[dev] FPM-Zebra interactions and EVPN MAC route handing

Mark Stapp mjs at voltanet.io
Tue Jul 23 08:52:15 EDT 2019


Hi Hasan,
FPM in one-way: it's a way of making some of zebra's information available
to an external consumer. As you observed, it's not possible to use FPM to
influence what information zebra holds or how it processes the information
it receives.

We've begun adding a dataplane subsystem to zebra that is designed to be
more complete, and to be bi-directional. The zebra dataplane is
asynchronous, and it supports plugins to implement support for a system's
forwarding path - the default plugin supports the local kernel, for
example. We've moved ip route programming, interface address programming,
and LSP programming into this kernel plugin so far. You can take a look at
zebra/zebra_dplane.[ch] to see how the current support works.  I'll be
working on EVPN this summer, as a matter of fact, and hopefully we'll be
able to offer a useful set of features.

-- Mark

On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:00 PM Syed Hasan Raza Naqvi via dev <
dev at lists.frrouting.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Syed Hasan Raza Naqvi <syed.naqvi at broadcom.com>
> To: dev at lists.frrouting.org
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2019 13:58:07 -0700
> Subject: FPM-Zebra interactions and EVPN MAC route handing
>
> Hi,
>
> I have below queries related to Zebra-FPM interaction and EVPN MAC
> handling in FRR. Would appreciate if someone could answer.
>
>
> (1)  First of all, I don't see any communication from Fpm to Zebra today.
> The code in Zebra just de-queues from the fpm socket and discards.
>     zebra_fpm.c:zfpm_read_cb() ...
> /*
> * Just throw it away for now. */
>     Wondering if we never had a situation where specific info or feedback
> is required from Fpm?
>     For example, the route installation errors in Fpm communicated back to
> Zebra?
>
>
> (2) This question is related to above. In systems where L2
> forwarding/learning is achieved in hardware (asic) forwarding plane, not
> all of the MACs will be available in Linux FDB. Only the MACs which were
> learned due to ARP/ND would be present in Linux FDB.
>
>     In such a case, it might be better to inject the local MACs into Zebra
> directly from Fpm. But looks like the only way for local MACs to be
> advertised into EVPN is to somehow inject  them into Linux FDB and let
> Zebra learn from Linux.
>
>     Is this correct understanding? And will it be acceptable to introduce
> a knob in zebra to get the local MACs from Fpm instead of Linux FDB?
>
>
> (3) On the similar lines as above, not all of the remote EVPN MACs need to
> be present in Linux FDB. Only those MACs which have corresponding IP
> (ARP/ND) are required in Linux FDB. In such a case, it might be better to
> selectively install MACs into Linux, and send all of the EVPN MACs to Fpm
> so that they can be installed in asic. But I don't see zebra gives any MAC
> to Fpm. I would like to hear the rationale behind this as well. And is it a
> good idea to introduce a knob in Zebra to achieve it?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Regards,
> Hasan
>
>
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