Output port Normal action

Output port Normal is a reserved action. Normal action represents the traditional non-OpenFlow pipeline of the device. Normal is a special type of output port included in the actions associated with a flow. When a flow is received from the controller with an output port as Normal, the switch processes the matched incoming-packet using the local switching or routing.

Capabilities

Output ports with Normal action flows support the following capabilities:

  1. Output port Normal action is supported on both hybrid ports and non-hybrid ports on the RUCKUS ICX 7750, ICX 7650, ICX 7450 and ICX 7250.
  2. Generic flows with Normal action are supported .
  3. Meter action is supported for Normal action flows.
  4. Normal action is supported for both OpenFlow v1.0.0 and OpenFlow v1.3.0.
  5. Normal action supports both tagged and untagged traffic.
  6. Flows with Normal action can have additional actions as sent to the OpenFlow Controller.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to Normal action flows.

  1. The following packet modifications are supported, when Normal is used as an output port in the flow:
    1. IP DSCP remark
    2. Set Queue
  2. Group action is not supported for Normal action flows.
  3. Normal action is not supported, if the OpenFlow port is an untagged port of a VLAN other than the default VLAN on the RUCKUS ICX 7750, ICX 7650, ICX 7450, and ICX 7250.

Outport port Normal and mirroring to a port

The port mirroring is applicable for monitoring real-time traffic. With OpenFlow, this application can monitor traffic on the selective flows for selective periods of time, inspect the packets in real time and take action.

  1. A flow with action Normal and Output port is accepted and the packets are mirrored to Output port together with normal Layer 2 or Layer 3 processing.
  2. This feature is supported only on the RUCKUS ICX 7750 and ICX 7450 devices.
  3. None of the packet modifications is applied on the traffic, that is sent to the mirrored port.
  4. All other capabilities and limitations listed in the output port Normal action are also applicable for port mirroring.

Output port All

A flow can have a reserved port All as output port instead of containing a list of the OpenFlow enabled ports. A flow with action set to output port All should be sent to all the OpenFlow ports.

  • PACKET-OUT with action as All is sent to all OpenFlow ports.
  • The port All supports both port based and generic flows.
  • Packet modification is not supported with the action as output port All.
  • OpenFlow disable on an interface is not allowed, if a flow with action All is present.

Output port Flood

Output action Flood indicates the packet to be flooded in the VLAN domain. This is similar to Normal action in case of the flow forwarding through hardware. For PACKET-OUT with action as Flood, VLAN information from the packet is extracted from PACKET-OUT and the packet is flooded on the ports that are part of that VLAN. In addition to VLAN, PACKET-OUT message contains IN-PORT, If a valid IN-PORT is present and the OpenFlow is enabled on that port then that port is excluded from the VLAN flood.

  • When a VLAN is created, ports should be part of the VLAN.
  • The hybrid and non-hybrid ports support Flood output ports.
  • If VLAN is not created, then PACKET-OUT and message with Flood is dropped.
  • The port Flood supports both port based and generic flows.
Parent topic: Overview of OpenFlow v1.3.0