P4sim Artifact: Simulating Programmable Switches in ns-3

This repository contains the artifact for the paper:

"P4sim: Simulating programmable switches in ns-3"
Accepted at the 2025 International Conference on ns-3 (ICNS3).

Overview

This artifact allows users to reproduce the simulation results presented in the paper. It provides:

• Source code of P4sim as a module integrated into the ns-3 simulator
• Experiment scripts and configuration files to run simulations
• Raw output data and plotting scripts to reproduce key figures and tables from the paper
• Setup instructions for a virtual machine environment or native Ubuntu deployment

Repository Structure

We will add all the tests for the example in p4sim, check dir examples_test_result:

Example Name	Description	Architecture
basic_tunnel [1]	Tunnel with custom header	V1model
firewall [2]	A basic stateful firewall	V1model
ipv4_forward	Basic forwarding based on ip_dst	V1model
load_balance [3]	Load balancing in spine-leaf network	V1model
p4_basic [4]	Basic forwarding based on ip_dst	V1model
qos	Forwarding with priority	V1model
simple_pna	IPv4 forwarding with PNA architecture	PNA
simple_psa	IPv4 forwarding with PSA architecture	PSA
simple_v1model	IPv4 forwarding with V1model architecture	V1model

.
├── Readme.md
├── figures
│   ├── load_balancing.pdf
│   ├── network_simulation_time.pdf
│   ├── network_simulation_time_comparison.pdf
│   └── network_throughput_comparison.pdf
├── plot
│   ├── Readme.md
│   ├── ipv4_forwarding_v1.py
│   ├── ipv4_forwarding_v2.py
│   ├── ipv4_time_usage.py
│   ├── ipv4_time_usage_v1.py
│   ├── read_and_compute_ratio.py
│   └── throughput_lb.py
├── queuing_test
│   ├── Readme.md
│   ├── ...
│   └── queuemodel.png
└── raw_result
    ├── load_balance
    │   └── traffic_data.txt
    ├── pcap_ipv4_forwarding
    │   ├── *.pcap ...
    └── print_ipv4_forwarding
        ├── Readme.md
        ├── ipv4_forward_throughput_mininet_bmv2
        ├── ipv4_forward_throughput_mininet_bmv2_summary
        ├── ipv4_forward_throughput_ns3
        └── ipv4_forward_throughput_p4sim

Requirements and Simulation Environment

• ⭐ Local Deployment (ns-3.39 tested)
• Virtual Machine as Virtual Env
  • ns-3 Version 3.x – 3.35 (tested)
  • ns-3 Version 3.36 – 3.39 (tested with this paper)

See P4Sim: NS-3-Based P4 Simulation Environment for full setup steps.

Test and Evaluation

All the evaluation is included in p4sim/example dir. And also in ReamMe_Examples

The Evaluation section of paper:

• Section 5.1: Script(ns-3)p4-v1model-ipv4-forwarding.cc, Script(p4)simple_v1model.p4, table_entry_setting_P4_switch

    // by change `model` to change the simulation approach.
    cmd.AddValue("runnum", "running number in loops", running_number);
    cmd.AddValue("model", "running simulation with p4switch: 0, with ns-3 bridge: 1", model);
    cmd.AddValue("pktSize", "Packet size in bytes (default 1000)", pktSize);
    cmd.AddValue("appDataRate", "Application data rate in bps (default 1Mbps)", appDataRate);
    cmd.AddValue("pcap", "Trace packet pacp [true] or not[false]", enableTracePcap);

• Section 5.2: Script(ns-3)p4-spine-leaf-topo.cc, Script(p4)load_balance.p4, table_entry_setting_P4_switch have 5 files flowtable_x.txt (x=0-4) for different P4 switches.

• Section 5.3: p4-basic-tunnel.cc, Script(p4)basic_tunnel.p4, table_entry_setting_P4_switch have 3 files flowtable_x.txt (x=0-2) for different P4 switches.

PS: Some of the Documents is helped writed with DeepSeek.

References

PS: Some of the Documents is helped writed with DeepSeek.

• [1] basic_tunnel in p4lang/tutorials/baisc_tunnel
• [2] firewall in p4lang/tutorials/firewall
• [3] load_balance in p4lang/tutorials/load_balance
• [4] p4_basic in p4lang/tutorials/basic