Forward packets between SR-IOV Virtual Function (VF) NICs

Question

I have an Intel 82599ES 10G NIC which supports Intel SR-IOV. I have successfully created 8 virtual functions (VF) of it and assigned to 2 qemu/kvm VMs (2 VFs per each VM). Both of the VMs run DPDK applications (warp17 on one and my custom application on other) using assigned VFs. What I need to do is test my custom DPDK application by sending traffic through it using warp17. My test setup looks like this, The red arrow represents the traffic path.

My Physical NIC (PF) use dpdk poll mode driver (igb_uio). What I need to do is route traffic between VFs as shown by the red arrows. I think https://doc.dpdk.org/guides/prog_guide/switch_representation.html has explained switching behavior but I cannot understand it. warp17 and my custom dpdk application both works perfectly on physical hardware. What I trying to do is virtualize my test setup to preserve resources. Has anyone tried to do such configuration?

Answer 1

neither X710 fortville and Ninatic 82599ES ASIC does not have internal Bridging or forwarding VERBor feature. The best option is to have software virtual switch like SPP, OVS-DPDK or custom application to forward packets via virtio or tap.

if you still want to use physical NIC or x710 or 82599ES you will need to have connection at other end and run the logic to direct packets to relevant VF (modifying dst mac).

Edit-1: (as per DPDK 20.11) VEB virtual ethernet Bridging is an option, but specific NIC firmware and driver is required to create VEB on PF then propagate to VF. Once done the NIC can not receive packets from the Outside world