Encoding Control Plane Information in Transport Protocol Source Port Field and Applications Thereof in Network Virtualization

• US 20170149583A1
• Filed: 02/01/2017
• Published: 05/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Chanda, Anupam, Tessmer, Alexander, Hira, Mukesh
• Granted Patent: US 10,135,635 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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

1-28. -28. (canceled)

29. For a managed forwarding element operating on a host machine, a method comprising:

receiving a set of labels from a network controller;

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

adding a tunnel encapsulation to the first and second packets, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet uses a first label from the set of labels for a source port field value and the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet uses a second label from the set of labels for the source port field value; and

transmitting the first and second packets, wherein the first and second packets follow different paths to the destination based on the different labels.

30. The method of claim 29, 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.

31. The method of claim 30, 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.

32. The method of claim 29, wherein an Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing process at a physical router separate from the managed forwarding element selects the different paths for the first and second packets based on the different source labels used in the source port field of the packets.

33. The method of claim 32, 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.

34. The method of claim 29, wherein the network controller provides unique sets of source labels to a plurality of different managed forwarding elements.

35. The method of claim 29 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; and

transmitting the third packet, wherein the third packet follows the same path to the destination as the first packet.

36. The method of claim 29, wherein the source machine is a virtual machine that operates on the host machine.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the virtual machine is a first virtual machine, the managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, and the host machine is a first host machine, wherein the destination machine is a second virtual machine that operates on a second host machine with a second managed forwarding element.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the first and second tunnel encapsulations use a network address of a first tunnel endpoint associated with the first managed forwarding element as a source network address and a network of a second tunnel endpoint associated with the second managed forwarding element as a destination network address.

39. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a managed forwarding element for execution by at least one processing unit of a host machine, the managed forwarding element comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a set of labels from a network controller;

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

adding a tunnel encapsulation to the first and second packets, wherein the tunnel encapsulation for the first packet uses a first label from the set of labels for a source port field value and the tunnel encapsulation for the second packet uses a second label from the set of labels for the source port field value; and

transmitting the first and second packets, wherein the first and second packets follow different paths to the destination based on the different labels.

40. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 39, 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.

41. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 40, 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.

42. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 39, wherein an Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing process at a physical router separate from the managed forwarding element selects the different paths for the first and second packets based on the different source labels used in the source port field of the packets.

43. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 42, 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.

44. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 39, wherein the network controller provides unique sets of source labels to a plurality of different managed forwarding elements.

45. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 39, wherein the managed forwarding element 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; and

transmitting the third packet, wherein the third packet follows the same path to the destination as the first packet.

46. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 39, wherein the source machine is a virtual machine that operates on the host machine.

47. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 46, wherein the virtual machine is a first virtual machine, the managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, and the host machine is a first host machine, wherein the destination machine is a second virtual machine that operates on a second host machine with a second managed forwarding element.

48. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 47, wherein the first and second tunnel encapsulations use a network address of a first tunnel endpoint associated with the first managed forwarding element as a source network address and a network of a second tunnel endpoint associated with the second managed forwarding element as a destination network address.