Re: Linux router network cards

[Jared Geiger <jared () compuwizz net>]

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>
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> On Behalf Of micah
> anderson
> Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2020 5:31 PM
> To: Philip Loenneker <Philip.Loenneker () tasmanet com au>; NANOG
> <nanog () nanog org>
> Subject: RE: Linux router network cards
>
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> Philip Loenneker <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