The software-defined networking is changing the pace of data transition with infrastructure driven networking approach, more agile network management and affordable network hardware. However, there are still many who are unaware of fundamentals of SDN?

What is Software-defined networking?
SDN refers to a network infrastructure approach in which the networking control plane is decoupled from the hardware or physical topology. The Software defined approaching in the networking provides operators with a number of advantages. It has increased flexibility to the users along with improved performance and simplified operations.

The most important and key features of software defined networking include centralized control plane. This facilitates logical mapping of the network. It also provides features like slicing and virtualization of the network.
There are many approaches to SDN; however, the most significant is the arrival of switch firmware and white-box switches technology. This is the core of the solution accessible from Cumulus software network.

Cumulus Linux is based on the Debian distribution. Debain is similar to ordinary Linux box form the inside. For Example, For configuring an Ethernet interface, you you have to add an entry to the network interfaces file. This is how details are provided about that physical interface. After this, ifup and ifdown approach is used to control the network interface. If you know how to do standard routing, forwarding, bridging, and firewalling with Debian, then it is easier to configure Linux. The advanced routing protocol used by cumulus is Quagga, which is similar to OSPF and BGP protocols, Moreover, it offers, a Cisco-like interface.

So the bottom line is that, network admin who has Linux experience will be always be ahead of the network admin with No Linux experience. Later one, have to put in extra efforts to become accustomed with working of network device.

The entirely open framework of Cumulus Linux has made it possible to develop a custom command-line interface. Cumulus Download software can be used to manipulate various networking switches. Linux has simplified the networking complexities, now CLI could be as simple as a Python tool, or any other programming framework.
Understanding the Hardware Part of Cumulus Defined Networking Switches:

Configuration of switch is handled entirely within Linux. Therefore, the kernel itself is not directly involved in packet switching and routing. As a substitute, Cumulus has enabled a translation service called switched. This has helped to communicate between the network configurations. It has made the changes in Linux to the hardware Ethernet controllers.

Linux layer as a template for applied the hardware:
It runs as a daemon tool on the switch. The switched monitors the communication channels and configuration changes in any part of the network stack. This includes adding a port, configuring a firewall and most essentially adding the IP address. Whenever switchd network detects a change, it configures the Ethernet controllers to match. This is how, a cumulus Linux layer act as a template for applied networking hardware.

Similarly, the other data coming from the physical ports are communicated back up through the Linux layer. Thus, by Cumulus Download, the Linux interface acts as inspection commands. This is the essence of Cumulus Linux. From the operator's standpoint, it’s merely Linux.

Booting and configuration in Cumulus Linux
When you install a new switch the first task performed is to boot it with the operating system. The Cumulus utilizes the ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) software. Once the operating system is loaded, it starts running the initial boot automation trial. This script has the ability to perform any kind of configuration tasks. The configuration includes installing custom packages, data center clients for Puppet and adding local APT sources.

Bottom Line:
The brilliance of Cumulus Linux is in its simplicity as it is the standard Linux software. It makes use of commodity hardware switches. It can be scripted, adjusted, adapted, and customized according to the administrator’s requirements. The Cumulus Linux offers a combination of flexibility, compatibility, and ease of use that has redefined the traditional networking approach.

Hello, everyone

There is a question.

The Host ip config:

10.1.1.20

255.0.0.0

Gateway:10.1.1.2

and the architecture graph.



The host(10.1.1.20) will ping to switch(192.168.6.162) success.

and switch(192.168.6.162) also ping to controller(192.168.6.189) success.

but the host can't ping through switch.

10.1.1.20 straight to connect 192.168.6.189 is not working.

HP 2920 config is:

ip default-gateway 192.168.6.189
ip routing
snmp-server community "public" unrestricted
openflow
controller-id 1 ip 192.168.6.189 controller-interface vlan 2
instance "control"
listen-port
member vlan 1
controller-id 1
mode passive
enable
exit
enable
exit
oobm
ip address dhcp-bootp
vlan 1
name "DEFAULT_VLAN"
no untagged 3-14,17-24
untagged 1-2
tagged 15-16
ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0
vlan 2
name "VLAN 2"
untagged 3-24
ip address 192.168.6.162 255.255.255.0

Where is the problem?

Thank you all.

Can anyone help me with a flow definition containing a wildcarded ipv4 address in json. I thought it would be something like the following, but the HP VAN Controller (version 2.4.5.0614) returns:

{"error":"java.lang.IllegalArgumentException","message":"Bad address format: 192.168.0.0/16"}

----- flow.json ------

{

"flow": {

"priority": 30000,

"idle_timeout": 30,

"match": [

{"eth_type": "ipv4"},

{"ipv4_dst": "192.168.0.0/16"}

],

"instructions":[{

"apply_actions": [{"output": "NORMAL"}]}]

}}

Thanks!

