OFTest for Hardware switch

[BasavarajMadiwalar]

Hi,
I am new to OFTest. I am planning to run OFTest to test a Hardware openflow Switch.
I understand that a single OFtest instance emulates a controller and also generates the data necessary for the switch dataplane.

1. Is it possible run OFtest on a commodity PC with a single NIC and connect it to a Hardware Switch to test the OpenFlow features (for e.g.. different features of openflow 1.0 and 1.3).

2. do i need to have a PC with multi-port NIC ? or Can i run 2 OFtest instances on 2 different commodity PCs(one instance to emulate controller and the other to generate the data) which can be connected to a hardware switch under test?

Any response is highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Basavaraj

[kenchiang]

As you wrote above, OFTest sends OpenFlow commands to configure the switch under test and then sends packets to and receives packets from the switch's dataplane interfaces.

The most basic setup for testing a hardware switch would have two interfaces -- one for switch configuration (for OpenFlow controller-switch communication) and one to carry dataplane traffic. This would be useful if you were hairpinning traffic (i.e. incoming dataplane traffic is massaged and egressed through the same dataplane interface).

The next most basic setup would have three interfaces -- one for switch configuration and two to carry dataplane traffic. This would allow you to ingress traffic on one dataplane interface, have the switch do something to that traffic, and egress the resulting traffic on the other dataplane interface.

It's not clear to me how you would use OFTest running on a single PC with one NIC. You would need some way of demultiplexing the control traffic and dataplane traffic that would be egressing the PC via that single NIC.

If you had three PCs with one NIC on each PC, you could conceivably use one PC to generate control traffic, and the other two to generate dataplane traffic. But you would need to hack up OFTest so that one PC's OFTest only generates control traffic, and the other PCs' OFTests take care of the dataplane traffic. You would also need to coordinate the three OFTests appropriately so that the right things happen at the right times.

My vote is for a PC with two or three NICs, depending on your application.

Or if you had full control of the management and dataplane ports of another switch, you could run OFTest on that switch, using that switch as a test rig to stimulate your switch under test.

[BasavarajMadiwalar]

Thanks for the response Ken Chiang.
I have got a setup with 3 ports now. I still see that test involving Data Ports are showing some error. Did you face similar issue with Hardware Switch?

BR,

Basavaraj

[kenchiang]

We use this framework daily for our internal testing.
It might be possible to provide some advice, if you have a specific failing test and can provide the error message that you are seeing.