Overview

RARE (Router for Academia, Research & Education) is an ongoing effort under the GÉANT 4^th programme which focus on determining if a routing software platform solution can fit R&E use cases. The project aims to integrate different pieces of software related to these building blocks:

• control plane: RARE uses FreeRouter under the hood used as the control plane component
• data plane: (not only P4) P4 behavioural language is used to describe the packet processing behaviour of RARE data plane
• and communication interface between the control plane and data plane: Interface compliant to P4Runtime specification ensure this function

A key part of the work consists in enabling a control plane software to pilot a data plane via a programmatic interface.

P4 is an example of language proposing an interface that allows data plane programmability.

Getting started

Select and install a P4 data-plane target platform architecture

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-3rd-party 
sudo apt-get update

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-master-bionic-nightly
sudo apt-get update

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-3rd-party-focal 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/p4lang-master-focal-nightly 
sudo apt-get update

echo 'deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/frederic-loui:/p4lang:/p4c/Debian_10/  ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/source.list.d/p4lang.list
sudo apt-get update

Install FreeRouter control-plane

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:frederic-loui/freerouter-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freerouter-native freerouter

echo 'deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/frederic-loui:/freerouter/Debian_10/  ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/source.list.d/p4lang.list
sudo apt-get update

Install RARE software

git clone https://github.com/frederic-loui/RARE.git

git clone https://bitbucket.software.geant.org/scm/rare/rare.git

Build & Run RARE software

cd 02-PE-labs/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation
make

cd 02-PE-labs/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation
make clean

export RARE=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/ -DHAVE_MPLS -DHAVE_BRIDGE $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4

export RARE=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/ -DHAVE_SRV6 -DHAVE_BRIDGE -DHAVE_NAT $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4

cd $SDE 
./run_tofino_model.sh -p bf_router .

cd $SDE 
./run_switchd.sh -p bf_router

cd $RARE/02-PE-labs/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation 
./make

cd $RARE/02-PE-labs/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation 
./make clean

cd $RARE/bfrt_python 
./bf_forwarder.py

export RARE_PATH=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/  -DHAVE_MPLS -DHAVE_BRIDGE -D_WEDGE100BF32X_ $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4

export RARE=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/ -DHAVE_SRV6 -DHAVE_BRIDGE -DHAVE_NAT -D_WEDGE100BF32X_ $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4

cd $SDE 
./run_switchd.sh -p bf_router

cd $RARE/100-WEDGE-100BF-32X/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation 
./make

cd $RARE/100-WEDGE-100BF-32X/0001-vpn-over-bgp-isis-sr-operation 
./make clean

cd $RARE/bfrt_python 
./bf_forwarder.py

Documentation

• Original control plane self-test page: FreeRouter Self-test 
• RARE/FreeRtr comprehensive configuration guide: RARE/FreeRtr documentation site
• INTEL/BXD manual TOFINO WEDGE100BF32X installation guide (courtesy of INTEL/BXD approval for publication)
  • PDF
  • Google doc (Community document - Updates/Participation welcome)

Control plane

FreeRouter

FreeRouter is a free, open source router os process. It speaks routing protocols, and (re)encapsulates packets on interfaces (a huge list of encapsulation and routing test cases can be found under self-test page) since it handles packets itself, it is independent of underlaying os capabilities (optionally, it can export forwarding tables through openflow or p4 to external switch) since it is an unprivilegized process, it receives and sends packets through sockets there are external, privileged processes that place traffic to these sockets (it means that internet can be used as backplane for router processes) the command line tries to mimic the industry standards with one exception: no global routing table: every routed interface must be in a virtual routing table positive side effect: there are no vrf-awareness questions

This control plane supports a tremendous amount of features, in addition  FreeRouter lead developer is part of the RARE team, which dramatically increases development effort related to control Plane/data plane interface communication. 

Your own custom control plane

You can adapt your own control plane as soon as it is compliant to RARE dataplane P4 interface. It is recommended though to use FreeRouter as it was built and test against it. RARE P4 data plane interface will be published subsequently. For the brave one or people who are in a hurry, just look at bf_forwarder message loop.

Dataplane: P4 targets

• BMv2

BMv2 is the open source P4 switch developed and maintained by the P4Lang p4.org group. It can be downloaded here. It uses the V1Model P4 Switch Architecture depicted below:

• TOFINO target

Similar to BMv2, TOFINO uses the PSA - Portable Switch Architecture. However, while BMv2 is a P4 virtual software switch TOFINO (and his older brother TOFINO 2) is a network processor able to switch packet at tremendous line rate.

While BMv2 is an excellent alternative to learn and develop P4 algorithm, TOFINO & TOFINO 2 open the gate to exciting use cases in real production environment.

More information can be found here.

Software for TOFINO Programmable Switching ASIC is subject to a Software License and Confidentiality Agreement (SLACA)

If you are an R&E organization please submit an application via INTEL/BAREFOOT FASTER portal

• FPGA target

Porting RARE on FPGA is an on-going effort, this target is perfect for enabling RARE/FreeRouter on FPGA card that are produced massively and thus present a very interesting TCO. 

• DPDK target

P4 hardware target like TOFINO enable LSR/LER use cases. But in certain context, acquiring P4 hardware for SOHO use cases (primary/secondary schools, small R&E instituions) is financially not possible. In that context, we propose a solution that leverage existing kernel bypass machanism such as DPDK. The resulting work is the creation of p4dpdk which is inherently an emulation of RARE software running on P4 target but written entirely from scratch in C code.  

Current status

All the features mentioned below are IPv4/IPv6 compliant. As the project is an on-going work in-progress,  the documentation can not reflect all the supported features. The below list is not exhaustive. Please do not hesitate to contact us for more details.

Dataplane specific feature list