This document provides an overview of the network emulation and visualization tools Mininet, Wireshark, and Open vSwitch. It describes how Mininet can be used to create virtual networks on a single machine and supports common topologies. Wireshark is summarized as a tool for network packet capture and analysis that supports many protocols. Open vSwitch is presented as a software switch that implements OpenFlow and supports Linux bridge functionality along with network virtualization features. The document also introduces some command line utilities for interacting with Open vSwitch components.

1. Mininet, Wireshark and
Open vSwitch
a study notes
Richard Kuo, Professional-Technical Architect,
Domain 2.0 Architecture & Planning

2. Motivation
• Understand some basic network engineering tools
for SDN/NFV and network virtualization, which can
be served as building blocks for knowledge
development.
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3. Network Virtualization
• User Interface
• Network Services
• Controller
• Logic Network
• Virtualization
• Physical Network Resources
• Software operating environment
(VM, container)
• Analytics, Policy, Goal, QoS, SLA
• OSS and BSS
• Service composition, chaining
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4. Mininet
• http://mininet.org/
• Mininet is a network emulator, it
creates a virtual network, runs on
VM, cloud or native machine:
•
OpenVirtex, FlowVisor
ODL, ONOS,…
Mininet, OvS,
Wireshark, …
VPN, LB, DPI,..
OpenFlow
(Southbound)
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5. Mininet
$ sudo mn --topo single,3 --mac --
switch ovsk --controller=remote
$ sudo mn --topo linear,4 --mac --
switch ovsk --controller=remote
$ sudo mn --topo tree,3 --mac --switch
ovsk --controller=remote
from: NDI Communication
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6. Mininet Commands
• Default topology (h1, h2, s1, c0)
• sudo mn
• nodes
• net
• dump
• pingall
• h1 ping h2 –c3
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7. Wireshark
• supports hundreds of
protocolshttp://www.wireshark.or
g/docs/dfref/
• Live capture and offline analysis
• Multiplatform: Windows, Linux,
MAC
• Captured data browsing in GUI or
in TTY mode (TSHARK)
• R/W many different capture file
formats: tcpdump (libpcap), MS
Network Monitor, Network
General Sniffer®, RADCOM
WAN/LAN Analyzer and many
others.
• Output can be exported to XML,
PostScript® or simple text
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8. Wireshark
• Packet list
• Packet details
• Packet bytes
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9. Open vSwitch
• A software-based solution
• An implementation of
OpenFlow
• Flexible Controller in user-
space and fast datapath in
Kernel
• Flow Decision
• Decision about how to process
packet made in user-space
• First packet of new flow goes to
ovs-vswitchd, following packets
hit cached entry in kernel
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10. Features
• Visibility into inter-VM communication via NetFlow,
sFlow(R), IPFIX, SPAN, RSPAN, and GRE-tunneled
mirrors
• Support features on a Linux system:
– Fully functional Layer 2 switch
– NetFlow, sFlow, SPAN, and RSPAN support
– 802.1Q VLANs with trunking
– QoS
– Port aggregation
– GRE tunneling
– Compatibility with the Linux bridge code (brctl)
– Kernel and userspace switch implementation
• Fine-grained QoS control
• Support for HFSC qdisc
• Per VM interface traffic policing
• NIC bonding with source-MAC load balancing,
active backup, and L4 hashing
• OpenFlow protocol support (including many
extensions for virtualization)
• IPv6 support
• Multiple tunneling protocols
– GRE, VXLAN, IPsec, GRE and VXLAN over IPsec
• Remote configuration protocol with C and Python
bindings
• Kernel and user-space forwarding engine options
• Multi-table forwarding pipeline with flow-caching
engine
• Forwarding layer abstraction to ease porting to new
software and hardware platforms
• Feature list for container is in process
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11. Open vSwitch Schema
• Database that holds switch level
configuration
• Custom database with nice
properties:
• Log-based
• Speaks OVSDB management
protocol(JSON-RPC) to manager
and ovs-vswitchd
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12. Hardware VTEP Schema
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13. OvS Core Components
• ovs-vswitchd
• ovs-kernel
• ovsdb, ovsdb-server
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14. The example of QoS in OVS Database
• It is a GUI tool to see the tables in the ovsdb-server
• This case is about checking QoS setting

15. ovs-appctl
ovs-appctl is a utility for managing
these daemons at runtime. It is
useful for configuring log module
settings as well as viewing all
OpenFlow flows, including hidden
ones.
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16. ovs-dpctl
ovs-dpctl is very similar to ovs-
ofctl in that they both show flow
table entries. The flows that ovs-
dpctl prints are always an exact
match and reflect packets that
have actually passed through the
system within the last few
seconds.
.
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17. ovs-ofctl
This tool is used for administering
and monitoring OpenFlow
switches. Even if OVS isn't
configured for centralized
administration, ovs-ofctl can be
used to show the current state of
OVS including features,
configuration, and table entries.
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18. ovs-vsctl
This tool is used for configuration
and viewing OVS switch
operations:
• Port configuration,
• bridge additions/deletions,
• bonding,
• VLAN tagging
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19. Demo
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