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doc: fix and simplify network-for-clones.md
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Address the discussion in
#4720

- Reflect that the doc is just an example.
- Fix the doc so that it works.
- Split the ingress setup as that is a specific requirement that may not
  always be required, and complicates the implementation.
- Also simplify the test framework helpers since on revisiting some of
  the iptables rules were not needed.

Signed-off-by: Pablo Barbáchano <pablob@amazon.com>
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144 changes: 66 additions & 78 deletions docs/snapshotting/network-for-clones.md
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,8 +1,12 @@
# Network Connectivity for Clones

This document presents the strategy to ensure continued network connectivity for
multiple clones created from a single Firecracker microVM snapshot. This
document also provides an overview of the scalability benchmarks we performed.
This document presents a strategy to ensure continued network connectivity for
multiple clones created from a single Firecracker microVM snapshot.

> \[!CAUTION\]
>
> This should be considered as just an example to get you started, and we don't
> claim this is a performant or secure setup.
## Setup

Expand All @@ -13,14 +17,7 @@ names, and each guest will be resumed with the same network configuration, most
importantly with the same IP address(es). To work around the former, each clone
should be started within a separate network namespace (we can have multiple TAP
interfaces with the same name, as long as they reside in distinct network
namespaces). The latter can be mitigated by leveraging `iptables` `SNAT` and
`DNAT` support. We choose a clone address (**CA**) for each clone, which is the
new address that’s going to represent the guest, and make it so all packets
leaving the VM have their source address rewritten to CA, and all incoming
packets with the destination address equal to CA have it rewritten to the IP
address configured inside the guest (which remains the same for all clones).
Each individual clone continues to believe it’s using the original address, but
outside the VM packets are assigned a different one for every clone.
namespaces). The latter can be mitigated by leveraging `iptables` `NAT` support.

Let’s have a more detailed look at this approach. We assume each VM has a single
network interface attached. If multiple interfaces with full connectivity are
Expand All @@ -37,8 +34,8 @@ corresponding virtio device (referred to as the guest IP address, for example
Attempting to restore multiple clones from the same snapshot faces the problem
of every single one of them attempting to use a TAP device with the original
name, which is not possible by default. Therefore, we need to start each clone
in a separate network namespace. This is already possible using the netns jailer
parameter, described in the [documentation](../jailer.md). The specified
in a separate network namespace. This is already possible using the `--netns`
jailer parameter, described in the [documentation](../jailer.md). The specified
namespace must already exist, so we have to create it first using

```bash
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -94,9 +91,7 @@ use the following commands (for namespace `fc0`):

```bash
# create the veth pair inside the namespace
sudo ip netns exec fc0 ip link add veth1 type veth peer name veth0
# move veth1 to the global host namespace
sudo ip netns exec fc0 ip link set veth1 netns 1
sudo ip link add name veth1 type veth peer name veth0 netns fc0

sudo ip netns exec fc0 ip addr add 10.0.0.2/24 dev veth0
sudo ip netns exec fc0 ip link set dev veth0 up
Expand All @@ -108,31 +103,32 @@ sudo ip link set dev veth1 up
sudo ip netns exec fc0 ip route add default via 10.0.0.1
```

### `iptables` rules for end-to-end connectivity
### `iptables` rules for VM egress connectivity

The last step involves adding the `iptables` rules which change the
source/destination IP address of packets on the fly (thus allowing all clones to
have the same internal IP). We need to choose a clone address, which is unique
on the host for each VM. In the demo, we use
`192.168.<idx / 30>.<(idx % 30) * 8 + 3>` (which is `192.168.0.3` for
`clone 0`):
have the same internal IP).

