VPLS installation and configuration

VPLS is an ONOS application, included by default in the platform (both source code and packages). It needs to be explicitly configured and activated.

The goal of VPLS is to connect multiple end-points in an OpenFlow network, creating isolated L2 broadcast overlay networks.

While legacy technologies require the manual configuration of multiple devices in the network, VPLS tries to make the process easier for network operators.

Hosts that get connected together can send in either untagged or VLAN tagged traffic, using either the same or different VLAN ids.

The User Guide assumes:

Starting VPLS

VPLS can be installed and configured:

Following, the procedure to activate and configure VPLS will be described.

As for other ONOS applications, VPLS can be activated either:

# Basic VPLS topology

export ONOS_NIC=192.168.56.*
export OCI="192.168.56.101"
export OC1="192.168.56.101"
export OC2="192.168.56.102"
export OC3="192.168.56.103"
export ONOS_APPS=drivers,openflow,vpls
export ONOS_GROUP=sdn
export ONOS_SCENARIOS=$ONOS/tools/test/scenarios
export ONOS_TOPO=vpls
export ONOS_USER=sdn
export ONOS_USE_SSH=true
export ONOS_WEB_PASS=rocks
export ONOS_WEB_USER=onos

Configuring VPLS

VPLS relies on the ONOS network configuration subsystem, which is by default distributed on all ONOS nodes and shared by all ONOS applications.

In order to have a VPLS working, two things need to happen:

The goal of the configuration process is to define what attachment points the hosts are connected to (so which DPID and which ports), and to associate them under the same VPLS. This will essentially determine what hosts should communicate together, and which don’t.

Both the the interface and the VPLS configurations can be applied either:

Configuration file format and syntax

Let’s assume the following scenario:


In this example, five hosts are sending in tagged packets with different VLAN Ids. Two VPLSs will be created, one called VPLS1 -in green-; one called VPLS2 -in red-. Four hosts will be part of VPLS1, other two will be associated to VPLS2.

Hosts are grouped by VPLS in the following table:

 

VPLS name

VLAN Id

Interface Name

OF Switch DPID

OF Port Number

VPLS1

100

h1

0000000000000001

1

VPLS1

200

h2

0000000000000002

1

VPLS1

-1 (no VLAN)

h5

0000000000000005

1

VPLS1-1 (no VLAN)h600000000000000061

VPLS2

300

h3

0000000000000003

1

VPLS2

400

h4

0000000000000004

1

 

In order to configure what has been described above, the following configuration should be pushed to ONOS (either before or after VPLS has been started).

{
  "ports": {
    "of:0000000000000001/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h1",
          "vlan": "100"
        }
      ]
    },
    "of:0000000000000002/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h2",
          "vlan": "200"
        }
      ]
    },
    "of:0000000000000003/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h3",
          "vlan": "300"
        }
      ]
    },
    "of:0000000000000004/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h4",
          "vlan": "400"
        }
      ]
    },
    "of:0000000000000005/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h5"
        }
      ]
    },
    "of:0000000000000006/1": {
      "interfaces": [
        {
          "name": "h6"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "apps" : {
    "org.onosproject.vpls" : {
      "vpls" : {
        "vplsList" : [
          {
            "name" : "VPLS1",
            "interfaces" : ["h1", "h2", "h5", "h6"]
          },
          {
            "name" : "VPLS2",
            "interfaces" : ["h3", "h4"],
            "encapsulation" : "vlan"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

 

The same result can be achieved at run-time, using the interface and VPLS CLI commands as follows (see section "CLI syntax" for more details):

onos> interface-add -v 100 of:0000000000000001/1 h1
onos> interface-add -v 200 of:0000000000000002/1 h2
onos> interface-add -v 300 of:0000000000000004/1 h3
onos> interface-add -v 400 of:0000000000000002/1 h4
onos> interface-add of:0000000000000005/1 h5
onos> interface-add of:0000000000000006/1 h6

onos> vpls create VPLS1
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS1 h1
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS1 h2
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS1 h5
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS1 h6
onos> vpls set-encap VLPS1 VLAN

onos> vpls create VPLS2
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS2 h3
onos> vpls add-iface VPLS2 h4

As soon as two or more interfaces are added to the same VPLS, intents to manage broadcast will be installed.

As soon as two or more hosts connected to the same VPLS will get discovered by ONOS (and VPLS), intents to manage unicast traffic will be installed.

For more details on the VPLS architecture, internal workflow and intents used, please visit the VPLS Architecture Guide.

Demo topology 

Would you like to give VPLS a try, but it's too hard and long bringing up an entire network with hosts sending in packets on different VLANs? We made available a default topology file in ONOS for you!

The topology file is under $ONOS_ROOT/tools/test/topos. It consists of three files:

You can just take these files as examples for your topologies / configurations, or you can use them automatically along with the tool stc net-setup, which makes very convenient to deploy ONOS and Mininet together in a couple of commands.

Using the topology file along with stc net-setup is very simple. Just few steps:

CLI syntax

The applications allows to define and configured VPLSs also from a CLI. The paragraph below reports details about the CLI command syntax.

