The release of the network operating system dentos 3.2 has been published. Dentos is a network operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed for switches, routers, and specialized network equipment. Originally, the project was founded by Amazon to equip network equipment in its infrastructure. However, it has since been transferred to the protection of the Linux Foundation and now includes key participants such as Delta Electronics, Marvell, NVIDIA, EDGECORE NETWORKS, and WISTRON NEWEB. The DENTOS code is written in SI and is distributed under the free license eclipse public license.
The systemic environment of dentos is based on the distribution of Open Network Linux (ONL), which in turn uses the DEBIAN GNU/Linux package base. ONL provides an installer, settings, and drivers for launching on switches. It is developed by the Open Compute project and supports the installation of more than a hundred different models of switches. The composition of ONL includes drivers for interacting with indicators used in switches, temperature sensors, coolers, i2c buses, GPIO, and sFP transceivers. Control can be done using tools such as IPROUTE2, IFUPDown2, and GNMI (GRPC Network Management Interface). Yang data models (RFC-6020) are used for configuration determination.
In dentos, the Linux kernel’s SwitchDEV feature is used to control the switching of packages. SwitchDEV allows the creation of drivers for Ethernet switches capable of delegating personnel redirecting and processing network packages with specialized hardware chips. Dentos’ program filling is based on the Linux standard network stack, NetLink subsystem, and tools such as IPROUTE2, TC (Traffic Control), BRCTL (BRIDGE CONTROL), and FRROUTING. It also supports protocols such as VIRTUAL ROUTER REDUNDANDANCOL, LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol), and MSTP (Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol).
Dentos is available for switches based on ASICs from Marvell and Mellanox, with up to 48 10 gigabit ports. It works with various ASICs and networking chips, including Mellanox Spectrum and Marvell Aldrin 2 and Marvell Ell AC3X.