{"id":295586,"date":"2016-09-21T10:33:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T17:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&p=295586"},"modified":"2018-10-16T22:03:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T05:03:48","slug":"automatically-verifying-reachability-well-formedness-p4-networks","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/automatically-verifying-reachability-well-formedness-p4-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Automatically verifying reachability and well-formedness in P4 Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

P4 allows a new level of dynamism for routers beyond OpenFlow 1.4 by allowing headers and tables to
\nbe modified by software in the field. Without care, P4 can unleash a new wave of software bugs. Existing tools (e.g., VeriFlow, NetPlumber, Hassel, NoD) cannot model changes to forwarding behaviors without reprogramming tool internals or having users manually <\/em>add new forwarding models. Further, a P4 network can introduce a new class of bugs (not tested for by existing tools) wherein the P4 network creates malformed<\/em> packets.<\/p>\n

To attack these two problems, we provide an operational semantics for P4 constructs and use it to compile P4 to Datalog so that the verification model can be automatically<\/em> updated as the network changes. We demonstrate this vision by compiling the mTag example in the P4 specification
\n(and a new sTag security example) on a sample network and by automatically detecting forwarding bugs. Efficiently verifying (across all table entries and packet headers) that a P4 network only delivers well-formed<\/em> packets takes a few seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

P4 allows a new level of dynamism for routers beyond OpenFlow 1.4 by allowing headers and tables to be modified by software in the field. Without care, P4 can unleash a new wave of software bugs. Existing tools (e.g., VeriFlow, NetPlumber, Hassel, NoD) cannot model changes to forwarding behaviors without reprogramming tool internals or having 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Varghese","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"nlopes","user_id":33124,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=nlopes"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"nbjorner","user_id":33067,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=nbjorner"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"rybal","user_id":33480,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=rybal"}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[144899,930582,144812],"msr_project":[],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"techreport","related_content":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/295586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/295586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541735,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/295586\/revisions\/541735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=295586"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=295586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}