Final Study Guide Flashcards
What areWhy did SDN arise?
to make computer networks more programmable.
Why are computer networks complex/difficult to manage?
Diversity of equipment
Proprietary Technologies
What is SDN’s main idea? What does that mean in practice?
Separation of tasks. Split the network into the Control Plane and the Data Plane
What are the three historical phases of SDN?
- Active networks
- Control and data plane separation
- OpenFlow API and network operating systems
Summarize the Active Networks Phase
Took place from mid 1990’s to early 2000’s
Active networks emerged, aimed at opening up network control.
Too ambitious, didn’t focus on security, required knowledge of Java
What is active networking?
Network is not just a group of bits, but a computer itself to be interacted with, providing services such as API
What are the two types of programmable modelling that are part of Active Networking?
- Capsule model – carried in‑band in data packets
- Programmable router/switch model – established by out‑of‑band mechanisms
Summarize the Control and data plane separation Phase
Lasted from 2001 to 2007
Network reliability, performance, and predictability were key
Spurred innovation for network administrators rather than end users
Summarize the OpenFlow API Phase
Took place from 2007 to 2010
Born from interest for network experimentation at a scale
Ensure practicality of real world deployment
Was adopted in the industry, unlike predecessors
What does the control plane do?
The control plane contains the logic that controls the forwarding behavior of routers such as routing protocols and network middlebox configurations
What does the data plane do?
The data plane performs the actual forwarding as
dictated by the control plane
Why separate the control plane and data plane?
1: Independent evolution and development
2: Control from high‑level software program
Why did the SDN lead to opportunities in various areas, such as data centers, routing, enterprise networks, and research networks?
Made network management easier.
More control in path selection.
Improved security.
Allows research networks to coexist with production networks
What are the two primary functions of the network layer?
Forwarding and Routing
What is forwarding?
Determining which output link that packet should be sent through.
What is routing?
Determining the path from the sender to the receiver across the network.
Forwarding is a function of what? Hardware or Software?
Data Plane, Hardware
Routing is a function of what?
Control Plane
What is the difference between a traditional and SDN approach in terms of coupling of control and data plane?
In the traditional approach, the control and data planes are closely coupled.
In the SDN approach, a remote controller computes and distributes the forwarding table, physically far from the router
Routing is a function of what? Hardware or software?
Control Plane, Software
What are the main components of SDN?
SDN‑controlled network elements
SDN controller
Network‑control applications
What do the SDN‑controlled network elements do?
The SDN‑controlled network elements, sometimes called the infrastructure layer, is responsible for the forwarding of traffic in a network based on the rules computed by the SDN control plane.
What does the SDN controller do?
The SDN controller is a logically centralized entity that acts as an interface between the network elements and the network‑control applications.
Midpoint between Northbound and Southbound
What do the Network‑control applications do?
Manage the underlying network by collecting information about the network elements with the help of SDN controller
What are the four defining features of an SDN architecture?
Flow‑based forwarding
Separation of data plane and control plane
Network control functions
A programmable network
What are the three layers of SDN Architecture?
Communication layer
Network‑wide state‑management layer
Interface to the network‑control application layer
What does the Communication layer do?
communicating between the controller and the network elements
What does the Network‑wide state‑management layer do?
stores information of network‑state
What does the Interface to the network‑control application layer do?
communicating between controller and applications
What does a ‘northbound’ interface communicate with?
Network‑control applications
What does a ‘southbound’ interface communicate with?
Controlled devices
What are the three parts of the OpenDaylight controller architecture?
Southbound interface
Northbound interface
Model Driven Service Abstraction Layer (or MD‑SAL)
A few of the main reasons that SDN arose are: a diversity of different network equipment (eg routers, switches, firewalls, etc.) using different protocols that made managing the network difficult, and second a lack of a central platform to control network equipment. True or False?
True
The main idea behind SDNs is to divide tasks into smaller functions so the code is more modular and easy to manage. True or False?
True
With SDNs the control plane and data plane have independent evolution and development. True or False?
True
In the SDN approach, the SDN controller is physically located at each router that is present in a network. True or False?
False
By separating the control plane and the data plane, controlling the router’s behavior became easier using higher order programs. For example, it is easier to update the router’s state or control the path selection. True or False?
True
In the SDN approach, ISPs or other third parties can take up the responsibility for computing and distributing the router’s forwarding tables. True or False?
True
Having the software implementations for SDNs controllers increasingly open and publicly available makes it hard to control, since any person could modify the software easily. True or False?
False
In SDN networks, the SDN controller is responsible for the forwarding of traffic. True or False?
