A Remotely Accessible Network Processor-Based Router for Network Experimentation Charlie Wiseman, Jonathan Turner, Michela Becchi, Patrick Crowley, John DeHart, Mart Haitjema, Shakir James, Fred Kuhns, Jing Lu, Jyoti Parwatikar, Ritun Patney, Michael Wilson, Ken Wong, David Zar Department of Computer Science and Engineering Washington University in St. Louis fcgw1,jst,mbecchi,crowley,jdd,mah5,scj1,fredk,jl1,jp,ritun,mlw2,kenw,
[email protected] ABSTRACT Keywords Over the last decade, programmable Network Processors Programmable routers, network testbeds, network proces- (NPs) have become widely used in Internet routers and other sors network components. NPs enable rapid development of com- plex packet processing functions as well as rapid response to 1. INTRODUCTION changing requirements. In the network research community, the use of NPs has been limited by the challenges associ- Multi-core Network Processors (NPs) have emerged as a ated with learning to program these devices and with using core technology for modern network components. This has them for substantial research projects. This paper reports been driven primarily by the industry's need for more flexi- on an extension to the Open Network Laboratory testbed ble implementation technologies that are capable of support- that seeks to reduce these \barriers to entry" by providing ing complex packet processing functions such as packet clas- a complete and highly configurable NP-based router that sification, deep packet inspection, virtual networking and users can access remotely and use for network experiments. traffic engineering. Equally important is the need for sys- The base router includes support for IP route lookup and tems that can be extended during their deployment cycle to general packet filtering, as well as a flexible queueing sub- meet new service requirements.