[caveat; I'm only a nox user, not a developer at Nicira; apply grains of salt as needed]
On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 8:14 AM, puneet gupta<puneetnl...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am starting nox with cli- ./nox_core -i ptcp:6633. > > So here are my questions- > > 1. Is it true that by starting NOX like this it won't do anything since > according to noxrepo.org "NOX exports a programmatic interface on top of > which multiple network programs (which we call applications) can run. These > applications can hook into network events, gain access to traffic, control > the switch forwarding decisions, and generate traffic". > > Hence do i need to start it with an application like ./nox_core -i ptcp:6633 > hub ? Exactly: you should run some application along with nox. I would recommend as an easy first pass, the 'switch' application, i.e., ./nox_core -i ptcp:6633 switch This will get you basic mac address learning switch functionality, i.e., what a normal switch would do. > I did this and then i started receiving ADD messages. But i just want to > confirm that is this the right way to do? Yes, except I think you will find 'switch' more useful than 'hub', if only because switches are typically more useful than hubs :-) > 2. If i want NOX to act like a full fledged controller i.e., making > decisions about Flow Tables, telling what port to output packet coming from > an in-port,increasing bandwidth etc, basically doing everything what the > OpenFlow draft says about,then with which application should i run it ? Or > do i have to write an application in NOX by myself to do all this? You can do both. There are a long list of already build nox applications that you can use off-the-shelf that ship with the code or you can write your own. The above mentioned 'switch' app does everything you've listed above except likely "increasing bandwidth" because I don't know what you mean by that. OpenFlow does not *yet* support any QoS primitives but you likely meant something else. > I was under the impression that server code would all be written and i have > to implement only the Client side of it? All of the *switch* code is written and you only need implement the controller. Nox is actually a controller framework, reducing your task even further. One could in theory control an openflow switch without using nox, but you would likely have to replicate a lot of functionality. > Also is there any other link which clears all this and tells about how to > use it from scratch apart from noxrepo.org? Not directly that I know of. If you go to www.openflowswitch.org, click "getting started" will point you in the right direction, but wouldn't have answered your question. This web page (http://www.openflowswitch.org/wk/index.php/OpenFlowVMS) describes how to create a whole openflow network out of virtual machines, and you can infer a lot from that process. @others: Maybe this is a call for an OpenFlow FAQ? To be fair, I'm not sure these particular questions have come up before... - Rob . _______________________________________________ nox-dev mailing list nox-dev@noxrepo.org http://noxrepo.org/mailman/listinfo/nox-dev_noxrepo.org
