Transaction controls for supplying control plane data to managed hardware forwarding element
Some embodiments provide novel methods for controllers to communicate with managed hardware forwarding elements (MHFEs) in a transactional manner. The transactional communication methods of some embodiments ensure that an MHFE receives the entirety of a control plane update that a controller supplies to it, before the MHFE starts to modify its data plane forwarding data and operations. The transactional communication methods of some embodiments provide one or more transactional boundary controls to the controllers to define complete control plane data set updates. In some embodiments, the transactional controls ensure that an MHFE receives all of a control plane update before it starts to modify its data plane forwarding data. Controllers use one transactional control in some embodiments when they define logical forwarding elements (e.g., logical switches or routers) on the MHFEs.
1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for configuring a managed hardware forwarding element (MHFE) to implement a logical forwarding element (LFE) along with a plurality of other managed forwarding elements operating outside of the MHFE, and to communicatively couple the LFE with a private network, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
providing a plurality of data tuples for defining the LFE on the MHFE, without providing a data tuple for binding the LFE to a port of the MHFE to ensure that all data tuples of the plurality of data tuples are received at the MHFE before the MHFE creates forwarding records for the LFE;
after providing the plurality of data tuples for defining the LFE, receiving confirmation from the MHFE that the MHFE has processed the plurality of data tuples; and
after receiving the confirmation, providing the data tuple that binds the LFE to a port of the MHFE in order to couple the LFE with the private network through the MHFE.
2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for ordering the data tuples for the MHFE such that the data tuple for binding the LFE to the MHFE port is last.
3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein:
the MHFE comprises (i) a module that retrieves the provided data tuples and uses the provided data tuples to configure dataplane forwarding records of the MHFE to implement the LFE and (ii) a forwarding engine that uses the dataplane forwarding records to process data messages that the MHFE receives; and
the module does not configure the dataplane forwarding records based on the provided data tuples until the data tuple for binding the LFE to the MHFE port is provided.
4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein:
the MHFE comprises a database with a plurality of tables for storing the provided data tuples;
the database uses a hardware VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel End Point) schema and
the data tuples are provided to the database on the MHFE by using an OVSdb (open vswitch database) protocol.
5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the MHFE port is associated with multiple VLANs (virtual local area networks), and the binding data tuple binds the LFE to a VLAN associated with the MHFE port.
6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the other forwarding elements that implement the LFE with the MHFE comprise a plurality of software forwarding elements that execute on host computers on which data compute nodes also execute.
7. A method for configuring a managed hardware forwarding element (MHFE) to implement a logical forwarding element (LFE) along with a plurality of other managed forwarding elements operating outside of the MHFE, and to communicatively couple the LFE with a private network, the method comprising:
providing a plurality of data tuples to the MHFE to implement the LFE along with the plurality of other managed forwarding elements operating outside of the MHFE, said plurality of data tuples provided to the MHFE without providing a data tuple for binding the LFE to a port of the MHFE;
after providing the plurality of data tuples for implementing the LFE, receiving confirmation from the MHFE that the MHFE has processed the plurality of data tuples to implement the LFE on the MHFE; and
after receiving the confirmation, providing the data tuple that binds the LFE to a port of the MHFE in order to couple the LFE with the private network through the MHFE.
8. The method of claim 7 further comprising ordering the data tuples for the MHFE such that the data tuple for binding the LFE to the MHFE port is last.
9. The method of claim 7 :
wherein the MHFE comprises (i) a module that retrieves the provided data tuples and uses the provided data tuples to configure dataplane forwarding records of the MHFE to implement the LFE, and (ii) a forwarding engine that uses the dataplane forwarding records to process data messages that the MHFE receives; and
the module does not configure the dataplane forwarding records based on the provided data tuples until the data tuple for binding the LFE to the MHFE port is provided.
10. The method of claim 7 , wherein:
the MHFE comprises a database with a plurality of tables for storing the provided data tuples;
the database uses a hardware VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel End Point) schema; and
the data tuples are provided to the database on the MHFE by using an OVSdb (open vswitch database) protocol.
11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the MHFE port is associated with multiple VLANs (virtual local area networks), and the binding data tuple binds the LFE to a VLAN associated with the MHFE port.
12. The method of claim 7 , wherein the other forwarding elements that implement the LFE with the MHFE comprise a plurality of software forwarding elements that execute on host computers on which data compute nodes also execute.
13. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for configuring a managed hardware forwarding element (MHFE) to implement a logical forwarding element (LFE) along with a plurality of other managed forwarding elements operating outside of the MHFE, and to communicatively couple the LFE with a private network, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
providing a first set of data tuples to define the LFE on the MHFE and to define a state of the LFE as incomplete;
providing a second set of data tuples to complete the definition of the LFE on the MHFE;
after providing the first and second sets of data tuples, receiving confirmation that the first and second sets of data tuples have been processed by the MHFE; and
after receiving confirmation, providing a third set of data tuples to change the LFE state to complete.
14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13 , wherein
the MHFE comprises (i) a module that retrieves the provided data tuples and uses the provided data tuples to configure dataplane forwarding records of the MHFE to implement the LFE and (ii) a forwarding engine that uses the dataplane forwarding records to process data messages that the MHFE receives; and
the module does not configure the dataplane forwarding records based on the provided data tuples until the state of the LFE is set to complete.
15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the MHFE comprises a database with a plurality of tables for storing the provided data tuples.
16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the database uses a hardware VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel End Point) schema, and the data tuples are provided to the database on the MHFE by using an OVSdb (open vswitch database) protocol.
17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16 , wherein:
the LFE is a logical switch;
the hardware VTEP schema specifies a logical switch table that comprises a record for the logical switch; and
the logical switch record includes a Boolean field for specifying whether the state of the logical switch is complete.