Visual Editor for Streamlining P4-based Programmable Parser Development

Abstract

P4 language enables new protocol development for advanced networking tasks such as dynamic monitoring, custom tunneling & routing, in-switch attack detection, and soon. Nevertheless, developing a P4 program is challenging for those who either lacking programming skills or advanced networking. This paper proposed a visual editor to ease the development of P4-based programmable parser which is the first and fundamental step in P4 development. The editor offers two functionalities, the creation of custom protocols & protocols parser, and code generation for testing purposes. For evaluations, we run a compatibility test to ensure that P4-switch can parse any packet using bit-by-bit extraction defined by the programmable parser. We develop custom protocols having the same bit structure as the standard protocols, such as Ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP, and MPLS, but use different naming. The result showed that the receiver recognized the custom protocols as the standard ones since the P4-switch treat them based on their bit structure. At last, the proposed program can ease and speed up the development of P4-based parser by providing visual editor, and network tester generator.