Implementing openflow based distributed firewall

Abstract

SDN is an emerging technology which is going to drive next generation networks. Lot of companies and organizations has started using SDN applications. It is giving network administrators the flexibility in implementing their networks. But at the same time, it is bringing new security issues. To secure SDN networks, we need strong firewall application. Already some firewall applications are there but they suffer from certain shortcomings. One of the main drawbacks of existing firewall solutions is that they suffer from single point of failure due to their centralized nature and overloading of rules in single device. Other drawback of existing firewall is that they are mostly layer 2 firewalls. In this paper, we are implementing Distributed Firewall where every OpenFlow switch in a network can acts as a firewall. Plus this firewall will be capable of handling TCP, UDP and ICMP Traffic. We have tested this firewall using Mininet Emulator installed in Ubuntu 14.04 Linux installed under VirtualBox virtualization solution. We are using python based POX controller. This work is extension of our earlier work on programmable firewalls.