VPP container and minimal clab lab

[DanPartelly]

Turns out is pretty trivial do drive veth pairs with vpp. They have a interface type which drives Linux host interfaces with AF_PACKET. Also, a nice man in containerlab discord pointed me to the fact that Ligato maintains a fd.io docker container. So even the minimal pain to write a Dockerfile is gone.

So, here is a minimal proof of concept lab (vpp only, no linux control plane, no FRR):

https://github.com/DanPartelly/clab-minimal-vpp

Once the lab is deployed:
docker exec clab-vpp01-r1 vppctl show int addr
docker exec clab-vpp01-r1 vppctl ping 10.1.0.2

Ivan, what do you think next steps should be to bring it to networklab ? Work first time on linux CP integration and FRR in containerlab, and then proceed with networklab things ?

[ipspace]

The proof-of-concept setup is in the vpp branch. However, the VPP container crashed my server (have no idea why that happens, Cumulus Linux container sometimes does the same), and as containers are restarted after the reboot (now I know why that has to be fixed 🤦‍♂️) it almost bricked my NUC.

Hope that branch will help you get started. I'm not touching that container in the near future -- I would have to build a sandbox VM and I have a few other things to fix first.

[DanPartelly]

Understandable. Focus on whats important. Ill take that branch up after IOL. Thanks a lot for all your efforts.

I will also build a vpp VM for Vagrant when Ill start working in networklab on that branch. I have weirdness with Cummuls containers, they basically take over my machine like The Borg. I get thrown into an ever restarting debian login console. CtrlAltDel .... Weird.