merlin-lang/merlin

The Merlin Network Management System

Merlin

Merlin provides techniques for verifying that both the partitioned program components and the delegated sub-policies conform to the global network policy. Overall, Merlin simplifies the task of network administration by providing high-level abstractions for specifying network policies and scalable infrastructure for enforcing them.

Merlin is a new network management framework that allows administrators to express policies in a high-level, declarative language based on regular expressions. The compiler automatically partitions those policies into components that can be placed on a variety of devices including switches, middleboxes, and end hosts. The compiler uses a constraint-solver to determine the optimal placement strategy using paramaterizable heuristics. Sub-policies may be further constrained by network tenants, facilitating management of federated networks.

Building Merlin

Merlin must currently be built from source. Merlin is written in OCaml and uses the [OCaml Package Manager (OPAM)][https://opam.ocaml.org/] to install dependencies. It is also dependent on DPRLE and Frenetic which must be built from source.

Dependencies

First install OPAM using the instructions for your operating system. Then, set up a proper OCaml environment by running the following commands:

opam init
eval `opam config env`
opam switch install 4.03.0
eval `opam config env`

In order to compile Merlin, you will need to install the relevant dependencies via OPAM using the following command. These are the combined dependencies for Merlin, Frenetic and DPRLE (described below):

opam install ocamlfind oasis core fieldslib cmdliner cstruct \
     async_extended async_parallel \
     menhir sexplib sedlex ppx_import \
     ulex ipaddr tcpip base64 cohttp \
     yojson mparser ocamlgraph quickcheck ounit

You will also need to install DPRLE and Frenetic from source.

To install DPRLE:

git clone https://github.com/frenetic-lang/dprle.git
cd dprle
make
make install

To install Frenetic:

git clone https://github.com/frenetic-lang/frenetic.git
cd frenetic
make
make install

Finally, you will need to install the Gurobi Optimizer:

• http://www.gurobi.com/index

Building

1. Run 'make`
2. Run 'make test'

Example

$ ./Merlin.native -topo examples/min/min.dot examples/min/min.mln -verbose

merlin's Issues

Problem with module Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_plugin

Hello,
I'm trying to compile Merlin and get the following error in module Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_plugin:

File "lib/Merlin_Controller.ml", line 11, characters 12-49:
Error: Unbound module Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_Plugin
Command exited with code 2.
Compilation unsuccessful after building 72 targets (0 cached) in 00:00:13.
E: Failure("Command ''/usr/bin/ocamlbuild' lib/libmerlin_stubs.a lib/dllmerlin_stubs.so lib/merlin.cma lib/merlin.cmxa lib/merlin.a lib/merlin.cmxs lib/Merlin.native test/Test.native -use-ocamlfind -tag debug' terminated with error code 10")
make: *** [build] Error 1

Dropping packets with Merlin

Hi. Since the end of the last year I am using Merlin as part of my research application. Recently I was looking through the parser code and I did not find anything related to dropping packets that match predicates. Is even possible to drop packets with Merlin? If its not, is there a plan to implement it in the future? Maybe something like tcpDstPort = 80 -> drop;.

Regards.

VM or Docker Image?

A VM or Docker image would be great to get dependencies sorted.

Error: Unbound module Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_Plugin

Hi.

I am trying to install Merlin following the instructions as stated in the README.md file, but I am running into the issue below:

File "lib/Merlin_Controller.ml", line 11, characters 12-49:
Error: Unbound module Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_Plugin
Command exited with code 2.
Compilation unsuccessful after building 72 targets (0 cached) in 00:00:15.
E: Failure("Command ''/usr/bin/ocamlbuild' lib/libmerlin_stubs.a lib/dllmerlin_stubs.so lib/merlin.cma lib/merlin.cmxa lib/merlin.a lib/merlin.cmxs lib/Merlin.native test/Test.native -use-ocamlfind -tag debug' terminated with error code 10")
make: *** [build] Error 1

This error occurs when I run make inside Merlin directory. It seems to be something related to missing libraries. I have installed all the necessary packages and I downloaded Merlin in the home directory of the Frenetic VM available in its Git repository, since there is no instructions about where to put the code in the VM file system.

I also tried to update Frenetic code from the VM to a more recent version, since it has a Frenetic_OpenFlow0x01_Plugin.ml module, but this leads to version incompatibilities with other dependencies.