Netino Fast Path is a spin-off of OpenFastPath project.

Netino Fast Path is an effort to provide the overall improvement of the functionality offered by OpenFastPath project while exploring its utilization in diffent scenarios like small devices or multi-stack setups.

It does not target the API or design compatibility with OpenFastPath project.

Netino Fast Path (NFP) project web page:
http://www.netinosoft.org

NFP project in GitHub:
https://github.com/NetInoSoftware/nfp

Netino Fast Path general info

Intent and purpose:

The intent of this project is to enable accelerated routing/forwarding for IPv4 and IPv6, tunneling and termination for a variety of protocols. Unsupported functionality is provided by the host OS networking stack (slow path).

Netino Fast Path functionality is provided as a library to Fast Path applications that use ODP run to completion execution model and framework. DPDK is supported through the ODP-DPDK layer.

Termination of protocols with POSIX-like interface (socket) for legacy applications is also supported.

See project technical overview for more details about architecture and main features.

Directory structure

./config/ - Example configuration files.
./docs/ - This is where you can find more detailed documentation.
./example/ - Example applications that use the NFP libraries.
./include/api/ - Public interface headers used by an application.
./lib/ - NFP libraries.
./scripts/ - Helper scripts.
./test/ - Sanity test applications.

Coding Style:

Project code uses Linux kernel style that is verified through checkpatch.pl

Licensing:

Project uses BSD 3-CLause License as default license. One should not use code that is licensed under any GPL type.

NFP getting started

Build environment preparation:

This project is currently verified on a generic 64bit x86 Linux machine.

The following packages (+ dependencies) are mandatory for building the NFP applications:

git autotools-dev libtool automake build-essential pkg-config

The following packages are optional:

libssl-dev doxygen asciidoc valgrind libcunit1 libcunit1-doc libcunit1-dev libconfig-dev

The usage of libconfig-dev package is enabled by default and can be disabled by --disable-libconfig configure option.

Additionally, the following packages may be needed (e.g. with DPDK): libnuma-dev, libpcap-dev and python.

OpenDataPlane (ODP) is a mandatory library. It can be either manually built from the sources or built with the devbuild script.

Build ODP library (manually):

Download (clone) and build ODP:

git clone https://github.com/OpenDataPlane/odp-dpdk
cd odp-dpdk
git checkout v1.41.0.0_DPDK_22.11
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=<INSTALL ODP TO THIS DIR> --with-platform=linux-generic
make
make install

(make install may require root permissions)

Instructions for building NFP on top of ODP-DPDK with DPDK interface type support can be found on NFP User Guide (docs/nfp-user-guide.adoc).

Build NFP applications (manually):

Download (clone) and build NFP:

git clone https://github.com/NetInoSoftware/nfp
cd nfp
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=<INSTALL NFP TO THIS DIR> --with-odp=<ODP INSTALLATION DIR>
make
make install 

(make install may require root permissions)

Build NFP applications, odp-dpdk and dpdk (devbuild script)

The 'devbuild' script builds from sources DPDK, ODP-DPDK and the NFP examples applications:

git clone https://github.com/NetInoSoftware/nfp
cd nfp
./scripts/devbuild_all.sh

'nfp/scripts/devbuild_all/install' is the install folder of the build.

NFP example applications:

NFP project contains a number of example applications described in example/README file. See NFP User Guide (docs/nfp-user-guide.adoc) for more details about designing and executing NFP applications.

NFP library version

NFP library version is 8.1.0 Ocicat

ODP/DPDK recommended versions:

NFP supports a wider variety of ODP and DPDK versions but recommended (tested) versions are:

• ODP-DPDK (https://github.com/OpenDataPlane/odp-dpdk) version v1.41.0.0, platforms 'linux-generic' and 'linux-dpdk'.
• DPDK version v22.11.3.