Want functional P4 counters

[taspelund]

swadm counters list shows a handful of different counters that are available, yet swadm counters get <name> returns a 500 whenever you try to dump them:

root@oxz_switch:~# swadm counters list
["Service", "Ingress", "Packet", "Egress", "Ingress_Drop_Port", "Ingress_Drop_Reason"]
root@oxz_switch:~# swadm counters get Ingress_Drop_Port
Error: Error Response: status: 500 Internal Server Error; headers: {"content-type": "application/json", "x-request-id": "d47f850a-0389-4704-a840-47f6b366da5b", "content-length": "124", "date": "Tue, 03 Mar 2026 19:57:10 GMT"}; value: Error { error_code: Some("Internal"), message: "Internal Server Error", request_id: "d47f850a-0389-4704-a840-47f6b366da5b" }
root@oxz_switch:~# swadm counters get Ingress_Drop_Reason
Error: Error Response: status: 500 Internal Server Error; headers: {"content-type": "application/json", "x-request-id": "108a80c0-0237-4153-884d-35edcf43ed9a", "content-length": "124", "date": "Tue, 03 Mar 2026 19:57:23 GMT"}; value: Error { error_code: Some("Internal"), message: "Internal Server Error", request_id: "108a80c0-0237-4153-884d-35edcf43ed9a" }

It would be nice to be able to have the same fidelity in counters on softnpu as we have with a physical npu

[rcgoodfellow]

So this will require quite a bit of infrastructure outside this repository

• oxidecomputer/p4 will need support for counter externs
• oxidecomputer/sidecar-lite will need to have counter externs added
• oxidecomputer/dendrite will need to be updated to use softnpu counters

This repo is really just an I/O harness for x4c compiled P4 programs.