Using a VPP Container

VPP is a containerlab device using a locally built netlab/vpp:latest image.

  • Build the container with netlab clab build vpp

  • Pin the FD.io release with defaults.devices.vpp.clab.sw_version (optional; latest release is used by default), then run netlab clab build vpp

  • Use device: vpp in the lab topology

VPP nodes default to the router role and also support the bridge role. They do not support the host role.

The image installs VPP packages from the FD.io Packagecloud repository selected with defaults.devices.vpp.clab.repo (default: release).

Control Plane

VPP runs a Linux control-plane daemon in the dataplane network namespace. The default is bird; set control_plane to frr when you need FRRouting (for example IS-IS).

Lab-wide default:

defaults.devices.vpp.control_plane: frr

Per-node override:

nodes:
  r1:
    device: vpp
    control_plane: frr

Version pin example:

defaults.devices.vpp.clab.sw_version: 25.06-release