DNS Filter

DNS Filter (PDF)

NVIDIA DOCA DNS Filter Reference Application Guide

This document provides an example of a DNS filter implementation on top of NVIDIA® BlueField® DPU.

Domain name system (DNS) translates domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load internet resources. Each device connected to the internet has a unique IP address which other machines use to find the device.

The DNS process includes several steps:

  1. Once a user tries to log into a website using a browser, the user's device creates a DNS query and sends it to a DNS resolver.
  2. The DNS resolver queries the DNS domain to get an IP address by searching its cache or sending the request to another DNS server.
  3. Once a match is found, the DNS resolver returns the correct IP matching the DNS domain.
  4. The user can log into the required website using the correct IP.

DNS filter is used to offload DNS requests from the host to the BlueField DPU Arm which allows reducing CPU overhead as Arm allows further DNS processing to be done (e.g., allowlisting, logging, filtering, etc).

The DNS filter application is designed to run as a "bump-on-the-wire" on the BlueField-2 DPU instance. The DPU intercepts the traffic coming (ingress traffic) from the wire and either passes it to the Arm or forwards it to the egress port using hairpin. The decision is made by traffic classification.

system-design-diagram.png

The DNS filter runs on top of DOCA FLOW to classify DNS requests.

application-architecture-diagram.png

  1. Ingress packet types are identified using pipes which encapsulate flow rule matching patterns and actions.
  2. The DNS filter application builds two pipes for each port (DNS pipe and hairpin pipe). Every pipe includes exactly one entry.
  3. The DNS pipe matches only DNS traffic and FORWARDS it to the Arm. The hairpin pipe matches every packet (no misses). The DNS pipe serves as a root pipe and the hairpin pipe serves as a FORWARDING miss component to the DNS pipe. Therefore, every received packet is checked first against the DNS pipe, and if there is a match then it is forwarded to the Arm. Otherwise (miss case), it is forwarded to the hairpin pipe and then is matched.

  1. Parse application argument.
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    arg_parser_init();

    1. Initialize arg parser resources.
    2. Register DOCA general flags.
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      arg_parser_start();

    3. Parsing DPDK flags and calling rte_eal_init() function.
  2. DPDK initialization.
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    dpdk_init();

    1. Initialize DPDK ports, including mempool allocation.
    2. Initialize hairpin queues if needed.
    3. Binds hairpin queues of each port to its peer port.
  3. DNS filter initialization.
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    dpdk_dns_filter_init();

    1. DOCA flow and DOCA flow port initialization.
    2. Creates hairpin pipe for both ports. This pipe includes one entry that matches every type of packet (no misses) and forwards it to the egress port through hairpin.
    3. Creates DNS pipe, that serves as a root pipe, for both ports. The built pipe has one entry for matching DNS traffic and forwarding it to Arm. In addition, the hairpin pipe serves for a FORWARDING if the DNS entry does not match (i.e., for each non-DNS packet, packets are hairpined).
  4. Processing packets.
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    process_packets();

    1. All received packets on Arm are DNS packets, while non-DNS packets are forwarded to the egress port using hairpin allowing DNS packets to be filtered.
  5. DNS filter destroy.
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    dns_filter_destroy();

    1. Frees all allocated resources.

  1. Please refer to the DOCA Installation Guide for details on how to install BlueField related software.
  2. The DNS filter example binary is located under /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/doca_dns_filter. To re-build the application:
    1. Run:
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      cd /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/src meson /tmp/build ninja -C /tmp/build

      doca_dns_filter will be created under /tmp/build.
    2. The build process depends on the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable to locate the DPDK libraries. If the variable was accidently corrupted, and the build fails, run the following command:
      • For Ubuntu:
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        export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/mellanox/dpdk/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig

      • For CentOS:
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        export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/mellanox/dpdk/lib64/pkgconfig

  3. Pre-run setup. The DNS filter example is based on DPDK libraries. Therefore, the user is required to provide DPDK flags, and allocate huge pages. Run:
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    echo 1024 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages


  4. To run the application:
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    Usage: doca_dns_filter [DPDK Flags] -- [DOCA Flags] DOCA Flags: -h, --help Print a help synopsis -l, --log-level Set the log level for the app <CRITICAL=0, DEBUG=4>

    For example:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/doca_dns_filter -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.4 -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.5 -- -l 3


    Or using a JSON file:
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    doca_dns_filter --json [json_file]


    For example:
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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/doca_dns_filter --json /root/dns_filter_params.json


    Note:

    Sub-Functions must be enabled according to Scalable Function Setup Guide.

