How to test basicfwd application in DPDK

Question

I am using Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine with Kernel 4.4 and DPDK version 17.11. I managed to configure igb_uio drivers using setup utility.

Then I compiled basicfwd application DPDK. I also configured two ports with igb_uio driver and verified that it's associated with DPDK and not shown in Linux Kernel.

basicfwd application is listening on two ports where MAC address is displayed.

I am not sure how to send packet for MAC address. Can anyone suggest how to create packets for given MAC address using a command or utility. Windows is host OS in my laptop.

I also see PMD application and packetgen application are used for testing purpose. I am not sure whether they can be used to test basicfwd application.

Also I would like to know How to assign ip address for DPDK port so that they can receive packets in live environment. I need to study more on DPDK on these aspects.

Would appreciate any help on this.

Answer 1

DPDK is an alternative for Kernel stack Processing, so any ports bound to DPDK via uio_pci_generic/vfio-pci/igb_uio will not be supporting IPv4/IPv6 address as kernel netdev. Hence the expectation of How to assign ip address for DPDK port is incorrect.

With respect to sending packet into a virtual machine, there are a couple of combination

1. have complete NIC pass through to VM (PF/VF) - in this scenario, one needs to send a packet through the physical interface it.
2. have port representation like TAP/VETH-Pair passed as virtio interface - in this scenario on the host machine, there will be representation port. So you can use tools like ping/arping/packeth/pktgen/scapy/ostinato to generate packets for you.

Note: if you are using testpmd dpdk application you can make it run in Promiscuous mode. For examples like l2fwd/skeleton the ports are by default set into promiscuous mode.