docs: mention how to build VPP outside git

Type: docs

Change-Id: Iceee9ef489f7f68049882651bb338311295ca12d
Signed-off-by: Vratko Polak <vrpolak@cisco.com>

3 files changed, 22 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/docs/developer/build-run-debug/building.rst b/docs/developer/build-run-debug/building.rst
index ca7fdef0222..9e9e79db376 100644
--- a/docs/developer/build-run-debug/building.rst
+++ b/docs/developer/build-run-debug/building.rst
@@ -116,6 +116,22 @@ To get the VPP sources that are used to create the build, run the following comm
     $ git clone https://gerrit.fd.io/r/vpp
     $ cd vpp
 
+As VPP version is derived from git description (which is based on git tags),
+if the github generated tarballs are used, the version information
+will be missing from the version file (.../src/scripts/.version)
+which is required by the version script when building
+in a non-git based workspace or the build will fail.
+In that case, put the desired version string into
+.../src/scripts/.version to satisfy the requirements of the version script.
+
+Alternatively, the ``make dist`` command in a cloned git workspace
+will generate an xz compressed tarball of the source
+including the .../src/scripts/.version file containing the git hash
+using the standard nomenclature for VPP images.
+
+Extract the tarball using the -J option to decompress it using xz. For example,
+``tar xvJf ./build-root/vpp-23.10-rc0~184-g48cd559fb.tar.xz``
+
 Build VPP Dependencies
 --------------------------------------
 
diff --git a/docs/gettingstarted/troubleshooting/sanitizer.rst b/docs/gettingstarted/troubleshooting/sanitizer.rst
index 217f5e57182..d2c8b1181d6 100644
--- a/docs/gettingstarted/troubleshooting/sanitizer.rst
+++ b/docs/gettingstarted/troubleshooting/sanitizer.rst
@@ -14,8 +14,11 @@ AddressSanitizer
 `AddressSanitizer <https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/AddressSanitizer>`_  (aka ASan) is a memory
 error detector for C/C++. Think Valgrind but much faster.
 
-In order to use it, VPP must be recompiled with ASan support. It is implemented as a cmake
-build option, so all VPP targets should be supported. For example:
+In order to use it, VPP must be recompiled with ASan support.
+See developer documentation on prerequisites for :ref:`building VPP <building>`.
+
+ASan support is implemented as a cmake build option,
+so all VPP targets should be supported. For example:
 
 .. code-block:: console
 
diff --git a/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt b/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt
index 6a06b3b94df..21baa622c7e 100644
--- a/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt
+++ b/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt
@@ -1352,6 +1352,7 @@ XXhash
 xxx
 XXX
 xyz
+xz
 yaml
 Yaml
 YYMM