Connecting Two FD.io VPP Instances

memif is a very high performance, direct memory interface type which can be used between FD.io VPP instances. It uses a file socket for a control channel to set up shared memory.

Skills to be Learned

You will learn the following new skill in this exercise:

Create a memif interface between two FD.io VPP instances

You should be able to perform this exercise with the following skills learned in previous exercises:

Run a second FD.io VPP instance
Add an ip address to a FD.io VPP interface
Ping from FD.io VPP

Topology

Initial state

The initial state here is presumed to be the final state from the exercise Create an Interface

Running a second FD.io VPP instances

You should already have a FD.io VPP instance running named: vpp1.

Run a second FD.io VPP instance named: vpp2.

$ sudo /usr/bin/vpp -c startup2.conf
....
$ sudo vppctl -s /run/vpp/cli-vpp2.sock
    _______    _        _   _____  ___
 __/ __/ _ \  (_)__    | | / / _ \/ _ \
 _/ _// // / / / _ \   | |/ / ___/ ___/
 /_/ /____(_)_/\___/   |___/_/  /_/

vpp# show version
vpp v18.07-release built by root on c469eba2a593 at Mon Jul 30 23:27:03 UTC 2018
vpp# quit

Create memif interface on vpp1

Create a memif interface on vpp1. To connect to the instance vpp1 use the socket /run/vpp/cli-vpp1.sock

$ sudo vppctl -s /run/vpp/cli-vpp1.sock
vpp# create interface memif id 0 master

This will create an interface on vpp1 memif0/0 using /run/vpp/memif as its socket file. The role of vpp1 for this memif interface is ‘master’.

With what you have learned:

Set the memif0/0 state to up.
Assign IP address 10.10.2.1/24 to memif0/0
Examine memif0/0 via show commands

Create memif interface on vpp2

We want vpp2 to pick up the ‘slave’ role using the same run/vpp/memif-vpp1vpp2 socket file

vpp# create interface memif id 0 slave

This will create an interface on vpp2 memif0/0 using /run/vpp/memif as its socket file. The role of vpp2 for this memif interface is ‘slave’.

Use your previously used skills to:

Set the memif0/0 state to up.
Assign IP address 10.10.2.2/24 to memif0/0
Examine memif0/0 via show commands

Ping from vpp1 to vpp2

Ping 10.10.2.2 from vpp1

$ ping 10.10.2.2

Ping 10.10.2.1 from vpp2

$ ping 10.10.2.1