Redundant Logic Elimination in Network Functions
Bangwen Deng, Wenfei Wu, Linhai Song · 2020
Network functions (NFs) are critical components in the network data plane. Their efficiency is important to the whole network's end-to-end performance. We identify three types of runtime redundant logic in NFs when they are deployed with concrete configured rules. We propose to use compiler techniques (e.g., program slicing, constant propagation, dead code elimination, symbolic execution) to optimize away the redundancy. We implement a prototype named NFReducer using LLVM. Our evaluation on two IDSes shows that after eliminating the redundant logic, the packet processing rate of the two IDSes can be significantly improved.