vpp-containerlab/README.md

VPP Containerlab Docker image

User Documentation

The file vpp.clab.yml contains an example topology existing of two VPP instances connected each to one Alpine linux container, in the following topology:

This container ships with both Bird2 and FRRouting as controlplane agents.

You can deploy:

• Bird2: containerlab deploy --topo vpp-bird.clab.yml.
• FRR: containerlab deploy --topo vpp-frr.clab.yml.

three relevant files for VPP are included in this repository:

1. config/vpp*/vppcfg.yaml configures the dataplane interfaces, including a loopback address.
2. config/vpp*/bird-local.conf configures the controlplane to enable BFD and OSPF.
3. config/vpp*/frr.conf configures the controlplane to enable BFD and OSPF.

Once the lab comes up, you can SSH to the VPP containers (vpp1 and vpp2) which will have your SSH keys installed (if available). Otherwise, you can log in as user root using password vpp.

VPP runs its own network namespace called dataplane, which is very similar to SR Linux default network-instance. You can join it to take a look:

pim@summer:~/src/vpp-containerlab$ ssh root@vpp1
root@vpp1:~# nsenter --net=/var/run/netns/dataplane
root@vpp1:~# ip -br a
lo               DOWN           
loop0            UP             10.82.98.0/32 2001:db8:8298::/128 fe80::dcad:ff:fe00:0/64 
eth1             UNKNOWN        10.82.98.65/28 2001:db8:8298:101::1/64 fe80::a8c1:abff:fe77:acb9/64 
eth2             UNKNOWN        10.82.98.16/31 2001:db8:8298:1::1/64 fe80::a8c1:abff:fef0:7125/64 

root@vpp1:~# ping 10.82.98.1 ## The vpp2 IPv4 loopback address
PING 10.82.98.1 (10.82.98.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.82.98.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=9.53 ms
64 bytes from 10.82.98.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=15.9 ms
^C
--- 10.82.98.1 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 9.530/12.735/15.941/3.205 ms

The two clients are running a minimalistic Alpine Linux container, which doesn't ship with SSH by default. You can enter the containers as following:

pim@summer:~/src/vpp-containerlab$ docker exec -it client1 sh
/ # ip addr show dev eth1
531235: eth1@if531234: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP,M-DOWN> mtu 9500 qdisc noqueue state UP 
    link/ether 00:c1:ab:00:00:01 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.82.98.66/28 scope global eth1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 2001:db8:8298:101::2/64 scope global 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::2c1:abff:fe00:1/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
/ # traceroute 10.82.98.82
traceroute to 10.82.98.82 (10.82.98.82), 30 hops max, 46 byte packets
 1  10.82.98.65 (10.82.98.65)  5.906 ms  7.086 ms  7.868 ms
 2  10.82.98.17 (10.82.98.17)  24.007 ms  23.349 ms  15.933 ms
 3  10.82.98.82 (10.82.98.82)  39.978 ms  31.127 ms  31.854 ms

/ # traceroute 2001:db8:8298:102::2
traceroute to 2001:db8:8298:102::2 (2001:db8:8298:102::2), 30 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  2001:db8:8298:101::1 (2001:db8:8298:101::1)  0.701 ms  7.144 ms  7.900 ms
 2  2001:db8:8298:1::2 (2001:db8:8298:1::2)  23.909 ms  22.943 ms  23.893 ms
 3  2001:db8:8298:102::2 (2001:db8:8298:102::2)  31.964 ms  30.814 ms  32.000 ms

From the vantage point of client1, the first hop represents the vpp1 node, which forwards to vpp2, which finally forwards to client2.

Developer Documentation

See BUILDING.md for instructions on building the image, sideloading locally built VPP packages, multiarch builds, testing, and configuring VPP.