Hi Team,

I have created a mininet network with virtual nodes.I am trying to connect a DSLAM as a phyical node in the network.

sudo mn --controller=remote,ip=10.177.175.30 --custom emptynet.py  --switch=ovsk,protocols=OpenFlow13

Please can anyone help me with connecting the phyical host ie which has an IP address of 10.177.174.110 (DSLAM) using the mininet.I need to acheive a network with both physical and virtual nodes to see their interaction.

Thanks,

Raghu

The networking industry has taken a significant step towards open switches that can increase the flexibility of what thus reducing the substantial cost. This has been the reason behind the emergence of brite box switch in the up-scale environment. This switch has been a midway point between traditional switches and white box switches.

Brite Box stands for Branded White box. They are built upon software defined concept of disaggregating hardware and software by an ODM (original design manufacturer). The brite box switching is mainly meant for large enterprises and service providers that make large volume purchases. It is also meant for organizations that use “DevOps” approach to networking.

The brite box switches are designed to help service providers and web-scale organizations to handle power cloud, mobile, social media and big data workloads. They run on the Cumulus Linux networking operating system and offer installation through the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) boot loader.

Some benefits of Brite Box Network Switches:
• Cost savings as compared to bare metal or traditional switches
• Provides CapEx savings in long term results
• By adopting the brite box switches, companies can avoid vendor lock-in characteristic of hardware ownership
• Decoupling hardware and software parts

The main benefit of this switch is the lower acquisition cost thus making it brite box switch. This concept utilizes a part of the general trend toward automation, orchestration and software-defined models. Many giant IT companies are utilizing brite box switching concept. This shows that the world is going to see some enormous shakeups in the networking industry in the coming years.

--------------------------------------

If anyone have comments or suggestions on this post please feel free to let me know.

Thanks​

Everything looks good on the install:

seth@sdn:~$ sudo service sdnc status

sdnc start/running, process 5452

seth@sdn:~$ sudo service keystone status

keystone start/running, process 6506

seth@sdn:~$ sudo dpkg -l hp-sdn-ctl

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold

| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend

|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)

||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description

+++-==============-============-============-=================================

ii  hp-sdn-ctl     2.5.15.1175  amd64        HP VAN SDN Controller

seth@sdn:~$ 

Hi everyone. I am trying to develop a traffic engineering simulation sdn app, but I'm having trouble to get the traffic to go to the hosts. 

Imagine this scenarium:

h0 <--> s0 <--> s1 <---> h1 

I'm pinging h1 on the h0 CLI and s0 gets the first packet, applies a rule and all next pings match the rule. When I check the HP Controller Inferface via Firefox, I can see through the flows interface of each switch that s0 and s1 are getting packets that match the flow entry. Still, h0 ins't pinging h1... There are images attached to show the problem.

NOTE: I'm using a custom topology on mininet and I specified that the port between a switch and a host is 500.

Hi everyone!

First i am sorry for my english, i am from Argentina.

We have a HP 2920 Switch and we use POX controller (forwarding.l2_learning module) with this arquitecture

Host1 (10.0.0.2) ----------Switch-------- Host2 (10.0.0.3)

when we put flow location for default (Software and hardware) the iperf test give us a 23 Mbps rate, it is very poor, we have the software rate limit in 2000 pps. We want use the hardware only flow location with a hardware rate limit of 1000000 kbps but when we put the controller with that the switch doesn't work, we cant ping between hosts and we haven't conection. we read the manual and found this:

NOTE: An error is returned to the controller if the flow cannot be added in hardware and the flow-location is set as hardware-only.

 NOTE: Flows with an action to forward to multiple ports or all ports of a VLAN, such as flood, cannot be hardware accelerated. Such flows are handled in software. Changing flow location to hardware-only affects those flows.
For example, if a flow is added with action such as FLOOD, it can only go in software. This causes in a performance penalty or the flow not being programmed at all if running in hardware-only mode.

can i use hardware-only with this switch? My POX controller is added actions with multiple ports forwarding? i have to change the controller for another? (ODL, Floodlight, Beacon)

the instance and the switch are configure fine because we can use with software and hardware flow location.

thanks you so much

Hello,

I am developing an application for the HP VAN 2.6 controller, the application works well but I am unable to log anything at all on the 'Support Logs' section of the controller GUI and makes it difficult to debug. Following the Developer Guide I can see that using a logger works almost out-of-the-box via slf4j, but again, I am unable to make this work. Here's part of the code that I am using (taken from the bl folder of my app):

public class ArpMirrorManager implements ArpMirrorService, SequencedPacketListener {

