4.1. Overview

4.1.1. Tested Virtual Topologies

CSIT VPP functional tests are executed on virtualized topologies created using Virtual Internet Routing Lab (VIRL) simulation platform contributed by Cisco. VIRL runs on physical baremetal servers hosted by LF FD.io project. Majority of the tests are executed in the three node logical test topology - Traffic Generator (TG) node and two Systems Under Test (SUT) nodes connected in a loop. Some tests use two node logical test topology - TG node and SUT1 node. Both logical test topologies are shown in the figures below.

+------------------------+           +------------------------+
|                        |           |                        |
|  +------------------+  |           |  +------------------+  |
|  |                  <----------------->                  |  |
|  |                  |  |           |  |                  |  |
|  |       DUT1       <----------------->       DUT2       |  |
|  +--^--^------------+  |           |  +------------^--^--+  |
|     |  |               |           |               |  |     |
|     |  |         SUT1  |           |  SUT2         |  |     |
+------------------------+           +------------------------+
      |  |                                           |  |
      |  |                                           |  |
      |  |               +-----------+               |  |
      |  +--------------->           <---------------+  |
      |                  |    TG     |                  |
      +------------------>           <------------------+
                         +-----------+

                   +------------------------+
                   |                        |
                   |  +------------------+  |
      +--------------->                  <--------------+
      |            |  |                  |  |           |
      |  |------------>       DUT1       <-----------+  |
      |  |         |  +--^--^------------+  |        |  |
      |  |         |                        |        |  |
      |  |         |                  SUT1  |        |  |
      |  |         +------------------------+        |  |
      |  |                                           |  |
      |  |                                           |  |
      |  |               +-----------+               |  |
      |  +--------------->           <---------------+  |
      |                  |    TG     |                  |
      +------------------>           <------------------+
                         +-----------+

SUT1 and SUT2 are two VMs (Ubuntu or Centos, depending on the test suite), TG is a Traffic Generator (TG, another Ubuntu VM). SUTs run VPP SW application in Linux user-mode as a Device Under Test (DUT) within the VM. TG runs Scapy SW application as a packet Traffic Generator. Logical connectivity between SUTs and to TG is provided using virtual NICs using VMs’ virtio driver.

Virtual testbeds are created on-demand whenever a verification job is started (e.g. triggered by the gerrit patch submission) and destroyed upon completion of all functional tests. Each node is a Virtual Machine and each connection that is drawn on the diagram is available for use in any test case. During the test execution, all nodes are reachable thru the Management network connected to every node via dedicated virtual NICs and virtual links (not shown above for clarity).

For the test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with VM over the vhost-user interfaces, a nested VM is created on SUT1 and/or SUT2 for the duration of these particular test cases only. DUT (VPP) test topology with VM is shown in the figure below including the applicable packet flow thru the VM (marked in the figure with ***).

+------------------------+           +------------------------+
|      +----------+      |           |      +----------+      |
|      |    VM    |      |           |      |    VM    |      |
|      |  ******  |      |           |      |  ******  |      |
|      +--^----^--+      |           |      +--^----^--+      |
|        *|    |*        |           |        *|    |*        |
|  +------v----v------+  |           |  +------v----v------+  |
|  |      *    *      |**|***********|**|      *    *      |  |
|  |  *****    *******<----------------->*******    *****  |  |
|  |  *    DUT1       |  |           |  |       DUT2    *  |  |
|  +--^---------------+  |           |  +---------------^--+  |
|    *|                  |           |                  |*    |
|    *|            SUT1  |           |  SUT2            |*    |
+------------------------+           +------------------^-----+
     *|                                                 |*
     *|                                                 |*
     *|                  +-----------+                  |*
     *|                  |           |                  |*
     *+------------------>    TG     <------------------+*
     ******************* |           |********************
                         +-----------+

4.1.2. Functional Tests Coverage

Following VPP functional test areas are covered in the CSIT rls1701 with results listed in this report:

  • DHCP - Client and Proxy - Dynamic Host Control Protocol Client and Proxy for IPv4, IPv6.
  • GRE Overlay Tunnels - Generic Routing Encapsulation for IPv4.
  • L2BD Ethernet Switching - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding for untagged Ethernet, dot1q and dot1ad tagged.
  • L2XC Ethernet Switching - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding for untagged Ethernet, dot1q and dot1ad tagged.
  • LISP Overlay Tunnels - Locator/ID Separation Protocol overlay tunnels and locator/id mapping control.
  • Softwire Tunnels - IPv4-in-IPv6 softwire tunnels.
  • Cop Address Security - address white-list and black-list filtering for IPv4, IPv6.
  • IPSec - Tunnels and Transport - IPSec tunnel and transport modes.
  • IPv6 Routed-Forwarding - IPv6 routed-forwarding, NS/ND, RA, ICMPv6.
  • uRPF Source Security - unicast Reverse Path Forwarding security.
  • Tap Interface - baseline Linux tap interface tests.
  • Telemetry - IPFIX and SPAN - IPFIX netflow statistics and SPAN port mirroring.
  • VRF Routed-Forwarding - multi-context IPVPN routed-forwarding for IPv4, IPv6.
  • iACL Security - ingress Access Control List security for IPv4, IPv6, MAC.
  • IPv4 Routed-Forwarding - IPv4 routed-forwarding, RPF, ARP, Proxy ARP, ICMPv4.
  • QoS Policer Metering - ingress packet rate measuring and marking for IPv4, IPv6.
  • VLAN Tag Translation - L2 VLAN tag translation 2to2, 2to1, 1to2, 1to1.
  • VXLAN Overlay Tunnels - VXLAN tunneling for L2-over-IP, for IPv4, IPv6.

4.1.3. Functional Tests Naming

CSIT rls1701 introduced a common structured naming convention for all performance and functional tests. This change was driven by substantially growing number and type of CSIT test cases. Firstly, the original practice did not always follow any strict naming convention. Secondly test names did not always clearly capture tested packet encapsulations, and the actual type or content of the tests. Thirdly HW configurations in terms of NICs, ports and their locality were not captured either. These were but few reasons that drove the decision to change and define a new more complete and stricter test naming convention, and to apply this to all existing and new test cases.

The new naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. The complete description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on CSIT test naming page.

Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for functional test suites:

  1. Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P

    • eth2p-ethip4-ip4base-func.robot => 2 ports of Ethernet, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, functional tests.

  2. Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC, P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P

    • eth2p-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-func.robot => 2 ports of Ethernet, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, functional tests.