## WORK-IN-PROGRESS - This is a planning page for addressing VPP usability aspects

## Goals
1. VPP working out of the box for most/all baseline use cases.
2. Profiled by target VPP consumers - use cases, users.
  - Use1 - OPNFV/FDS
  - Use2 - Programmable Virtual Forwarder
  - Use3 - OpenStack NFVI
  - Use4 - vSwitch for VMs

## VPP Use Case Requirements
Functional requirements of target VPP consumers - wip - current snapshot:

1. Use1 - OPNFV/FDS - VXLAN+L2BD+vhost, VLAN+L2BD+vhost, BVI, VRF, IPv4, IPv6, SNAT, ACL/classifier
2. Use2 - Programmable Virtual Forwarder - VXLAN+L2BD+vhost, IPv4, IPv6, more TBC
3. Use3 - OpenStack NFVI - VXLAN+L2BD+vhost
4. Use4 - vSwitch for VMs - VLAN+L2BD+vhost, high-density VNF VMs (30VMs, 102vhost)

<turn it into a table..>

## VPP User Guide - Outline
Outline of user guide that needs to be produced:

1. Installation per Linux distro - Ubuntu, Centos, RHEL, other - Ed, Sean
  - Packaging
    - [view/VPP/Installing_VPP_binaries_from_packages#CentOS_7.2_-_VPP_master_branch_RPMs_.28in_development.29](view/VPP/Installing_VPP_binaries_from_packages#CentOS_7.2_-_VPP_master_branch_RPMs_.28in_development.29)
    - sudo yum install vpp-python-api

  - Manual install - ??
  - Automated install of VPP bench-in-a-box - Ed, Sean
    - Target installation sequence:
      - 1) Hugepages and CPU isolation
        - a) Setup Hugepages and CPU isolation
        - b) Reboot
        - c) Validate Hugepages and CPU isolation

      - 2) Download and build VPP (I am told we are building rather than apt/yumming packages because of lack of python api packages)
      - 4) Configure /etc/vpp/startup.conf
      - 5) Validating VPP python api is working
      - 6) Devstack
        - a) Munging ML2 driver to match vpp python api (what needs to be fixed upstream so we don’t have to do this)?

      - 7) Configure various neutron and nova bits
      - 8) Install Trex
        - a) Download DPDK and build it for trex
        - b) Download Trex and build it

      - 9) Configure and run trex

    - Required work
      - 0) Fix whatever is causing us to have to munge the ML2 driver to match vpp
      - 1) Get vpp python api’s packaged so we just have to apt/yum install vpp and vpp-python-api
      - 2) Get Trex packaged (together with whatever DPDK munging has to happen) so it can simply be apt/yum installed
      - 3) Get puppet/ansible modules for vpp/trex sufficient to handle their configuration

    - Once required work done, user would follow simple few steps
      - 1) apt/yum install puppet/ansible
      - 2) curl ${url to openstack_vpp_performance_demo.pp}
      - 2) sudo puppet apply openstack_vpp_performance_demo.pp
      - 3) Reboot
      - 4) Run a script that fires up the performance demo (stacks/munges, neutron/nova bits, starts trex traffic)

2. Environment - MK, FB
  - <complete the list of areas and combinations>
  - Linux environment fundamentals
  - SW Dependencies
    - Linux kernel ver
    - QEMU ver
    - DPDK ver

  - HW Dependencies
    - x86_64 microarchitectures
    - NICs

3. Initial configuration - MK, PM, DM for questions
  - Startup configuration - startup.conf ...
  - Interfaces

4. Optimizing VPP performance - MK, PM, PF&DM for questions
  - Tuning performance
  - VM and vhost-user considerations
  - Useful host performance telemetry
  - Useful VPP performance telemetry

5. Sample use cases - Chris Metz with team will work it
  - L2 switching
    - with VMs (vhost)
    - with tunnels (vxlan, lisp-gpe)
    - with security-groups

