Handling NAT migration in logical L3 routing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9407599-B2
Application number	US-201313757642-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 1, 2013
Priority date	Aug 17, 2011
Publication date	Aug 2, 2016
Grant date	Aug 2, 2016

Abstract

For a network controller for managing managed forwarding elements running in hosts in a network, a method for configuring a host to facilitate migration of a virtual machine (VM) from a first host to a second host is described. The method configure, in the first host, a first managed forwarding element to perform (1) a logical L3 routing processing and (2) a network address translation (NAT) processing for a VM running in the first host. The method configures the first host to automatically send NAT information to the second host when the VM migrates to the second host so that a second managed forwarding element running in the second host can perform a NAT processing for the migrated VM based on the NAT information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. For a network controller for managing first and second managed forwarding elements that respectively execute on first and second hosts, a method for configuring the first host to facilitate migration of a virtual machine (VM) to the second host, the method comprising:
for the VM, configuring the first managed forwarding element of the first host to perform (i) route processing for a logical forwarding element to route VM packets between a first logical network domain and a second network domain, and (ii) network address translation (NAT) processing to translate between a first set of internet protocol (IP) addresses in the first logical network domain and a second set of IP addresses in the second network domain, wherein the VM belongs to a logical network that includes a logical forwarding element that is implemented by the first and second managed forwarding elements of the first and second hosts;
configuring the first host to transmit NAT information to the second host when the VM migrates to the second host; and
configuring the second managed forwarding element of the second host to perform the NAT processing for the migrated VM to translate between the first set of IP addresses in the first logical network domain and the second set of IP addresses using the transmitted information.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein configuring the first managed forwarding element comprises configuring the first managed forwarding element to direct a migration module of the first host to send the NAT information to the second host.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising configuring the first managed forwarding element to notify the migration module of a completion of the migration of the NAT state prior to the VM's migration to the second host.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising migrating the VM from the first host to the second host without changing the logical network domain in the logical network to which the VM belongs.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein configuring the first host comprises configuring a migration module of the first host to send the NAT information to the second host.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the NAT information includes at least one associated pair of IP addresses that comprises an IP address in the first set of IP addresses and an IP address in the second set of IP addresses for inclusion in a NAT table of the second host.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the NAT information includes flow entries for configuring the second managed forwarding element to perform the NAT processing for the VM.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the route processing comprises logically routing a packet between a source machine that is in the first logical domain and a destination machine that is in the second logical domain, said logically routing a packet comprising (i) identifying a logical router by identifying a logical egress port of the first logical domain that is associated with a media access control (MAC) address of the logical router and (ii) identifying a logical egress port of the logical router that has an IP address associated with an IP subnet for the second logical domain.

9. A computer configured as a first host for managing network traffic, the computer comprising:
a set of processing units;
a set of virtual machines (VMs) for execution by at least one processing unit in the set of processing units;
a first software forwarding element for execution by at least one processing unit in the set of processing units, the first software forwarding element communicatively coupled to the set of VMs, the software forwarding element configured (i) to route packets from a first logical network domain to a second network domain for the set of VMs, (ii) to implement, with a second software forwarding element that executes on a second host, a logical forwarding element and (iii) to perform a network address translation (NAT) processing that translates internet protocol (IP) addresses of the packets between a first set of IP addresses of the first logical network domain and a second set of IP addresses of the second network domain; and
a migration module for (i) execution by at least one processing unit in the set of processing units and (ii) sending NAT information to the second host when a VM in the set of VMs migrates to the second host to enable the second software forwarding element to translate, for the migrated VM, IP addresses of the packets between the first set of IP addresses of the first logical network domain and the second set of IP addresses of the second network domain.

10. The computer of claim 9 , wherein the NAT information includes at least one associated pair of IP addresses that comprises an IP address in the first set of IP addresses and an IP address in the second set of IP addresses for inclusion in a NAT table of the second host.

11. The computer of claim 9 , wherein the NAT information includes flow entries for configuring the second software forwarding element to perform the NAT processing for the VM.

12. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program comprising sets of instructions for:
configuring a first managed forwarding element of a first host and a second managed forwarding element of a second host to implement a logical forwarding element for a logical network;
for a VM executing on the first host, configuring the first managed forwarding element of the first host to perform (i) route processing for the logical forwarding element to route VM packets between a first logical network domain and a second network domain, and (ii) NAT processing to translate between a first set of internet protocol (IP) addresses in the first logical network domain and a second set of IP addresses in the second network domain;
configuring the first host to transmit NAT information to the second host when the VM migrates to the second host; and
configuring the second managed forwarding element of the second host to perform the NAT processing for the migrated VM to translate between the first set of IP addresses in the first logical network domain and the second set of IP addresses using the transmitted information.

13. The machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for detecting the VM's migration to the second host.

14. The machine readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the set of instructions for configuring the first host comprises a set of instructions for configuring a migration module of the first host to send the NAT information to the second host.

15. The machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the second network is a logical network.

16. The machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the second network is not a logical network.

17. The machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the first and second network domains are different logical domains of the logical network, wherein the first set of IP addresses is a first subnet in the logical network and the second set of IP addresses is a second subnet in the logical network.

Assignees

• Nicira Inc

Inventors

• Koponen Teemu
• Thakkar Pankaj
• Zhang Ronghua

Classifications

• H04L45/74 Primary

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L61/256

  NAT traversal · CPC title

• H04L45/04

  Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing · CPC title

• H04L61/2592

  using tunnelling or encapsulation · CPC title

• H04L45/54

  Organization of routing tables · CPC title