Intro to OpenFlow Tutorial

Step 3. Execute Experiment

Now that the switch is up and running we are ready to start working on the controller. For this tutorial we are going to use the ​POX controller. The software is already installed in the controller host for running POX and can also be found ​here.

3a. Login to your hosts

To start our experiment we need to ssh all of our hosts.

To get ready for the tutorial you will need to have the following windows open:

• one window with ssh into the controller
• four windows with ssh into OVS
• one window with ssh into host1
• two windows with ssh into host2
• one window with ssh into host3

Depending on which tool and OS you are using there is a slightly different process for logging in. If you don't know how to SSH to your reserved hosts learn how to login. Once you have logged in follow the rest of the instructions.

3b. Use a Learning Switch Controller

In this example we are going to run a very simple learning switch controller to forward traffic between host1 and host2.

1. First start a ping from host1 to host2, which should timeout, since there is no controller running.

ping host2 -c 10

2. We have installed the POX controller under /tmp/pox on the controller host. POX comes with a set of example modules that you can use out of the box. One of the modules is a learning switch. Start the learning switch controller which is already available by running the following two commands:

"l2" below uses the letter `l` as in level and is not the number one. And you should wait for the '''INFO ... connected''' line to ensure that the switch and the controller are communicating.

cd /tmp/pox
./pox.py --verbose forwarding.l2_learning

The output should look like this:

POX 0.1.0 (betta) / Copyright 2011-2013 James McCauley, et al.
DEBUG:core:POX 0.1.0 (betta) going up...
DEBUG:core:Running on CPython (2.7.3/Apr 20 2012 22:39:59)
DEBUG:core:Platform is Linux-3.2.0-56-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-12.04-precise
INFO:core:POX 0.1.0 (betta) is up.
DEBUG:openflow.of_01:Listening on 0.0.0.0:6633
INFO:openflow.of_01:[9e-38-3e-8d-42-42 1] connected
DEBUG:forwarding.l2_learning:Connection [9e-38-3e-8d-42-42 1]

In the event that you need to move the port of your controller, this is the command - sudo ./pox.py --verbose openflow.of_01 --port=443 forwarding.l2_learning Do not forget to tell the ovs switch that the controller will be listening on this new port, i.e change 6633 to 443 in Step 2c.

3. In the terminal of host1, ping host2:

   [experimenter@host1 ~]$ ping host2 
   PING host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
   From host1-lan0 (10.10.1.1) icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
   From host1-lan0 (10.10.1.1) icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
   From host1-lan0 (10.10.1.1) icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable
   64 bytes from host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2): icmp_req=5 ttl=64 time=23.9 ms
   64 bytes from host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2): icmp_req=6 ttl=64 time=0.717 ms
   64 bytes from host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2): icmp_req=7 ttl=64 time=0.654 ms
   64 bytes from host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2): icmp_req=8 ttl=64 time=0.723 ms
   64 bytes from host2-lan1 (10.10.1.2): icmp_req=9 ttl=64 time=0.596 ms
   

Now the ping should work.

4. If you are using OVS, go back to your OVS host and take a look at the print outs. You should see that your controller installed flows based on the mac addresses of your packets.

There is no way to get this information from the OpenFlow-capable hardware switch.

5. If you are using OVS, to see the flow table entries on your OVS switch:

   sudo ovs-ofctl dump-flows br0
   

   You should see at least two table entries: One for ICMP Echo (icmp_type=8) messages from host1 to host2 and one for ICMP Echo Reply (icmp_type=0) messages from host2 to host1. You may also see flow entries for arp packets.

6. To see messages go between your switch and your controller, open a new ssh window to your controller node and run tcpdump on the eth0 interface and on the tcp port that your controller is listening on usually 6633. (You can also run tcpdump on the OVS control interface if you desire. However, when using the hardware switch, you can only do the tcpdump on your controller host.)

   sudo tcpdump -i eth0 tcp port 6633
   

   You will see (1) periodic keepalive messages being exchanged by the switch and the controller, (2) messages from the switch to the controller (e.g. when there is a table miss) and an ICMP Echo message in, and (3) messages from the controller to the switch (e.g. to install new flow entries).

7. Kill your POX controller by pressing Ctrl-C:

   DEBUG:forwarding.l2_learning:installing flow for 02:c7:e8:a7:40:65.1 -> 02:f1:ae:bb:e3:a8.2
   INFO:core:Going down...
   INFO:openflow.of_01:[3a-51-a1-ab-c3-43 1] disconnected
   INFO:core:Down.
   

8. Notice what happens to your ping on host1.

9. If you are using OVS, check the flow table entries on your switch:

   sudo ovs-ofctl dump-flows br0
   

   Since you set your switch to "secure" mode, i.e. don't forward packets if the controller fails, you will not see flow table entries. If you see flow table entries, try again after 10 seconds to give the entries time to expire.

