Where is the debugger for my software-defined network?

Abstract

The behavior of a Software-Defined Network is controlled by programs, which like all software, will have bugs - but this programmatic control also enables new ways to debug networks. This paper introduces ndb, a prototype network debugger inspired by gdb, which implements two primitives useful for debugging an SDN: breakpoints and packet backtraces. We show how ndb modifies forwarding state and logs packet digests to rebuild the sequence of events leading to an errant packet, providing SDN programmers and operators with a valuable tool for tracking down the root cause of a bug.