	/* Service dependencies */
	@Reference(policy = ReferencePolicy.DYNAMIC,
	cardinality = ReferenceCardinality.MANDATORY_UNARY)
	private volatile ControllerService controller;
	
	private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ArpMirrorManager.class);

Here are some places where I am trying to log information whenever an event ocurs:

	@Activate
	public void activate(){
		controller.addPacketListener(this, PacketListenerRole.DIRECTOR, DIR_ALTITUDE, INTEREST);
		logger.info("Module ARP Mirror activated");
	}

	
	@Deactivate
	public void deactivate(){
		controller.removePacketListener(this);
		logger.info("Module ARP Mirror deactivated");
	}

	
	@Override
	public void event(MessageContext context){
		logger.info("ARP MIRROR: Packet IN event");
                /* Some more code dealing with the PKT IN*/
                ....
         }

Am I missing something? Where can I access the logged messages?

Thanks,

Sergio

This is my topology:



There have another question.

When I connect a links between the switches.

To create the data plane.

but route problem extends.

In OVS I can set where the packet forward to specific ethernet card, How do i set the route table in hp 2920 switch?

That not like the OVS has specific ethernet interface.

and these three switches not in the same subnet.

I try to use mininet(miniedit) create a topology.

and type "s1 route -n" to observe the route table.

But it's to simple that is not fit reality.

Where i need to modify to realistic.

Finally, I need ping the three switches each other.

Hello everyone, i need your help,

As part of my internship, I just discovered the notion of OpenFlow and SDN. I understand some concepts about how OpenFlow works. And I want to know if the ideas I aqcuired are correct.

-SDN is a network, where we can use programmable devices, so we can deploy a dynamic network architecture.
-OpenFlow is a protocol that allows communication between an OpenFlow switch and an SDN controller.
-In SDN networks, all of the switches control plan will be housed in an external controller.
-In an SDN using OpenFlow, the switch keeps only the packet forwarding function on ports and following the actions defined by the controller.
- The controller set the packet switching policy, and connects the switch to execute the actions corresponding to the packet.

To test this, I have two HP-2920 switches that support OpenFlow 1.3. But i I have no HP SDN controller.
My questions:
-Can i operate a computer in such a way that it can play the role of an HP SDN controller? (the POX?)

-Did i have to  define OpenFlow VLAN (which will communicate traffic between OpenFlow switches and endpoint) and a non-openflow vlan used to communicate with the SDN controller ?
-Can you help me understand how can i test a controller  that set the Flow tables of a switch?

I know that i need to configure the switch somehow like this:

openflow
   controller-id 1 ip 192.168.56.7 controller-interface vlan 1
   egress-only-ports
   instance "test01"
      listen-port
      member vlan 10
      controller-id 1
      version 1.3
      enable
      exit
   enable
   exit

but i don't really understand how it gonna work with a SD HP controller.

Best Regards.

I have HP3800 switches configured as OpenLFow 1.3 SDN switches (firmware version KA.15.15.0006).

In OpenFlow SDN mode, If the switches reveive mutlicast packets, they broadcast the packets as per a traditional switch, without the SDN controller adding any rules in the flow tables.

If I direct the mutlciast stream to mulitple ports on the same switch (using flow rules) then remove a port, packets are broadcast on other ports for approx 0.1ms, even when there is a lower priority drop packet flow rule.

In SDN OpenFlow mode, this shoudl not happen.

Has this been seen before? Has it been fixed in newer firmware versions?

Hi guys,

Pls help me to find the answer for below,

Which openflow use case is an example of NFV in hp?

options are 1.Use openflow to implement traffic prioritazation on the edge

                    2.Use openflow to implement a router on an open-vswitch

                    3.Use openflow to deploy configurations using IMC VAN sdn manager

                    4.Use openflow to replace the need of an snmp-agent on the switch.

Hi Friends,

What is the best prctice to configure VAN SDN Controller, to configure in a fastest failover from one controller to another.

Pls help me to get this.

I would like to automate the initial configuration of my SDN Switches, something similar to OF-Config (https://www.opennetworking.org/images/stories/downloads/sdn-resources/onf-specifications/openflow-config/of-config-1.2.pdf). Dose HP provide something like this ?

Hi, I am using Open vSwitch 2.4.0 and HP SDN VAN Controller 2.4.5. I can see the datapath of the virtual switch in the OpenFlow Monitor section in UI. Once I select the virtual switche's datapath, I am not seeing the manufacturer details of the switch. When I am navigating through the ports , flows and groups I am getting 'Waiting time out response' error and nothing is showing there. I noticed that the controller is fetching details of upto 150 tables only rom the swicth. Can anyone help me in this ? Why is it not showing any manufacturer details, port detail, flows and groups of the switch, eventhough it discovers the switch and shows it in topology ?

