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ovn-nb(5) Open vSwitch Manual ovn-nb(5)

NAME

ovn-nb - OVN_Northbound database schema

This database is the interface between OVN and the cloud management system (CMS), such as OpenStack, running above it. The CMS produces almost all of the contents of the database. The ovn-northd program monitors the database contents, transforms it, and stores it into the OVN_Southbound database.

We generally speak of ``the’’ CMS, but one can imagine scenarios in which multiple CMSes manage different parts of an OVN deployment.

External IDs

Each of the tables in this database contains a special column, named external_ids. This column has the same form and purpose each place it appears.

Key-value pairs for use by the CMS. The CMS might use certain pairs, for example, to identify entities in its own configuration that correspond to those in this database.

TABLE SUMMARY

The following list summarizes the purpose of each of the tables in the OVN_Northbound database. Each table is described in more detail on a later page.

Purpose
Northbound configuration
Sample_Collector
Sample
Control plane protection
L2 logical switch
L2 logical switch port
forwarding group
Address Sets
Port Groups
load balancer
load balancer group
load balancer
Access Control List (ACL) rule
L3 logical router
QoS rule
Mirror Entry
Meter entry
Band for meter entries
L3 logical router port
Logical router static routes
Logical router policies
NAT rules
DHCP options
DHCP Relay
OVSDB client connections.
Native DNS resolution
SSL configuration.
Gateway_Chassis configuration.
HA_Chassis_Group configuration.
HA_Chassis configuration.
BFD configuration.
Static_MAC_Binding configuration.
Chassis_Template_Var configuration.
Sampling_App configuration.

NB_Global TABLE

Northbound configuration for an OVN system. This table must have exactly one row.

Summary:


string


integer
integer
integer
integer
integer
integer


map of string-string pairs


map of string-string pairs

optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string

optional string
optional string
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
optional string, either true or false
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false

optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string


set of Connections
optional SSL


boolean


optional string

Details:

Identity:
The name of the OVN cluster, which uniquely identifies the OVN cluster throughout all OVN clusters supposed to interconnect with each other.

Status:

These columns allow a client to track the overall configuration state of the system.

Sequence number for client to increment. When a client modifies any part of the northbound database configuration and wishes to wait for ovn-northd and possibly all of the hypervisors to finish applying the changes, it may increment this sequence number.
The timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, when ovn-northd sees the latest nb_cfg and starts processing.
To print the timestamp as a human-readable date:



          date -d "@$(ovn-nbctl get NB_Global . nb_cfg_timestamp | sed ’s/...$//’)"
Sequence number that ovn-northd sets to the value of nb_cfg after it finishes applying the corresponding configuration changes to the OVN_Southbound database.
The timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, when ovn-northd finishes applying the corresponding configuration changes to the OVN_Southbound database successfully.
Sequence number that ovn-northd sets to the smallest sequence number of all the chassis in the system, as reported in the Chassis_Private table in the southbound database. Thus, hv_cfg equals nb_cfg if all chassis are caught up with the northbound configuration (which may never happen, if any chassis is down). This value can regress, if a chassis was removed from the system and rejoins before catching up.
If there are no chassis, then ovn-northd copies nb_cfg to hv_cfg. Thus, in this case, the (nonexistent) hypervisors are always considered to be caught up. This means that hypervisors can be "caught up" even in cases where sb_cfg would show that the southbound database is not. To detect when both the hypervisors and the southbound database are caught up, a client should take the smaller of sb_cfg and hv_cfg.
The largest timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, of the smallest sequence number of all the chassis in the system, as reported in the Chassis_Private table in the southbound database. In other words, this timestamp reflects the time when the slowest chassis catches up with the northbound configuration, which is useful for end-to-end control plane latency measurement.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Common options:
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported options are described individually below.

Options for configuring OVS BFD:

These options apply when ovn-controller configures OVS BFD on tunnels interfaces. Please note these parameters refer to legacy OVS BFD implementation and not to OVN BFD one.

