NIC compatibility

Tier 1 — tested, known-good

Cards in this list have been driven end-to-end through the wizard's DPDK Bind step, brought to line-rate, and exercised under CPE/traffic-generator load.

Vendor Family Speed Kernel driver DPDK PMD Notes
Intel X710 10 GbE i40e net_i40e Widely deployed, mature
Intel XL710 40 GbE (4×10G or 1×40G) i40e net_i40e Primary dev target; 40G confirmed line-rate
Intel XXV710 25 GbE i40e net_i40e Same driver family as XL710
Intel E810-C QSFP 100 GbE ice net_ice Requires DDP package
Intel E810-C SFP 25/100 GbE ice net_ice Requires DDP package
Intel E830 QSFP 200 GbE ice net_ice Requires OEM-signed NVM 1.20+ (Lanner); DDP rev3 verified

Tier 2 — should work, not currently tested

Cards in this tier use the same driver families as Tier 1 cards, or ship supported DPDK PMDs, but we haven't personally validated them end-to-end. Report your experience to alpha@bluedot-insight.com.

Vendor Family Speed Kernel driver Notes
Intel 82599 (X520 / X540 / X550) 10 GbE ixgbe Mature DPDK driver; earlier generation than X710
Nvidia / Mellanox ConnectX-5 25 / 40 / 100 GbE mlx5_core Requires MLNX_OFED + firmware you provide — see below
Nvidia / Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx / Lx 25 / 100 GbE mlx5_core Same as above
Nvidia / Mellanox ConnectX-7 200 / 400 GbE mlx5_core Same as above
Broadcom NetXtreme-E 25 / 50 / 100 GbE bnxt_en DPDK net_bnxt PMD available
Chelsio T5 / T6 40 / 100 GbE cxgb4 DPDK net_cxgbe PMD available
Marvell OCTEON 25 / 100 GbE vendor Vendor DPDK PMD

Loading your own drivers / firmware (Nvidia ConnectX)

The installer does not bundle MLNX_OFED (Mellanox's driver + firmware stack) or Nvidia's firmware images. To use a ConnectX card:

  1. Install MLNX_OFED for your kernel from Nvidia's download center. Match your Ubuntu 24.04 + kernel 6.8 version exactly.
  2. Flash matching firmware if your card is older than the OFED package expects. mlxfwmanager --query will tell you the current level; mlxfwmanager --online -u -d <pci> will update from Nvidia's catalog.
  3. Reboot so the new driver + firmware load cleanly.
  4. Re-run the setup wizard's DPDK Bind step — the ConnectX ports should now appear in the Kernel column, draggable to VPP. Mellanox NICs work best with PCI passthrough rather than vfio-pci — VPP's DPDK PMD handles the mlx5 bifurcated driver correctly, but you may need to leave the card on mlx5_core and let VPP grab it via dpdk { dev <pci> } in startup.conf rather than through the wizard's rebind flow. This is a real rough edge in this release — see Known limitations.

If a card doesn't appear in either column after driver load, please open an issue with:

  • sudo lspci -nnk -s <pci>
  • sudo dpdk-devbind.py --status
  • sudo journalctl -u vpp -n 200

Not currently supported

Card Reason
Intel E825-C (NVM 3.81) The DDP package required for E825-C-specific features fails signature verification on every public build we've tried; requires OEM-signed DDP or NVM update. Card is functional in Safe Mode (kernel ice driver, no DPDK).
1 GbE NICs (I350, DH8900CC series, etc) Kernel / management-plane use only. Not routed through DPDK.

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