False
The network-control applications are programs that manage the underlying network with the help of the SDN controller. True or False?
True
In SDN networks forwarding rules of traffic still have to be based on IP destination and cannot be based on other metrics, packet header info etc. True or False?
False
SDN-controlled switches operate on the:
Data Plane
In an SDN Architecture, the northbound interface keeps track of information about the state of the hosts, links, switches and other controlled elements in the network, as well as copies of the flow tables of the switches. True or False?
False
In SDN networks, the southbound interface is responsible for the communication between SDN controller and the controlled devices. True or False?
True
In SDN networks, the controller needs to be implemented over a centralized server. True or False?
False
As IP networks grew in adoption worldwide, what were the challenges that emerged?
Handling the ever growing complexity and dynamic nature of networks
Tightly coupled architecture
What does SDN stand for?
Software Defined Networking
What are the three planes of functionality for SDN?
Data plane
Control plane
Management plane
What does the Data Plane Layer do?
These are functions and processes that forward data in the form of packets or frames.
What does the Control Plane Layer do?
These refer to functions and processes that determine which path to use by using protocols to populate forwarding tables of data plane elements
What does the Management Plane Layer do?
These are services that are used to monitor and configure the control functionality, e.g. SNMP‑based tools.
What are the advantages of SDNs over traditional networks?
Shared abstractions
Consistency of same network information
Locality of functionality placement
Simpler integration
What are the three perspectives of the SDN landscape?
(a) a plane‑oriented view
(b) the SDN layers
(c) a system design perspective
What are the layers of SDN?
Infrastructure
Southbound Interfaces
Network Visualization
Network Operating Systems
Northbound Interfaces
Language-Based Virtualization
Network Programming Languages
Network Applications
What is SDN infrastructure made up of?
routers, switches and other middlebox hardware
What are SDN Southbound interfaces?
These are interfaces that act as connecting bridges between connecting and forwarding elements
What is SDN Network virtualization?
Interfacing with the physical network components via software
What are SDN Network operating systems?
Ease network management and solve networking problems by using a logically centralized controller by way of a network operating system
What is a problem with SDN Northbound interfaces?
There is no normalized standard
Each entry of a flow table has which parts?
a) a matching rule
b) actions to be executed on matching packets
c) counters that keep statistics of matching packets.
In OpenFlow, what happens when a packet arrives?
In an OpenFlow device, when a packet arrives, the lookup process starts in the first table and ends either with a match in one of the tables of the pipeline or with a miss (when no rule is found for that packet).
What are possible actions for a packet in OpenFlow?
- Forward the packet to outgoing port
- Encapsulate the packet and forward it to controller
- Drop the packet
- Send the packet to normal processing pipeline
- Send the packet to next flow table
What are the main purposes of Southbound Interfaces?
The Southbound interfaces or APIs are the separating medium between the control plane and data plane functionality.
What is the current southbound standard for SDNs?
OpenFlow
What are three information sources provided by the OpenFlow protocol?
- Event‑based messages that are sent by forwarding devices to controller when there is a link or port change
- Flow statistics are generated by forwarding devices and collected by controller
- Packet messages are sent by forwarding devices to controller when they do not know what to do with a new incoming flow
What are the core functions of an SDN controller?
topology, statistics, notifications, device management, along with shortest path forwarding and security mechanisms
What distinguishes a centralized controller in SDN?
In this architecture, we typically see a single entity that manages all forwarding devices in the network, which is a single point of failure and may have scaling issues.
What distinguishes a distributed controller in SDN?
A distributed network operating system (controller) can be scaled to meet the requirements of potentially any environment ‑ small or large networks
What are the two types of SDN distributed controllers?
It can be a centralized cluster of nodes or physically distributed set of elements
When would a distributed controller be preferred to a centralized controller?
Scales more easily, no single point of failure
What does ONOS stand for?
Open Networking Operating System
Describe ONOS at a high level
There are several ONOS instances running in a cluster. The management and sharing of the network state across these instances is achieved by maintaining a global network view.
To make forwarding and policy decisions, the applications consume information from the view and then update these decisions back to the view.
How does ONOS achieve fault tolerance?
To achieve fault tolerance, ONOS redistributes the work of a failed instance to other remaining instances.
What does P4 stand for?
P4 (Programming Protocol‑independent Packet Processors)
What is P4?
A high‑level programming language to configure switches which works in conjunction with SDN control protocols.
What are the primary goals of P4?
Reconfigurability
Protocol independence
Target independence
What are the two main operations of P4 forwarding model?
Configure
Populate
What does P4’s Configure do?
