Overview

This project allows for connecting Docker containers and virtual machines to a TSN network. TSN is standardized by IEEE 802.1Q and facilitates real-time networking.

With our “TSN Control Daemon” (tsnctrld) you can turn a Debian machine into a software TSN switch, which can schedule traffic from/to hosted VMs or Docker containers using Time-Aware-Shapers defined by IEEE 802.1Qbv. The deamon is controllable via NETCONF, allowing you to configure the tsnctrld’s Time-Aware-Shapers from afar with a Centralized Network Configuration unit (CNC).

Our project also includes an implementation of such a CNC, which allows you to centrally configure all Time-Aware-Shapers in your network through a webinterface or command line interface.

TSN uses two networking planes, essentialy two separate networks layered atop each other: The first is the data plane, which is responsible for all the real-time application traffic regulated by the Time-Aware-Shapers. The second is the control plane, which carries the NETCONF traffic for network configuration. Each physical Ethernet cable in the network belongs to either one or the other networking plane, never both.

Example setup

This is a simple example network to demonstrate how our software components interact. The real-time application traffic among TSN talkers & listeners travels through the blue connections (data plane), while the Time-Aware-Shapers in that data plane are configured through NETCONF messages from the CNC, which are travelling in the red control plane. Note that neither networking plane has to be a tree topology, cycles are allowed!