wiki:Internal/OpenFlow/Controllers/Nox

Version 4 (modified by akoshibe, 14 years ago) ( diff )

NOX - Network OS

NOX is an OpenFlow controller/ controller development platform. Here we'll use the "destiny" (v0.8) branch of NOX from the Git repository. As of now, a copy of the docs for v0.6 can be found under ./html in my home directory on external2. I shall move this to another, more appropriate place.

1. installation

  1. Install git, build-essential, doxygen (for up-to-date NOX docs)
    apt-get install git-core build-essential doxygen
    
  2. Pull NOX from git repo
    git clone git://noxrepo.org/nox
    
  3. Install dependencies
    sudo apt-get install autoconf automake g++ libtool python python-twisted swig libboost-dev libxerces-c2-dev libssl-dev make libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-test-dev python-dev
    
  4. Switch to the proper branch and build
    git checkout -b destiny origin/destiny
    ./boot.sh
    mkdir build
    cd build
    ../configure
    make
    
  5. generate documentation
    cd doc/doxygen            <<--from build directory, not ~/nox
    make html
    

2. using NOX

2.1. starting up NOX

nox_core is used to start the controller and to load any scripts. It is located under ~/nox/build/src . For example

./nox_core -v -i ptcp:6633 switch packetdump

Will load the "learning switch" script. It will show up as "lt-nox_core" under ps -ef.

2.2. creating a component (in C++)

The information on how to do this can be found in /html/Howto.html under the doxygen generated docs for nox. As the steps require file creation, compilation, ect, you may need root privelages on the machine. The rough steps are as follows:

  1. Run nox-new-c-app.py from coreapps, netapps, or webapps (all three directories are found in ${NOXPATH}/nox/src/nox), where ${NOXPATH} is the place with your working nox directory).
     /home/openflow/nox/src/scripts/nox-new-c-app.py -v cnf_test
    

nox-new-c-app.py basically creates a directory containing the framework for your application (Makefile, meta.json, ect), basing it on coreapps/simple_c_app. Your app gets created in whichever directory you run nox-new-c-app.py from; in this case we created a new app "cnf_test" in directory coreapps.

  1. run boot.sh and configure so nox can find and load the app when it starts up:
    ./boot.sh                       #this is found in the root of your nox directory e.g. ~/nox/boot.sh
    cd build
    ../configure
    make
    
  1. to test if your app is there, you can watch out for it being loaded when you do a dry run of nox_core:
    root@node1-4:~/nox/build/src# ./nox_core -i ptcp:6633 -v
    00001|nox|INFO:Starting nox_core (/home/openflow/nox/build/src/.libs/lt-nox_core)
    ...
    00006|pyrt|DBG:Loading a component description file 'nox/coreapps/cnf_test/meta.json'.
    

or try loading it:

 ./nox_core -i ptcp:6633 -v "cnf test"

note that any underscores in the name of your app become spaces - e.g. "cnf_test" becomes "cnf test"

If you see the following after issuing the above command, you have a working framework:

00046|openflow|DBG:Passive tcp interface bound to port 6633
00047|nox|INFO:nox bootstrap complete
00048|openflow|DBG:Passive tcp interface received connection 
00049|openflow|DBG:stream: negotiated OpenFlow version 0x01 (we support versions 0x01 to 0x01 inclusive, peer no later than version 0x01)
...
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