These sets of operations are used to program the parser. They specify the header fields to be processed in each match+action stage and also define the order of these stages.
What does P4’s Populate do?
The entries in the match+action tables specified during configuration may be altered using the populate operations. It allows addition and deletion of the entries in the tables
What are the applications of SDN? Provide examples of each application.
Traffic Engineering - ElasticTree
Mobility and Wireless - OpenRadio, The Odin Network
Measurement and Monitoring - OpenSketch, OpenSample and PayLess
Security and Dependability - CloudWatcher
Data Center Networking - LIME, FlowDiff
Which BGP limitations can be addressed by using SDN?
SDN can perform multiple actions on the traffic by matching over various header fields, not only by matching on the destination prefix.
What’s the purpose of SDX?
To implement the following:
Application specific peering
Traffic engineering
Traffic load balancing
Traffic redirection through middleboxes
Describe SDX Architecture
In the SDX architecture, each AS the illusion of its own virtual SDN switch that connects its border router to every other participant AS. For example, AS A has a virtual switch connecting to the virtual switches of ASes B and C. Each AS can have its own SDN applications for dropping, modifying, or forwarding their traffic
What are the applications of SDX in the domain of wide-area traffic delivery?
Application specific peering
Inbound traffic engineering
Wide‑area server load balancing
Redirection through middle boxes
An OpenFlow switch can function as a router. True or False?
True
Which plane executes a network policy?
Data Plane
Which type of network can implement load balancing?
Both Conventional and SDN
Which type of network decouples the control and data planes?
SDNs
Middleboxes can only be used in conventional networks. True or False?
False
What can be implemented as a network application in software-defined networking?
Routing
Security Enforcement
Quality of Service Enforcement
The networking operating system (NOS) is a part of the data plane. True or False?
False
The physical devices in an SDN network have embedded intelligence and control required to perform forwarding tasks. True or False?
False
When a packet arrives in an OpenFlow device and it does not match any of the rules in one of the tables, that packet is always dropped. True or False?
False
The Southbound interfaces are the separating medium between the Network-control Applications and the Control plane functionality. True or False?
False
OpenFlow enables the communication between the control plane and data plane through event-based messages, flow statistics and packet messages that are sent from forwarding devices to controller. True or False?
True
One of the disadvantages of an SDN centralized controller architecture is that it can introduce a single point of failure and also scaling issues. True or False?
True
A distributed controller can be a centralized cluster of nodes or a physically distributed set of elements. True or False?
True
A distributed controller can only be used in large networks. True or False?
False
ONOS is an example of a centralized controller platform. True or False?
False
In order to make forwarding and policy decisions in ONOS, applications get information from the view and then update these decisions back to the view. True or False?
True
In order to achieve fault tolerance, whenever there is a failure of an ONOS instance, a master is chosen randomly for each of the switches that were controller by the failed instance. True or False?
False
The purpose of the creation of the P4 language was to offer programmability on the control plane. True or False?
False
P4 acts as an interface between the switches and the controller, and its main goal is to allow the controller to define how the switches operate. True or False?
True
The P4 model allows the design of a common language to write packet processing programs that are independent of the underlying devices. True or False?
True
What are the properties of secure communication?
Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication, Availability
How does Round Robin DNS (RRDNS) work?
Responds to a DNS request with a list of DNS A Records, which it cycles through in a RR manner.
DNS client can then pick one from this list using its own metric
If request again, a different order
What is the goal of Round Robin DNS?
To distributed large loads of incoming traffic to several different servers; used by big companies
How does DNS-based content delivery work?
CDN computes the ‘nearest edge server’ and returns its IP address to the DNS client. Basically chooses nearest one in order to deliver content quickly
How do Fast-Flux Service Networks work?
Short TTL, and after it expires, it returns a different set of records rather than the same list of records cycled through
What are the main data sources used by FIRE (Finding Rogue Networks) to identify hosts that likely belong to rogue networks?
Botnet command and control providers
Drive‑by‑download hosting providers
Phish housing providers
The design of ASwatch is based on monitoring global BGP routing activity to learn the control plane behavior of a network. Describe 2 phases of this system.
Training phase - The system learns control‑plane behavior typical of both types of ASes
Operational phase ‑ Given an unknown AS, it then calculates the features for this AS. It uses the model to then assign a reputation score to the AS.
What are the three main families of features for the Training Phase of ASwatch?
Rewiring activity
IP Space Fragmentation and Churn
BGP Routing Dynamics
What are three classes of features used to determine the likelihood of a security breach within an organization?