```sh
# Find the host egress device
UPSTREAM=$(ip -j route list default |jq -r '.[0].dev')
# anything coming from the VMs, we NAT the address
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/30 -o $UPSTREAM -j MASQUERADE
# forward packets by default
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
ip netns exec fc0 ip route add default via 10.0.0.1
ip netns exec fc0 iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
```

You may also want to configure the guest with a default route and a DNS
nameserver:

```bash
# for packets that leave the namespace and have the source IP address of the
# original guest, rewrite the source address to clone address 192.168.0.3
sudo ip netns exec fc0 iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o veth0 \
-s 192.168.241.2 -j SNAT --to 192.168.0.3

# do the reverse operation; rewrites the destination address of packets
# heading towards the clone address to 192.168.241.2
sudo ip netns exec fc0 iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i veth0 \
-d 192.168.0.3 -j DNAT --to 192.168.241.2

# (adds a route on the host for the clone address)
sudo ip route add 192.168.0.3 via 10.0.0.2
ip route default via 10.0.0.1
echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 >/etc/resolv.conf
```

**Full connectivity to/from the clone should be present at this point.**
**Connectivity from the clone should be present at this point.**

To make sure the guest also adjusts to the new environment, you can explicitly
clear the ARP/neighbour table in the guest:
Expand All @@ -146,47 +142,39 @@ Otherwise, packets originating from the guest might be using old Link Layer
Address for up to arp cache timeout seconds. After said timeout period,
connectivity will work both ways even without an explicit flush.

## Scalability evaluation

We ran synthetic tests to determine the impact of the addtional iptables rules
and namespaces on network performance. We compare the case where each VM runs as
regular Firecracker (gets assigned a TAP interface and a unique IP address in
the global namespace) versus the setup with a separate network namespace for
each VM (together with the veth pair and additional rules). We refer to the
former as the basic case, while the latter is the ns case. We measure latency
with the `ping` command and throughput with `iperf`.

The experiments, ran on an Amazon AWS `m5d.metal` EC2 instace, go as follows:

- Set up 3000 network resource slots (different TAP interfaces for the basic
case, and namespaces + everything else for ns). This is mainly to account for
any difference the setup itself might make, even if there are not as many
active endpoints at any given time.
- Start 1000 Firecracker VMs, and pick `N < 1000` as the number of active VMs
that are going to generate network traffic. For ping experiments, we ping each
active VM from the host every 500ms for 30 seconds. For `iperf` experiments,
we measure the average bandwidth of connections from the host to every active
VM lasting 40 seconds. There is one separate client process per VM.
- When `N = 100`, in the basic case we get average latencies of
`0.315 ms (0.160/0.430 min/max)` for `ping`, and an average throughput of
`2.25 Gbps (1.62/3.21 min/max)` per VM for `iperf`. In the ns case, the ping
results **are bumped higher by around 10-20 us**, while the `iperf` results
are virtually the same on average, with a higher minimum (1.73 Gbps) and a
lower maximum (3 Gbps).
- When `N = 1000`, we start facing desynchronizations caused by difficulties in
starting (and thus finishing) the client processes all at the same time, which
creates a wider distribution of results. In the basic case, the average
latency for ping experiments has gone down to 0.305 ms, the minimum decreased
to 0.155 ms, but the maximum increased to 0.640 ms. The average `iperf` per VM
throughput is around `440 Mbps (110/3936 min/max)`. In the ns case, average
`ping` latency is now `0.318 ms (0.170/0.650 min/max)`. For `iperf`, the
average throughput is very close to basic at `~430 Mbps`, while the minimum
and maximum values are lower at `85/3803 Mbps`.

**The above measurements give a significant degree of confidence in the
scalability of the solution** (subject to repeating for different values of the
experimental parameters, if necessary). The increase in latency is almost
negligible considering usual end-to-end delays. The lower minimum throughput
from the iperf measurements might be significant, but only if that magnitude of
concurrent, data-intensive transfers is likely. Moreover, the basic measurements
are close to an absolute upper bound.
# Ingress connectivity

The above setup only provides egress connectivity. If in addition we also want
to add ingress (in other words, make the guest VM routable outside the network
namespace), then we need to choose a "clone address" that will represent this VM
uniquely. For our example we can use IPs from `172.16.0.0/12`, for example
`172.16.0.1`.

Then we can rewrite destination address heading towards the "clone address" to
the guest IP.

