make sure you checkout the correct release tag (e.g., *-0.2.0) for both repositories:
# Download ndn-cxx
git clone https://github.com/named-data/ndn-cxx
# Download NFD
git clone --recursive https://github.com/named-data/NFD
Prerequisites¶
Install the ndn-cxx library and its requirements
pkg-config
On OS X with MacPorts:
sudo port install pkgconfig
On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install pkg-config
libpcap
Comes with the base system on OS X 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11.
On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev
To build manpages and API documentation:
doxygen
graphviz
python-sphinx
On OS X with MacPorts:
sudo port install doxygen graphviz py27-sphinx sphinx_select sudo port select sphinx py27-sphinx
On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install doxygen graphviz python-sphinx
Besides officially supported platforms, NFD is known to work on: Fedora 20, CentOS 6/7, Gentoo Linux, Raspberry Pi, OpenWRT, FreeBSD 10.0, and several other platforms. We are soliciting help with documenting common problems / pitfalls in installing/using NFD on different platforms on NFD Wiki.
Build¶
The following basic commands should be used to build NFD on Ubuntu:
./waf configure
./waf
sudo ./waf install
If you have installed ndn-cxx library and/or other dependencies into a non-standard paths, you may need to modify PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable before running ./waf configure. For example,
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/custom/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
./waf configure
./waf
sudo ./waf install
Refer to ./waf --help for more options that can be used during configure stage and how to properly configure and run NFD.
Note
If you are working on a source repository that has been compiled before, and you have upgraded one of the dependencies, please execute ./waf distclean to clear object files and start over.
Debug symbols¶
The default compiler flags enable debug symbols to be included in binaries. This potentially allows more meaningful debugging if NFD or other tools happen to crash.
If it is undesirable, default flags can be easily overridden. The following example shows how to completely disable debug symbols and configure NFD to be installed into /usr with configuration in /etc folder.
CXXFLAGS="-O2" ./waf configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
./waf
sudo ./waf install
Customize Compiler¶
To customize compiler, set CXX environment variable to point to compiler binary and, in some case, specify type of the compiler using --check-cxx-compiler. For example, when using clang compiler on Linux system, use the following:
CXX=clang++ ./waf configure --check-cxx-compiler=clang++
Building documentation¶
NFD tutorials and API documentation can be built using the following commands:
# Full set of documentation (tutorials + API) in build/docs
./waf docs
# Only tutorials in `build/docs`
./waf sphinx
# Only API docs in `build/docs/doxygen`
./waf doxgyen
Manpages are automatically created and installed during the normal build process (e.g., during ./waf and ./waf install), if python-sphinx module is detected during ./waf configure stage. By default, manpages are installed into ${PREFIX}/share/man (where default value for PREFIX is /usr/local). This location can be changed during ./waf configure stage using --prefix, --datarootdir, or --mandir options.
For more details, refer to ./waf --help.
Initial configuration¶
Note
If you have installed NFD from binary packages, the package manager has already installed initial configuration and you can safely skip this section.
General¶
After installing NFD from source, you need to create a proper config file. If default location for ./waf configure was used, this can be accomplished by simply copying the sample configuration file:
sudo cp /usr/local/etc/ndn/nfd.conf.sample /usr/local/etc/ndn/nfd.conf
NFD Security¶
NFD provides mechanisms to enable strict authorization for all management commands. In particular, one can authorize only specific public keys to create new Faces or change the forwarding strategy for specific namespaces. For more information about how to generate private/public key pair, generate self-signed certificate, and use this self-signed certificate to authorize NFD management commands refer to How to configure NFD security? FAQ question.
In the sample configuration file, all authorizations are disabled, effectively allowing anybody on the local machine to issue NFD management commands. The sample file is intended only for demo purposes and MUST NOT be used in a production environment.
Running¶
You should not run ndnd or ndnd-tlv, otherwise NFD will not work correctly
Starting¶
In order to use NFD, you need to start two separate daemons: nfd (the forwarder itself) and nrd (RIB manager that will manage all prefix registrations). The recommended way is to use nfd-start script:
nfd-start
On OS X it may ask for your keychain password or ask nfd/nrd wants to sign using key in your keychain. Enter your keychain password and click Always Allow.
Later, you can stop NFD with nfd-stop or by simply killing the nfd process.
Connecting to remote NFDs¶
To create a UDP or TCP tunnel to remote NFD and create route toward it, use the following command in terminal:
nfdc register /ndn udp://<other host>
where <other host> is the name or IP address of the other host (e.g., udp://spurs.cs.ucla.edu). This outputs:
Successful in name registration: ControlParameters(Name: /ndn, FaceId: 260, Origin: 255, Cost: 0, Flags: 1, )
The /ndn means that NFD will forward all Interests that start with /ndn through the face to the other host. If you only want to forward Interests with a certain prefix, use it instead of /ndn. This only forwards Interests to the other host, but there is no “back route” for the other host to forward Interests to you. For that, you must go to the other host and use nfdc to add the route.
The “back route” can also be automatically configured with nfd-autoreg. For more information refer to ndn-autoreg.
Playing with NFD¶
After you haved installed, configured, and started NFD, you can try to install and play with the following:
Sample applications:
Simple examples in ndn-cxx library
If you have installed ndn-cxx from source, you already have compiled these:
- examples/producer
- examples/consumer
- examples/consumer-with-timer
- tools/ndncatchunks3
- tools/ndnputchunks3
Real applications and libraries: