In this tutorial, you will learn how This guide does NOT provide detailed instructions, but rather, pointers to existing guides that we hope should give you enough information to set up and an ONOS environment capable of controlling P4Runtime-enabled Intel/Barefoot Tofino-based devices. The following set of instructions have been tested with the EdgeCore Wedge-100BF.

Requirements

• 1 or more Tofino based switches with Barefoot SDE 6.0.0 or later installed
• 1 server with the latest ONOS master downloaded. the version has to be 1.12-SNAPSHOT or later.

Prepare the switch

With the SDE and all necessary tools installed the switch process can be started.

bf_switchd --install-dir $SDE_INSTALL --conf-file $SDE_INSTALL/share/p4/targets/tofino/skip_p4.conf --skip-p4

It's worth noting the configuration file (skip_p4.conf). This configuration option makes switchd start with no P4 program deployed. The program will be later deployed by ONOS using P4Runtime.  Please also note that the skip_p4.conf file will only be installed if the SDE is built & installed with the p4_examples. Otherwise, this file can be found in the p4_examples tarball in the SDE package with the name tofino_skip_p4.conf.in

Create a pipeconf for your P4 program

In ONOS we use the term pipeconf (short of pipeline configuration) to describe the ensemble of P4 compiler artifacts and ONOS driver for a specific P4 program. A pipeconf is the entity that allows ONOS to deploy and control a given P4 program. A pipeconf is defined as an ONOS application that can be loaded at runtime. Example of pipeconfs can be found under onos/pipelines/.

We suggest starting by looking at the basic pipeconf. This one provides basic forwarding capabilities along with packet-in/out support, counters, etc. Among others, this pipeconf defines two important classes, an interpreter implementation, and a pipeconf loader.

Interpreter

The interpreter is what enables ONOS to understand the specific constructs of your P4 Program. For example, the Interpreter enables the translation from ONOS traffic treatments to P4-defined actions.

The interpreter implementation for the basic pipeconf can be found here. 

Pipeconf loader

This class is usually defined as an OSGi runtime component and is used to register the pipeconf at runtime. As part of this operation, this class is responsible for putting together all the pieces of a pipeconf, such as:

• P4Info for your program. 
• Tofino.bin binary file
• Tofino context.json file

The tofino.bin and the context.json can be generated with the Barefoot SDE, which is not open-source. For this reason, while we provide the compiler output of the basic P4 program for BMv2 (generated using the publicly available p4c compiler), we cannot provide the tofino.bin and the context.json in the ONOS repository. For more information on how to generate the tofino.bin and the context.json please reach out to Barefoot.

Looking at the pipeconf loader implementation, you can see we can also add driver behaviors specific to that P4 program/pipeline, such as the Pipeliner and the PortStatisticsDiscovery. We also need to set a pipeconf ID, which has to be globally unique as it will be used to refer to that pipeconf in the netcfg JSON later.

Walkthrough

Moving to the ONOS controller on the server, assuming you downloaded it and placed your pipeconf in it.

Run ONOS

$ buck run onos-local -- clean debug

It's worth noting that this start ONOS in a single instance cluster. The command also build ONOS and purges any previous state. The debug option offers the possibility to attach the debugger on port 5005. 

Login into the ONOS CLI

Having started ONOS we need to login in its CLI.

onos localhost

...

switches running Stratum.

Stratum is a software agent that runs on the switch and exposes gRPC-based interfaces such as P4Runtime, gNMI, and gNOI. These interfaces are used by ONOS to control and configure the switch.

The steps to follow are:

1. Learn the basics of the Stratum-ONOS stack by doing the Next-Gen SDN Tutorial (based on Mininet and the BMv2 software switch)
2. Learn to install and run the Stratum agent on your Tofino-based switch
3. Learn how to deploy an existing ONOS pipeconf to your Tofino switch
4. Use the acquired knowledge and code to create a pipeconf and ONOS apps that work with your own P4 program

1 - Learn the basics with the Next-Gen SDN Tutorial

Before experimenting with real hardware, and facing all the complexities associated with making things work for the first time, we strongly encourage you to understand the basic concepts of the Stratum-ONOS stack by doing this hands-on tutorial based on Mininet and the BMv2 software switch. Most of the provided code and instructions can be applied to the case of a network comprising real Tofino-based switches.

The tutorial is 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. It provides an introduction to concepts such as:

• Data plane programming and control via P4 and P4Runtime
• Device/port configuration via YANG, OpenConfig, and gNMI
• Running and operating ONOS
• Using ONOS to deploy an arbitrary P4 program to the network switches
• Implementing ONOS apps that provide the control plane logic for the data plane P4 programs 

NG-SDN Tutorial repository

The tutorial instructions, along with slides, are available at this URL:

https://github.com/opennetworkinglab/ngsdn-tutorial

2 - Install and run Stratum on your Tofino-based switch

Stratum currently supports different Tofino-based switches, from different vendors. To learn if your switch supports Stratum, check out the main README of the GitHub Stratum repository:

https://github.com/stratum/stratum/blob/master/README.md

To install and run Stratum on a Tofino-based switch, use the following instructions:

https://github.com/stratum/stratum/tree/master/stratum/hal/bin/barefoot

Hint: consider using the proposed Docker-based approach to install and Stratum with minimal effort

3 - Learn how to deploy a Tofino-enabled pipeconf

From the NG-SDN tutorial, you should have learned that ONOS uses "pipeconfs" to deploy and manage a given P4 program on a device. Pipeconfs are distributed as ONOS applications, hence using the .oar packaging.

Most of the pipeconfs already available in ONOS, as well as that provided in the NG-SDN Tutorial, work only with the BMv2 software switch. To learn how to create and deploy pieconfs that can work with real Tofino-enabled switches, you can check out the fabric-tofino GitHub repository. fabric.p4 is an open-source P4 program distributed as part of ONOS, designed to work with Trellis, a set of SDN applications running on top of ONOS to provide the control plane for an IP fabric based on MPLS segment-routing.

The fabric-tofino GitHub repository provides instructions on how to:

• Build a pipeconf .oar package for fabric.p4 that includes the output of the P4 compiler for Tofino (tofino.bin and context.json)
• Install the pipeconf in a running ONOS instance
• Tell ONOS to connect and to deploy the pipeconf to the Stratum agent running on the switch

fabric-tofino repository

Detailed Instructions are available in the main README of the fabric-tofino repository:

https://github.com/opencord/fabric-tofino

4 - Use the acquired knowledge and code

You should now know everything you need to:

• Create a pipeconf package for your own P4 program (check the PipeconfLoader.java class from fabric-tofino for an example of how to include the tofino.bin and context.json)
• Load the pipeconf in ONOS and deploy it to your switch (using the example netcfg.json provided in fabric-tofino)
• Implement an ONOS app to manage the tables and other entities of your P4 program (using the app provided in the ng-sdn tutorial as an example)

Get help

If you need help, you can ask questions on the following mailing lists:

• To get help with ONOS: onos-dev mailing list
• To get help with Stratum:  stratum-dev mailing list

For issues concerning Tofino and other Intel/Barefoot products (e.g., P4 compiler errors), please reach out to Barefoot support channels.

...

onos> app activate <pipeconf_app_name>

To load the basic pipeconf use org.onosproject.pipelines.basic

Start the Barefoot drivers

onos> app activate org.onosproject.drivers.barefoot

This command brings in all the needed applications to interact with the Tofino-based switch.

Verify the active applications

onos> apps -s -a

Verify that these apps at least are active in your ONOS environment:

• org.onosproject.generaldeviceprovider (General Device Provider)

• org.onosproject.drivers (Default Drivers)

• org.onosproject.protocols.grpc (gRPC Protocol Subsystem)

• org.onosproject.protocols.p4runtime (P4Runtime Protocol Subsystem)

• org.onosproject.p4runtime (P4Runtime Provider)

• org.onosproject.drivers.p4runtime (P4Runtime Drivers)

• org.onosproject.drivers.barefoot (Barefoot Drivers)

• your own pipeconf app.

Build and push a configuration json

Having all the needed components in ONOS in place we can now tell ONOS about the device(s) and let the interaction begin.

First we need to create a .json file containing all the needed information such as IP/port of the P4Runtime server running on the device, its data plane ports and the pipeconf we want to deploy.

{
  "devices": {
    "device:tofino:1": {
      "generalprovider": {
        "p4runtime": {
          "ip": "ip.of.the.p4runtime.server",
          "deviceKeyId": "p4runtime:device:tofino:1",
          "port": 50051,
          "deviceId": 0
        }
      },
      "piPipeconf": {
        "piPipeconfId": "my.sample.pipeconf"
      },
      "ports": {
        "1/0": {
          "name": "1/0",
          "speed": 100000,
          "enabled": true,
          "number": XXX,
          "removed": false,
          "type": "copper"
        },
        "2/0": {
          "name": "2/0",
          "speed": 100000,
          "enabled": true,
          "number": XXX,
          "removed": false,
          "type": "copper"
        },
        "3/2": {
          "name": "3/0",
          "speed": 40000,
          "enabled": true,
          "number": XXX,
          "removed": false,
          "type": "copper"
        }
      },
      "basic": {
        "driver": "barefoot"
      }
    }
  }
}

In this example, we assumed the device has been configured with 3 data plane ports, for each port the "number" value corresponds to the DP value in the Barefoot SDE port manager (see section below). The port number by default for the gRPC/P4Runtime server is 50051, so unless you made any changes to that leave it as is.

Upload the configuration you just wrote to the instance of ONOS you are running:

$ curl -X POST -H "content-type:application/json" http://localhost:8181/onos/v1/network/configuration -d @<path_to_your_json_configuration_file> --user onos:rocks

or 

<your_machine>~$ onos-netcfg localhost <path_to_your_json_configuration_file>

...

To check if the device has been discovered by ONOS:

onos> devices

...

The last step to perform is to configure the ports on the switch.

Please repeat the following command for all the ports that you need on your device. This needs to be done after having pushed the pipeline config, hence after having pushed the netcfg JSON to ONOS. Please refer to the Barefoot SDE documentation for more information on port management.

bf-sde> pm
bf-sde.pm> show
bf-sde.pm> port-add 1/0 100G NONE
bf-sde.pm> port-enb 1/0

Use

At this point if everything went well you should be able to push flow rules defined with PiCriterion and PiInstruction according to the P4 program deployed on the device.