Security Groups¶

Data path performance¶

Its important to note that Security groups are stateful — responses to allowed ingress traffic are allowed to flow out regardless of egress rules, and vice versa. Current Neutron implementation adds a linux bridge in the path between each port (VM) and OVS bridge. This linux bridge is configured with IP table rules that implement security groups for this port. (This was done as iptables couldn’t be configured on OVS ports)

The following diagram demonstrate how the data path looks like:

   +-------------+                     +---------------+
   |             |                     |               |
   |    VM A     |                     |     VM B      |
   |             |                     |               |
   +---+------+--+                     +---+-------+---+
       | eth  |                            |  eth  |
       +--+---+                            +---+---+
          |                                    |
       +--+---+                            +---+---+
       | tap  |                            |  tap  |
 +-----+------+-----+                 +----+-------+-----+
 |                  |                 |                  |
 |   Linux Bridge   |                 |   Linux Bridge   |
 |                  |                 |                  |
 +-----+------+-----+                 +-----+------+-----+
       | veth |                             | veth |
       +--+---+                             +--+---+
          |                                    |
       +--+---+                             +--+---+
       | veth |                             | veth |
+------+------+-----------------------------+------+----------+
|                                                             |
|                     OVS  BRIDGE  (br-int)                   |
|                                                             |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

In Dragonflow we are already connecting the VMs to the OVS bridge directly, this design will demonstrate how we plan to leverage OVS connection tracking integration [1], [2]. With connection tracking integration we will implement all security group rules using OVS flows and actions with minimum usage of flows.

Control plane performance¶

In addition to the data path implementation described above, there are also RPC challenges for distributing the security group configuration to the local agents, applying these changes and reacting as fast as possible.

In Neutron current implementation, each VM port has its own, separated process pipeline for security group, even those VM ports might be associated to same security groups.

For this reason, changes in VM port configuration (addition/removal) and changes in security group rules/groups require a complicated process or re-compiling the rules to iptable chains pipeline and rules.(Something that sometimes require re-compilation of the entire pipeline)

In Dragonflow we plan to avoid this management problem and define simple process which avoid the above mentioned problems.

Solution Guidelines¶

1. Leverage OVS connection tracking for implementing state full rules
2. Using conjunction flows mechanism (supported by OVS 2.4 above[3]) to make VM ports configuration about security group and security group rules uncoupled.
3. Take security group process of egress rules in source side of packets while ingress rules in destination side.

Pipeline Changes¶

Egress Side

           +---------+    +-----------+    +---------+    +---------+
+-----+    |         |    |           |    |         |    |         |
|     |    | Port    |    | Egress    |    | Egress  |    |         |
| VM  +--> | Security+--> | Connection+--> | Security+--> |   QOS   |
|     |    |         |    | Tracking  |    | Group   |    |         |
+-----+    |         |    |           |    |         |    |         |
           +---------+    +-----------+    +---------+    +---------+

Ingress Side

+-----------+    +---------+    +---------+
|           |    |         |    |         |    +-----+
| Ingress   |    | Ingress |    | Ingress |    |     |
| Connection+--> | Security+--> | Dispatch+--> | VM  |
| Tracking  |    | Group   |    |         |    |     |
|           |    |         |    |         |    +-----+
+-----------+    +---------+    +---------+

Design¶

The processes and OVS flows installed for security group egress and ingress rules are very similar with each other. So we only discuss egress rules below for example, and will notify the differences between egress and ingress rules where it is needed.

It also should be announced that all OVS flows mentioned below should be installed in the OVS integration bridge which could be specified in the configuration.

1. In the first, Dragonflow controller should install a default OVS flow in the egress connection tracking table. That flow will let packets from a VM port which isn’t associated with any security group and packets without a IP header pass through the security group process.

   priority=1 actions=resubmit(<qos>)
   

2. When a local VM port is firstly associated to a security group, Dragonflow controller will install a OVS flow in the egress connection tracking table, to let IP packets from this VM port to do the CT process:

   in_port=5, ip actions=ct(table=<egress_security_group>, zone=OXM_OF_METADATA[0..15])
   

   It should be notified that we use the network_id of this VM port saved in metadata as the zone id to avoid the addresses overlap problem in CT.