Soft vs Hard Timeouts

All rules on the switch have two different timeouts:

• Soft Timeout: This determines for how long the flow will remain in the forwarding table of the switch if there are no packets received that match the specific flow. As long as packets from that flow are received the flow remains on the flow table.
• Hard Timeout: This determines the total time that a flow will remain at the forwarding table, independent of whether packets that match the flow are received; i.e. the flow will be removed after the hard timeout expires.

Can you tell now why there were packets flowing even after you killed your controller?

Useful Tips for writing your controller

In order to make this first experience of writing a controller easier, we wrote some helpful functions that will abstract some of the particularities of POX away. These functions are located in /tmp/pox/ext/utils.py, so while you write your controller consult this file for details.

Functions that are implemented include:

• packetIsIP : Test if the packet is IP
• packetIsARP : Test if the packet is ARP
• packetIsRequestARP : Test if this is an ARP Request packet
• packetIsReplyARP : Test if this is an ARP Reply packet
• packetArpDstIp : Test what is the destination IP in an ARP packet
• packetArpSrcIp : Test what is the sources IP in an ARP packet
• packetIsTCP : Test if a packet is TCP
• packetDstIp : Test the destination IP of a packet
• packetSrcIp : Test the source IP of a packet
• packetDstTCPPort : Test the destination TCP port of a packet
• packetSrcTCPPort : Test the source TCP port of a packet
• createOFAction : Create one OpenFlow action
• getFullMatch : get the full match out of a packet
• createFlowMod : create a flow mod
• createArpRequest : Create an Arp Request for a different destination IP
• createArpReply : Create an Arp Reply for a different source IP

3c. Debugging your Controller

While you are developing your controller, some useful debugging tools are:

i. Print messages

Run your controller in verbose mode (add --verbose) and add print messages at various places to see what your controller is seeing.

ii. Check the status in the switch

If you are using an OVS switch, you can dump information from your switch. For example, to dump the flows:

sudo ovs-ofctl dump-flows br0

Two other useful commands show you the status of your switch:

sudo ovs-vsctl show 
sudo ovs-ofctl show br0

iii. Use Wireshark to see the OpenFlow messages

Many times it is useful to see the OpenFlow messages being exchanged between your controller and the switch. This will tell you whether the messages that are created by your controller are correct and will allow you to see the details of any errors you might be seeing from the switch. If you are using OVS then you can use wireshark on both ends of the connection, in hardware switches you have to rely only on the controller view.

The controller host and OVS has wireshark installed, including the openflow dissector. For more information on wireshark you can take a look at the ​wireshark wiki.

Here we have a simple case of how to use the OpenFlow dissector for wireshark.

If you are on a Linux friendly machine (this includes MACs) open a terminal and ssh to your controller machine using the -Y command line argument, i.e.

ssh -Y <username>@<controller>

Assuming that the public IP address on the controller is eth0, run wireshark by typing:

sudo wireshark -i eth0&

When the wireshark window pops up, you might still have to choose eth0 for a live capture. And you will want to use a filter to cut down on the chatter in the wireshark window. One such filter might be just seeing what shows up on port 6633. To do that type tcp.port eq 6633 in the filter window, assuming that 6633 is the port that the controller is listening on. And once you have lines, you can choose one of the lines and choose "Decode as ...." and choose the OFP protocol.

3d. Run a traffic duplication controller

In the above example we ran a very simple learning switch controller. The power of OpenFlow comes from the fact that you can decide to forward the packet anyway you want based on the supported OpenFlow actions. A very simple but powerful modification you can do, is to duplicate all the traffic of the switch out a specific port. This is very useful for application and network analysis. You can imagine that at the port where you duplicate traffic you connect a device that does analysis. For this tutorial we are going to verify the duplication by doing tcpdump on two ports on the OVS switch.

1. Use the interfaces that are connected to host2 and host3.
   • Software Switch (OVS): If you have not noted them down you can use the manifest and the MAC address of the interfaces (ovs:if1 and ovs:if2) to figure this out. But you should have noted down the interfaces in Section 2 when you were configuring the software switch. Run tcpdump on these interfaces; one in each of the two ovs terminals you opened. This will allow you to see all traffic going out the interfaces.
   • Hardware Switch: Refer to this Section to figure out ports: ​UsefulTips. If you are using a hardware switch, you may not see the traffic on host3, but if you observe your controller output, you will notice that flows are being installed for forwarding to host2 and host3.
     

To see that duplication is happening, on the ovs host, run:

sudo tcpdump -i <data_interface_name>  [data_interface to host2]
sudo tcpdump -i <data_interface_name>  [data_interface to host3]

You should see traffic from host1 to host2 showing up in the tcpdump window for host3. As a comparison, you will notice that no traffic shows up in that window when the controller is running the learning switch.

