Welcome to module 1: January 24 – March 13, 2022

Learning Outcomes – Introduction to Data Plane Programming (DVAD41)

January 24 – March 13, 2022

During the initial seven course weeks, the focus will be on familiarizing oneself with the online learning spaces, connecting with peers and facilitators. In addition, you will start reading about the theoretical foundations of data plane programming in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the area. You will get a basic introduction to the P4 language, and can work on three basic labs, that will make you familiar with programming in P4. For that, you will be getting access to a Virtual machine that comes preinstalled with developing environment and mininet network emulator. On the discussion slack, you will share expectations, background knowledge, as well as your own experiences and practices.

Week 4: 14/2-20/2

P4 Lab Exercise

As you now have your P4 development VM ready, finish the first P4 Lab exercise implementing Basic Forwarding. You find more information on the GIT.

Assignment – Discussion Questions

This week, your assignments are to finish the  Basic Forwarding. Please answer the following questions:
  • Q1: The “test suite” for your solution—sending a message from h1 to h2—is not very robust. What else should you test to be confident of your implementation after you finalized basic.p4? Although the Python scapy library is outside the scope of this tutorial, it can be used to generate packets for testing. The send.py file shows how to use it. Registered users for the Credit bearing course, click here to submit your thoughts. Open learners, please use the Slack channel #introduction-to-dpp
  • Q2: How would you enhance your P4 program (after you finalized basic.p4) to support next hops? Registered users for the Credit bearing course, click here to submit your thoughts. Open learners, please use the Slack channel #introduction-to-dpp
  • Q3: Is this P4 program (after you finalized basic.p4) enough to replace a router? What’s missing? Registered users for the Credit bearing course, click here to submit your thoughts. Open learners, please use the Slack channel #introduction-to-dpp