Institute of Technology of Cambodia

Department of Electrical and Energy

5th year Engineering, 34nd Batch

Project Long
How to install OVS on Pi

Adviser : Hel Chanthan

Group : GEE-ET
Student : PHAN Chivon e20140515
SANN Seyha e20140592

2018 - 2019
 Contents
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 SDN Architecture .......................................................................................................... 2
II. Overview ................................................................................................................................ 3
III. OpenFlow ............................................................................................................................... 3
IV. Main Components ................................................................................................................. 4
V. Objective ................................................................................................................................. 4
VI. Practice ................................................................................................................................... 4
I. Introduction
The Network is being pushed to its limits with unending exponential growth in the
People, devices, and servers connecting to the network requires a new approach. This is where
Software Defined Networking (SDN) comes in. We need to upgrade the network due to the
tons of innovation in applications, devices, computing, and storage, yet the underlying network
that connects everything has remained unchanged. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an
emerging network architecture where network control is decoupled from forwarding and is
directly programmable. This migration of control, formerly tightly bound in individual network
devices, into accessible computing devices enables the underlying infrastructure to be
abstracted for applications and network services, which can treat the network as a logical or
virtual entity.

Figure 1: Example of traditional network and SDN

SDN is an approch to the networking that separates the control plane from the
forwarding plane to support virtualization. It comprises of three layers – Application layer,
Controller Layer and Data Plane Layer. Perhaps most importantly, network operators and
administrators can programmatically configure this simplified network abstraction rather than
having to hand-code tens of thousands of lines of configuration scattered among thousands of
devices. In addition, leveraging the SDN controller’s centralized intelligence, IT can alter
network behavior in real-time and deploy new applications and network services in a matter of
hours or days, rather than the weeks or months needed today. By centralizing network state in
the control layer, SDN gives network managers the flexibility to configure, manage, secure,
and optimize network resources via dynamic, automated SDN programs. Moreover, they can
write these programs themselves and not wait for features to be embedded in vendors’
proprietary and closed software environments in the middle of the network.

In addition to abstracting the network, SDN architectures support a set of APIs that
make it possible to implement common network services, including routing, multicast,
security, access control, bandwidth management, traffic engineering, quality of service,
processor and storage optimization, energy usage, and all forms of policy management, custom
tailored to meet business objectives. For example, an SDN architecture makes it easy to define
and enforce consistent policies across both wired and wireless connections on a campus.
Traditional networks have their control and forwarding functionalities embedded within the
actual forwarding devices (such as router or switch), thus making the forwarding devices
process each packet as they transverse the network through them. However, SDN separates the
data plane and control plane functionality from the device itself and places it in an SDN

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 controller. The controller performs all necessary control functions thus reducing the processes
handled by the switches. In figure below shows the comparison between the physical structure
of traditional networks and SDN networks.

In the figure below, is the comparison between traditional network and SDN network
which make a lot of differences to the network revolution.

Figure 2: Comparison between traditional network and SDN

1.1 SDN Architecture

Figure 3: Architecture of SDN

` Commonly SDN Architecture have 3 layers:

• Application Layer: On this layer there Northbound APIs: Software-Defined Networking
uses northbound APIs to communicate with the applications and business logic “above.”

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 These help network administrators to programmatically shape traffic and deploy services.
On the application layer, it can be orchestrator system infrastructure, automation, tools, or
Python script. The Application layer is the highest layer and it is the visual part that is
seen when a command is been sent to the controller.
• Control Layer: This layer is “brains” of the network, SDN Controllers offer a centralized
view of the overall network, and enable network administrators to dictate to the
underlying systems (like switches and routers) how the forwarding plane should handle
network traffic. The control layer serves the function of translating the application layer
down to the data plane layer. The controller layer can be seen as an intermediary that
translates data forth and back between the application layer and data plane layer.
• Infrastructure Layer (Data Plane): On infrastructure layer there Southbound APIs:
Software-defined networking uses southbound APIs to relay information to the switches
and routers. OpenFlow, considered the first standard in SDN, was the original
southbound API and remains as one of the most common protocols. Their main function
is to accept translated data from the application layer such as a new flow rules that
change how the switches act.

II. Overview
Open vSwitch is a multiplayer switch under the open source Apache 2 license. Our goal is
to implement a production quality switch platform that supports standard management interfaces
and opens the forwarding functions to programmatic extension and control. Client or user need the
ability to bridge traffic between make interconnect from host to anther host or connect to outside
world. The current release of Open vSwitch supports the following features:

• Standard 802.1Q VLAN model with trunk and access ports.

• NIC bonding with or without LACP on upstream switch.
• OpenFlow.
• High-performance forwarding using a Linux kernel module

III. OpenFlow
OpenFlow is OpenFlow is created as an open programmable network protocol for
configuring and managing switches from various vendors and provides access to the
forwarding plane of a router or switch over the network. OpenFlow allows a server to
tell network switches where to send packets, so that the
network can be programmed by the Open vSwitch
using Linux kernel. For the enterprise, they design
OpenFlow to the standard protocol in TCP/IP for
network traffic management between switches and
routers from different vendors.

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IV. Main Components
Raspberry-Pi
A Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer originally designed for
education, which runs many of the main components of the board–CPU, graphics, memory,
the USB controller, etc.Ovs-vSwitch the daemon that implements the switch along with a
companion Linux kernel module for flow- based switching. So we install Rasbean OS and
run the Open Vswitch. For more RJ45 port to make small switch, we use USB converter
for convert USB port to RJ45.

V. Objective
After finish this practice, we’ll know something relate to network such as:

• how to make open-vSwitch by using Linux kernel

• Basic of using Linux kernel or open source with Raspberry–pi
• More knowledge open-source and open-vSwitch to develop in networking
• and the enterprise. Actually, we’ll know how the Layer 1(Physical Layer) of the
OIS model work in networking.

VI. Practice
We got the Raspberry-pi, operating system is Rasbean and 3 of interface Ethernet.
1. Install Open-vSwitch
sudo apt install openvswitch-switch openvswitch-common bridge-utils
2. Check the interface ovs-switch on network interface

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 Ifconfig

For check the ovs-system installed and information of Raspberry-pi network

interfaces. For default it doesn’t have ovs-system interface.

3. Create Open-vSwitch bridge name “myovs”

sudo ovs-vsctl add-br myovs

Such as other network interfaces, we need to add bridge for make network as open
flow in ovs-switch bridge name “myovs”
4. Show current configuration OVS summary
sudo ovs-vsctl

In myovs bridge there are:

• Port of myovs
• Interface myovs
5. Turn up ovs-switch bridge
sudo ifconfig myovs up

6. Add three port to the ovs-bridge

sudo ovs-vsctl add-port myovs eth1
sudo ovs-vsctl add-port myovs eth2
sudo ovs-vsctl add-port myovs eth3

7. Remove interface eth1,2,3 IP address

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sudo ifconfig eth1 0
sudo ifconfig eth2 0
sudo ifconfig eth3 0