    Note:

    The flags -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.4 -a auxiliary:mlx5_core.sf.5 are necessary for proper usage of the application. Modifying these flags results in unexpected behavior as only two ports are supported. The SF numbers are is arbitrary and configurable. For additional information on available flags for DPDK, use -h before the -- separator:

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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/doca_dns_filter -h

    For information on available flags for the application, use -h after the -- separator:

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    /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/doca_dns_filter -- -h



Refer to NVIDIA DOCA Arg Parser User Guide for more information.

Flag Type Short Flag Long Flag/JSON Key Description JSON Content
DPDK flags a devices Add a PCIe device into the list of devices to probe.
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"devices": [ { "device": "sf", "id": "4", "sft": true }, { "device": "sf", "id": "5", "sft": true }, ]

General flags l log-level Sets the log level for the application:
  • CRITICAL=0
  • ERROR=1
  • WARNING=2
  • INFO=3
  • DEBUG=4
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"log-level": 4

h help Print a help synopsis N/A

x86 CLI example:

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/opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/sbin/doca_dns_filter -a 03:00.3 -a 03:00.4 -c 0xff -- -l 4


Refer to section "Running DOCA Application on Host" in NVIDIA DOCA Virtual Functions User Guide.

For instructions on running the gRPC application server on the BlueField, refer to NVIDIA DOCA gRPC Infrastructure User Guide.

dns-filter-grpc.png

To run the Python client of the gRPC-enabled application:

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./doca_dns_filter_gRPC_client.py -d/--debug <server address[:server port]>


For example:

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/opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/bin/grpc/client/doca_dns_filter_gRPC_client.py 192.168.104.2

  • /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/src/dns_filter.c
  • /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/src/grpc/dns_filter.proto

This section details the steps necessary for running the DNS filter application on NVIDIA converged accelerator. The DNS-filter application running on the converged accelerator has the same logic as described in previous sections of this page. However, instead of processing the DNS packets in the Arm, the packets are copied to the GPU memory for further processing. To make use of the GPU's capabilities, several steps must be taken.

  1. Refer to the DOCA Installation Guide for instructions on installing NVIDIA driver for CUDA and a CUDA-repo on your setup.
  2. Create sub-functions and configure the OVS according to Scalable Function Setup Guide.
  3. The meson version must at at least be 0.59.1 in order for meson to identify the CUDA compiler. To set up the right meson version:
    1. Download the *.tar file of the right meson version (0.59.01) from this link.
    2. Copy the *.tar file onto the BlueField.
    3. Untar the file:
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      tar -xzf meson-0.59.1.tar.gz

      This untars it to the current directory. After untarring the file, a Python script called meson.py is extracted under <path-to-current directory>/meson-0.59.1. Use this Python script instead of the installed meson version in the system. Going forward, this section refers to "path to the current directory" just as "path" when using meson.

10.1. Compiling and Running Application

Since there is no pre-compiled DNS filter application binary provided that uses the GPU support, you must compile it and run it. All the sources needed for building, compiling, and running the application with GPU support are found under /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/src.

  1. Set gpu_support to true in the application's meson_options.txt file found at /opt/mellanox/doca/examples/dns_filter/src/meson_options.txt.
  2. Setup CUDA path:
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    export CPATH=/usr/local/cuda/targets/sbsa-linux/include:$CPATH export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/cuda/targets/sbsa-linux/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH export PATH=/usr/local/cuda/bin:/usr/local/cuda-11.4/bin:$PATH

  3. To build the application, run:
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    <path>/meson-0.59.1/meson.py /tmp/build ninja -C /tmp/build

    doca_dns_filter is created under /tmp/build.
    Note:

    If CUDA-11.4 is installed, the version of CUDA in the meson file must be modified to match it (11.4).


  4. The DNS filter example is a DPDK application. Therefore, the user is required to provide DPDK flags and allocate huge pages. Run:
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    echo 1024 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages

  5. To run the application, follow the steps in Running Application on BlueField.

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