Types of Interfaces

Regular Interfaces:

Typically these are hardware interfaces on the host, or virtualized by the hypervisor in a virtual machine environment. These are made available to TNSR through VPP, as described in Setup Interfaces.

VLAN Subinterfaces:

VLAN interfaces are configured on top of regular interfaces. They send and receive traffic tagged with 802.1q VLAN identifiers, allowing multiple discrete networks to be used when connected to a managed switch performing VLAN trunking or tagging.

memif:

Shared memory packet interfaces (memif) are virtual interfaces which connect between TNSR and other applications on the same host.

tap:

Virtual network TAP interfaces which are available for use by host applications.

ipip:

Generic IP-in-IP interfaces. An tunneling interface which can carry traffic inside a routed IPsec IPsec tunnel (encrypted by IPsec) or on its own unencrypted as either a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint tunnel.

Loopback:

Local loopback interfaces used for a variety of reasons, including management and routing so that the address on the interface is always available, no matter the status of a physical interface.

GRE:

Generic Routing Encapsulation, an unencrypted tunneling interface which can be used to route traffic to remote hosts over a virtual point-to-point interface connection.

SPAN:

Switch Port Analyzer, copies packets from one interface to another for traffic analysis.

Bond:

Bonded interfaces, aggregate links to switches or other devices employing a load balancing or failover protocol such as LACP.

Bridge:

Bridges connect interfaces together bidirectionally, linking the networks on bridge members together into a single bridge domain. The net effect is similar to the members being connected to the same layer 2 or switch.

VXLAN Interfaces:

Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) is a similar concept to VLANs, but it encapsulates Layer 2 traffic in UDP, which can be transported across other IP networks. This enables L2 connectivity between physically separated networks in a scalable fashion.

Host Interfaces:

Host interfaces exist outside TNSR, in the operating system. These are used primarily for host OS management.

vHost User Interfaces:

Virtual host user interfaces which facilitate communication between TNSR and virtual machines running on the same host.