Honeycomb/VBD API

This document outlines the supported operations for managing Virtual Bridge Domains (VBD) on netconf-mounted honeycomb VPP nodes. Currently, the implementation supports the following operations:

• Creating new VBDs
• Adding netconf-mounted nodes to a VBD
• Creating vxlan tunnels between VPP nodes to create a full-mesh network topology
• Creating interfaces on VPP nodes to support vxlan tunnels
• Adding created vxlan tunnel interfaces to a VBD
• Creating termination points to represent created interfaces
• Creating links to represent vxlan tunnels

The only requirement for the user is to create new VBDs and then to add nodes to it. All the other operations are used internally by the implementation to set up the infrastructure and state necessary to support and interact with the VBD.

The steps to create a functional VBD are as follows:

1. Mount nodes via netconf
2. Create a new VBD
3. Add netconf-mounted nodes to the VBD topology

This article won't cover mounting nodes via netconf, as that is out of scope, so let's just move right into creating a VBD.

Creating a new Virtual Bridge Domain

To create a new VBD, you must create a new topology in the controller's datastore with vbridge-topology as the topology type. You must also provide a name for the new VBD, as well as a VNI to use for vxlan tunneling. There are also several other options which can be configured for the new VBD, which you can find in the example below.

The easiest way to get the data into the controller's datastore is via RESTCONF. You can make a request like this:

PUT  http://localhost:8181/restconf/config/network-topology:network-topology/topology/testBD

With this as the request body:

{
   "topology": [
       {
           "topology-id": "testBD",
           "topology-types": {
               "vbridge-topology:vbridge-topology": {}
           },
           "vbridge-topology:tunnel-type": "vxlan-tunnel:tunnel-type-vxlan",
           "vbridge-topology:flood": "true",
           "vbridge-topology:forward": "true",
           "vbridge-topology:learn": "true",
           "vbridge-topology:unknown-unicast-flood": "true",
           "vbridge-topology:arp-termination": "false",
           "vxlan-tunnel:vni": "17"
       }
   ]
}

Make sure that the topology id field and the last segment of the request URL match.

Now that you have a new VBD, we can add a node to it.

Adding a node to the VBD

To add a node to the VBD, you must add it to the network topology which we created above. Then the implementation will configure the node and add it to the VBD.

Adding a node to the topology is again easiest to do over RESTCONF. The request looks like this:

PUT http://localhost:8181/restconf/config/network-topology:network-topology/network-topology:topology/testBD/node/node0

With this as the request body:

{
   "node": 
   {
       "node-id": "node0",
       "supporting-node": [
           {
               "topology-ref": "topology-netconf",
               "node-ref": "hcmount0"
           }
       ]
   }
}

There are some constraints on this requests body:

1. The node-id field should match the last segment of the request URL
2. The third to last segment of the URL (testBD in the above example) should match the id of the VBD which was created
3. The topology-ref field should contain the id of the netconf topology which was created
4. The node-ref field should contain the id of the netconf mount which is to back this node

Once at least two nodes are added to the VBD topology, vxlan tunnels will be set up automatically to create a full-mesh network between the VPP nodes.

You can then verify that the VBD was created by looking at the controller's operational store as follows:

GET   http://localhost:8181/restconf/operational/network-topology:network-topology/topology/testBD

And you can see the created VBD, the termination points and supporting interfaces, and the links between the nodes:

{
 "topology": [
   {
     "topology-id": "testBD",
     "topology-types": {
       "vbridge-topology:vbridge-topology": {}
     },
     "node": [
       {
         "node-id": "node0",
         "vbridge-topology:bridge-member": {
           "supporting-bridge-domain": "v3po:vpp/bridge-domains/bridge-domain/testBD"
         },
         "termination-point": [
           {
             "tp-id": "vxlan_tunnel0",
             "vbridge-topology:tunnel-interface": "vxlan_tunnel0"
           }
         ]
       },
       {
         "node-id": "node1",
         "vbridge-topology:bridge-member": {
           "supporting-bridge-domain": "v3po:vpp/bridge-domains/bridge-domain/testBD"
         },
         "termination-point": [
           {
             "tp-id": "vxlan_tunnel0",
             "vbridge-topology:tunnel-interface": "vxlan_tunnel0"
           }
         ]
       }
     ],
     "link": [
       {
         "link-id": "node0-node1",
         "destination": {
           "dest-node": "node1",
           "dest-tp": "vxlan_tunnel0"
         },
         "source": {
           "source-tp": "vxlan_tunnel0",
           "source-node": "node0"
         },
         "vbridge-topology:tunnel": "vxlan_tunnel0"
       },
       {
         "link-id": "node1-node0",
         "destination": {
           "dest-node": "node0",
           "dest-tp": "vxlan_tunnel0"
         },
         "source": {
           "source-tp": "vxlan_tunnel0",
           "source-node": "node1"
         },
         "vbridge-topology:tunnel": "vxlan_tunnel0"
       }
     ]
   }
 ]
}