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Overview

RARE (Router for Academia, Research & Education) is an ongoing effort under the GÉANT 4th 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.

Resulting work

  • Software interface that maps the forwarding state used by a an Open source control plane (FreeRouter)
  •  to programmable data plane running RARE software

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

Note

P4 core language attempts to be as much as possible independent from the target or Programmable Switching ASIC processor architecture. However architecture dependance is still prominent. Code adjustments followed by a target specific compilation is necessary if you want to run your p4 program on a specific architecture.

RARE project includes the following partners under GÉANT GN4-3 programme

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

Software for TOFINO NPU 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

From there you'll be able to install INTEL/BAREFOOT P4Studio also call BAREFOOT Software Development Environment (SDE)

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

Before anything, you'll have to install BAREFOOT SDE following BAREFOOT instruction. TOFINO code can be found here: (From GÉANT Bitbucket RARE repository)

https://bitbucket.software.geant.org/projects/RARE/repos/rare/browse

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

(in compliance with INTEL/BAREFOOT announcement that grant the publication of the P4 code)

Build & Run RARE software

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

in order stop the whole setup:

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

Compile P4 bf_router.p4 program

  • with MPLS profile
export RARE=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/ -DHAVE_MPLS -DHAVE_BRIDGE $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4
  • with SRv6 profile
export RARE=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/ -DHAVE_SRV6 -DHAVE_BRIDGE -DHAVE_NAT $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4

run TOFINO model

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

run TOFINO bf_switchd

cd $SDE 
./run_switchd.sh -p bf_router

run Freerouter control plane

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

in order to stop FreeRouter

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

run bf_forwarder.py interface

cd $RARE/bfrt_python 
./bf_forwarder.py

Compile P4 bf_router.p4 program

  • with MPLS profile
export RARE_PATH=/home/p4 
$SDE/tools/p4_build.sh -I$RARE/p4src/  -DHAVE_MPLS -DHAVE_BRIDGE -D_WEDGE100BF32X_ $RARE/p4src/bf_router.p4
  • with SRv6 profile
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

run TOFINO bf_switchd

cd $SDE 
./run_switchd.sh -p bf_router

run Freerouter control plane.   

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

in order to stop FreeRouter

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

run bf_forwarder.py interface

cd $RARE/bfrt_python 
./bf_forwarder.py

Documentation

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.

Featurestatuscomment
IS-IS

COMPLETED

-
OSPF

COMPLETED

-
EIGRP

COMPLETED

-
LSRP

COMPLETED

Link State Routing Protocol (FreeRouter specific IGP)
PVRP

COMPLETED

Path Vector Routing Protocol (FreeRouter specific IGP)
Featurestatuscomment
LDP

COMPLETED

Label Distribution Protocol label distribution control protocol 
IS-IS-SR

COMPLETED

IS-IS - Segment Routing extension
OSPF-SR

COMPLETED

OSPF - Segment Routing extension
LSRP-SR

COMPLETED

Link State Routing Protocol - Segment Routing extension

VPLS-LDP

COMPLETED

Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) - Using Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) Signaling

Featurestatuscomment
RFC4271

COMPLETED

BGP
RFC4456

COMPLETED

BGP Route reflection
RFC5065

COMPLETED

BGP Confederation
RFC7911

COMPLETED

BGP add-paths
RFC5364

COMPLETED

BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks

RFC4761

COMPLETED

Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) - Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and Signalling

RFC4762

COMPLETED

Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) - Using LDP for Auto-Discovery and Signalling

RFC6624

COMPLETED

Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks - Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and Signalling

Featurestatuscomment
LLDP

COMPLETED

Link Local Discovery protocol
LACP

COMPLETED

Link Aggregation Protocol
CDP

COMPLETED

Cisco Discovery Protocol
BFD

COMPLETED

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection

BFD off-load

FEASABILITY STUDY

BFP off-load to the hardware
Featurestatuscomment
TACACS

COMPLETED

-
TELNET

COMPLETED

-
SSH

COMPLETED

-
Lightweight SNMP

ON-GOING

-

Packet postcard telemetry

FEASABILITY STUDY

-
INT

FEASABILITY STUDY

Inband Network Network Telemetry

Useful links

P4Lang BMv2 nightly built packages

FreeRouter nightly built packages

INTEL/BAREFOOT TOFINO packages

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

Last but not least ...

FreeRouter control plane


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