Hi,

I'm using the HP VAN SDN Ctrl with a OpenFlow switches in a simulation software - somewhat similar to mininet.

I have installed version 2.6.11 of the controller and it seems to be operational. However, when I connect OpenFlow 1.3 capable switches to the controller, only the HELLO and FEATURES_REPLY messages seem to be taken into account by the controller. This is my assumption because information from Multipart reply messages (OFPMP_DESC and OFPMP_PORT_DESC) is never reflected in the controller.

I have attached screenshots and a Wireshark packet capture (rename HP_VAN_Capture.txt to HP_VAN_Capture.pcap) showing the packet exchanges, and missing information in the controller. For this reason, I believe the controller is not able to send flow modification messages and BDDP for topology discovery to the switches.

 Additional information: Interfacing the same switches with OpenDaylight controller works fine including adding flow entries so that the controller influences traffic forwarding the switches. Hence there seems to be something we are missing that is causing problems when we use the HP controller. 

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks!

hi

In order to simulate sdn networks i downloaded the mini net 64 bit version and imported it in *vmware Workstation pro 12* and trhough github all the project related stuff have been installed but the thing is when i wanna run it i encounter an error , do you think it's because of the mysql not being confugured with Django? i'd appreciate it if you help me out here

As you can see in the video i resolve the error but another one happens form some other file.

simulation files:

https://github.com/ComputerNetworks-UFRGS/AuroraSDN

video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05lfMsN8abQ

thanks

Downloaded and succesfully installed HP VAN SDN Controller 2.6.11.0469 with local keystone on a Virtual Box VM with Ubuntu 14.04 TLS but when is try to Web to "https://ip address:8443/sdn/ui" it returne an error "HTTP status 404 not found. Tried with VM using NAT and Bridge Adapter. I have been focues on using the Bridge Adapter which fails when using local IP 127.0.0.1 and Real IP address (bridge adapter)

I  stepped through the troubelshooting guide and confirmed SDNC status, listening on 8443, proxy setting etc. I have tried with Chrome and Firefox (linux version) within the VM Guest OS as well as IE and Chrome on my host machine (Windows 7). All initially error due to certificate which I install into my certificate store both (host and Guest OS). I have also done a reinstall from scratch to ensure i hadn't missed a step but failed

Can anyone suggest what else to try or how to troubleshoot this. BTW i have looked at all the error logs etc in the intall and troubleshooting docs for 2.6 and all look good. I did look at my tomcat7 logs and only see the error 404 messages.

Thanks

Hi all,

Problem is: switch can connect to controller(opendaylight) and it also appears on the Topology include host mac, ip

,but host ping switch not arrival.

Firmware: WB.16.01.0004

How can i setting the default gateway and host setting network config in win7?

i connect port 3 to controller and port 5 to host.

There is my config:

HP-2920-24G-PoEP(config)#show run

hostname "HP-2920-24G-PoEP"

module 1 type j9727a

ip default-gateway 192.168.6.254

ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.6.254

ip routing

snmp-server community "public" unrestricted

openflow

controller-id 1 ip 192.168.6.189 controller-interface vlan 1

instance "control"

listen-port

member vlan 2

controller-id 1

enable

exit

enable

exit

oobm

ip address dhcp-bootp

exit

vlan 1

name "DEFAULT_VLAN"

no untagged 5-10

untagged 1-4,11-24

ip address 192.168.6.162 255.255.255.0

exit

vlan 2

name "openflow-ports"

untagged 5-10

ip address 192.168.3.1 255.255.255.0

exit

HP-2920-24G-PoEP(config)# show openflow instance control

Configured OF Version : 1.0

Negotiated OF Version : 1.0

Instance Name : control

Data-path Description : control

Administrator Status : Enabled

Member List : VLAN 2

Pipeline Model : Standard Match

Listen Port : 6633

Operational Status : Up

Operational Status Reason : NA

Datapath ID : 00029457a5182680

Mode : Active

Flow Location : Hardware and Software

No. of Hardware Flows : 1

No. of Software Flows : 7

Hardware Rate Limit : 0 kbps

Software Rate Limit : 100 pps

Conn. Interrupt Mode : Fail-Secure

Maximum Backoff Interval : 60 seconds

Probe Interval : 10 seconds

Hardware Table Miss Count : 193348

No. of Software Flow Tables : NA

Egress Only Ports : None

Table Model : Single Table

Source MAC Group Table : Disabled

Controller Id Connection Status Connection State Secure Role

------------- ----------------- ---------------- ------ ------

1 Connected Active No Equal