Rust Barefoot Runtime (RBFRT): Fast Runtime Control for the Intel Tofino

Abstract

Data plane programming enables the programmability of network devices with domain-specific programming languages, like P4. One commonly used P4-programmable hardware target is the Intel Tofino switching ASIC. The runtime behavior of an implemented P4 program on Tofino can be configured with shell scripts or a Python library from Barefoot provided with the Tofino. Both are limited in their capabilities and usability. This paper introduces the Rust Barefoot Runtime (RBFRT), a Rust-based control plane library. The RBFRT provides a fast and memory-safe interface to configure the Intel Tofino. We showed that the RBFRT achieves a higher insertion rate for MAT entries and has a shorter response time compared to the Python library.

This work has been accepted at the 4th KuVS Workshop on Network Softwarization (KuVS NetSoft) under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)