Encoding control plane information in transport protocol source port field and applications thereof in network virtualization

• US 10,135,635 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2017
• Issued: 11/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hira, Mukesh, Tessmer, Alexander, Chanda, Anupam
• Primary Examiner(s): Phunkulh, Bob A
• Application Number:
  US15/422,065
• Publication Number:
  US 20170149583A1
• Time in Patent Office: 657 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1886 with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/46 Interconnection of networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/16 Multipoint routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/38 Flow based routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/354 for supporting virtual local area networks [VLAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A novel method that uses the source port field in the transport or connection layer (L4) header to encode control plane information is provided. Specifically, the method encodes control plane information in UDP or TCP source port field of data plane tunnels in an overlay network such as VXLAN. Network virtualization is implemented by a network controller over an overlay network on the physical fabric. The network controller provides a mapping table to the data plane hosts for mapping the encoded bits in the source port field to semantically richer information. The data plane hosts in turn uses the encoded source bits and the mapping table to infer this semantically richer information. This semantically richer information is used to allow receivers of proxied traffic to learn the address of the original sender. The semantically richer information can also be used to enable ECMP for the transmitted packets.

Claims

1. A method operating on a host computer, the method comprising:

receiving first and second packets belonging to first and second data flows between a source machine and a destination machine;

adding a tunnel encapsulation to each of the first and second packets;

storing in a source port field of the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet a first label from a set of labels received from a network controller and storing in a source port field of the the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet a different, second label from the set of labels, said storing of the different first and second labels to cause the first and second packets to follow different paths to the destination; and

from the host computer, forwarding the first and second packets along a network infrastructure to the destination machine.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first and second packets comprises the source port field, a destination port field, a source network address field, and a destination network address field.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet and the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet uses a same source network address and a same destination network address.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein an Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing process at a physical router separate from the host computer selects the different paths for the first and second packets based on the different labels used in the source port field of the packets.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the ECMP routing process uses a hash value generated at least in part based on the source port field of a particular packet to select the path for the particular packet.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the network controller provides unique sets of labels to a plurality of different host computers.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a third packet belonging to the first data flow;

adding a tunnel encapsulation to the third packet that uses the first label for the source port field value in order to cause the third packet to follow the same path to the destination as the first packet; and

from the host computer, forwarding the third packet along the network infrastructure to the destination.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the source machine is a virtual machine that operates on the host machine.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the virtual machine is a first virtual machine and the host computer is a first host computer, wherein the destination machine is a second virtual machine that operates on a second host computer.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first and second tunnel encapsulations use a network address of a first tunnel endpoint associated with a first managed forwarding element on the first host computer as a source network address and a network address of a second tunnel endpoint associated with a second managed forwarding element on the second host computer as a destination network address.

11. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for execution by at least one processing unit of a host computer, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving first and second packets belonging to first and second data flows between a source machine and a destination machine;

adding a tunnel encapsulation to each of the first and second packets;

storing in a source port field of the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet a first label from a set of labels received from a network controller and storing in a source port field of the the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet a different, second label from the set of labels, said storing of the different first and second labels to cause the first and second packets to follow different paths to the destination; and

from the host computer, forwarding the first and second packets along a network infrastructure to the destination machine.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first and second packets comprises the source port field, a destination port field, a source network address field, and a destination network address field.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet and the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet uses a same source network address and a same destination network address.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein an Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing process at a physical router separate from the host computer selects the different paths for the first and second packets based on the different labels used in the source port field of the packets.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the ECMP routing process uses a hash value generated at least in part based on the source port field of a particular packet to select the path for the particular packet.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein the network controller provides unique sets of labels to a plurality of different host computers.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a third packet belonging to the first data flow;

adding a tunnel encapsulation to the third packet that uses the first label for the source port field value in order to cause the third packet to follow the same path to the destination as the first packet; and

from the host computer, forwarding the third packet along the network infrastructure to the destination.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein the source machine is a virtual machine that operates on the host machine.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the virtual machine is a first virtual machine and the host computer is a first host computer, wherein the destination machine is a second virtual machine that operates on a second host computer.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 19, wherein the first and second tunnel encapsulations use a network address of a first tunnel endpoint associated with a first managed forwarding element on the first host computer as a source network address and a network address of a second tunnel endpoint associated with a second managed forwarding element on the second host computer as a destination network address.