Contra is a language taking high-level policy as input and generating distributed switch programs which follow the path constraints and performance preference.

This repository includes all the things you need to run mininet emulation with Contra.

Note: Instead of cloning this repository, please just download the P4-mininet-cluster/packages.sh and P4-mininet-cluster/cloudLabSetup.py scripts and follow the following instructions to setup the environment with them automatically which includes the cloning of this repository.

1. Use the cloudLabSetup.py to construct the cluster in CloudLab
2. Append public keys of all nodes to each others' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
   • Use cssh to control all of them at once, and create the ssh key pair

      ssh-keygen -t rsa
     

   • Back to your own machine, collect all public keys (in this Readme, we assumed the nodes are named as CL* in ~/.ssh/config of your own machine)

      ssh CL00 cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> tmp.tmp; \
      ssh CL01 cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> tmp.tmp; \
      ...
      ssh CL20 cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> tmp.tmp
     

   • Append these public keys to all machines. On your own machine:

      cat tmp.tmp | ssh CL00 "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys"; \
      cat tmp.tmp | ssh CL01 "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys"; \
      ...
      cat tmp.tmp | ssh CL20 "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys"
     

3. Copy the P4-mininet-cluster/packages.sh file to all machine

   scp packages.sh CL00: ; \
   scp packages.sh CL01: ; \
   ...
   scp packages.sh CL20:
   

4. Run packages.sh on each machine separately (at least 10 secs away to avoid connection fail)

Under the repo directory on each cluster node (Use cssh to control all of them at once)

1. Install Contra's dependency and compile Contra compiler:

   ./installContra.sh
   

Note: You may want to re-login to make the alias on hula command take effect

We have generated several workloads (P4-mininet-cluster/*_Conga_*/) and converted them to the format (a bunch of shell scripts) we used in mininet scripts (P4-mininet-cluster/*_Conga_*_out/). The calling of these workload scripts are currently hardcoded in the compiler codes so that the compiler will generate corresponding commands in p4app.json to initiate traffic in mininet.

Currently, the used workload scripts are DCTCP_Conga_50Mbps_oneDir_Abilene_4_4_newSel_out/DCTCP_CDF_PER_FLOW_UNTIL_90_150.00_4_4_1.dat/ To use different workloads for other setups, please modify the Contra compiler codes (src/CodeGen.fs) and recompile the compiler with xbuild hula.sln

1. In addition to the policy and topo arguments, we also have to specify topotype in order to tell the compiler how to generate the switch/host placement in mininet cluster and the traffic commands. This topotype is only needed in this mininet emulation experiment. In practice, we don't need to tell the compiler anything about the type of topology. To compile policy and topo into P4 program, under the repo directory on each cluster node:

   hula --policy <policy file> --topo <topo file> --topotype <ABILENE/FATTREE>
   

   ex. hula --policy examples/util/util.hula --topo realDataTest/xmlData/Abilene.xml.edge --topotype ABILENE --output ./P4-mininet-cluster/abilene/

   The p4 programs and other necessary files (including workloads and probes applications) for bmv2 and mininet will be in ./P4-mininet-cluster/abilene/app/

   Note: All related commands in the following instructions are using the above abilene example.

2. Compile P4 program into json for simple_switch: In P4-mininet-cluster/:

   ./compile-p4.sh --output ./abilene/app/
   

1. Only on the first cluster node (CL00), change directory to P4-mininet-cluster/abilene/app/ and run:

   ./run.sh
   

   Then, the emulation is run!

Note: In case some mininet jobs were not correctly finished last time, please use the following commands to clear the environment before running

sudo mn -c
sudo pkill simple_switch
sudo pkill sudo  				# if no other sudo commands were run
sudo rm /tmp/bm*
sudo rm app/build/logs/*.log    # in abilene
sudo rm app/build/*.pcap		# in abilene

The output will be on the machines which hold the end hosts (according to the host/switch placement in the p4app.json file generated by the compiler based on the topotype) They will have names like abilene/app/build/h*.log