Abstract
The extensive joint force modernization program for defense requires integrating various modern network systems that operate globally connected networked systems. This advancement of the battlefield is developing very complex and striving to adapt with ever-increasing capacity challenges at the tactical edge. Military network in revolutionary Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principle offers an intelligent centralized network with advanced management features. However, interoperability between heterogeneous communication equipment of a battlefield network remains an ongoing challenge. This paper argues that the overlay feature in an SDN network can resolve the interoperability issues referenced from Federation Mission Network (FMN). We have used two simple scenarios to realize the simplicity of configuring the overlay network over SDN and discuss the usability of the overlay approach in the military network in terms of interoperability.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Dr. Farookh Khadeer Hussain and Adam Wilson for helping and supervising me for this research and providing continuous guidance.
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Appendix:
Appendix:
The commands to create a simple SDN network.
The “dump” command shows the available nodes, IP address, OVS-Switch, usable ports, and the reference controller. Open flow reference distribution includes Wireshark dissector, which analyzes the OpenFlow messages and sends to OpenFlow default port (6633) conveniently readable. To capture the OpenFlow packets, we set up capture interface loopback 0 as Mininet uses loopback to communicate with the host. Filter ‘of’ is set up to grab the OpenFlow packet. We configure host4 as a simple Web and ping from h1 to h4.
Ping reply from the webserver.
The above screenshot (Fig. 7) shows the successful ping reply from h4 using port number 80. While running this process, Wireshark captures a bunch of OpenFlow packets.
1.1 VXLAN Overlay Network Using Open vSwitch
In this scenario, we implement a VXLAN overlay network using Open vSwitch. We create two networks in two virtual machines using Mininet and then create a VXLAN tunnel between these two networks. Firstly, we collect the eth0 interface address of each VM. The addresses are respectively mn1: 192.168.159.133 and mn2: 192.168.159.132. The first line command creates a simple topology in each VM. In the next phase, we create a VXLAN port in each switch and direct it with remote IP. The program codes are following:
Using the ping command, we ensure that hosts of two VMs are successfully communicating using reference controller instruction. In the next stage, we manually stopped the reference controller of both VMs shown in Fig. 8 (mn1).
Stop the reference controller manually from mn1
Ping commands ensuring that they are communicating anymore. Then we manually add the flow entry of the switches to create tunnel between two VMs. The commands are following:
We ping the VMs from each end and receive a successful ping reply.
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Khan, S., Hussain, F.K. (2022). Software-Defined Overlay Network Implementation and Its Use for Interoperable Mission Network in Military Communications. In: Barolli, L., Hussain, F., Enokido, T. (eds) Advanced Information Networking and Applications. AINA 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 449. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99584-3_48
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99584-3_48
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