OESS - Open Exchange Software Suite

Copyright 2011 Trustees of Indiana University 
 
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.


1. What is OESS

OESS is an application to configure and control OpenFlow Enabled switches
through a very simple and user friendly User Interface.  OESS provides 
sub-second circuit provisioning, automatic failover, per-interface permissions, 
and automatic per-Vlan statistics.

2. Requirements

OESS requires several packages to work, the core is built on Apache, and MySQL
howevever there are several other packages needed.  One of which is SNAPP collector.

3. Installation

OESS is easy to setup, with our provided oess_setup.pl script.  This script
(installed in /usr/bin/oess_setup.pl via RPM) takes a user step by step to
get base OESS configuration up and running.  Once the base installation is
complete the rest of the configuration is done through the Administrator 
Interface located (http://localhost/oess/admin/admin_index.cgi).  This UI
allows for the creation of new users, the acceptance of new Nodes and links
and the setup and configuration of workgroups.

To start the OESS services, there is an init script /etc/init.d/oess that should
start all of the individual pieces of OESS in the proper order.

OESS needs a few ports to be able to operator
6633 - OpenFlow protocol
443/80  - Apache/SSL

4. Administration

The Admin UI provides the ability to control almost every aspect of the OESS 
software.  Including users, workgroups, ports, nodes, and links. Any 
user that can reach the administrative UI can make any changes.  This should
be locked down to allowed users, through use of a different HTPASSWD file
or a different authentication mechanism.  Once this is done, users can be 
added and put into workgroups.  The workgroups allow permissions to be assigned
to users as groups instead of individuals.  This way an entity can have multiple
people with the same permissions.  Workgroups are given access to individual 
interfaces on devices. Any workgroup can provision over trunk interfaces.

Once a user and workgroup are configured, the network devices need to be approved.
This depends on the network devices being configured to talk to the openflow
controller now running on the host.  If the devices are talking to the controller
then they will appear in the Discovery section of the admin UI.  Clicking a row
in under the devices table, allows the user to set the device name, and set a lat
and longitude.  Once the device is confirmed, any links detected between other 
confirmed devices will appear in the links table.  Select a row in the Links table
to approve a link for usage.  Once all of the devices and links have been confirmed
the available non-trunk interfaces for the devices will appear in the Workgroups 
add Edge Port page.  Add any ports to the workgroup to allow that group to provision
any circuits.

5. Configuration

IF YOU RAN THE oess_setup.pl SCRIPT SKIP THIS SECTION!

If you do not use the oess_setup.pl script then manual configuration must occur.
First you need a mysql instance running, and need to create an OESS mysql user
and set the password, finally create the database named (oess?) and do a grant 
all on oess.* to your oess user.

Once the OESS user is installed and granted privileges on the OESS Database,
you can now install the schema.  The schema will be located with the OESS::Database
perl module.  It will be called nddi.sql.  Import the schema into your mysql instance.

Once the OESS schema is installed, you need to set a few bits of information, for example
it needs a local network/domain.  This needs to be inserted into the network table, and 
the is_local bit needs to be set to 1.

At this point in time the OESS database is all set, but the OESS configuration is not done.
OESS needs to know how to talk to the database, the configuration file that contains this
information needs to be located in /etc/oess/database.xml this configuration file should 
contain all of the information on how to connect to the mysql database, and oscars 
configuration details.  The config file should look like this...

<config version="0.1" snapp_config_location="/SNMP/snapp/snapp_config.xml">
  <credentials type="mysql" database="oess" username="oess-rw" password="secret"></credentials>
  <oscars host="https://localhost" cert="/path/to/mycert.crt" key="/path/to/mykey.key" 
  topo="http://ndb7.net.internet2.edu:8012/perfSONAR_PS/services/topology"/>
</config>

At this point OESS is configured, but services like SNAPP are not. To set them up, you'll need 
to first set up the snapp database.  The SQL file for this will be located in /usr/share/oess-core/ 
and will be called snapp.mysql.sql.  Insert it into a database called snapp. If you don't already,
create a user called snapp for the database, and within SQL, run:

    `GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON snapp.* to 'snapp'\@'localhost'`

Afterwards, you will need to go and create a config file for SNAPP. Run these commands:

    `/bin/mkdir -p /SNMP/snapp`

Then with your favorite text editor, create an xml file at this location:

    `/SNMP/snapp/snapp_config.xml`

Add this in there for the configuration.  Don't forget to replace the password field with your database password!

