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Use Sonic VPP image#301

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feat/sonic-vpp
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Use Sonic VPP image#301
l0wl3vel wants to merge 24 commits into
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feat/sonic-vpp

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@l0wl3vel l0wl3vel commented May 20, 2026 •
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Description

Use Sonic VPP image to emulate switch behaviour more accurately

What works

  • SONiC image building (locally)
  • Static breakout configuration (Dynamic breakouts are not supported)
  • SONiC config_db.json generation and loading

Outstanding issues

mini-lab

sonic-vpp related

  • isc/pixiecore do not receive DHCP requests from machine PXE because of an upstream issue with VLANs/Bridged Interfaces/L2 broadcasts Create vlan-bvi HLD sonic-net/sonic-platform-vpp#228 BVI support sonic-net/sonic-platform-vpp#199
    • Maybe mitigated by moving pixiecore and isc off the switches and letting sonic dhcp relay route the DHCP traffic. Great opportunity to get mini-lab closer to the reference architecture
  • unnumbered bgp does not come up between leaf switches and exit nodes due to IPv6 RAs not getting relayed to host interfaces on the host switch, leaving the BGP session idle on the switch, while the exit node tries to unsuccessfully establish a session.
    • looks like a similar root cause to the dhcp issue of traffic not getting punted to the host, only without the VLAN situation

In summary:

  • sonic-vpp is missing required multicast punting for icmpv6 (IPv6 Router Advertisements) and DHCP. Proper fixes would have to happen upstream.

  • Changes to the launch.py shoud be merged anyway, since it makes sonic bootup easier to understand

closes: #300

Used AI-Tools ✨

  • Claude Opus used as research buddy/stand-in in for missing SONiC documentation

l0wl3vel added 14 commits May 8, 2026 16:58
@l0wl3vel
WIP feat: add gatewayapi support
a03f3c3 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: add https gateway listener with self-signed cert
7f467b0 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: enable zitadel httproute
c847feb 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: move kind and sonic containerlab to dedicated network
8ba6232 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: bind zitadel only to https listener
0605470 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: expose metal-api gRPC endpoint
540904d 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: expose nsq endpoint
3bf3f04 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: improve naming consistency
9df6b85 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: use valid hosts for gateway certificates
611f353 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: move gateway configuration into their respective sections
4fd0126 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: undo changes to gardener ingress ips
baaae61 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: fix incorrect use of gateway instead of ingress controller
3485b41 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: remove ingress-nginx exposed ports
f84c000 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: change mgmt network to mini_lab_internal
d91c7b3 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
l0wl3vel added 5 commits May 20, 2026 21:53
@l0wl3vel
feat: add sonic-vpp image
1856649
@l0wl3vel
WIP feat: working sonic-vpp example
2625f17 
it is hold together by hopes and dreams, is slow as all hell, but it works

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
WIP feat: booting sonic-vpp and make up succeeds
c28abed 
current issue: DHCP discovers from machines do not arrive

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
WIP fix: faster bootup
4f39ef8 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
WIP feat: wire up SONiC DHCP relay
52682a2 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
l0wl3vel added 3 commits May 28, 2026 11:03
@l0wl3vel
fix: go back to virtio-net-pci devices
03144b6 
e1000 did not play well with vpp due to tx/rx queue count mismatch
(vpp expected two, e1000 had one, second tx queue did overflow since
it never got emptied by the virtual nic)

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: move dhcp server off the sonic switch
97c3a4c 
troubleshooting steps to isolate why the dhcp return path via dhcp relay
does not work

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: use sonic-vpp master branch build
273a9da 
includes
sonic-net/sonic-platform-vpp#212
and sonic-net/sonic-platform-vpp#220
for troubleshooting reasons

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
feat: clean up sonic launch.py
92553f0 
Removed hacks, that just about worked in sonic-vs but broke in sonic-vpp
- sonic-vpp requires first time init to generate
  VPP config files from hwsku lanemap and port
  config. If skipped the syncd container, in which
  vpp runs, will crash immediately
- /etc/sonic/sonic-environment is generated on first boot from
  /usr/share/sonic/device/x86_64-kvm_x86_64-r0/default_sku,
  so writing it serves no purpose as we reenabled firstboot
- switch to telnetlib3, due to telnetlib being deprecated

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
@l0wl3vel
fix: add more documentation
8446f3c 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Ritter <benjamin.ritter@x-cellent.com>
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Use sonic-vpp target for OSS SONiC images

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@l0wl3vel