VRF for Linux — a contribution to the Linux Kernel

If you’re familiar with Linux, you know how important and exciting it can be to submit new technology that is accepted into the kernel. If you’re not familiar with Linux, you can take my word for it (and I highly suggest you attend one of our bootcamps). Many networking features are motivated by an OS for switches and routers, but most if not all of those features prove useful for other use cases as well. Cumulus Networks strives for a uniform operating model across switches and servers, so it makes sense for us to spend the time and effort getting these features into upstream code bases. An example of this effort is VRF for Linux.

I joined Cumulus Networks in June 2015 to work on a VRF solution for Linux —to create an implementation that met the goals we wanted for Cumulus Linux and was acceptable to upstream maintainers for Linux as a whole. That solution was first available last year with Cumulus Linux 3.0 and because of the upstream push that solution is rolling out in general OS distributions such as Debian Stretch and Ubuntu 16.

This post is a bit long, so I start with a high Continue reading