BFD option min-rx value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel interfaces.
BFD option decay-min-rx value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel interfaces.
BFD option min-tx value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel interfaces.
BFD option mult value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel interfaces.
When set to false, the ovn-northd will evaluate the features supported by each chassis and will only activate features that are universally supported by all chassis. This approach is crucial for maintaining backward compatibility during an upgrade when the ovn-northd is updated prior to the ovn-controller. However, if any chassis is poorly managed and the upgrade is unsuccessful, it will restrict ovn-northd from activating the new features.
Alternatively, setting this option to true instructs ovn-northd to bypass the support status of features on each chassis and to directly implement the latest features. This approach safeguards the operation of ovn-northd from being adversely affected by a mismatched configuration of a chassis.
The default setting for this option is false.
Configure a given OUI to be used as prefix when L2 address is dynamically assigned, e.g. 00:11:22
MAC binding aging bulk removal limit. This limits how many rows can expire in a single transaction. Default value is 0 which is unlimited. When we hit the limit next batch removal is delayed by 5 s.
FDB aging bulk removal limit. This limits how many rows can expire in a single transaction. Default value is 0 which is unlimited. When we hit the limit next batch removal is delayed by 5 s.
Value set by the CMS to enable/disable ovn-controller event reporting. Traffic into OVS can raise a ’controller’ event that results in a Controller_Event being written to the Controller_Event table in SBDB. When the CMS has seen the event and taken appropriate action, it can remove the corresponding row in Controller_Event table. The intention is for a CMS to see the events and take some sort of action. Please see the Controller_Event table in SBDB. It is possible to associate a meter to each controller event type in order to not overload the pinctrl thread under heavy load. Each event type relies on a meter with a defined name:
•
empty_lb_backends: event-elb
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN Northbound and Southbound databases from ovn-northd, in milliseconds. If the value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at least 1000 ms.
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN Northbound and Southbound databases from ovn-ic, in milliseconds. If the value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at least 1000 ms.
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN Northbound database from ovn-nbctl utility, in milliseconds. If the value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at least 1000 ms.
If the value is less than zero, then the default inactivity probe interval for ovn-nbctl would be left intact (120000 ms).
When used, this configuration value specifies the time, in milliseconds, since the last ovn-northd active operation after which memory trimming is performed. By default this is set to 30000 (30 seconds).
Note: This option is deprecated, the only behavior is to always combine logical flows by datapath groups. Changing the value or removing this option all toghether will have no effect.
ovn-northd combines logical flows that differs only by logical datapath into a single logical flow with logical datapath group attached.
If set to true, ovn-northd will attempt to compute logical flows in parallel.
Parallel computation is enabled only if the system has 4 or more cores/threads available to be used by ovn-northd.
The default value is false.
If set to false, ARP/ND reply flows for logical switch ports will be installed only if the port is up, i.e. claimed by a Chassis. If set to true, these flows are installed regardless of the status of the port, which can result in a situation that ARP request to an IP is resolved even before the relevant VM/container is running. For environments where this is not an issue, setting it to true can reduce the load and latency of the control plane. The default value is true.
If set to false, ovn-northd will not use the ct.inv field in any of the logical flow matches. The default value is true. If the NIC supports offloading OVS datapath flows but doesn’t support offloading ct_state inv flag, then the datapath flows matching on this flag (either +inv or -inv) will not be offloaded. CMS should consider setting use_ct_inv_match to false in such cases. This results in a side effect of the invalid packets getting delivered to the destination VIF, which otherwise would have been dropped by OVN.
If set to true., ovn-northd will generate a logical flow to drop all traffic in the ACL stages. By default this option is set to false.
If set to a 8-bit number and if debug_drop_collector_set is also configured, ovn-northd will add a sample action to every logical flow that contains a ’drop’ action. The 8 most significant bits of the observation_domain_id field will be those specified in the debug_drop_domain_id. The 24 least significant bits of the observation_domain_id field will be the datapath’s key.
The observation_point_id will be set to the first 32 bits of the logical flow’s UUID.
Note: This key is deprecated in favor of the value configured in the Sampling_App table for the drop application.
If set to a 32-bit number ovn-northd will add a sample action to every logical flow that contains a ’drop’ action. The sample action will have the specified collector_set_id. The value must match that of the local OVS configuration as described in ovs-actions(7).
Default value is false. If set to true the SNAT and DNAT happens in common zone, instead of happening in separate zones, depending on the configuration. However, this option breaks traffic when there is configuration of DGP + LB + SNAT on this LR. The value true should be used only in case of HWOL compatibility with GDP.
Maximum interval that the northd incremental engine is delayed by in milliseconds. Setting the value to nonzero delays the next northd engine run by the previous run time, capped by the specified value. If the value is zero the engine won’t be delayed at all. The recommended period is smaller than 500 ms, beyond that the latency of SB changes would be very noticeable.
By default if at least one chassis in OVN cluster has VXLAN encap, northd will run in a VXLAN mode. See man ovn-architecture(7) Tunnel Encapsulations paragraph for more details. In case VXLAN encaps are needed on chassis only to support HW VTEP functionality and main encap type is GENEVE or STT, set this option to false to use default non-VXLAN mode tunnel IDs allocation logic.
If set to true, then the traffic destined to a VIF of a provider logical switch (having a localnet port) will be tunnelled instead of sending it via the localnet port. This option will be useful if CMS wants to connect overlay logical switches (without localnet port) and provider logical switches to a router. Without this option set, the traffic path will be a mix of tunnelling and localnet ports (since routing is distributed) resulting in the leakage of the router port mac address to the upstream switches and undefined behavior if NATting is involed. This option is disabled by default.

