P4 Control Plane API Bridge

This library allows you to use various control plane APIs through a shared interface.

Ideally, all switches should support P4Runtime directly, making this library unnecessary. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and many switches have their own APIs.

Installation

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install "p4-api-bridge @ git+https://github.com/Trigary/p4-api-bridge.git"

For alternative installation methods, please refer to the Python documentation.

Usage example

# Import some basic classes
import sys
from p4_api_bridge import SwitchApiConfig, SwitchBase, ApiBridgeFactory, ApiBridge

# Import switch-specific classes
from p4_api_bridge import SimpleSwitchThriftApiConfig, NikssCtlApiConfig

# The factory is responsible for creating and caching API bridges
api_factory = ApiBridgeFactory()


# A custom class that represents a P4 programmable switch
class MySwitch(SwitchBase):
    def __init__(self, name: str, config: SwitchApiConfig) -> None:
        super().__init__(name, config)

    @property
    def api(self) -> ApiBridge:
        return api_factory.get(self)


# Create switch objects, deciding the underlying API based on a command line argument
switches = []
if sys.argv[1] == 'thrift':
    switches.append(MySwitch('s1', SimpleSwitchThriftApiConfig(
            thrift_port=9090,
            interface_to_port={
                's1-eth0': 1,
                's1-eth1': 2,
            }
    )))
else:
    switches.append(MySwitch('s1', NikssCtlApiConfig(
            pipeline_id=42
    )))

# Use the API
for switch in switches:
    switch.api.table_clear('MyIngress.my_table')

    # s1-eth0 will automatically be translated to the numeric port identifier
    switch.api.table_add('MyIngress.my_table', ['10.1.1.2/24'], 'MyIngress.ip_forward', ['s1-eth0'])

    with switch.api.try_create_batch():
        # ...
        pass  # Execute multiple operations in a single batch, if the underlying API supports it

# Close the API bridge instances
api_factory.close()

The requirements of the various supported underlying control plane APIs can be found in the documentation of the XyzApiConfig classes. The SwitchApiConfig class is the base class for all switch-specific API configurations.

More information about the library can be found in the documentation of the individual classes, e.g. the ApiBridge class, which is the most important class in the library.