Netmap cli reference

create netmap

create netmap name <ifname>|valeXXX:YYY [hw-addr <mac-addr>] [pipe] [master|slave]

netmap is a framework for very fast packet I/O from userspace. VALE is an equally fast in-kernel software switch using the netmap API. netmap includes netmap pipes, a shared memory packet transport channel. Together, they provide a high speed user-space interface that allows VPP to patch into a linux namespace, a linux container, or a physical NIC without the use of DPDK. Netmap/VALE generates the netmap.ko kernel module that needs to be loaded before netmap interfaces can be created.

https://github.com/luigirizzo/netmap - Netmap/VALE repo.
https://github.com/vpp-dev/netmap - VPP development package for Netmap/VALE, which is a snapshot of the Netmap/VALE repo with minor changes to work with containers and modified kernel drivers to work with NICs.

Create a netmap interface that will attach to a linux interface. The interface must already exist. Once created, a new netmap interface will exist in VPP with the name netmap-<ifname>, where <ifname> takes one of two forms:

ifname - Linux interface to bind too.
valeXXX:YYY -
Where valeXXX is an arbitrary name for a VALE
interface that must start with vale and is less than 16 characters.
Where YYY is an existing linux namespace.

This command has the following optional parameters:

hw-addr <mac-addr> - Optional ethernet address, can be in either X:X:X:X:X:X unix or X.X.X cisco format.
pipe - Optional flag to indicate that a netmap pipe instance should be created.
master | slave - Optional flag to indicate whether VPP should be the master or slave of the netmap pipe. Only considered if pipe is entered. Defaults to slave if not entered.

Example of how to create a netmap interface tied to the linux namespace vpp1:

create netmap name vale00:vpp1 hw-addr 02:FE:3F:34:15:9B pipe master

netmap-vale00:vpp1

Once the netmap interface is created, enable the interface using:

set interface state netmap-vale00:vpp1 up

Declaration: netmap_create_command src/plugins/netmap/cli.c line 152

Implementation: netmap_create_command_fn

delete netmap

delete netmap name <ifname>|valeXXX:YYY

Delete a netmap interface. Use the <ifname> to identify the netmap interface to be deleted. In VPP, netmap interfaces are named as netmap-<ifname>, where <ifname> takes one of two forms:

ifname - Linux interface to bind too.
valeXXX:YYY -
Where valeXXX is an arbitrary name for a VALE
interface that must start with vale and is less than 16 characters.
Where YYY is an existing linux namespace.

Example of how to delete a netmap interface named netmap-vale00:vpp1:

delete netmap name vale00:vpp1

Declaration: netmap_delete_command src/plugins/netmap/cli.c line 215

Implementation: netmap_delete_command_fn