[ovs-dev] [PATCH ovn] Exclude inport and outport symbol tables from conjunction

Han Zhou zhouhan at gmail.com
Tue Sep 17 16:48:55 UTC 2019


On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 5:21 AM Mark Michelson <mmichels at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/16/19 12:04 PM, Han Zhou wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:15 AM Dumitru Ceara <dceara at redhat.com
> > <mailto:dceara at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >  >
> >  > On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:16 PM Han Zhou <zhouhan at gmail.com
> > <mailto:zhouhan at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > > On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 9:09 AM Han Zhou <zhouhan at gmail.com
> > <mailto:zhouhan at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >  > > >
> >  > > >
> >  > > >
> >  > > > On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 12:40 AM Numan Siddique
> > <nusiddiq at redhat.com <mailto:nusiddiq at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >  > > > >
> >  > > > >
> >  > > > >
> >  > > > > On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 2:41 AM Daniel Alvarez Sanchez
> > <dalvarez at redhat.com <mailto:dalvarez at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >  > > > >>
> >  > > > >> Acked-by: Daniel Alvarez <dalvarez at redhat.com
> > <mailto:dalvarez at redhat.com>>
> >  > > > >>
> >  > > > >>
> >  > > > >> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 11:02 PM Mark Michelson
> > <mmichels at redhat.com <mailto:mmichels at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >  > > > >> >
> >  > > > >> > Acked-by: Mark Michelson
> >  > > > >> >
> >  > > > >> > It sucks that we lose the efficiency of the conjunctive
> > match altogether
> >  > > > >> > on port groups because of this error, but I understand this
> > is a huge
> >  > > > >> > bug and needs fixing.
> >  > > > >> If I'm not mistaken, from OpenStack standpoint conjunction was
> > *only*
> >  > > > >> being used when using port groups and ACLs that matched on
> > port ranges
> >  > > > >> ( e.g tcp.dst >= X && tcp.dst <=Y) which was not working.
> > Therefore
> >  > > > >> we're not losing performance because it was already broken
> > (given that
> >  > > > >> there was more than one ACL like that).
> >  > > > >>
> >  > > > >> >
> >  > > > >> > Perhaps it would be good to start up a discussion on this
> > list about a
> >  > > > >> > more longterm solution that would allow for conjunctive
> > matches with no
> >  > > > >> > ambiguity.
> >  > > > >> Agreed! We already discussed some ideas on IRC but it'd be
> > awesome to
> >  > > > >> have a thread and brainstorm there.
> >  > > > >>
> >  > > > >
> >  > > > > Thanks for the reviews. I applied this to master.
> >  > > > > Agree we can discuss it further and come up with ideas.
> >  > > > >
> >  > > > > I know Dumitru has some idea to make use of conjunctions for
> > port groups.
> >  > > > > CC'ing Han if he has any comments on ideas.
> >  > > > >
> >  > > >
> >  > > > Hi Numan,
> >  > > >
> >  > > > This is a good finding. However, I think it is not specifically a
> > problem of port group. It seems to be a more general problem and this
> > patch fixes only a special case.
> >  > > > For example, would there be similar problem for below ACLs
> > without port groups:
> >  > > >
> >  > > > ip4 && tcp.src >= 1000 && tcp.src <= 1001 && tcp.dst >= 500 &&
> > tcp.dst <= 501
> >  > > > ip4 && tcp.src >= 1000 && tcp.src <= 1001 && tcp.dst >= 600 &&
> > tcp.dst <= 601
> >  > > >
> >  > > > Another example is with address set:
> >  > > >
> >  > > > ip4 && ip4.src == $as1 && tcp.dst >= 500 && tcp.dst <= 501
> >  > > > ip4 && ip4.src == $as1 && tcp.dst >= 600 && tcp.dst <= 601
> >  > > >
> >  > > > Or even without range:
> >  > > > ip4 && tcp.src == {1000, 1001} && tcp.dst == {500, 501}
> >  > > > ip4 && tcp.src == {1000, 1001} && tcp.dst == {600, 601}
> >  > > >
> >  > > > You may think of more examples. Whenever there are multiple
> > conjunctionable ACLs with same match as part of the conjunction, it
> > should result in such problem.
> >  > > >
> >  > > > A quick fix to all these problems may be just abandon
