Techniques for distributed sub-controller permission for control of data-traffic flow within software-defined networking (SDN) mesh networks to limit control plane traffic of the network are described herein. A technique described herein includes a network node of a data-traffic path of an SDN mesh network obtaining SDN sub-controller permission from a border controller of the SDN mesh network. Further, the technique includes suppression of data traffic from sibling and children nodes of data-traffic path allied nodes to the data-traffic path allied nodes. The data-traffic path allied nodes include network nodes that are part of the data-traffic path of the SDN mesh network. Further still, the technique includes the transmission of data across the data-traffic path.