<snapp-config>
  <db type="mysql" name="snapp" username="snapp" password="$snapp_pass" port="3306" host="localhost" collection_class_name="PerVlanPerInterface">
    </db>
      <control port="9967" enable_password="control-caos"></control>
</snapp-config>

Now, for SNAPP to be of any use to you, you will need to set up a location for the rrd files.  To set that up, run these commands.

    `/bin/mkdir /SNMP/snapp/db/`

    `/bin/chown _snapp:_snapp /SNMP/snapp/db/ -R`



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7. Where to go for Help

8. Downloading the Code

9. Supported devices

So far OESS has been tested against the NEC Rack switch model G8264

10. OSCARS (IDC)

OESS only works with OSCARS 0.6.  An OSCARS distribution that has been tested
to work with OESS is included with this distribution.  Configuring OSCARS is 
covered in the OSCARS documentation.  Configuring OESS to work with OSCARS is 
covered below.

Presuming you have an OSCARS 0.6 instance setup and running, it is very simple
to import all of the remote topologies into your OESS instance.  A script called
populate_remote_information.pl pulls down topology from the configured Topology
Service and populates the node and interface data into the Database.  This is
then used when provisioning Interdomain circuits in OESS.  To configure remote
links to other networks in OESS, use the Administration UI, and select the Remote
Links tab.  To add a new Link, first select the confirmed node, then pick the local
interface the remote link is on.  At this point you will get a popup that ask for the
name and the remote urn.  The name will be the name for the link in your topology
that will be submitted to the Topology service.  The remote URN should be the remote
IDCs endpoint which this port connects to.  When you are done adding remote links
click the submit topology button, to submit your topology to your configured 
Topology Service

You probably need to restart OSCARS now to make it not cache the topology.
At this point if you have a peering up, you should be able to do interdomain circuits

11. Testing with MiniNet

If you want to test and play with OESS but do not have any OpenFlow capable switches
then MiniNet is for you.  MiniNet provides software defined OpenFlow switches that
can process flow rules according to the openflow specification.

MiniNet can be obtained here
http://yuba.stanford.edu/foswiki/bin/view/OpenFlow/MininetGettingStarted

Save the following as /home/openflow/mininet/custom/oess.py
from mininet.topo import Topo, Node

class MyTopo( Topo ):
   "Simple topology example."

   def __init__( self, enable_all = True ):
       "Create custom topo."

       # Add default members to class.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
       super( MyTopo, self ).__init__()

       # Set Node IDs for hosts and switches                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
       northSwitch = 1
       southSwitch = 2
       eastSwitch  = 3
       westSwitch  = 4

       eastHost  = 5
       westHost  = 6
       northHost = 7

       # Add nodes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
       self.add_node( northSwitch, Node( is_switch=True ) )
       self.add_node( southSwitch, Node( is_switch=True ) )
       self.add_node( eastSwitch,  Node( is_switch=True ) )
       self.add_node( westSwitch,  Node( is_switch=True ) )

       self.add_node( eastHost,    Node( is_switch=False ) )
       self.add_node( westHost,   Node( is_switch=False ) )
       self.add_node( northHost,   Node( is_switch=False ) )

       # Add edges                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
       self.add_edge( eastSwitch, northSwitch )
       self.add_edge( eastSwitch, southSwitch )
       self.add_edge( westSwitch, northSwitch )
       self.add_edge( westSwitch, southSwitch )
       #self.add_edge( northSwitch, southSwitch )                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
       self.add_edge( eastSwitch, eastHost )
       self.add_edge( westSwitch, westHost )
       self.add_edge( northSwitch, northHost )

       # Consider all switches and hosts 'on'                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
       self.enable_all()

topos = { 'oess_example': ( lambda: MyTopo() ) }

then run the following on the mini-net host

cd /home/openflow/mininet; sudo mn --controller remote --ip <ip address of controller host> --custom ./custom/oess.py --topo oess_example --port=<port controller is listening on, default 6633>