FD.io

Vector Packet Processing Introduction

The VPP platform is an extensible framework that provides out-of-the-box production quality switch/router functionality. It is the open source version of Cisco's Vector Packet Processing (VPP) technology: a high performance, packet-processing stack that can run on commodity CPUs.

The benefits of this implementation of VPP are its high performance, proven technology, its modularity and flexibility, and rich feature set.

For more information on VPP and its features please visit the FD.io website and What is VPP? pages.

Changes

Details of the changes leading up to this version of VPP can be found under doc/releasenotes.

Directory layout

Directory name Description

build-data Build metadata

build-root Build output directory

docs Sphinx Documentation

dpdk DPDK patches and build infrastructure

extras/libmemif Client library for memif

src/examples VPP example code

src/plugins VPP bundled plugins directory

src/svm Shared virtual memory allocation library

src/tests Standalone tests (not part of test harness)

src/vat VPP API test program

src/vlib VPP application library

src/vlibapi VPP API library

src/vlibmemory VPP Memory management

src/vnet VPP networking

src/vpp VPP application

src/vpp-api VPP application API bindings

src/vppinfra VPP core library

src/vpp/api Not-yet-relocated API bindings

test Unit tests and Python test harness

Getting started

In general anyone interested in building, developing or running VPP should consult the VPP wiki for more complete documentation.

In particular, readers are recommended to take a look at [Pulling, Building, Running, Hacking, Pushing](https://wiki.fd.io/view/VPP/Pulling,_Building,_Run ning,_Hacking_and_Pushing_VPP_Code) which provides extensive step-by-step coverage of the topic.

For the impatient, some salient information is distilled below.

Quick-start: On an existing Linux host

To install system dependencies, build VPP and then install it, simply run the build script. This should be performed a non-privileged user with sudo access from the project base directory:

./extras/vagrant/build.sh

If you want a more fine-grained approach because you intend to do some development work, the Makefile in the root directory of the source tree provides several convenience shortcuts as make targets that may be of interest. To see the available targets run:

make

The directory extras/vagrant contains a VagrantFile and supporting scripts to bootstrap a working VPP inside a Vagrant-managed Virtual Machine. This VM can then be used to test concepts with VPP or as a development platform to extend VPP. Some obvious caveats apply when using a VM for VPP since its performance will never match that of bare metal; if your work is timing or performance sensitive, consider using bare metal in addition or instead of the VM.

For this to work you will need a working installation of Vagrant. Instructions for this can be found [on the Setting up Vagrant wiki page] (https://wiki.fd.io/view/DEV/Setting_Up_Vagrant).

More information

Several modules provide documentation, see @subpage user_doc for more end-user-oriented information. Also see @subpage dev_doc for developer notes.

Visit the VPP wiki for details on more advanced building strategies and other development notes.