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titleCommon message API

Let's add an IPv4 route into freeRouter CLI

Code Block
languagebash
themeMidnight
titleroute addition via freeRouter
conf t
ipv4 route v1 1.2.3.0 255.255.255.0 4.4.4.4
...

Upon entering the ipv4 route and pressing <enter>, you'll see the following message appearing

Code Block
languagebash
themeMidnight
titlemessage API: route4_add
...
rx: ['route4_add', '1.2.3.0/24', '13063', '4.4.4.4', '1', '\n']
...

Let's delete the route via FreeRouter CLI

Code Block
languagebash
themeMidnight
titleroute deletion via freeRouter
conf t
no ipv4 route v1 1.2.3.0 255.255.255.0 4.4.4.4
...


Code Block
languagebash
themeMidnight
titlemessage API: route4_del
...
rx: ['route4_del', '1.2.3.0/24', '13063', '4.4.4.4', '1', '\n']
...


Warning
titleImportant note

In short, the message API is simply a collection of message that would trigger an entry ADD/

DEL

DELETE/MODIFY into the dataplane corresponding table.

The documentation of this message API will be documented and published soon, but for those who are curious and can't wait this documentation, you can read forwarder.py, bf_forwarder.py or p4dpdk.bin  source code

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Expand
titleDataplane addition made easy

This design is pretty unique because, if for any reason you would like to "hook" freeRouter control plane to an other dataplane such as:

  • FPGA
  • or dataplane powered by kernel bypass technique such as RDMA
  • Or other NPU based dataplane
  • etc.

This is possible !

You would "just" have to port your P4 code logic into the target dataplane and create an interface able to translate API messages from FreeRouter into understandable message from the target dataplane.

Note
titleBe cautious with the word "just"

The "just" word can be misleading. Indeed, depending on the target dataplane, it can be a huge task. With DPDK, we were luck lucky in getting enough material in order to move forward and again p4dpdk.bin was a simple trial at the very beginning. But some other dataplane can just be simply be ignored if we don't get enough material/support from NPU vendors. 


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