High-coverage testing of softwarized networks

Santhosh Prabhu, Gohar Irfan Chaudhry, Brighten Godfrey, Matthew Caesar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Network operators face a challenge of ensuring correctness as networks grow more complex, in terms of scale and increasingly in terms of diversity of software components. Network-wide verification approaches can spot errors, but assume a simplified abstraction of the functionality of individual network devices, which may deviate from the real implementation. In this paper, we propose a technique for high-coverage testing of end-to-end network correctness using the real software that is deployed in these networks. Our design is effectively a hybrid, using an explicit-state model checker to explore all network-wide execution paths and event orderings, but executing real software as subroutines for each device. We show that this approach can detect correctness issues that would be missed both by existing verification and testing approaches, and a prototype implementation suggests the technique can scale to larger networks with reasonable performance.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSecSoN 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Workshop on Security in Softwarized Networks
Subtitle of host publicationProspects and Challenges, Part of SIGCOMM 2018
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages46-52
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781450359122
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 7 2018
Event1st Workshop on Security in Softwarized Networks: Prospects and Challenges, SecSoN 2018, held in conjunction with the ACM SIGCOMM 2018 - Budapest, Hungary
Duration: Aug 24 2018 → …

Publication series

NameSecSoN 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Workshop on Security in Softwarized Networks: Prospects and Challenges, Part of SIGCOMM 2018

Other

Other1st Workshop on Security in Softwarized Networks: Prospects and Challenges, SecSoN 2018, held in conjunction with the ACM SIGCOMM 2018
Country/TerritoryHungary
CityBudapest
Period8/24/18 → …

Keywords

  • Correctness
  • Network verification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture

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