Network control software notification with advance learning

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10419267-B2
Application number	US-201414161238-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 22, 2014
Priority date	Jan 22, 2014
Publication date	Sep 17, 2019
Grant date	Sep 17, 2019

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for notifying network control software of new and moved source MAC addresses. In one embodiment, a switch detects packets sent by a new or migrated virtual machine, and sends a copy of a detected packet to the network control software as a notification. The switch further learns the source MAC address, thereby permitting the entry to be used for normal forwarding prior to validation of the entry and the VM associated therewith by the network control software. Until the network control software has validated the VM, the switch may periodically retry the notification to the network control software. “No_Redirect” and “Not_Validated” flags may be used to indicate whether a notification has already been attempted and thus no retry is necessary, and that the VM associated with the VM has not yet been validated, respectively.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by a switch device, are configured to cause the switch device to perform an operation comprising:
identifying a source media access control (MAC) address in a first packet received on the switch device from a virtual machine that is new or migrated, wherein the virtual machine comprises a member of a virtual local area network (VLAN) domain;
upon determining (i) that a forwarding database entry in a forwarding database matches the source MAC address and (ii) that routing information in a port field of the forwarding database entry does not match an ingress port of the first packet, updating the routing information to match the ingress port of the first packet; wherein the switch device is configured to insert the source MAC address into the forwarding database upon no source MAC address match being found;
redirecting a copy of the first packet as a notification to a network control software to validate the virtual machine, wherein the switch device and the network control software are separate entities, wherein the network control software is notified of the source MAC address in advance of the virtual machine being validated and in order to preemptively enable communication between the virtual machine and other virtual machines;
updating the forwarding database by clearing a redirection flag and a validation flag of the forwarding database entry corresponding to the source MAC address, by operation of one or more computer processors of the switch device, wherein the cleared redirection flag indicates to disable any further notification relating to the virtual machine because the network control software has been notified of the virtual machine, wherein the cleared validation flag indicates that the network control software has not yet validated the virtual machine, wherein the redirection flag is periodically reset to true by an aging function that walks the forwarding database; and
performing one or more forwarding operations based on the updated forwarding database and in order to provide notification that is content-aware, wherein the one or more forwarding operations (i) prevent the VLAN domain from being flooded with notifications triggered by any packet directed to the same virtual machine, (ii) while still permitting packets received substantially concurrently from different virtual machines to be redirected as notifications to the network control software.

2. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1 , wherein the one or more forwarding operations include forwarding the first packet to a target MAC address indicated in the first packet.

3. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1 , wherein the aging function walks the forwarding database with a tunable walking latency configurable via setting a programmable delay timer.

4. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1 , wherein the one or more forwarding operations include:
determining that a received second packet has a source MAC address that matches the forwarding database entry corresponding to the source MAC address; and
forwarding the second packet to the network control software only if the redirection flag is set and the validation flag is clear.

5. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1 , wherein the network control software causes the validation flag to be set to true only upon successfully validating the virtual machine.

6. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1 , wherein the redirection and validation flags are fields in the forwarding database entry.

7. A system comprising:
a switch device, having one or more computer processors and memory, configured to execute a program to perform an operation comprising:
identifying a source media access control (MAC) address in a first packet received on the switch device from a virtual machine that is new or migrated, wherein the virtual machine comprises a member of a virtual local area network (VLAN) domain;
upon determining (i) that a forwarding database entry in a forwarding database matches the source MAC address and (ii) that routing information in a port field of the forwarding database entry does not match an ingress port of the first packet, updating the routing information to match the ingress port of the first packet; wherein the switch device is configured to insert the source MAC address into the forwarding database upon no source MAC address match being found;
redirecting a copy of the first packet as a notification to a network control software to validate the virtual machine, wherein the switch device and the network control software are separate entities, wherein the network control software is notified of the source MAC address in advance of the virtual machine being validated and in order to preemptively enable communication between the virtual machine and other virtual machines;
updating the forwarding database by clearing a redirection flag and a validation flag of the forwarding database entry corresponding to the source MAC address, wherein the cleared redirection flag indicates to disable any further notification relating to the virtual machine because the network control software has been notified of the virtual machine, wherein the cleared validation flag indicates that the network control software has not yet validated the virtual machine, wherein the redirection flag is periodically reset to true by an aging function that walks the forwarding database; and
performing one or more forwarding operations based on the updated forwarding database and in order to provide notification that is content-aware, wherein the one or more forwarding operations (i) prevent the VLAN domain from being flooded with notifications triggered by any packet directed to the same virtual machine, (ii) while still permitting packets received substantially concurrently from different virtual machines to be redirected as notifications to the network control software.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the aging function walks the forwarding database with a tunable walking latency configurable via setting a programmable delay timer.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the one or more forwarding operations include:
determining that a received second packet has a source MAC address that matches the forwarding database entry corresponding to the source MAC address; and
forwarding the second packet to the network control software only if the redirection flag is set and the validation flag is clear.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the one or more forwarding operations include forwarding the first packet to a target MAC address indicated in the first packet.

11. The system of claim 7 , wherein the redirection and validation flags are fields in the forwarding database entry.

12. A computer-implemented method comprising, by a switch device:
identifying a source media access control (MAC) address in a first packet received on the switch device from a virtual machine that is new or migrated, wherein the virtual machine comprises a member of a virtual local area network (VLAN) domain;
upon determining (i) that a forwarding database entry in a forwarding database matches the source MAC address and (ii) that routing information in a port field of the forwarding database entry does not match an ingress port of the first packet, updating the routing information to match the ingress port of the first packet; wherein the switch device is configured to insert the source MAC address into the forwarding database upon no source MAC address match bein

Assignees

• Lenovo Entpr Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd

Inventors

• Basso Claude
• Cors Josep
• Janakiraman Venkatesh K
• Lao Sze-Wa
• Shah Sameer M
• Shedivy David A
• Spiegel Ethan M
• Vaidhyanathan Natarajan
• Verrilli Colin B

Classifications

• H04L49/70

  Virtual switches · CPC title

• H04L43/028 Primary

  by filtering · CPC title

• H04L41/046 Primary

  comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor · CPC title