[Xorp-hackers] XORP and/or Click with an overlay protocol

Pavlin Radoslavov pavlin at ICSI.Berkeley.EDU
Mon Dec 1 10:46:17 PST 2008


Victor Faion <vfaion at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I wanted to use my forwarding engine (which has its own forwarding table)
> together with my own protocol (at the application layer, using sockets) with
> XORP. I wasn't sure if it's better to implement a separate process that
> interacts with XORP's FEA (this would be the forwarding engine) and another
> process that represents the protocol or if I should implement all of this
> using Click and then plug it into XORP (or just use it only with Click). In
> other words, how much of XORP's code I would need to change to do this and
> would it be easier to do it in Click or to use both?

Without additional info about your protocol it is difficult to give
you advice that will fit best your specific needs.

If I make the assumption that your control protocol is similar to, say,
OSPF or RIP, my generalized advice would be to implement your
control protocol as a separate process that interacts with the XORP
FEA. If you don't have any specific requirements, you shouldn't need
any additional changes to XORP.


Re. your question of XORP vs. Click.
>From XORP's perspective, Click is an IPv4/IPv6 data plane,
though Click itself is much more than that.
Hence, if you implement your protocol in XORP, the "shall I use
XORP+Click" question becomes a question of whether you want to use
Click as the IPv4/IPv6 data plane.
On the other hand, if you have a relatively simple protocol with
some unusual requirements (say, it requires tight integration with
the data plane), and the existing UNIX kernel API is not sufficient,
you might be able to save time getting the initial prototype working
if you use only Click.

Hope that helps,
Pavlin



> Victor
> _______________________________________________
> Xorp-hackers mailing list
> Xorp-hackers at icir.org
> http://mailman.ICSI.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/xorp-hackers



More information about the Xorp-hackers mailing list