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P4 is not a protocol or device API for runtime control or configuration, i.e. once a P4 program is deployed to a device, P4 doesn’t tell us how that device can be controlled, for example, to add or remove entries in match+action tables, or to read the value of a counter. How can ONOS control a P4-enabled device? P4Runtime is an effort in the P4 community to create a standard control-plane API portable across targets, they propose a gRPC-based APIs (p4runtime.proto). The brigade will focus on P4Runtime as a southbound control protocol, however, different devices supporting P4 might expose different APIs. Similarly to how ONOS today deals with different flavors of OpenFlow, heterogeneity of control protocol/APIs is abstracted from applications.

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• Southbound support for P4 Runtime DONE - Available starting from ONOS 1.11
• Enable support for existing applications with any P4 program (via manual ONOS-to-P4 mapping) DONE - Available starting from ONOS 1.11
• Extend northbound APIs to support protocol-independence (e.g non-standard match/actions in flow rules) DONE - Available starting from ONOS 1.11

• Switch configuration via OpenConfig over gNMI DONE - Initial support for OpenConfig Interfaces model available starting from ONOS 1.14

• New use cases:

• Fabric.p4 (CORD fabric with P4 switches) DONE - Available starting from ONOS 1.14

• Support for In-band Network Telemetry (INT) DONE - Available starting from ONOS 1.14

• CORD VNFs offloading to HW P4 switches

  • Mobile Serving and Packet Gateway (spgw.p4) DONE - Integrated with fabric.p4

  • Residential BNG with PPPoE terminationtermination DONE - Integrated with fabric.p4 

• Rethink northbound APIs to capture enhanced capabilities of programmable data planes
• Services to support incremental reprogramming, i.e. deploy a new P4 program to devices while traffic is flowing.

• Optimize existing P4 programs or auto-generate new ones based on application needs and traffic workload.

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Here are some pointers to learn more about the work of this brigade and current support for P4 in ONOS:

• ONOS+P4 tutorial Next-Gen SDN Tutorial (with hands-on exercises):
  
  • Learn about the building blocks of the NG-SDN architecture, such as data plane programming and control via P4 and P4Runtime; configuration via YANG, OpenConfig, and gNMI; Stratum, and ONOS.
  • Organized around a sequence of hands-on exercises that show how to build an IPv6-based leaf-spine data center fabric using P4, Stratum, and ONOS.
  • Updated September 2019
• Advanced ONOS+P4 Tutorial: Building an SRv6-enabled fabric with P4 and ONOS
  
  • Requires intermediate knowledge of the P4 language
  • Updated April 2019
  
  
  • Includes an introduction to P4Runtime, ONOS, and use cases (fabric.p4 and spgw.p4)
  • Updated December 2018
• P4 support in ONOS deep dive (presented at ONF Connect 2018 - video)
• Developer VM and walkthrough of P4Runtime support in ONOS via BMv2
• P4-based Trellis (CORD fabric), AKA fabric.p4 (with instructions to test on BMv2)
  • Trellis+P4 tutorial (with hands-on exercises) (presented at ONF Connect 2018)
• Disaggregating the BNG in SEBA with P4:
  • Design document
  • Demo presented at ONF Connect 2019
• Offloading S/PGW VNF Offloading VNFs to programmable switches using P4 P4  (talk at ONS North America 2018)
• Disaggregating the BNG in SEBA with P4:
  • Design document
  • Demo presented at ONF Connect 2019
• P4Runtime demo with Google's tor.p4 (presented at L123 SDN NFV World Congress 2017 - video here)
• ONOS-P4 Brigade Work Days 2017 (past event)
• [OUTDATED] ONOS+P4 tutorial for beginners (with hands-on exercises)
  
  • Includes an introduction to P4Runtime, ONOS, and use cases (fabric.p4 and spgw.p4)
  • Updated December 2018

ONOS support for P4 targets

• Controlling P4RuntimeUsing ONOS to control Stratum-enabled Intel/Barefoot Tofino-based devices with ONOSswitches
• Controlling P4Runtime-enabled Mellanox Spectrum switch with ONOS

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