RE: Linux router network cards

[Jean St-Laurent via NANOG <nanog () nanog org>]

Hi Jared,

 

This project looks very interesting. 

 

Can you share with us which software or package do you use in DANOS for routing? Is it a kind of command wrapper on top 
of FRR?

 

Also, it seems stable, but I am sure you already faced some minor or weird bugs. How is the support handle with DANOS? 
Is it community driven?

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Jean

 

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+jean=ddostest.me () nanog org> On Behalf Of Jared Geiger
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2020 12:30 AM
To: NANOG <nanog () nanog org>
Subject: Re: Linux router network cards

 

I use DANOS with Intel XL710 10G NICs in DPDK mode for linux based routing.

 

If you're doing routing protocols, allocate 2 CPU cores to the control plane and then a CPU core per 10G/1G interface 
for the dataplane, plus an extra core for good measure. So for a 4 x 10G router taking in full routes, 2 cores for 
control plane, 5 cores for the dataplane. Those cores should be Intel Xeon E5-2600v3/4 or newer and faster the clocks, 
the better.

 

Similar CPU core allocations if you choose TNSR.

 

On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 3:21 PM Jean St-Laurent via NANOG <nanog () nanog org <mailto:nanog () nanog org> > wrote:

Chelsio cards are probably what you are looking for.

https://www.chelsio.com/terminator-6-asic/

It's closer to an asic than a traditional nic as the router/firewall rules
are pushed directly into the hardware.

I don't know how good they are with linux and they seem to be compatible.
https://www.chelsio.com/linux/

You will need to mess around a bit and fiddle here and there. If you don't
mind using FreeBSD instead of linux, you could achieve a smoother and more
integrated experience.

Jean

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+jean=ddostest.me () nanog org <mailto:ddostest.me () nanog org> > On Behalf Of micah
anderson
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2020 5:31 PM
To: Philip Loenneker <Philip.Loenneker () tasmanet com au <mailto:Philip.Loenneker () tasmanet com au> >; NANOG
<nanog () nanog org <mailto:nanog () nanog org> >
Subject: RE: Linux router network cards


Thanks for the reply.

Philip Loenneker <Philip.Loenneker () tasmanet com au <mailto:Philip.Loenneker () tasmanet com au> > writes:
> Take a look at the Mellanox ConnectX 5 series of cards. They handle 
> DPDK, PVRDMA (basically SR-IOV that allows live migration between 
> hosts), and can even process packets within the NIC for some

> From what I can tell, SR-IOV/PVRDMA aren't really useful for me in building
a router that wont be doing any virtualization.

If the card can do DPDK, can it do XDP?

> The slidedeck for the presentation is here:
> https://www.ausnog.net/sites/default/files/ausnog-2019/presentations/1
> .9_Rhod_Brown_AusNOG2019.pdf
>
> It's heavily targeting virtualised workloads but some of the feature sets
apply to bare-metal uses too.

Yeah, this wont be a virtualized environment, just a router passing packets,
dropping them, handling bgp and collecting flows.

-- 
        micah