Introduction

In this article, we are going to show you how to setup a CORD Fabric environment with Mininet and CpqD software switches.
This pure software environment allows us to develop and test the control logic (i.e. the Segment Routing app on ONOS) without any hardware switches.

ONOS

Setup an ONOS cluster with 3 instances. Here we only show brief steps. Please refer to Installing and Running ONOS for detail.

1. Fetch and compile ONOS

2. Enable Segment Routing applications in your cell configuration:

   ONOS_APPS=drivers,openflow,segmentrouting

3. Configure Segment Routing

   You can copy and modify from the following sample json file:

   $ONOS_ROOT/tools/package/config/samples/network-cfg-fabric2x2.json $ONOS_ROOT/tools/package/config/samples/network-cfg-fabric4x4.json

   1. For multiple instances
      Copy the sample json file to the following location and rename it to network-cfg.json:

      $ONOS_ROOT/tools/package/config/network-cfg.json

      Run onos-package and onos-install to apply new configuration on ONOS instances.

   2. For single instance
      Copy the sample json file to the following location and rename it to network-cfg.json:

      ~/Application/config/network-cfg.json

      Run ok clean to start ONOS with the new configuration.

Mininet and CpqD Software Switch

1. Install Mininet from source code. Please refer to Install Mininet from source code for detail.

   $ git clone git://github.com/mininet/mininet $ cd mininet $ git checkout -b 2.2.1 2.2.1

2. Patch Mininet.

   We will probably commit this back to the Mininet main stream.

   A patch multi_controller.patch is required to allow CpqD software switches to connect to multiple controller instances simultaneously. 
   Apply the patch using:

   # In the Mininet root directory  $ git apply multi_controller.patch

3. Install Mininet and CpqD Software Switch

   $ sudo ./util/install.sh -3fn

Start the Fabric

1. Start the Fabric
   We write a Mininet script cord_fabric.py that can help you easily create a leaf-spine topology with CpqD software switches.

   Since cord_fabric.py reads controller information from cell configuration, you should check your cell and see if $OC[1-9] is correctly set up before running the script.

   $ sudo -E ./cord_fabric.py --spine=4 --leaf=4

2. Run pingall

   mininet> pingall *** Ping: testing ping reachability h1 -> h2 h3 h4 h5 h6 h7 h8 h2 -> h1 h3 h4 h5 h6 h7 h8 h3 -> h1 h2 h4 h5 h6 h7 h8 h4 -> h1 h2 h3 h5 h6 h7 h8 h5 -> h1 h2 h3 h4 h6 h7 h8 h6 -> h1 h2 h3 h4 h5 h7 h8 h7 -> h1 h2 h3 h4 h5 h6 h8 h8 -> h1 h2 h3 h4 h5 h6 h7 *** Results: 0% dropped (56/56 received)

(Optional) GUI Configuration 

1. Configure sprites

   $ onos-upload-sprites $OC1 onos/web/gui/src/main/webapp/data/sprites/segmentRouting.json

   and then access the URL: http://<ONOS_IP>/onos/ui?sprites=segmentrouting

2. Configure topology view

   $ onos-topo-cfg $OC1 onos/tools/test/topos/cord.json