IMPLEMENTING LOGICAL METADATA PROXY SERVERS IN LOGICAL NETWORKS

• US 20170317974A1
• Filed: 01/30/2017
• Published: 11/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Masurekar, Uday, Jain, Jayant, Zhang, Ronghua, Kancherla, Mani, Agarwal, Minjal
• Granted Patent: US 10,484,515 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/663 Transport layer addresses, e.g. aspects of transmission control protocol [TCP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] ports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5014 using dynamic host configuration protocol [DHCP] or bootstrap protocol [BOOTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/561 Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/325 in the network layer [OSI layer 3], e.g. X.25 H04L69/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/326 in the transport layer [OSI layer 4] H04L69/16 takes precedence

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for providing metadata proxy services to different data compute nodes that are associated with different logical networks (e.g., for different tenants of a datacenter). When a data compute node (DCN) is instantiated (i.e., starts executing) in a host machine, the DCN requests for metadata associated with the DCN from a metadata server. The requested metadata includes identification and configuration data (e.g., name and description, amount of virtual memory, number of allocated virtual CPUs, etc.) for the DCN. Each DCN generates and sends out a metadata request packet after an IP address is assigned to the DCN (e.g., by a DHCP server). In some embodiments, a metadata proxy server (1) receives the metadata request packets that are sent by different DCNs associated with different logical networks, (2) adds logical network identification data to the packets, and (3) forwards the packets to a metadata server.

Claims

1. A method for providing metadata proxy services for a plurality of logical networks, the method comprising:

from a first data compute node (DCN) of a first logical network, receiving a first packet requesting metadata for the first DCN, said first packet comprising a particular layer four destination port number;

from a second DCN of a second logical network, receiving a second packet requesting metadata for the second DCN, said second packet comprising the same particular layer four destination port number;

replacing (i) the particular destination port number in the first packet with a first port number and (ii) the particular destination port number in the second packet with a second different port number; and

forwarding the first and second packets to a metadata proxy server that provides metadata for the first DCN through the first port number and provides metadata for the second DCN through the second port number.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first DCN is logically coupled to a first logical switch in the first logical network and the second DCN is logically coupled to a second logical switch in the second logical network, wherein the first and second packets are received from the first and second logical switches in the first and second logical networks.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first logical switch is in a first subnet that has a first IP address range, wherein the second logical switch is in a second different subnet that has a second IP address range, wherein the first and second IP address ranges comprise one or more overlapping IP addresses.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the metadata proxy server module comprises (i) a first metadata proxy instance that listens to the first port number to provide metadata proxy service for the first logical switch, and (ii) a second metadata proxy instance that listens to the second port to provide metadata proxy service for the second logical switch.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata proxy server module is a namespace operating on a physical node, said namespace comprising a plurality of ports and a plurality of metadata proxy instances, each of which listens to a particular port to provide metadata proxy service to a particular logical switch of a logical network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second packets further comprise a layer three destination address header that includes a same destination address in both packets.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the layer three destination address and the particular layer four destination port number are associated with address and port number of the metadata proxy server module.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the requested metadata comprises at least one of a name and a description for each of the first and second DCNs.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the requested metadata comprises at least one of an amount of virtual memory and a number of virtual processors that should be allocated to each of the first and second DCNs.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising, creating a flow entry for each of the first and second packets to establish a data flow for each request and sending the requested metadata back to the first and second DCNs using the established data flows.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata proxy server module, based on the first port number from which the first packet is received, adds the first logical network identification data to the first packet and forwards the first packet to a metadata server that provides the requested metadata for the first DCN.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the first and second packets comprises receiving the first and second packets at a managed forwarding element that implements the first and second logical networks.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the managed forwarding element executes on an edge node of a hosting system, over network infrastructure of which, the first and second logical networks are implemented.

14. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for providing metadata proxy services for a plurality of logical networks, the program executable by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

from a first data compute node (DCN) of a first logical network, receiving a first packet requesting metadata for the first DCN, said first packet comprising a particular layer four destination port number;

from a second DCN of a second logical network, receiving a second packet requesting metadata for the second DCN, said second packet comprising the same particular layer four destination port number;

replacing (i) the particular destination port number in the first packet with a first port number and (ii) the particular destination port number in the second packet with a second different port number; and

forwarding the first and second packets to a metadata proxy server that provides metadata for the first DCN through the first port number and provides metadata for the second DCN through the second port number.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the metadata proxy server module comprises (i) a first metadata proxy instance that listens to the first port to provide metadata proxy services for the first logical network, and (ii) a second metadata proxy instance that listens to the second port to provide metadata proxy services for the second logical network.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 15, wherein the metadata proxy server module comprises a plurality of other metadata proxy instances, each of which provides metadata proxy services to a plurality of DCNs associated with a particular logical network of the plurality of logical networks.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 15, wherein the metadata proxy server module is a namespace and each of the first and second proxy instances is a process of the namespace.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:

creating a flow entry for each of the first and second packets to establish a data flow for each request; and

sending the requested metadata back to the first and second DCNs using the established data flows.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the metadata proxy server module, based on the first port number from which the first packet is received, adds the first logical network identification data to the first packet and forwards the first packet to a remote metadata server to receive the requested metadata for the first DCN.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the requested metadata comprises at least one of a name for each of the first and second DCNs, a description for each of the first and second DCNs, an amount of virtual memory that should be allocated to each of the first and second DCNs, and a number of virtual processors that should be allocated to each of the first and second DCNs.