# Creates a new VPLS
onos> vpls create {$VPLS_NAME}

# Deletes an existing VPLS
onos> vpls delete {$VPLS_NAME}

# Lists the configured VPLSs
onos> vpls list
Configured VPLSs
----------------
VPLS1
VPLS2

# Shows the list configured VPLSs, including their interfaces and the encapsulation type in use. If a VPLS name is specified, only the details for that VPLS are returned.
onos> vpls show [$VPLS_NAME]
Configured VPLSs
----------------
VPLS name: VPLS1
Associated interfaces: [h1, h2, h5, h6]
Encapsulation: NONE
----------------
VPLS name: VPLS2
Associated interfaces: [h3, h4]
Encapsulation: VLAN
----------------

# Sets the encapsulation type for a VPLS
onos> vpls set-encap {$VPLS_NAME} {VLAN|MPLS|NONE}
# Adds an existing interface (in netcfg) to an existing VPLS
onos> vpls add-iface {$VPLS_NAME} {$INTERFACE_NAME}
# Removes an existing interface from an existing VPLS
onos> vpls rem-iface {$VPLS_NAME} {$INTERFACE_NAME}
# Cleans the status of the VPLS application (i.e., deletes VPLSs, removes interfaces from existing VPLSs and withdraws intents)
onos> vpls clean

Issues and Troubleshooting

Things not working as expected? Time to troubleshoot!

onos> hosts
id=00:00:00:00:00:01/100, mac=00:00:00:00:00:01, location=of:0000000000000001/1, vlan=100, ip(s)=[10.0.0.1], name=h1, latitude=40.888148, longitude=-103.459878, configured=false
id=00:00:00:00:00:02/200, mac=00:00:00:00:00:02, location=of:0000000000000002/1, vlan=200, ip(s)=[10.0.0.2], name=h2, latitude=42.756945, longitude=-79.831317, configured=false
id=00:00:00:00:00:03/300, mac=00:00:00:00:00:03, location=of:0000000000000003/1, vlan=300, ip(s)=[10.0.0.3], name=h3, latitude=35.427493, longitude=-83.885831, configured=false
id=00:00:00:00:00:04/400, mac=00:00:00:00:00:04, location=of:0000000000000004/1, vlan=400, ip(s)=[10.0.0.4], name=h4, latitude=34.66229, longitude=-110.946662, configured=false
id=00:00:00:00:00:05/None, mac=00:00:00:00:00:05, location=of:0000000000000005/1, vlan=None, ip(s)=[10.0.0.5], name=h5, latitude=33.224634, longitude=-121.532943, configured=false
id=00:00:00:00:00:06/None, mac=00:00:00:00:00:06, location=of:0000000000000006/1, vlan=None, ip(s)=[10.0.0.6], name=h6, latitude=42.395459, longitude=-75.293563, configured=false

Please, note that you should see results only for hosts that already sent traffic into the data plane. This sometimes doesn’t happen for example with Mininet, where hosts are only processes without any application running by default.

Also, as in any related intent-based ONOS applications, there are certain best-practices to follow, to see what’s going on with intents and flows. Type "intents" to see the detailed list of intents, or "intent -s" for the intents summary.

Below is an approximation of what you should see for the topology used in the example, assuming all hosts have already all been discovered and communicate together. Note that in this case, six intents for broadcast, and six intents for unicast are installed.

onos> intents
id=0xa6, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-uni-of:0000000000000006-1-00:00:00:00:00:06, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:06]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000001/1, of:0000000000000002/1], egress=of:0000000000000006/1
id=0x1a, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS2-uni-of:0000000000000003-1-00:00:00:00:00:03, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:03]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    constraints=[EncapsulationConstraint{encapType=VLAN}]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000004/1], egress=of:0000000000000003/1
id=0xa7, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-uni-of:0000000000000002-1-00:00:00:00:00:02, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:02]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000001/1], egress=of:0000000000000002/1
id=0xa1, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-brc-of:0000000000000005-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=of:0000000000000005/1, egress=[of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000001/1, of:0000000000000002/1]
id=0xa5, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-uni-of:0000000000000001-1-00:00:00:00:00:01, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:01]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000002/1], egress=of:0000000000000001/1
id=0x1b, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS2-uni-of:0000000000000004-1-00:00:00:00:00:04, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:04]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    constraints=[EncapsulationConstraint{encapType=VLAN}]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000003/1], egress=of:0000000000000004/1
id=0xa3, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-brc-of:0000000000000006-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=of:0000000000000006/1, egress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000001/1, of:0000000000000002/1]
id=0x0, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS2-brc-of:0000000000000003-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    constraints=[EncapsulationConstraint{encapType=VLAN}]
    ingress=of:0000000000000003/1, egress=[of:0000000000000004/1]
id=0x1, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS2-brc-of:0000000000000004-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    constraints=[EncapsulationConstraint{encapType=VLAN}]
    ingress=of:0000000000000004/1, egress=[of:0000000000000003/1]
id=0xa0, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-brc-of:0000000000000001-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=of:0000000000000001/1, egress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000002/1]
id=0xa2, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-brc-of:0000000000000002-1-FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, type=SinglePointToMultiPointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=of:0000000000000002/1, egress=[of:0000000000000005/1, of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000001/1]
id=0xa4, state=INSTALLED, key=VPLS1-uni-of:0000000000000005-1-00:00:00:00:00:05, type=MultiPointToSinglePointIntent, appId=org.onosproject.vpls
    selector=[ETH_DST:00:00:00:00:00:05]
    treatment=[NOACTION]
    ingress=[of:0000000000000006/1, of:0000000000000001/1, of:0000000000000002/1], egress=of:0000000000000005/1


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