NETWORK CONTROL SOFTWARE NOTIFICATION WITH DENIAL OF SERVICE PROTECTION

摘要

Techniques are disclosed for notifying network control software of new and moved source MAC addresses. In one embodiment, a switch may redirect a packet sent by a new or migrated virtual machine to the network control software as a notification. The switch does not forward the packet, thereby protecting against denial of service attacks. The switch further adds to a forwarding database a temporary entry which includes a “No_Redirect” flag for a new source MAC address, or updates an existing entry for a source MAC address that hits in the forwarding database by setting the “No_Redirect” flag. The “No_Redirect” flag indicates whether a notification has already been sent to the network control software for this source MAC address. The switch may periodically retry the notification to the network control software, until the network control software validates the source MAC address, depending on whether the “No_Redirect” is set.