```bash
ip netns exec fc0 iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i veth0 \
-d 172.16.0.1 -j DNAT --to 192.168.241.2
```

And add a route on the host so we can access the guest VM from the host network
namespace:

```bash
ip route add 172.16.0.1 via 10.0.0.2
```

To confirm that ingress connectivity works, try

```bash
ping 172.16.0.1
# or
ssh root@172.16.0.1
```

# See also

For an improved setup with full ingress and egress connectivity to the
individual VMs, see
[this discussion](https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/discussions/4720).
47 changes: 31 additions & 16 deletions tests/framework/microvm_helpers.py
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -58,6 +58,9 @@ class MicrovmHelpers:
# private block
_supernet = ipaddress.IPv4Network("10.255.0.0/16")
_subnets_gen = _supernet.subnets(new_prefix=30)
# Addresses that can be used outside the netns. Could be public IPv4 blocks
_ingress_net = ipaddress.IPv4Network("172.16.0.0/12")
_ingress_gen = _ingress_net.hosts()

def __init__(self, vm):
self.vm = vm
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -140,18 +143,17 @@ def how_to_docker(self):
"""How to get into this container from outside"""
return f"docker exec -it {DOCKER.id}"

def enable_ip_forwarding(self, iface="eth0"):
def enable_ip_forwarding(self, iface="eth0", ingress_ipv4=None):
"""Enables IP forwarding in the guest"""
i = MicrovmHelpers.shared_subnet_ctr
MicrovmHelpers.shared_subnet_ctr += 1
netns = self.vm.netns.id
veth_host = f"vethhost{i}"
veth_vpn = f"vethvpn{i}"
veth_guest = f"vethguest{i}"
veth_net = next(self._subnets_gen)
veth_host_ip, veth_vpn_ip = list(veth_net.hosts())
veth_host_ip, veth_guest_ip = list(veth_net.hosts())
iface = self.vm.iface[iface]["iface"]
tap_host_ip = iface.host_ip
tap_dev = iface.tap_name
tap_net = iface.network.with_netmask # i.e. 192.168.7.0/255.255.255.0
# get the device associated with the default route
upstream_dev = (
Expand All @@ -170,30 +172,26 @@ def run_in_netns(cmd):
return run(f"ip netns exec {netns} " + cmd)

# outside netns
# iptables -L -v -n
# iptables -L -v -n --line-numbers
run(
f"ip link add name {veth_host} type veth peer name {veth_vpn} netns {netns}"
f"ip link add name {veth_host} type veth peer name {veth_guest} netns {netns}"
)
run(f"ip addr add {veth_host_ip}/{veth_net.prefixlen} dev {veth_host}")
run_in_netns(f"ip addr add {veth_vpn_ip}/{veth_net.prefixlen} dev {veth_vpn}")
run_in_netns(
f"ip addr add {veth_guest_ip}/{veth_net.prefixlen} dev {veth_guest}"
)
run(f"ip link set {veth_host} up")
run_in_netns(f"ip link set {veth_vpn} up")
run_in_netns(f"ip link set {veth_guest} up")

run("iptables -P FORWARD DROP")
run("iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT")
# iptables -L FORWARD
# iptables -t nat -L
run(
f"iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s {veth_net} -o {upstream_dev} -j MASQUERADE"
)
run(f"iptables -A FORWARD -i {upstream_dev} -o {veth_host} -j ACCEPT")
run(f"iptables -A FORWARD -i {veth_host} -o {upstream_dev} -j ACCEPT")

# in the netns
run_in_netns(f"ip route add default via {veth_host_ip}")
run_in_netns(f"iptables -A FORWARD -i {tap_dev} -o {veth_vpn} -j ACCEPT")
run_in_netns(f"iptables -A FORWARD -i {veth_vpn} -o {tap_dev} -j ACCEPT")
run_in_netns(
f"iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s {tap_net} -o {veth_vpn} -j MASQUERADE"
f"iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s {tap_net} -o {veth_guest} -j MASQUERADE"
)

# Configure the guest
Expand All @@ -207,3 +205,20 @@ def run_in_netns(cmd):
.strip()
)
self.vm.ssh.run(f"echo nameserver {nameserver} >/etc/resolv.conf")

# only configure ingress if we get an IP
if not ingress_ipv4:
return

if not isinstance(ingress_ipv4, ipaddress.IPv4Address):
ingress_ipv4 = next(self._ingress_gen)

guest_ip = iface.guest_ip

# packets heading towards the clone address are rewritten to the guest ip
run_in_netns(
f"iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i {veth_guest} -d {ingress_ipv4} -j DNAT --to {guest_ip}"
)

# add a route on the host for the clone address
run(f"ip route add {ingress_ipv4} via {veth_guest_ip}")

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