T4G: Trace-based P4 Program Generation

While the adoption of programmable data planes is increasing, writing correct and efficient P4 programs remains a challenging and error-prone process. This hinders the rapid development of custom in-network functionality and limits the accessibility of data-plane programming to a small set of experts. In this paper, we present T4G, a system that automatically synthesizes P4 programs from network behavior expressed as input-output network traces. Unlike prior approaches that rely on high-level abstraction or domain-specific languages, T4G operates with example packet captures, eliminating the need for manual abstraction or rule specifications from network operators. T4G introduces a novel input-output grouping technique that identifies logical packet transformation behavior from packet traces, and performs a divide-and-conquer synthesis that scales to complex forwarding logic. Our experimental results show the ability of T4G to generate different types of programs and demonstrate the potential of T4G in generating complex P4 programs.