  - IP routed forwarding
    - with VMs (vhost)
    - with tunnels (vxlan, lisp-gpe)
    - with security-filters - iacl, cop-whitelist, cop-blacklist

  - <add more>
  - <structure differently?>

6. Doc Generation and Online Presentation
  - Consider [readthedocs](http://readthedocs.org) approach
    - Based on [sphinx](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/) using [readthedocs theme](http://github.com/snide/sphinx_rtd_theme)
    - Used today by [dpdk doc](http://www.dpdk.org/doc)

## Programmer's Guide - Outline
Programmer's guide - KRB for TOC, OT to help

1. VPP API guide

## Tester's Guide - Outline
1. Running VPP tests
  - vpp make tests
    - sphinx auto-generated docs in place now in vpp/build-root/test-doc/build/html

  - csit virl functional tests
    - sphinx auto-generated docs are wip - Tibor Frank

  - csit perf tests
    - sphinx auto-generated docs are wip - Tibor Frank

2. Programming VPP tests
  - vpp make tests
    - sphinx auto-generated docs in place now in vpp/build-root/test-doc/build/html

  - csit virl functional tests
    - csit virl tutorial already in place: [view/CSIT/Documentation.md](view/CSIT/Documentation.md)

  - csit perf tests
    - csit perf tutorial already in place: [view/CSIT/Documentation.md](view/CSIT/Documentation.md)

## VPP vhost usability
1. VPP vhost test requirements
  - [vpp-dev], [csit-dev] consultation in progress
    - [https://lists.fd.io/pipermail/csit-dev/2016-November/001192.html](https://lists.fd.io/pipermail/csit-dev/2016-November/001192.html)

2. VPP vhost VM use cases
3. VPP vhost VM negative scenarios
  - VPP disconnects
  - VM disconnects

4. qemu hardening for vhost
  - vhost reconnect
  - vhost hot-plug
  - virtio1.1 re-negotiation
  - Monthly DPDK-Virtio Meeting
    - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FoPi81zQmo5y20G0Yntg-eGHX14LnWc63TwR57mCbs4/edit?ts=581f03fb#](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FoPi81zQmo5y20G0Yntg-eGHX14LnWc63TwR57mCbs4/edit?ts=581f03fb#)

5. Other fixes:
  - Improved packet tracing for troubleshooting: commit:116ea4b2a157

## VPP Performance Considerations
Here initial points to be addressed for optimizing VPP performance on specific compute HW configurations:

1. cpu core configuration and vpp thread mappings
  - phy interfaces can be placed to thread/core
  - vhost interfaces are round-robined - new feature for placement
    - do after multi-queue patch by Pierre

2. vhost - qsz, cpu jitter, reconnect, interop qemu-virtio
  - hard to install, doesn't work all the time, crashes

3. dpdk - performance with selection of NICs
  - more detailed documentation about baremetal installations
    - vs. just Vagrant

  - Added a vhost test script in vppsb/vhost-test
  - dpdk new rls setup recommendations - per NIC basis
  - dpdk.org is not publishing performance numbers
  - csit can't address it - need manual tests and analysis

4. vpp self-diagnostics for optimal setup verification

## Minimal setup installation for vhost+VM connectivity
Minimal setup installation for vhost+VM connectivity:

1. TRex
2. ansible scripts developed in CSIT
3. Consumability of CSIT-perf RF and python libraries

## Important Test Areas
Listing of important areas to increase VPP test coverage -MK

1. negative tests - add/remove interfaces/routes/MAC entries
2. box-full tests NIC-NIC
3. box-full tests NIC-VM-NIC
4. stress-tests - add/remove VMs
5. negative weird setups - mixed L2BD, IRB, IPv4, IPv6 forwarding
6. soak-tests
7. tap devices - add/remove
8. negative stress/weird tests

## VPP Diagnostics and telemetry
Following VPP diagnostics and telemetry aspects need to be addressed:

1. live health and performance metrics
  - compute HW
  - Linux kernel
  - VM guest

2. collectd + influxdb + grafana
  - VPP interface counters
  - VPP vector size