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Steve McIntyre	31f3528	2014-12-12 22:12:33 +0000	[diff] [blame]	1	VLANd - complex networks on demand
				2
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	3	What is VLANd?
				4	==============
				5
Steve McIntyre	da74571	2015-07-31 17:16:15 +0100	[diff] [blame]	6	VLANd is a python program intended to make it easy to manage
				7	port-based VLAN setups across multiple switches in a network. It is
				8	designed to be vendor-agnostic, with a clean pluggable driver API to
				9	allow for a wide range of different switches to be controlled
				10	together.
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	11
				12	Various of the switch vendors have management applications available
				13	which should be able to do a similar job, but they're typically not
				14	scriptable, or locked to only control their own vendor's
				15	equipment. VLANd is designed (and hoped!) to be better. We've found
				16	that other network management programs also exist, but either they
				17	don't manage VLANs in the way we want or they depend on large
				18	frameworks like Openstack.
				19
Steve McIntyre	cc52470	2015-07-31 16:55:54 +0100	[diff] [blame]	20	VLANd currently includes four drivers for different models of switch
				21	from three different vendors:
				22
				23	* CiscoCatalyst for the Cisco Catalyst 3750 (and compatible)
				24	* CiscoSX300 for the Cisco SF300 and SG300 (and compatible)
				25	* NetgearXSM for the Netgear XSM 7224S (and compatible)
				26	* TPLinkTLSG2XXX for the TP-Link TL-SG2216 (and compatible)
				27
				28	These cover a range of switches across a huge range of prices, from
				29	100M up to 10G ports. VLANd supports interoperable VLANs across all
				30	these devices, verified using the Linaro test lab and our test suite.
				31
Steve McIntyre	0487436	2015-12-24 12:59:21 +0000	[diff] [blame]	32	VLANd also includes a "Dummy" switch driver which can be used for
				33	testing and validation. Read the comments in drivers/Dummy.py for more
				34	details on how to use it.
				35
Steve McIntyre	cc52470	2015-07-31 16:55:54 +0100	[diff] [blame]	36	It is expected that more drivers will be included in future
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	37	releases. Please feel free to propose more target devices, or (better)
				38	send patches!
				39
				40	Why VLANd?
				41	==========
				42
				43	VLANd has been written to accompany Linaro's LAVA platform.
				44
				45	LAVA is the Linaro Automated Validation Architecture - see
				46	https://validation.linaro.org/ for more information.
				47
				48	LAVA started off as a framework to help perform validation and testing
				49	on simple single devices such as Android development boards. Since
				50	then, the range of tests and devices has grown hugely. Some users have
				51	added multi-node tests, i.e. tests that start up multiple devices that
				52	run tests against each other (e.g. client-server testing). The next
				53	step on from that is to test devices with multiple network interfaces,
				54	where on top of the client-serer testing it is required that their
				55	connectivity can be controlled and isolated (e.g. for network
				56	performance testing).
				57
				58	This can be done by simply changing physical network connections, of
				59	course, but that doesn't scale for sequences of tests and it makes a
				60	lie of the "Automated" bit in the LAVA definition.
				61
				62	VLANd is the solution that we have implemented for this problem. It
				63	provides a simple VLAN management abstraction for users. LAVA can use
				64	VLANd to set up complex networks on demand as tests are initiated, and
				65	can then tear them down again when tests are complete.
				66
Steve McIntyre	31f3528	2014-12-12 22:12:33 +0000	[diff] [blame]	67	Dependencies
				68	============
				69
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	70	postgres server and psycopg2, for the back-end database. See
Steve McIntyre	9d89718	2014-12-22 17:51:08 +0000	[diff] [blame]	71	db/setup_db.py for help in setting up the database for access.
				72
Steve McIntyre	94ef65e	2015-09-25 01:08:14 +0100	[diff] [blame]	73	If you want to use the visualisation feature, you'll need to install
				74	python-gd (used for generating the graphics) and a font for it to
				75	use. The default font suggested is Inconsolata, but others should work
				76	too.
				77
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	78	How to use
				79	==========
				80
				81	For now, things are easiest run as "vland" with appropriate
Steve McIntyre	9d89718	2014-12-22 17:51:08 +0000	[diff] [blame]	82	permissions in the database for that user.
				83
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	84	The core VLANd code is simple to configure - see vland.cfg for an
				85	example config file. Once your copy of VLANd is running, use the
				86	administration utility admin.py to control what it does. For now, this
				87	is single-threaded and has no security. This will change in the
				88	future, but for very early development has not been a priority.
Steve McIntyre	9d89718	2014-12-22 17:51:08 +0000	[diff] [blame]	89
Steve McIntyre	94ef65e	2015-09-25 01:08:14 +0100	[diff] [blame]	90	The visualisation interface has very few configuration options as
				91	yet - again, see the default vland.cfg.
				92
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	93	Future plans
				94	============
				95
				96	As a start...
				97
				98	* More documentation
				99	* More drivers to control more devices, both real and virtual
Steve McIntyre	94ef65e	2015-09-25 01:08:14 +0100	[diff] [blame]	100	* Improved visualisation options
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	101	* Better (some!) security
Steve McIntyre	836deec	2015-02-13 07:42:51 +0000	[diff] [blame]	102	* Background sanity checking
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	103	* Other filtering options - MAC-based rather than just port-based
				104	(needed to support virtual machines, etc.)
				105
				106	If you have other ideas, please talk to us!
				107
				108	Contact
				109	=======
Steve McIntyre	9d89718	2014-12-22 17:51:08 +0000	[diff] [blame]	110
				111	VLANd mailing list: vland-devel@linaro.org
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	112
				113	Code
				114	====
				115
				116	https://git.linaro.org/lava/vland.git
				117
Steve McIntyre	72fb3a3	2015-02-13 08:14:32 +0000	[diff] [blame]	118	License
				119	=======
				120
Steve McIntyre	c03d68d	2016-03-24 17:38:34 +0000	[diff] [blame]	121	VLANd is Copyright 2014-2016 Linaro Limited, and is distributed under
Steve McIntyre	72fb3a3	2015-02-13 08:14:32 +0000	[diff] [blame]	122	the GNU General Public License, version 2 (or any later version). See
				123	the accompanying COPYING file for more details.
				124
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	125	--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve McIntyre	c03d68d	2016-03-24 17:38:34 +0000	[diff] [blame]	126	README for VLANd 0.6, 24th March 2016
Steve McIntyre	98de3e9	2015-02-13 07:35:19 +0000	[diff] [blame]	127	Steve McIntyre <steve.mcintyre@linaro.org>