4 ms·

Is it possible to try this out in a VM? I.e. are there any VMs out there that emulates the hardware well enough to be usable with Ixy?

by dvdplm 9y ago

emmericp 9y ago
I'm not aware of any hypervisors that can emulate a 82599 (ixgbe) NIC. I've a student who will start to work on a virtio driver soon to get a VM setup running.
sigjuice 9y ago
If you have a system with an extra 82599 perhaps you can use it in a VM via PCIe passthrough?
en4bz 9y ago
DPDK, which this library seems to be inspired by, has a virtio driver that will work for VMs. You can get into Intel 10GbE hardware for $100 USD [1]. [1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Dell-X520-DA2-10Gb-10Gbe-10-Gigabit-Network-Adapter-NIC-Dual-E10G42BTDA/182583302702?epid=1272538247&hash=item2a82d01a2e:g:nxoAAOSwIQdZHwEX https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Dell-X520-DA2-10Gb-10Gbe-10-G...
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  How much is the cabling going to cost you? A switch?
  - tecleandor 9y ago
    Most expensive thing will be the switch, the cabling is not that expensive. For a 10g card to work you'll need a pair of SFP+ transceivers, one for the card, and another one for the other element you're connecting to (a switch, a router, another computer...) This transceiver can be chosen for copper or fiber depending on your needs, and each transceiver will be from 50 to 100$. Then you buy fiber or copper Cat6a cable. But, if your two devices are near (less than 10 meters), you can use a Twin Axial DAC (Direct Attach Cable) : you won't need the transceivers, you can just directly connect the two devices with this cable into the SFP+ port, and it's kind of cheap, for example, 12€ a 3meter run: https://www.fs.com/en/products/40141.html?currency=EUR https://www.fs.com/en/products/40141.html?currency=EUR
  - en4bz 9y ago
    You can do physical loopback by connecting the two ports together. No switch required. A DAC cable is ~25USD.
    - signa11 9y ago
      > You can do physical loopback by connecting the two ports together. this ! and this is waay better, because you can run all simulations (perf etc.) whatever on the same machine. for example, you can run client on 1 cpu-core, and server on another, and have packets looped over the physical interface. simplify man simplify :)

Is it possible to try this out in a VM? I.e. are there any VMs out there that emulates the hardware well enough to be usable with Ixy?

by dvdplm 9y ago

Is it possible to try this out in a VM? I.e. are there any VMs out there that emulates the hardware well enough to be usable with Ixy?

emmericp 9y ago

I'm not aware of any hypervisors that can emulate a 82599 (ixgbe) NIC. I've a student who will start to work on a virtio driver soon to get a VM setup running.

sigjuice 9y ago

If you have a system with an extra 82599 perhaps you can use it in a VM via PCIe passthrough?

en4bz 9y ago

DPDK, which this library seems to be inspired by, has a virtio driver that will work for VMs. You can get into Intel 10GbE hardware for $100 USD [1]. [1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Dell-X520-DA2-10Gb-10Gbe-10-Gigabit-Network-Adapter-NIC-Dual-E10G42BTDA/182583302702?epid=1272538247&hash=item2a82d01a2e:g:nxoAAOSwIQdZHwEX https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Dell-X520-DA2-10Gb-10Gbe-10-G...

voltagex_ 9y ago
How much is the cabling going to cost you? A switch?
- tecleandor 9y ago
  Most expensive thing will be the switch, the cabling is not that expensive. For a 10g card to work you'll need a pair of SFP+ transceivers, one for the card, and another one for the other element you're connecting to (a switch, a router, another computer...) This transceiver can be chosen for copper or fiber depending on your needs, and each transceiver will be from 50 to 100$. Then you buy fiber or copper Cat6a cable. But, if your two devices are near (less than 10 meters), you can use a Twin Axial DAC (Direct Attach Cable) : you won't need the transceivers, you can just directly connect the two devices with this cable into the SFP+ port, and it's kind of cheap, for example, 12€ a 3meter run: https://www.fs.com/en/products/40141.html?currency=EUR https://www.fs.com/en/products/40141.html?currency=EUR
- en4bz 9y ago
  You can do physical loopback by connecting the two ports together. No switch required. A DAC cable is ~25USD.
  - signa11 9y ago
    > You can do physical loopback by connecting the two ports together. this ! and this is waay better, because you can run all simulations (perf etc.) whatever on the same machine. for example, you can run client on 1 cpu-core, and server on another, and have packets looped over the physical interface. simplify man simplify :)