VyOS Networks Blog

A few months ago, attentive readers may have seen in the blog post that in rolling releases we included the VPP data plane. Most attentive may also notice that we have not published any updates or even related commits from that time. We want to clarify the situation with VPP and explain the future of VyOS with VPP. Also, ask for a little feedback from the community.

Short summary for those who want to save time: The VPP data plane integration is under active development and will be available for VyOS as an addon.

The decision about VPP integration was not spontaneous but was made at a moment when we did not have enough time to finish it before the next stable release date. We know, you waited for the next LTS version for a long time, and do not want to let you wait more before we stabilize VPP integration so much that it can be included in the main build without any risks for reliability.

But, where others see problems, we see opportunities. For many years we have had another long-standing idea - providing an ability for developers to create third-party addons for VyOS. And we thought - this can be a solution! Let's pretend that we are third-party developers and try this on our own skin. This allows us to unlock the 1.4 release date and still offer VPP for those who need it (later).

And we moved with all development to a new cozy place, outside of the main source code tree, where experiments cannot hurt anyone.

Now, after months of work and tests, we think it is time to click a switch: clean up vyos-1x from VPP and present the first (unstable, unreliable, not ready for production) VyOS addon - VPP data plane.

Previous VPP announcements did some buzz in the community, but there was almost no feedback. And we do not think this is because the solution was so perfect and complete that there were no bugs to describe or ideas to share. That is why, this time we ask for a little favor in exchange for a VPP addon access - we need your feedback.

It does not matter if you are an enthusiast who plays with the network long autumn evenings or an engineer in a big corporation who is searching for new solutions, your feedback is important and valuable. It allows us to create a solution that fits you first of all.

You can find a form that we ask you to fill out for access to the VPP addon at the end of this post. Access will be provided for one month (or longer - if you will be active), and you will need to contact us with feedback. We hope this is not such a big price for the ability to increase VyOS performance to previously unthinkable levels.

Meanwhile, here is what you may expect:
- full integration with kernel (transparent forwarding between kernel and VPP) for unicast traffic
- Ethernet interfaces
- Bonding interfaces
- VLANs
- VXLAN
- GRE

Please, fill out this form to get access. We hope you will get joy while playing with the addon!