3. In the egress security group table, Dragonflow controller need install OVS flows to let packets matched a established/related connection pass and let packets with a invalid CT state be dropped:

   priority=65534, ct_state=-new+est-rel-inv+trk actions=resubmit(<qos>)
   priority=65534, ct_state=-new+rel-inv+trk actions=resubmit(<qos>)
   priority=65534, ct_state=+new+rel-inv+trk actions=ct(commit,table=<qos>,zone=NXM_NX_CT_ZONE[])
   

4. To applied conjunction flows mechanism, Dragonflow controller will allocate a global/local conjunction id and a priority number per security group (if locally at each compute node per security group), this is an increasing number. The reason of allocating a priority number to each security group is the restriction of conjunction flows mechanism in OVS.

5. In the point view of VM ports, when VM ports are applied to a security group, Dragonflow controller should install the OVS flows in the egress security group table to represent those associating relations, and each of those relations will be converted to one OVS flow. This flow carries a match field contains a VM port identification match (input port number for egress side, while reg7 value for ingress side), and a actions field contains a conjunction action that uses the conjunction id of this security group and a mark to indicate it is the first part of the conjunction flows. It should also be mentioned that those flows have the priority number which is allocated to this security group:

   priority=25, in_port=5, ct_state=+new-est-rel-inv+trk actions=conjunctions(20, 1/2)
   priority=25, in_port=6, ct_state=+new-est-rel-inv+trk actions=conjunctions(20, 1/2)
   

   In addition, if a new VM port is applied to this security group, a new OVS flow like above but uses this VM port’s identification match should be installed.

6. In the point view of security groups, when a security group is associated to at least one local VM port, in the egress security group table, Dragonflow controller will install OVS flows representing egress rules of this security group, and each of those egress rules will be converted to at least one OVS flow. This flow carries a matches field contain match items in correspondence with one of the egress rules of this security group, and a actions field contains a conjunction id of the security group and a mark to indicate it is the second part of the conjunction flows. Those flows also have the priority number which is allocated to this security group:

   priority=25, tcp, tp_dst=80, nw_dst=192.168.10.0/24 actions=conjunction(20, 2/2)
   priority=25, tcp, tp_dst=8080, nw_dst=192.168.10.0/24 actions=conjunction(20, 2/2)
   

   In addition, if a new egress rule is added to this security group, one or more new OVS flows like above but match items in corresponded with this new rule should be installed.

7. Besides, Dragonflow controller should also install a OVS flow in the egress security group table, of which matches field contains the conjunction id match of the security group, and actions field contains a CT action to commit connection track entries and send packets to the next process table. The packets who match at least each one OVS flow of all parts of the conjunction flows will meet the match of this OVS flow and do the actions. That means those packets match at least one OVS flow mentioned in section 5 and one OVS flow mentioned in section 6.

   conj_id=20 actions=ct(commit,table=<qos>,zone=NXM_NX_CT_ZONE[])
   

8. After all, we should install a default dropping OVS flow with lowest priority in the egress security group table to make sure we drop any packet that didn’t match any of the rules:

   priority=1 actions=drop
   

Remote security group in rules¶

When a security group rule specifies a remote group, for example a ingress rule in sgA specifies a remote group of sgB, that means only packets from sgB could match this ingress rule. For converting this part in rule to OVS flows, we could use all IP addresses of the VM ports which are associated to sgB. Because those IP addresses could be numerous, aggregating those addresses to CIDR addresses should be necessary.

Missing Parts¶

1. OVS connection tracking integration doesn’t yet support IP fragmentation. IP defragmentation must be applied before sending the packets to the connection tracking module.