> > conjunction, but I believe there are better ways to address it.
> >  > > >
> >  > > > First of all, these matches can be rewritten by combining them in
> > a single ACL with "OR" operator, e.g.:
> >  > > >
> >  > > > outport == @pg1 && ip4 && tcp.dst >= 500 && tcp.dst <= 501
> >  > > > outport == @pg1 && ip4 && tcp.dst >= 600 && tcp.dst <= 601
> >  > > >
> >  > > > can be rewritten as ====>
> >  > > >
> >  > > > outport == @pg1 && ip4 && (tcp.dst >= 500 && tcp.dst <= 501 ||
> > tcp.dst >= 600 && tcp.dst <= 601)
> >  > > >
> >  > > > Similar can be done for all above examples. So, a workaround to
> > the problem is from user side (e.g. OpenStack) to make sure always
> > combining ACLs with "OR" if there are common conjunctionable matches
> > between different ACLs. However, a better way would be in ovn-northd
> > itself to detect and combine such ACLs internally, before generating the
> > final logical flows in SB. It may be more convenient to be done in
> > ovn-controller, because we are not even parsing the ACLs in ovn-northd
> > today, but the cost of such pre-processing would be duplicated in all
> > HVs. It surely will increase CPU cost for doing such combination, but
> > I'd not worry too much if we do it properly at each LS level instead of
> > for all ACLs.
> >  > >
> >  > > I just thought a little more about combining the conjunctions. It
> > seems we can do it without pre-processing by just handling duplicated
> > flows in ofctrl_add_flow(). Currently we just drop duplicated flows, but
> > we can check that if the action is conjuncture and the conjuncture ID is
> > different, we can perform a combination by using existing flow's
> > conjunction id to update all the flows related to that to-be-added
> > duplicated flow. This way, the combination is performed on-the-fly,
> > without introduce too much cost and without introduce parsing in
> > ovn-northd either.
> >  >
> >  > Hi Han,
> >  >
> >  > Will this actually work without a change in OVS? I wonder because in
> >  > the ovs-fields man page [1] I see:
> >  >
> >  > "Conjunctive flows must not overlap with each other, at
> >  >  a given priority, that is, any given packet must be
> >  >  able to match at most one conjunctive flow at a given
> >  >  priority. Overlapping conjunctive flows yield
> >  >  unpredictable results."
> >
> > Hi Dumitru, the approach of combining ACLs should eliminate the
> > overlapping conjunction problem for ACLs with common expressions,
> > because a single ACL/logical-flow will be translated to a single
> > conjunction. The combination is generally for ACLs with form :
> >    A and B
> >    A and C
> > If A is (a1 or a2), B is (b1 or b2 ), C is (c1 or c2), the initial
> > conjunction matches of current (incorrect) implementation will be:
> > conj_id=1234 actions=...
> > a1 conjunction(1234, 1/4)
> > a2 conjunction(1234, 2/4)
> > b1 conjunction(1234, 3/4)
> > b2 conjunction(1234, 4/4)
> >
> > conj_id=1235 actions=...
> > a1 conjunction(1235, 1/4)
> > a2 conjunction(1235, 2/4)
> > c1 conjunction(1235, 3/4)
> > c2 conjunction(1235, 4/4)
> >
> > The a1 and a2 matches are overlapping between these two sets.
> > In fact, the ACLs are equivalent to:
> >    A and (B or C), which is equivalent to: (a1 or a2) and (b1 or b2 or
> > c1 or c2)
> > So, if combined with the approach I mentioned, the conjunction matches
> > will be:
> > conj_id=1234 actions=...
> > a1 conjunction(1234, 1/6)
> > a2 conjunction(1234, 2/6)
> > b1 conjunction(1234, 3/6)
> > b2 conjunction(1234, 4/6)
> > c1 conjunction(1234, 5/6)
> > c2 conjunction(1234, 6/6)
> >
> > The overlapping problem is solved for this use case, and it reduces
> > total number of flows, which can also be considered an *compiler
> > optimization* for logical flows translation in ovn-controller. I don't
> > think any change is needed from OVS.
>
> Unfortunately, this only works for ACLs that have the same action.
> Consider that you have the following:
>
> A and B, allow
> A and C, drop
>
> You can't combine these ACLs into
>
> A and (B or C)
>
> since they have different ACL verdicts. You have to leave them separate.
>
> Therefore, you end up with the same problem as before. The A part of the
> conjunction for each conjunctive match overlaps.
>

