The emergence of off-the-shelf network processor devices has created the need for standard mechanisms to allow these components to be combined into functional wholes. ForCES aims to define a framework and associated mechanisms for standardizing the exchange of information between the logically separate functionality of the control plane and the forwarding plane. In the Unix world, Linux Netlink already addresses some ForCES requirements: Netlink2 intends to extend Netlink so that it is more compliant with the ForCES requirements. After describing ForCES and Netlink, this paper explains some Netlink2 design choices. A description of our GPL Netlink2 Linux implementation is also given. This description is followed by performance measurements. Before concluding, we point out some open issues which should be addressed in future.
By: Guillaume Goutaudier
Published in: RZ3482 in 2003
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