---
lastproofread: '2026-02-16'
---

(vpp-requirements)=

```{include} /_include/need_improvement.txt
```


# VPP Dataplane Requirements

VPP Dataplane requires specific hardware. Ensure your system meets these
prerequisites before enabling VPP:

- **Deployment Platform**

  VPP Dataplane is available on both bare-metal, on-premise virtualized, and
  cloud deployment platforms.

- **CPU Requirements**

  Regardless of the platform, VPP Dataplane requires a CPU with:

  - SSE4.2 support (available on most modern Intel and AMD CPUs).
  - At least 4 physical CPU cores for a minimum configuration (more cores
    recommended for higher throughput).

  :::{important}
  **Physical Cores vs Logical Cores**

  VPP Dataplane requires 4 *physical* CPU cores, not logical cores.
  Systems with Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) or Hyper-Threading (HT)
  present each physical core as 2 logical cores.

  Cloud providers often display logical cores as "cores" or "vCPUs".
  For example, a cloud instance showing "4 cores" may have only 2 physical
  cores with SMT/HT enabled. Always verify the actual physical core count
  in your cloud provider's documentation.
  :::

  For virtualized environments, ensure CPU features are passed through to the
  VM and that sufficient physical cores are allocated.

- **Memory Requirements**

  Memory significantly affects VPP stability. Insufficient RAM can cause
  initialization failures or prevent the dataplane from starting.

  - Minimum: 8 GB RAM. VyOS will not start the VPP Dataplane if less than 8 GB
    is available.
  - Recommended: 16 GB or more (especially for high throughput, many interfaces,
    or large routing tables).

- **Network Interface Cards (NICs)**

  :::{warning}
  VyOS supports only specific NICs for the VPP dataplane. Using unsupported
  hardware may cause activation failures, initialization errors, crashes,
  or degraded performance.
  :::

  When enabling VPP, VyOS checks detected network interfaces against a list
  of validated NICs. Validation is based on the **PCI ID** of the device or
  the **kernel driver** used by the interface.

  Supported NICs:

  :::{list-table}
  :widths: 15 18 40 35
  :header-rows: 1

  * - **Filter Type**
    - **Filter Value**
    - **NIC Name/Description**
    - **Platform Where NIC Can Be Found**
  * - PCI ID
    - 15b3:1019
    - Mellanox Technologies MT28800 Family
      [ConnectX-5 Ex]
    - Bare-metal
  * - PCI ID
    - 15b3:101d
    - Mellanox Technologies MT2892 Family
      [ConnectX-6 Dx]
    - Bare-metal
  * - PCI ID
    - 15b3:101e
    - Mellanox Technologies ConnectX Family
      mlx5Gen Virtual Function
    - Oracle Cloud
  * - PCI ID
    - 8086:1592
    - Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller
      E810-C for QSFP
    - Bare-metal
  * - PCI ID
    - 1ae0:0042
    - Google, Inc. Compute Engine Virtual
      Ethernet [gVNIC]
    - Google Cloud
  * - PCI ID
    - 1af4:1000
    - Red Hat, Inc. Virtio network device
    - KVM-based hypervisors, including with
      Open vSwitch; Google Cloud
  * - PCI ID
    - 1d0f:ec20
    - Amazon.com, Inc. Elastic Network
      Adapter (ENA)
    - AWS
  * - Kernel Driver
    - hv_netvsc
    - Microsoft Hyper-V network interface
      card
    - Microsoft Azure
  :::

  If no supported NIC is detected, VPP activation will be rejected.

  In testing or advanced deployments, unsupported hardware can be explicitly
  allowed in the configuration:

  ```{cfgcmd} set vpp settings allow-unsupported-nics
  ```

  :::{note}
  This option bypasses the hardware validation checks for the specified
  devices. Stability and performance are not guaranteed when using
  unsupported NICs or drivers.
  :::