  Currently, we have witnessed a myriad of solutions that benefit from
programmable hardware. The 5G Core (5GC) can and should also benefit from such
paradigm to offload certain functions to the dataplane. In this work, we
designed and implemented a P4-based solution for traffic identification and
chaining using the Netronome Agilo SmartNIC. The solution here presented is
deployed in-between the RAN and UPF (User Plane Function) so that traffic
coming from the RAN is identified and chained using SRv6 based on different
rules defined by the control plane. The traffic identification and the
construction of the SRv6 list of segments are done entirely in the SmartNIC. A
minimalist Proof-of-Concept (PoC) was deployed and evaluated to show that this
function is perfectly capable to build service function chainings in a
transparent and efficient way.