2. In the controller host directory /tmp/pox/ext you should see two files:

1. myDuplicateTraffic.py : This is the file that has instructions about how to complete the missing information. Go ahead and try to implement your first controller.
2. DuplicateTraffic.py : This has the actual solution. You can just run this if you don't want to bother with writing a controller.

3. Run your newly written controller on the <data_interface_name> that corresponds to OVS:if2 (which is connected to host3):

   cd /tmp/pox
   ./pox.py --verbose myDuplicateTraffic --duplicate_port=?
   

For example, if OVS:if2 corresponds to "eth1", enter

./pox.py --verbose myDuplicateTraffic --duplicate_port=eth1

4. To test it go to the terminal of host1 and try to ping host2:

   ping 10.10.1.2
   

   If your controller is working, your packets will register in both terminals running tcpdump.

5. Stop the POX controller:

   DEBUG:myDuplicateTraffic:Got a packet : [02:f1:ae:bb:e3:a8>02:c7:e8:a7:40:65 IP]
   DEBUG:SimpleL2Learning:installing flow for 02:f1:ae:bb:e3:a8.2 -> 02:c7:e8:a7:40:65.[1, 2]
   
   INFO:core:Going down...
   INFO:openflow.of_01:[3a-51-a1-ab-c3-43 1] disconnected
   INFO:core:Down.
   

3d. Run a port forward Controller

Now let's do a slightly more complicated controller. OpenFlow gives you the power to overwrite fields of your packets at the switch, for example the TCP source or destination port and do port forwarding. You can have clients trying to contact a server at port 5000, and the OpenFlow switch can redirect your traffic to a service listening on port 6000.

1. Under the /tmp/pox/ext directory there are two files PortForwarding.py and myPortForwarding.py that are similar like the previous exercise. Both of these controller are configured by a configuration file at ext/port_forward.config. Use myPortForwarding.py to write your own port forwarding controller.

2. To test your controller we are going to use netcat. Go to the two terminals of host2. In one terminal run:

   nc -l 5000
   

and in the other terminal run

nc -l 6000

3. Now, start the simple layer 2 forwarding controller. We are doing this to see what happens with a simple controller.

   cd /tmp/pox
   ./pox.py --verbose forwarding.l2_learning
   

4. Go to the terminal of host1 and connect to host2 at port 5000:

   nc 10.10.1.2 5000
   

5. Type something and you should see it at the the terminal of host2 at port 5000.

6. Now, stop the simple layer 2 forwarding controller:

   DEBUG:forwarding.l2_learning:installing flow for 02:d4:15:ed:07:4e.3 -> 02:ff:be:1d:19:ea.2
   
   INFO:core:Going down...
   INFO:openflow.of_01:[36-63-8b-d7-16-4b 1] disconnected
   INFO:core:Down.
   

7. And start your port forwarding controller:

   ./pox.py --verbose myPortForwarding
   

8. Repeat the netcat scenario described above. Now, your text should appear on the other terminal of host2 which is listening to port 6000.

9. Stop your port forwarding controller:

   DEBUG:myPortForwarding:Got a packet : [02:aa:a3:e8:6c:db>33:33:ff:e8:6c:db IPV6]
   
   INFO:core:Going down...
   INFO:openflow.of_01:[36-63-8b-d7-16-4b 1] disconnected
   INFO:core:Down.
   

3e. Run a Server Proxy Controller

As our last exercise, instead of diverting the traffic to a different server running on the same host, we will divert the traffic to a server running on a different host and on a different port.

1. Under the /tmp/pox/ext/ directory there are two files Proxy.py and myProxy.py that are similar like the previous exercise. Both of these controllers are configured by the configuration file proxy.config. Use myProxy.py to write your own proxy controller.

2. On the terminal of host3 run a netcat server:

   nc -l 7000
   

3. On your controller host, open the /tmp/pox/ext/myProxy.py file, and edit it to implement a controller that will divert traffic destined for host2 to host3. Before you start implementing think about what are the side effects of diverting traffic to a different host.
   • Is it enough to just change the IP address?
   • Is it enough to just modify the TCP packets?

If you want to see the solution, it's available in file /tmp/pox/ext/Proxy.py file.

4. To test your proxy controller run:

   cd /tmp/pox
   ./pox.py --verbose myProxy
   

5. Go back to the terminal of host1 and try to connect netcat to host2 port 5000

   nc 10.10.1.2 5000
   

6. If your controller works correctly, you should see your text showing up on the terminal of host3.

4. Moving to a Hardware Switch

To try your controller with a GENI Hardware OpenFlow switch:

• Delete resources in your slice with the compute resources. Do not delete resources in your slice with the controller.
• Follow the instructions at OpenFlow Design and Setup for Hardware Switch

If you do not want to do the Hardware OpenFlow portion of the tutorial, proceed to Finish

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