APIs

The SDN Developer Lab supports more than one northbound API that your application may target. At this time you may only target one northbound API at a time. To select which northbound API your application will target read their descriptions here.

RESTCONF API

This is the standard REST-like API provided by the OpenDaylight controller. In reality, it provides one or more logically grouped set of functions. OpenDaylight consists of the core 'controller' module and then any number of other optional modules. Which groups of functions are supported at the northbound API depends on which optional modules are enabled. So, the northbound API support depends on which vendor's distribution you select. We list the distributions available today in the SDN Developer Lab and list its available northbound functions.

• Elbrys OpenDaylight Lithium
  • Version 1.0.11:
    • Base Controller API
    • OpenFlow API

OpenNAC API

This is an Elbrys API provided by the Elbrys module added to the OpenDaylight controller. We are working on finding a home within OpenDaylight to contribute. It provides a high level API for detecting when new end-points (hosts) connect to your switch and allows you to set an 'access' policy for each end-point. The access policies consist of a list of conditions and actions. These are high level allowing your application to implement complex network features with a few lines of code, for example HTTP redirect to a specific url, monitor visited URLs, etc. This API works using OpenFlow and therefore will operate on any OpenFlow-enabled network device. NOTE: some OpenFlow-enabled network devices do not support the full OpenFlow specification and may have difficulty supporting all features of OpenNAC. At this time the OpenNAC API is not made available at the RESTCONF url, but instead at its own URL.