On the Complexity of Network-Wide Configuration Synthesis


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Date

2022

Publication Type

Conference Paper

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Abstract

Configuration Synthesis promises to increase automation in network hardware configuration but is generally assumed to constitute a computationally hard problem. We conduct a formal analysis of the computational complexity of network-wide Configuration Synthesis to establish this claim formally. To that end, we consider Configuration Synthesis as a decision problem, whether or not the selected routing protocol(s) can implement a given set of forwarding properties. We find the complexity of Configuration Synthesis heavily depends on the combination of the forwarding properties that need to be implemented in the network, as well as the employed routing protocol(s). Our analysis encompasses different forwarding properties that can be encoded as path constraints, and any combination of distributed destination-based hop-by-hop routing protocols. Many of these combinations yield NP-hard Configuration Synthesis problems; in particular, we show that the satisfiability of a set of arbitrary waypoints for any hop-by-hop routing protocol is NP-complete. Other combinations, however, show potential for efficient, scalable Configuration Synthesis.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

2022 IEEE 30th International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP)

Journal / series

Volume

Pages / Article No.

9940325

Publisher

IEEE

Event

30th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP 2022)

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Automation; Computational modeling; Routing; Routing protocols; Hardware; Space exploration; Internet

Organisational unit

09477 - Vanbever, Laurent / Vanbever, Laurent check_circle

Notes

Funding

851809 - From Network Verification to Synthesis: Breaking New Ground in Network Automation (EC)

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