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.

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

BMv2

ubuntu 18.04

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

ubuntu 20.04

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

debian 10

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

TOFINO

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

ubuntu 18.04 & 20.04

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

debian 10

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

BMv2

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

TOFINO

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

BMv2 with P4Runtime (simple_swicth_grpc)

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

TOFINO with BFRuntime (bf_switchd)

On virtual TOFINO model

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

On hardware WEDGEBF10032X

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

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)

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.

Interior Routing Protocol

Feature	status	comment
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)

Dataplane forwarding

Feature	status	comment
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

External Routing Protocol

Feature	status	comment
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

Link local protocol

Feature	status	comment
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

Network management

Feature	status	comment
TACACS	COMPLETED	-
TELNET	COMPLETED	-
SSH	COMPLETED	-
Lightweight SNMP	ON-GOING	-
Packet postcard telemetry	FEASABILITY STUDY	-
INT	FEASABILITY STUDY	Inband Network Network Telemetry

Child pages

RARE(Router for Academia Research & Education )