FlowVisor

FlowVisor is a specialized OpenFlow controller that creates slices within an OpenFlow network, allowing the same physical deployment to support multiple controllers. Here we describe the setup/installation FlowVisor 8.3 on Ubuntu 11.04.

references

• main docs: ​https://openflow.stanford.edu/display/DOCS/Installation+Guide

prereqs

The latest FlowVisor (which supports OpenFlow 1.0 at this time) is based on java, requiring the following packages:

apt-get install ant sun-java6-jdk

It is assumed that you have OpenFlow installed and in working condition.

installation

The installation process has gotten very streamlined compared to the 6.0 days. Refer to older versions of this page to see how it is done for version 6.* of flowvisor.
A flowvisor user may be created as the admin user for flowvisor (e.g. running fvctl). This will come into play during the install when you are prompted to specify a flowvisor user/group.

1. install above-mentioned packages

2. pull from mercurial repository:

   hg clone https://bitbucket.org/onlab/flowvisor
   hg update -C 0.8-MAINT
   

the update command is equivalent to a git checkout and puts us on the (most recent stable) flowvisor-8.3 branch.

3. run make and make install. The make install process will prompt you with several questions:

native@ubuntu:~/flowvisor$ make install
ant
Buildfile: /home/native/flowvisor/build.xml

init:

compile:
    [javac] /home/native/flowvisor/build.xml:34: warning: 'includeantruntime' was not set, defaulting to build.sysclasspath=last; set to false for repeatable builds

....

Installation prefix (/usr/local):     
FlowVisor User (needs to already exist) (native): 
FlowVisor Group (needs to already exist) (native): 
Install to different root directory () 
Installing FlowVisor into /usr/local with prefix=/usr/local as user/group native:native

....

Enter password for account 'fvadmin' on the flowvisor:
Generating default config to /usr/local/etc/flowvisor/config.xml
--- 'flowvisor!logging' not set in config; defaulting to loglevel 'NOTE'
--- Setting logging level to DEBUG

4. Generate a default configuration file:

   fvconfig generate /usr/local/etc/flowvisor/flowvisor-config.json
   

Now your install should be ready to run.

configuration

the primary means of configuring flowvisor is via fvctl.Unlike older versions of nox, you don't need to create configuration scripts, which is great. Here, we'll describe how to use fvctl through an example run based on the flowvisor webpage.

The testrun Setup

In this setup, FlowVisor is started on port 6655, with an instance of nox listening on port 6656. A FlowVisor slice is created to listen to any controllers using port 6656 (in this case, our test NOX instance). A single virtual switch was made to listen for controllers on port 6655, whereby its control is given to NOX by flowvisor. Everything, unless specified, is done in the flowvisor directory.

1. set up config file. The config file should be located in your flowvisor directory. Basing it on the default-config.xml file that comes with the flowvisor install:

   cp default-config.xml config.xml
   config-gen-default config.xml (Input: root passwd) 
   

Here, we created a new instance of the configuration file from the sample FlowVisor already has. config-gen-default will also prompt you to create a "root password" that you will be using to make changes to the config file through fvctl.

2. start FlowVisor. Unlike nox, there are no flags to throw it into the background. Here it is started on port 6655:

   flowvisor config.xml 6655 &
   

Since FlowVisor is still buggy as of now, it may be recommended to start FlowVisor with screen to capture any errors. There is also a flowvisor-wrapper that restarts FlowVisor if it dies.

3. delete sample slices. After inspecting them with getSliceInfo, remove them with deleteSlice. There are two slices, "alice" and "bob". Each action usually requires authentication using the password you created in step 1.

   fvctl getSliceInfo alice 
   fvctl deleteSlice alice 
   fvctl getSliceInfo bob 
   fvctl deleteSlice bob 
   

4. create your slice. This is done via createSlice. The syntax goes roughly like this:

   fvctl createSlice <slice name> tcp:<controller's ip>:<controller's port> <your email>
   

So for our example, we have a slice "nox-test," which expects a controller with ip 172.16.0.4 living on port 6656:

fvctl createSlice nox-test tcp:172.16.0.4:6656 foo@sampledomain.com

5. create your flowspace. Flowspaces define the policy for your slices. Many parameters can be tacked onto addFlowSpace:

   fvctl addFlowSpace all <priority number> <policy> "Slice:<slice name>=<permissions>"
   

• priority - a number between 0 and 2³¹. Higher value = higher priority
• policy - flow matching policies. Details are under FLOW SYNTAX in the fvctl(1) man pages.
• slice name - the name of your slice.
• permissions - similar to chmod, with delegate=1, read=2, write=4.

What we want is very minimal: allow all for the controller of the slice:

fvctl addFlowSpace all 1000 any "Slice:nox-test=7"

6. start the controller. Start nox on the IP:port combination defined for the controller in the FlowVisor slice:

   ./nox_core -i ptcp:6656 switch packetdump -d
   

7. start virtual switch. Here we instantiate an IP8800 switch with a virtual switch listening to FlowVisor, which is 172.16.0.4:

   setvsi 22 37,38 tcp 172.16.0.4:6655 dpid 0x001010223232
   

The datapath should come up as "connected" under showswitch.

Moving controllers to slices

Here are the steps used to actually move the ORBIT infrastructure to a FlowVisor slice.

1. edit default port for noxcore. The default settings for snac (e.g. what port it uses, ect) is found in /etc/default/noxcore. Edit the port it uses for the control channel from 6633 to the new port:

    OF_LISTEN="-i ptcp:6634"
   

2. start flowvisor and set up slices:

    flowvisor config.xml 6633 &
    fvctl createSlice orbit-snac tcp:172.16.0.4:6634 foo@domain.com
    fvctl addFlowSpace all 10000 any "Slice:orbit-snac=7"
   

3. restart snac:

    /etc/init.d/noxcore restart
   

FlowVisor should now be managing the slice for SNAC.