Hi Mark,

Thanks for pointing out. Unfortunately you are right :)
So I guess the only option we have now is to play around with priorities.
Although it might be tricky, it should work. And the best part is, priority
can also solve the "partial overlapping" problem I mentioned earlier, such
as:
> >  > > tcp.src == {1000, 1001} && tcp.dst == {500, 501}
> >  > > tcp.src == {1001, 1002} && tcp.dst == {600, 601}

Here is some more thinking about the priority solution. Today for any
user-defined ACL priority (PA), there is a corresponding OVS flow priority
(PO). PA to PO is one-to-one mapping. Now to solve the overlapping problem,
there can be more than one PO [POx..POy] mapped for each PA. The problem is
how to maintain the mappings between these two. I think there are 2 options:

Option1: Whenever there is duplicate flow encountered for user-defined
priority PA, increase the range of PO from [POx..POy] to [POx..POy+1].

This approach requires dynamically adjust priorities for existing flows.
For example, initially there are flows:
1: user-defined priority 100, OVS priority 1100: <match 1>, <action 1>
2: user-defined priority 101, OVS priority 1101: <match 2>, <action 2>

Now there is a logical flow requires conjunction:
3: user-defined priority 100, OVS priority 1100: A and B, <action 3>

And then there is another logical flow requires conjunction, with
overlapping to the previous one:
4: user-defined priority 100, OVS priority <?>: A and C, <action 4>

To handle the overlapping, we need to increase the range corresponding to
100. It was 1100, and now it needs to be 1100 and 1101. So we will have to
adjust priority of the flow 2 from 1101 to 1102, to preserve the original
priority order. This will have high cost, and worst thing is, it will
disrupt Incremental Processing.

Option2: Preserve N priorities in the range of OVS flow [POx..POx+N) for
each user-defined PA. If there are more than N ACLs with overlapping
conjunction sets, it is not supported.

This approach avoids the priority readjustment problem, sacrificing the
number of priorities and number of overlapping conjunction that we can
support. The bigger N is, the less number of user-defined priority can be
supported; the smaller N is, the less number of overlapping conjunction can
be supported.
Although each one has its pros and cons, I prefer option2 more than
option1, because conjunction is mainly for performance. If we end up with a
solution that sacrifice performance it may not worth enabling conjunction
at all.

As a further improvement, we may still apply the conjunction combining
approach that I proposed just when the actions are also identical (which
may be the case in most real world scenarios), to eliminate the *fake*
overlapping conjunctions, before using different priorities, so that we
have more priorities left to play with real overlapping scenarios.

Thanks,
Han

> >
> >  >
> >  > I guess another possibility is to detect flows that have overlapping
> >  > sets of matches in ofctrl and change their priorities (along with all
> >  > their other conjunction clauses) in order to differentiate the ACLs.
> >  > That might turn out to be quite tricky though as we need to maintain
> >  > the logical priority of ACLs defined by the user.
> >
> > Yes, changing the priority may solve the problem, too, but as you
> > mentioned it may be tricky to calculate the appropriate priorities
> > taking into consideration of how many different priorities are required
> > for each logical flow translation and the user defined priority with the
> > constraint of a single *priority space*. I would support it, too, if it
> > turns out to be simple.
> >
> >  >
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > Dumitru
> >  >
> >  > [1] http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/ovs-fields.7.html
> >  >
> >  > >
> >  > > In addition, there are more general cases that can't be handled by
> > combining ACLs, if there are overlapping sets in different ACLs. E.g.
> >  > > tcp.src == {1000, 1001} && tcp.dst == {500, 501}
> >  > > tcp.src == {1001, 1002} && tcp.dst == {600, 601}
> >  > >
> >  > > In this example, there is no way to combine these 2 ACLs because
> > there is no common components in the matches, but the first set in each
> > conjunctions are overlapping. So there will be flows generated something
> > like:
> >  > > tcp.src=1001: conjunction(1, 1/2)
> >  > > ...
> >  > > tcp.src=1001: conjunction(2, 1/2)
> >  > > ...
> >  > > This causes the same duplicated flow problem and combining the two
> > set of conjunctions is incorrect.
> >  > >
> >  > > However, although this is valid case in theory, it seems not a real
> > problem in reality. Usually ACL will be defined with different
> > priorities if there are overlapping (but not identical) set of matches.
> > (At least they are not well designed ACLs - I might be wrong)
> >  > >
> >  > > cc Ben in case he had thought about these problems before.
> >  > >
> >  > > Thanks,
> >  > > Han
>


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