etherws 1.3

Description:

etherws 1.3

Introduction
etherws is an implementation of software switch with the Ethernet over
WebSocket tunnel.


Overview
etherws sw is a simple virtual ethernet switch. And this is controlled by
etherws ctl:
[tap] [netdev]
| |
+--+------+--+ (control)
| etherws sw | <-----------+
+-----||-----+ |
|| +-------------+
(WebSocket) | etherws ctl |
|| +-------------+
+-----||-----+ |
| etherws sw | <-----------+
+--+------+--+ (control)
| |
[tap] [netdev]


Basic Usage
For example, consider creating following simple network:
(Physical Network)
-----+--------- // --------+-----
| 10.0.0.10 | 10.0.0.5
+----+-----+ +-----+----+
| NodeA | | NodeB |
| | | |
| [ethws0] | | [ethws0] |
+----||----+ +----||----+
|| 192.0.2.10/24 || 192.0.2.5/24
``===================''
(WebSocket Tunnel)
In this case, WebSocket Tunnel will be created by following commands.
on NodeA:
# etherws sw
# etherws ctl addport tap ethws0
# etherws ctl setif --address 192.0.2.10 --netmask 255.255.255.0 1
on NodeB:
# etherws sw
# etherws ctl addport tap ethws0
# etherws ctl setif --address 192.0.2.5 --netmask 255.255.255.0 1
# etherws ctl addport client ws://10.0.0.10/
listport, listif or listfdb commands will show you current port list,
interface list, or forwarding database entries:
# etherws ctl listport
# etherws ctl listif
# etherws ctl listfdb

Using SSL/TLS
etherws supports SSL/TLS connection. Tunnels will be encrypted and server will
be verified by using following options.
On server side:
# etherws sw --sslkey ssl.key --sslcert ssl.crt
ssl.key is a server private key, and ssl.crt is a server
certificate.
On client side:
# etherws ctl addport client --cacerts ssl.crt wss://10.0.0.10/
URL scheme was just changed to wss, and CA certificate to verify server
certificate was specified.
Client verifies server certificate by default. So, for example, addport will
fail if your server uses self-signed certificate and client uses another CA
certificate.
If you want to just encrypt tunnels and do not need to verify server
certificate, then you can use –insecure option:
# etherws ctl addport client --insecure wss://10.0.0.10/
Note: see http://docs.python.org/library/ssl.html for more information about
certificates.


Using HTTP Proxy
You can create WebSocket tunnels via HTTP proxy. Proxy server’s address and
port number are specified by generic environment variables: e.g. $http_proxy
See https://docs.python.org/library/urllib.html for more information about
environment variables for the proxy.
If you want to know what WebSocket client requires to HTTP proxy server, you
can see library documentation: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/websocket-client/


Client Authentication
etherws supports HTTP Basic Authentication. This means you can use etherws as
simple L2-VPN server/client.
On server side, etherws requires user informations in Apache htpasswd format
(and currently supports SHA-1 digest only). To create this file:
# htpasswd -s -c filename username
If you do not have htpasswd command, then you can use python one-liner
instead:
# python -c 'import hashlib; print("username:{SHA}" + hashlib.sha1("password").digest().encode("base64"))'
To run server with this file:
# etherws sw --htpasswd filename
On client side, etherws requires username and password from option with
addport command:
# etherws ctl addport client --user username --passwd password ws://10.0.0.10/
Or, password can be input from stdin:
# etherws ctl addport client --user username ws://10.0.0.10/
Client Password:
If authentication did not succeed, then addport will fail.
Note that you should not use HTTP Basic Authentication without SSL/TLS support,
because this is insecure in itself.



Advanced Usage

Remote Control
etherws ctl controls etherws sw by JSON-RPC over HTTP. This means you can
control etherws sw from remote nodes. However, allowing remote control
without careful consideration also allows to attack to your server or
network. So control URL is bound to localhost by default.
If you just want to allow remote control, you can use following options for
example:
# etherws sw --ctlhost 10.0.0.10 --ctlport 1234
This means allowing remote control from any nodes that can access
10.0.0.10:1234 TCP/IP. Of course this is very dangerous as described above.
Here, etherws ctl can control remote etherws sw using following option:
# etherws ctl --ctlurl http://10.0.0.10:1234/ctl ...
etherws sw controller supports SSL/TLS connection and client authentication
as well as WebSocket tunnel service.
On server side:
# etherws sw --ctlhost 10.0.0.10 --ctlport 443 \
--ctlhtpasswd htpasswd --ctlsslkey ssl.key --ctlsslcert ssl.crt
On client side:
# etherws ctl --ctlurl https://10.0.0.10/ctl \
--ctluser username --ctlpasswd password ...
Password can be input from stdin as well as WebSocket tunnel creation.


Logging
etherws uses standard logging library. You can customize the logger using the
fileConfig described in https://docs.python.org/library/logging.config.html
To run etherws sw with the custom logger:
# etherws sw --logconf /path/to/logging.ini ...
etherws uses a logger stream named “etherws”. And internally Tornado uses
some logger streams described in http://www.tornadoweb.org/en/stable/log.html
Note: etherws does not write debug logs even if you simply configure loglevel
DEBUG, to avoid performance degradation. To write debug logs, you can
specify –debug option.


Virtual Machines Connection
For example, consider creating following virtual machine network:
+------------------+ +------------------+
| HypervisorA | | HypervisorB |
| +-----+ | | +-----+ |
| | VM | | | | VM | |
| +--+--+ | | +--+--+ |
| (vnet0) | | (vnet0) |
| | | | | |
| [etherws] (eth0) | | (eth0) [etherws] |
+----||--------+---+ +----+-------||----+
|| | | ||
|| -----+--------- // ---------+----- ||
|| (Physical Network) ||
|| ||
``=======================================''
(WebSocket Tunnel)
Existing network interfaces can also be added to etherws sw.
So in this case, this will be created by following commands.
on HypervisorA:
# etherws sw
# etherws ctl addport netdev vnet0
on HypervisorB:
# etherws sw
# etherws ctl addport netdev vnet0
# etherws ctl addport client ws://HypervisorA/
Of course, you can create TAP ports and connect them using the Linux Bridge
or the like.



History

1.3 (2015-06-26 JST)

logging support
http proxy support on client connection
fix listport bug on tornado 4.0.x


1.2 (2014-12-29 JST)

verification of controller SSL certificate support
correspond to some library updates


1.1 (2013-10-10 JST)

netdev (existing network interfaces) support


1.0 (2012-08-18 JST)

global architecture change


0.7 (2012-06-29 JST)

switching support
multiple ports support


0.6 (2012-06-16 JST)

improve performance


0.5 (2012-05-20 JST)

added passwd option to client mode
fixed bug: basic authentication password cannot contain colon
fixed bug: client loops meaninglessly even if server stops


0.4 (2012-05-19 JST)

server certificate verification support


0.3 (2012-05-17 JST)

client authentication support


0.2 (2012-05-16 JST)

SSL/TLS connection support


0.1 (2012-05-15 JST)

First release