Mismanagement symptoms
Malicious Activities
Security Incident Reports
Which features are used for Mismanagement Symptoms?
Open Recursive Resolvers – misconfigured open DNS resolvers
DNS Source Port Randomization – many servers still do not implement this
BGP Misconfiguration – short‑lived routes can cause unnecessary updates to the global routing table
Untrusted HTTPS Certificates – can detect the validity of a certificate by TLS handshake
Open SMTP Mail Relays – servers should filter messages so that only those in the same domain can send mails/messages.
What are the three sub-types of Malicious Activities?
Capturing spam activity
Capturing phishing and malware activities
Capturing scanning activity
What are the three collections of Security Incident Reports?
VERIS Community Database
Hackmageddon
The Web Hacking Incidents Database
What is the classification by affected prefix?
In this class of hijacking attacks, we are primarily concerned with the IP prefixes that are advertised by BGP.
Exact prefix hijacking, sub-prefix, squatting
What is Exact prefix hijacking?
When two different ASes (one is genuine and the other one is counterfeit) announce a path for the same prefix. This disrupts routing in such a way that traffic is routed towards the hijacker wherever the AS‑path route is shortest, thereby disrupting traffic.
What is Sub‑prefix hijacking?
This is an extension of exact prefix hijacking, except that in this case, the hijacking AS works with a sub‑prefix of the genuine prefix of the real AS. This exploits the characteristic of BGP to favor more specific prefixes, and as a result route large/entire amount of traffic to the hijacking AS
What is Squatting?
In this type of attack, the hijacking AS announces a prefix that has not yet been announced by the owner AS.
What is Classification by AS‑Path announcement?
In this class of attacks, an illegitimate AS announces the AS‑path for a prefix for which it doesn’t have ownership rights.
Type-0, Type-N, Type-U
What is Type‑0 hijacking?
This is simply an AS announcing a prefix not owned by itself
What is Type‑N hijacking?
This is an attack where the counterfeit AS announces an illegitimate path for a prefix that it does not own to create a fake link (path) between different ASes.
What is Type‑U hijacking?
In this attack the hijacking AS does not modify the AS‑PATH but may change the prefix.
What is Classification by Data‑Plane traffic manipulation?
In this class of attacks, the intention of the attacker is to hijack the network traffic and manipulate the redirected network traffic on its way to the receiving AS.
What is a blackholing (BH) attack?
When traffic is dropped by a hijacker.
What is a man‑in‑the‑middle attack?
When traffic is eavesdropped or manipulated before it reaches the receiving AS
What is an imposture (IM) attack?
When traffic is impersonated, e.g. In this case the network traffic of the victim AS is impersonated and the response to this network traffic is sent back to the sender.
What are the causes or motivations behind BGP attacks?
Human error - mistake
Targeted Attack - stealthy
High Impact Attack - obvious
Explain the scenario of prefix hijacking.
- The attacker uses a router to announce the prefix 10.10.0.0/16 that belongs to AS1, with a new origin AS4, pretending that the prefix belongs to AS4.
- This new announcement causes a conflict of origin for the ASes that receive it (Multiple Origin AS or MOAS).
- As a result of the new announcement, AS2, AS3 and AS5 receive the false advertisement and they compare it with the previous entries in their RIB.
- AS2 will not select the route as the best route as it has the same path length with an existing entry.
- AS3 and AS5 will believe the new advertisement, and they will update their entries (10.10.0.0/16 with path 4,2,1) to (10.10.0.0/16 with path 4). Therefore AS5 and AS3 will send all traffic for prefix 10.10.0.0/16 to AS4 instead of AS1.
Explain the scenario of hijacking a path.
- AS1 advertises the prefix 10.10.0.0/16.
- AS2 and AS3 receive and propagate legitimately the path for the prefix.
- At AS4, the attacker compromises the update for the path by changing it to 4,1 and propagates it to the neighbors AS3, AS2, and AS5. Therefore it claims that it has direct link to AS1 so that others believe the new false path.
- AS5 receives the false path (4,1) “believes” the new false path and it adopts it. But the rest of the ASes don’t adopt the new path because they either have an shorter path already or an equally long path to AS1 for the same prefix. The key observation here is that the attacker does not need not to announce a new prefix, but rather it manipulates an advertisement before propagating it.
What are the key ideas behind ARTEMIS?
A configuration file: where all the prefixes owned by the network are listed here for reference
A mechanism for receiving BGP updates: this allows receiving updates from local routers and monitoring services
What are the two automated techniques used by ARTEMIS to protect against BGP hijacking?
Prefix deaggregation and Mitigation with Multiple Origin AS (MOAS)