AppNet Compiler

Overview

This compiler is designed for translating AppNet specifications into optimized, deployable data plane programs. For more information, refer to our HotNets paper and the talk.

Preliminaries

We recommend using conda to configure the environment. Run the following commands to install Python 3.10 and relevant python library dependencies.

conda create -n appnet python=3.10
pip install -r requirements.txt

We assume that compiler is placed inside the appnet repository. Run the following scripts to install Kubernetes cluster and Istio.

# Install Kubernetes
. ../utils/k8s_setup.sh          # for control plane
. ../utils/k8s_setup_worker.sh   # for worker nodes

# Run the following command on the control plane node to get the join command, and run the join command on all worker nodes.
kubeadm token create --print-join-command

# Install Istio
. ../utils/istio_setup_ambient.sh

If you want to compile elements as gRPC interceptors, install Go and protobuf compiler dependencies.

# Install protobuf compiler
sudo apt install -y protobuf-compiler

# Install Go
wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.22.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go && sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.22.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz && sudo rm go1.22.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# Install goimports
go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/$HOME/go/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

If you want to compile elements as Envoy WASM filters, install the following Rust dependencies.

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
. "$HOME/.cargo/env"
rustup target add wasm32-wasip1

Note

AppNet uses Docker Hub to distribute compiled Envoy native filters for simplicity, and currently the Hub name is hard-coded in configs and source code. If you want to compile elements as Envoy native filters, there are several modifications you need to apply during installation.

• Register your own Docker Hub account.
• In istio_setup_ambient.sh (appnet repository), replace the hub=docker.io/appnetorg argument of istioctl install with your own Hub ID.
• In compiler/graph/backend/imagehub.py, replace HUB_NAME="docker.io/appentorg with your own Hub ID.

Usage

A minimal example to run is

# Under compiler/

sed -i 's|<COMPILER_DIR>|'"$(pwd)"'|g' examples/chain/echo.yaml                       # replace all <COMPILER_DIR> with the path to compiler root directory
sed -i 's|<APPNET_GO_LIB_DIR>|'"$(realpath ../go-lib)"'|g' examples/chain/echo.yaml   # replace all <APPNET_GO_LIB_DIR> placeholder with the path to go-lib
python3 compiler/main.py --spec examples/chain/echo.yaml --opt_level weak

Use --help to see all avaiable options.

Supported Backends

• Envoy
  • native
  • via Proxy WASM Rust SDK
• gRPC (via Interceptors)

Reference

Please consider citing our paper if you find AppNet related to your research.

@inproceedings{applicationdefinednetworks,
  title={Application Defined Networks},
  author={Zhu, Xiangfeng and Deng, Weixin and Liu, Banruo and Chen, Jingrong and Wu, Yongji and Anderson, Thomas and Krishnamurthy, Arvind and Mahajan, Ratul and Zhuo, Danyang},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks},
  pages={87--94},
  year={2023}
}

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch with Xiangfeng Zhu ([email protected]).