Download presentation - Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science

The Darwin Router Control
Interface
Peter Steenkiste, Jun Gao,
Prashant Chandra, Eduardo Takahashi
Computer Science Department
Department of Electical and Computer Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
OPENSIG ‘99
Carnegie Mellon University, October 1999
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Outline




Motivation
Router Control Interface
Security and safety
Conclusion
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Motivation

Open up the network: have a larger community
develop services and applications for networks
» Not just vendor sofware
» Imagine a PC on which you can only run vendor software

Advanced services and applications need
customized, runtime resource management support
» Quality of execution depends on how resources are managed
» Example: Corba + QoS (QuO) at BBN

Network management and control applications.
» Support flexible QoS policies, monitoring tools, etc.
» Convenient and fast software deployment and upgrading
» Example: virtual private network service
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Example:
A Virtual Private Network Service
Delegates support
customized
control protocols
E
F
PARCPC
A
MIT
LBLPC
UCL
B
ISIPC
ISIEPC
UCLAPC
VPN team:
Keng Lim
Jun Gao
Eugene Ng
Hui Zhang
Peter Steenkiste
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
DARPA2
CMU
C
Hierarchical
scheduler manages
VPN resources
D
G
4
Virtual Mesh:
Resources + Control
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Darwin Node Architecture
Client Beagle
Other
Routing
Entities
Routing
Beagle
Control
Delegates
Applications
Other Delegates
Router Control Interface
Local Resource Manager
Classifier
Route
+
Lookup
Action
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
Classifier
+
Scheduler
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Router Control Interface (RCI)

RCI operates on a flow-based network model
» Flows are the basic data type: RCI is an instruction set that
operates on flows
» Flow is defined using IP and transport layer header fields

Four categories of functions
» Collecting information
– Bandwidth usage, Monitor queue length, etc.
» Local resource management actions
– Set QoS parameters, selectively drop packets, etc.
» Flow redirection
– Tunneling, flow redirecting to delegate, route changes, etc.
» Inter-delegate communication
– Allow delegates to interact with peers and endpoints
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Darwin Delegate
Implementation

Implemented as Java code segments
» Also more restricted support for C delegates

Delegate runtime environment based on a Java
Virtual Machine
» RCI is implemented as a set of C native methods
» Use Java sandboxing for basic safety support

Delegates can be dynamically installed by the
Beagle signaling protocol
» Client specifies the delegates as part of the mesh
» Beagle carries delegate bytecode to routers
» Verifies, instantiates and initializes delegates
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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A Hierarchical Network Model

Hierarchical resource
management in support of
service hierarchies
» Translates into a hierarchy of meshes
» Representation on a router is a
resource tree
» Realized using the Hierarchical Fair
Service Curve Scheduler (HFSC)

Control
Delegates
Link
Org 1
Org 2
Delegates are associated with
nodes in the resource tree
» Scheduler provides isolation of
network resource (data plane)
» Delegates provide isolation of
resource management and control
(control plane)
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
App 1
Flow 1
Hierarchical
Resource Tree
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Delegate Examples

Selective packet dropping for MPEG video
streams
» Monitoring, selective dropping

Dynamic control of MJPEG video encoding
» Monitoring, control/data delegates coordination

Selective dropping of non-adaptive flows
» Monitoring, selective dropping, inter-delegate
communication

Load-sensitive flow redirecting
» Monitoring, inter-delegate communication

On-going projects
» QoS virtual private networks, active monitoring, etc.
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Comparison
with Related Projects

Active Nets node architecture (Peterson)
» The delegate runtime environment can be viewed as an
execution environment that handles “control” packets
» “Data” packets follow the “cut through” path
» What path that a packet takes through the router is
controlled through a general classifier on the input port

Pronto (Hjalmtysson)
» It has a similar architecture but has a stronger coupling
between data/control plane
» Darwin hierarchy provides more structure

Active signaling (Braden)
» Also control and data plane separation but single network
wide control
» Focus on controlling versions instead of customization
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Security and Safety:
Where is the Problem?

Everywhere!
» Harm the base router or other users (crash, corrupt, ..)
» Allocate or use other user’s resources
» Affect the treatment of other user’s traffic

We focus is on traffic management related threats
» Other groups are addressing some of the other issues.
– E.g., allocation of CPU time, efficient safety mechanisms, ..

Address the problem piece-wise by looking at an
increasingly more powerful delegate
» Delegates perform only local actions
» Delegates can also perform global actions
» Delegates can create peers and delegate responsibility.
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Local Actions Only


Beagle creates all delegates
and sets up all permissions
Delegates can modify flow
definitions and resource
allocations
Routing
» Modify flow weights, ..
» Control over an output port
(roughly)

Probably useful to have
different levels of
permission:
»
»
»
»
Beagle
Control
Delegates
Router Control Interface
Local Resource Manager
Classifier
+
Action
Classifier
+
Scheduler
monitor traffic only
modify weights
change structure of the tree
peek at contents of packets
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Local Actions Only:
Possible Solutions


Leverage the hierarchical
resource management abstraction
Beagle must verify that client can
add a node and associated
delegate
» Check with owner of the parent


Runtime checking for every
delegate RCI call
Control
Delegates
Link
Org 1
Org 2
» Is the call allowed on this resource?
» Does the flow filter only match traffic
that is controlled by this delegate
App 1
Usual runtime versus install time
verification tradeoff
Flow 1
» Fewer runtime checks for trusted code
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
Hierarchical
Resource Tree
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Global Actions


Beagle creates all delegates
and sets up all permissions
Delegates can redirect flows
» Example: routing delegates in a
VPN service application
» Affects what parts of the
network are used: RCI is used
for distributed programming
» Changes input port functions

Routing
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
Control
Delegates
Router Control Interface
Local Resource Manager
How to implement?
» Tunneling seems manageable
» Routing is more difficult!
– How many routing tables?
– How do you control and
verify changes to a shared
routing table?
– What is the right model?
Beagle
Classifier
+
Action
Classifier
+
Scheduler
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Global Actions:
Possible Solutions

Restricted delegate actions to stay inside the mesh
» Only affect traffic and only use links that are part of the mesh
» Delegate has choice of outgoing link and path

Demonstrated this capability for the VPN services
application
» Use multiple routing daemons and forwarding tables
» view of each routing daemon is restricted to its mesh
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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Delegation

Beagle is no longer the only
manager of delegates or
delegate permissions
Control
Delegates
» It is “only” the signaling protocol
for the root node

Delegates for interior nodes
can also manage delegates
and their permissions
» Delegate authority, create peers
or delegates for children,..


Example: A VPN-specific
signaling protocol creates
delegates
Solution will have to combine
local protection with “space”
or mesh aspect.
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
Link
Org 1
Org 2
App 1
Flow 1
Hierarchical
Resource Tree
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Conclusion

Darwin delegates support the development of
customized network control protocols
» Use the RCI to affect the data forwarding path

Key question: what router functions do you
want to be able to “delegate” (securely)
»
»
»
»
»

Resource management and QoS?
Routing?
Signaling and delegate management?
Desired degree of customization depends on user
Security becomes harder as you expand the scope
Version 1.0 of Darwin is available
» http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~darwin
» includes the HFSC scheduler, Beagle, and the delegate
runtime environment
Peter A. Steenkiste, CMCL, CMU
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