Ryu in the context of Fedora

[Peter Robinson]

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Robyn Bergeron <rbergero at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Isaku Yamahata" <yamahata at valinux.co.jp>
>> To: "Kyle Mestery (kmestery)" <kmestery at cisco.com>
>> Cc: "Fedora Cloud SIG" <cloud at lists.fedoraproject.org>, "Robyn Bergeron" <rbergero at redhat.com>
>> Sent: Monday, May 6, 2013 7:35:31 PM
>> Subject: Re: Ryu in the context of Fedora
>>
>> On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 07:15:22PM +0000, Kyle Mestery (kmestery) wrote:
>> > Robyn asked me to send something out to the cloud sig around Ryu. For those
>> > unfamiliar, check it out here:
>> >
>> > http://osrg.github.com/ryu/
>> >
>> > And the Fedora wiki entry for it here:
>> >
>> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Ryu
>> >
>> > Ryu is itself labeled as a "Network Operating System". It is effectively a
>> > Controller which can control Open vSwitch instances on the host, in
>> > addition to being able to control other devices speaking OpenFlow (e.g.
>> > switches which support OpenFlow). Ryu allows you to write applications on
>> > top of it as well. A simple application included is a simple L2 learning
>> > switch. There is also integration with OpenStack Networking (the project
>> > formerly known as Quantum) via a plugin.
>> >
>> > Now, in the context of Fedora, I've been using Fedora+Ryu as one of my main
>> > OpenStack development environments, and from what I can tell, because
>> > Fedora doesn't use the upstream Open vSwitch kernel module and loses
>> > things like patch ports. I'm wondering if others have seen this issue on
>> > Fedora? I have not opened a bug on this yet, but can do that soon. I
>> > suspect the OpenStack Networking gerrit review listed below may make this
>> > work again, as it uses veth ports instead of OVS patch-ports to connect
>> > OVS bridges:
>> >
>> > https://review.openstack.org/#/c/27054/
>> >
>> > Robyn, please chime in and let me know if there is anything else in the
>> > context of Ryu that you'd like to discuss.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Kyle
>>
>> Hi, Kyle and Robyn. I'm a core developer of Ryu.
>> Although I don't know how this conversation has started and
>> I'm not sure what info is desired, let me supplement.
>
> Mostly my curiousity in asking Kyle about it was from him mentioning on twitter a few weeks back how awesome Ryu is - and it got me to thinking a bit more about it, and just from the feature page description of "network operating system" I started wondering what that really meant. Because at first blush it's sort of a ... "Hmm, is this an operating system, running on an operating system? Or does this package addition make Fedora *into* a network operating system? Is this something that should really be more of a spin/image/appliance?"
>
> That kind of thing.
>
> So I think I get it now, but I suppose the spin/image/appliance question still lingers for me a bit - curious about the ideal way to actually deploy it if one was just using it as a standalone controller (switch?) (if it's even done in a standalone fashion?). I have to assume that a more minimal package set/installation would be useful. But it also seems like something that would/could be a Spin (see http://spins.fedoraproject.org/ if you're unfamiliar) - optimized package set + ryu + any special configuration-type things already done, more or less an appliance-type thing ready to go.  But in saying spin - it feels (to me, the person who is still mentally sorting this stuff out so she can write about it come release time) as though calling it a "Fedora Network(ing?) Spin" seems... wrong.

As such it's not a switch, it's more the central control of switches
whether they be software such as open vSwitch or a physical HW switch.
I would think it would be possible to deploy it a number of ways such
as a standard service running on a deployed Fedora instance or also as
an appliance style device or possibly (although IMO some what
unlikely) as a cloud image. Certainly something to look at for future
releases IMO.

Peter