Introduction

The host-based networking (HBN) solution packages a set of network functions inside a container which, itself, is packaged as a service pod to be run on the DPU.

At the core of HBN is the Linux networking DPU acceleration driver. Netlink to DOCA daemon, or nl2docad, implements the DPU acceleration driver. nl2docad seamlessly accelerates Linux networking using DPU hardware programming APIs.

The driver mirrors the Linux kernel routing and bridging tables into the DPU hardware by discovering the configured Linux networking objects using the Linux Netlink API. Dynamic network flows, as learned by the Linux kernel networking stack, are also programmed by the driver into DPU hardware by listening to Linux kernel networking events.

Installation and Getting Started

All requirements and preparation steps to enable HBN service is explained in HBN's Service Guide.

High Level Steps include:

1. DPU Requirements to enable HBN Service

• Enable BlueField DPU Mode
• Enable SFC During BFB Deployment
• Considerations when deploying HBN with other services like SNAP and NVMesh

These are spcifically covered under "Requirements" section of Service Guide.

2. HBN Service Container Deployment

• Downloading DOCA Resource File
• Running HBN Preperation Script
• Spawning HBN Container
• Verifying HBN Container

These are covered under "Service Deployment" section of Service Guide.

Documentation

The DOCA HBN Service Guide is available here.

HBN uses NVUE (Nvidia User Experience) for configuration of various features. Deatils of features and configuratione examples are provided under "Configuration" section of Service Guide.

Supported scale is documented in "Verified Scalibility Limits" section of HBN's Release-Note.

License & EULA

DOCA is licensed under the NVIDIA DOCA License. By pulling and using the container, you accept the terms and conditions of this license.

Technical Support

Use the NVIDIA Developers forum for questions regarding this software.