ofproto-dpif: Correct indentation of rule_dpif_{release, credit_stats}

[mirror_ovs.git] / OPENFLOW-1.1+

                OpenFlow 1.1+ support in Open vSwitch
                =====================================

Open vSwitch support for OpenFlow 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 is a work in
progress.  This file describes the work still to be done.

The Plan
--------

OpenFlow version support is not a build-time option.  A single build
of Open vSwitch must be able to handle all supported versions of
OpenFlow.  Ideally, even at runtime it should be able to support all
protocol versions at the same time on different OpenFlow bridges (and
perhaps even on the same bridge).

At the same time, it would be a shame to litter the core of the OVS
code with lots of ugly code concerned with the details of various
OpenFlow protocol versions.

The primary approach to compatibility is to abstract most of the
details of the differences from the core code, by adding a protocol
layer that translates between OF1.x and a slightly higher-level
abstract representation.  The core of this approach is the many struct
ofputil_* structures in lib/ofp-util.h.

As a consequence of this approach, OVS cannot use OpenFlow protocol
definitions that closely resemble those in the OpenFlow specification,
because openflow.h in different versions of the OpenFlow specification
defines the same identifier with different values.  Instead,
openflow-common.h contains definitions that are common to all the
specifications and separate protocol version-specific headers contain
protocol-specific definitions renamed so as not to conflict,
e.g. OFPAT10_ENQUEUE and OFPAT11_ENQUEUE for the OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.1
values for OFPAT_ENQUEUE.  Generally, in cases of conflict, the
protocol layer will define a more abstract OFPUTIL_* or struct
ofputil_*.

Here are the current approaches in a few tricky areas:

    * Port numbering.  OpenFlow 1.0 has 16-bit port numbers and later
      OpenFlow versions have 32-bit port numbers.  For now, OVS
      support for later protocol versions requires all port numbers to
      fall into the 16-bit range, translating the reserved OFPP_* port
      numbers.

    * Actions.  OpenFlow 1.0 and later versions have very different
      ideas of actions.  OVS reconciles by translating all the
      versions' actions (and instructions) to and from a common
      internal representation.

OpenFlow 1.1
------------

The list of remaining work items for OpenFlow 1.1 is below.  It is
probably incomplete.

    * Implement Write-Actions instruction.
      [required for 1.1+]

    * The new in_phy_port field in OFPT_PACKET_IN needs some kind of
      implementation.  It has a sensible interpretation for tunnels
      but in general the physical port is not in the datapath for OVS
      so the value is not necessarily meaningful.  We might have to
      just fix it as the same as in_port.
      [required for OF1.1; optional for OF1.2+]

    * OFPT_TABLE_MOD message.  This is new in OF1.1, so we need to
      implement it.  It should be implemented so that the default OVS
      behavior does not change.
      [required for OF1.1 and OF1.2]

    * MPLS.  Simon Horman maintains a patch series that adds this
      feature.  This is partially merged.
      [optional for OF1.1+]

    * Match and set double-tagged VLANs (QinQ).  This requires kernel
      work for reasonable performance.
      [optional for OF1.1+]

    * VLANs tagged with 88a8 Ethertype.  This requires kernel work for
      reasonable performance.
      [required for OF1.1+]

    * Groups.

        * Type all
          [required for OF1.1+]

        * Type select
          [optional for OF1.1+]

        * Type indirect
          [required for OF1.1+]

        * Type fast failover
          [optional for OF1.1+]

        * Statistics
          [optional for OF1.1+]

OpenFlow 1.2
------------

OpenFlow 1.2 support requires OpenFlow 1.1 as a prerequisite, plus the
following additional work.  (This is based on the change log at the
end of the OF1.2 spec.  I didn't compare the specs carefully yet.)

    * OFPT_FLOW_MOD:

        * Add ability to delete flow in all tables.
          [required for OF1.2+]

OpenFlow 1.3
------------

OpenFlow 1.3 support requires OpenFlow 1.2 as a prerequisite, plus the
following additional work.  (This is based on the change log at the
end of the OF1.3 spec, reusing most of the section titles directly.  I
didn't compare the specs carefully yet.)

    * Send errors for unsupported multipart requests.
      [required for OF1.3+]

    * Add support for multipart requests.
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * Add OFPMP_TABLE_FEATURES statistics.
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * More flexible table miss support.
      [required for OF1.3+]

    * IPv6 extension header handling support.  Fully implementing this
      requires kernel support.  This likely will take some careful and
      probably time-consuming design work.  The actual coding, once
      that is all done, is probably 2 or 3 days work.
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * Per-flow meters.  Similar to IPv6 extension headers in kernel
      and design requirements.  Might be politically difficult to add
      directly to the kernel module, since its functionality overlaps
      with tc.  Ideally, therefore, we could implement these somehow
      with tc, but I haven't investigated whether that makes sense.
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * Per-connection event filtering.  OF1.3 adopted Open vSwitch's
      existing design for this feature so implementation should be
      easy.
      [required for OF1.3+]

    * Auxiliary connections.  An implementation in generic code might
      be a week's worth of work.  The value of an implementation in
      generic code is questionable, though, since much of the benefit
      of axuiliary connections is supposed to be to take advantage of
      hardware support.  (We could make the kernel module somehow
      send packets across the auxiliary connections directly, for
      some kind of "hardware" support, if we judged it useful enough.)
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * MPLS BoS matching.  (Included in Simon's MPLS series?)
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * Provider Backbone Bridge tagging.  I don't plan to implement
      this (but we'd accept an implementation).
      [optional for OF1.3+]

    * Rework tag order.  I'm not sure whether we need to do anything
      for this. Part of MPLS patchset by Simon Horman.
      [required for v1.3+]

    * On-demand flow counters.  I think this might be a real
      optimization in some cases for the software switch.
      [optional for OF1.3+]


How to contribute
-----------------

If you plan to contribute code for a feature, please let everyone know
on ovs-dev before you start work.  This will help avoid duplicating
work.

Please consider the following:

    * Testing.  Please test your code.

    * Unit tests.  Please consider writing some.  The tests directory
      has many examples that you can use as a starting point.

    * ovs-ofctl.  If you add a feature that is useful for some
      ovs-ofctl command then you should add support for it there.

    * Documentation.  If you add a user-visible feature, then you
      should document it in the appropriate manpage and mention it in
      NEWS as well.

    * Coding style (see the CodingStyle file at the top of the source
      tree).

    * The patch submission guidelines (see SubmittingPatches).  I
      recommend using "git send-email", which automatically follows a
      lot of those guidelines.

Bug Reporting
-------------

Please report problems to bugs@openvswitch.org.