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VPP-based spinbit measurement middlebox

Important: the VPP code in this repository was used to generate the measurements in the paper (we just added some VPP CLI commands to make it easier to deploy the plugin on different networks). However, it will not receive further updates. Please refer to the repository VPP-latency-middlebox for the newest version of the code.

Installation

You can either use Vagrant to set up everything automatically or compile the plugin in an existing VPP installation. The plugin is tested with the stable FD.io version 17.10.

Using Vagrant

If not already available, install Vagrant and VirtualBox on your machine. Go to the Vagrant directory and execute:

vagrant up
vagrant ssh

To start Vagrant and connect via ssh (root access without password).

Part of the Vagrant setup adapted from the vpp-mb project.

Additional Vagrant commands

Rsync the vpp-plus directory once more (e.g. useful after git pull):

cd vagrant
vagrant halt
rm .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/action_provision
vagrant up
vagrant ssh

Destroy the entire Vagrant VM and start over (important: you lose the entire VM and all custom files):

cd vagrant
vagrant halt
vagrant destroy
vagrant up
vagrant ssh

Compiling the plugin

To compile the plugin manually or adapt changes inside Vagrant, use:

cd spinbit-plugin
sudo autoreconf -fis
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

Restart VPP, e.g. sudo service vpp restart

Important VPP commands

Start VPP: sudo service vpp start

Stop VPP: sudo service vpp stop

You can either access the VPP shell with sudo vppctl and then interactively execute commands (exit with quit) or execute each VPP command separately using: sudo vppctl <cmd>

Use sudo vppctl help for a list of supported commands.

General commands

List of interfaces: sudo vppctl show interface (you can also shorten the commands, e.g. sudo vppctl sh int)

Show the VPP graph: sudo vppctl show vlib graph

Add a packet trace storing 50 packets sudo vppctl trace add dpdk-input 50

Display the captured packets in the trace: sudo vppctl show trace

Execute multiple VPP commands from a file (one command per line): sudo vppctl exec <file>

Spinbit plugin specific commands

To get an overview, use: sudo vppctl spinbit help

Add an interface to the plugin: sudo vppctl spinbit interface <interface>

Remove an interface: sudo vppctl spinbit interface <interface> disable

List all currently active flows with latency estimations: sudo vppctl spinbit stat

Set the IPv4 address the plugin is listening to sudo vppctl spinbit mb_ip <IPv4 (dot)>

Add a UDP port number that indicates QUIC traffic sudo vppctl spinbit quic_port <port>. Can be repeated with different ports. The QUIC port used in our measurements (4433) is already defined.

Add NAT-like functionalities sudo vppctl spinbit nat <IPv4 (dot)> <port>. This is useful if you want to deploy the middlebox such that it can make on-path measurements taking traffic in both directions into account. Can be repeated with different pairs of ports and IPs. See next section for more information.

On-path latency measurements

To be able to perform on-path measurements and observing traffic from the client to the server and the reverse traffic, we added NAT-like functionalities to the spinbit plugin.

As an example, assume the VPP middlebox has the IP 1.2.3.4 (defined with sudo vppctl spinbit mb_ip 1.2.3.4). Now we would like to be able to forward traffic towards the server 5.6.7.8 through the middlebox. For that, we arbitrarily associate port 8888 with the dst IP 5.6.7.8 and add that to the plugin with sudo vppctl spinbit 5.6.7.8 8888. Any client can now send traffic to 5.6.7.8 (over the middlebox) by sending traffic towards the IP of the middlebox (1.2.3.4) with dst port 8888. Whenever the plugin receives traffic with dst port 8888, it will:

  1. save the observed src IP and replace it with its own IP (1.2.3.4)
  2. replace the dst IP with the IP of the corresponding server (5.6.7.8)
  3. send the traffic towards the new destination (src and dst ports are not changed)

Once it receives traffic back from the server, it reverses the process and sends it to the original client.

Following a list of sample commands to configure VPP and the plugin to implement the previous example. We assume that the server running VPP is inside a network with IP space 1.2.3.0/24 and the gateway towards the Internet has the IP 1.2.3.1. The VPP server has one interface (called GigabitEthernet3/0/0). The actual interface name depends one the used implementation/hardware and can be found with sudo vppctl sh int.

 set int state GigabitEthernet3/0/0 up
 set int ip address GigabitEthernet3/0/0 1.2.3.4/24
 ip route add 0.0.0.0/0 via 1.2.3.1 GigabitEthernet3/0/0
 spinbit interface GigabitEthernet3/0/0
 spinbit mb_ip 1.2.3.4
 spinbit nat 5.6.7.8 8888
 spinbit quic_port 8888

The last command declares traffic towards/from port 8888 as QUIC traffic. All these commands can be saved in a file (e.g. setup.conf) and executed with sudo vppctl exec setup.conf.

Connect Vagrant to host machine

If you use the Vagrant installation and want to connect the VM to the host machine, use "Host-only Networks" (assuming VirtualBox as provider for the Vagrant VM). On your local machine in VirtualBox: Go to Virtualbox --> Preferences.... In the "Network tab" add two "Host-only Networks" and change the configuration:

Network 1: IPv4 Address: 192.168.100.1, IPv4 Network Mask: 255.255.255.0
Network 2: IPv4 Address: 192.168.101.1, IPv4 Network Mask: 255.255.255.0

Restart the Vagrant VM and VPP should see the interfaces when using sudo vppctl sh int as GigabitEthernet0/8/0 and GigabitEthernet0/9/0. Add the corresponding IPs:

set int state GigabitEthernet0/8/0 up
set int ip address GigabitEthernet0/8/0 192.168.100.2/24
set int state GigabitEthernet0/9/0 up
set int ip address GigabitEthernet0/9/0 192.168.101.2/24

Measurement results

The VPP plugin writes latency measurement results to the /tmp folder using different files for QUIC and TCP traffic (/tmp/spinbit_{tcp,quic}_printf.out). The data is saved as CSV files. All latency estimations are in seconds.