Building NDCTL Utilities from Source: A Comprehensive Guide
- Steve Scargall
- Linux , Cxl , Pmem
- March 22, 2025
Building NDCTL with Meson on Ubuntu 24.04
The NDCTL
package includes the cxl, daxctl, and ndctl utilities. It uses the Meson build system for streamlined compilation. This guide reflects the modern build process for managing NVDIMMs, CXL, and PMEM on Ubuntu 24.04.
If you do not install a more recent Kernel than the one provided by the distro, then it is not recommended to compile these utilities from source code. If you have installed a mainline Kernel, then you will likely require a newer version of these utilities that are compatible with your Kernel. See the NDCTL Releases as the Kernel support information is provided there.
Here is the support matrix as of ndctl Version 81 and Kernel 6.14:
| NDCTL Version | Linux Kernel Version |
|---|---|
| v81 | 6.14 |
| v80 | 6.11 |
| v79 | 6.9 |
| v78 | 6.5 |
| v77 | 6.3 |
| v76.1 | 6.2 |
| v76 | 6.2 |
| v75 | 6.1 |
| v74.1 | 6.0 |
| v73 | 5.19 |
| v72.1 | 5.17 |
Prerequisites
Use the following steps to install the prerequisite packages before we start the build and compile phase.
System Update:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yCore Build Tools:
sudo apt install -y git meson ninja-build pkg-config automake autoconfLibraries and Tools:
sudo apt install -y asciidoc asciidoctor ruby-asciidoctor xmlto libtool libkmod-dev libsystemd-dev libudev0 libudev-dev uuid-dev libjson-c-dev libkeyutils-dev libinih-dev bash-completion keyutils libkeyutils-dev libiniparser-dev libtraceevent-dev libtracefs-dev
Step 1: Clone the Repository
git clone https://github.com/pmem/ndctl.git && cd ndctl
Step 2: Configure with Meson
Create a build directory and configure:
meson setup build
Step 3: Compile the Code
Build using Ninja (Meson’s backend):
meson compile -C build
Step 4: Install Binaries (Optional)
sudo meson install -C build
If you choose not to install the binaries, the individual commands can be found in the ndctl/build/<cmd> directory, ie:
- cxl: ~/ndctl/build/cxl/cxl
- ndctl: ~/ndctl/build/ndctl/ndctl
- daxctl: ~/ndctl/build/daxctl/daxctl
Step 5: Verify Installation
cxl --version
Troubleshooting
Build Errors:
Should you encounter any issues during the configure or build processes, you clean and rebuild using rm -rf build && meson setup build.