Options for configuring interconnection route advertisement:

These options control how routes are advertised between OVN deployments for interconnection. If enabled, ovn-ic from different OVN deployments exchanges routes between each other through the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Only routers with ports connected to interconnection transit switches participate in route advertisement. For each of these routers, there are two types of routes to be advertised:

Firstly, the static routes configured in the router are advertised.

Secondly, the networks configured in the logical router ports that are not on the transit switches are advertised. These are considered as directly connected subnets on the router.

Link local prefixes (IPv4 169.254.0.0/16 and IPv6 FE80::/10) are never advertised.

The learned routes are added to the static_routes column of the Logical_Router table, with external_ids:ic-learned-route set to the uuid of the row in Route table of the OVN_IC_Southbound database.

A boolean value that enables route advertisement to the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false.
A boolean value that enables route learning from the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false.
A boolean value that enables advertising default route to the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false. This option takes effect only when option ic-route-adv is true.
A boolean value that enables learning default route from the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false. This option takes effect only when option ic-route-learn is true.
A string value contains a list of CIDRs delimited by ",". A route will not be advertised or learned if the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed.

Connection Options:
Database clients to which the Open vSwitch database server should connect or on which it should listen, along with options for how these connections should be configured. See the Connection table for more information.
Global SSL configuration.

Security Configurations:
Tunnel encryption configuration. If this column is set to be true, all OVN tunnels will be encrypted with IPsec.

Read-only Options:
The maximum supported tunnel ID. Depends on types of encapsulation enabled in the cluster.

Sample_Collector TABLE

Summary:

integer, in range 1 to 255 (must be unique within table)
string
integer, in range 0 to 65,535
integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
map of string-string pairs

Details:

Sample collector unique id used for differentiating collectors that use the same set_id with different probability values. The supported value range for IDs is 1-255.
Name of the sample collector.
Sampling probability for this collector. It must be an integer number between 0 and 65535. A value of 0 corresponds to no packets being sampled while a value of 65535 corresponds to all packets being sampled.
The 8-bit integer identifier of the set of of collectors to send packets to. See Flow_Sample_Collector_Set Table in ovs-vswitchd’s database schema.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Sample TABLE

This table describes a Sampling configuration. Entries in other tables might be associated with Sample entries to indicate how the sample should be generated. For an example, see ACL.

Summary:

set of Sample_Collectors
integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295 (must be unique within table)

Details:

A list of references to Sample_Collector records to be used when generating samples (e.g., IPFIX). A sample can be sent to multiple collectors simultaneously.
Will be used as Observation Point ID in every sample. The Observation Domain ID will be generated by ovn-northd and includes the logical datapath key as the least significant 24 bits and the sampling application type (e.g., drop debugging) as the 8 most significant bits.

Copp TABLE

This table is used to define control plane protection policies, i.e., associate entries from table Meter to control protocol names.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
map of string-string pairs

Details:

CoPP name.
Rate limiting meter for ARP packets (request/reply) used for learning neighbors.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require resolving the next-hop (through ARP).
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding DHCPv4 options.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding DHCPv6 options.
Rate limiting meter for DNS query packets that need to be replied to.
Rate limiting meter for empty load balancer events.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with an ICMP error.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with an ICMPv6 error.
Rate limiting meter for IGMP packets.
Rate limiting meter for ND neighbor advertisement packets used for learning neighbors.
Rate limiting meter for ND neighbor solicitation packets used for learning neighbors.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require resolving the next-hop (through ND).
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding ND router advertisement options.
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with TCP RST packet.
Rate limiting meter for BFD packets.
Rate limiting meter for packets that trigger a reject action
Rate limiting meter for packets that are arriving to service monitor MAC address.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Logical_Switch TABLE

Each row represents one L2 logical switch.

There are two kinds of logical switches, that is, ones that fully virtualize the network (overlay logical switches) and ones that provide simple connectivity to physical networks (bridged logical switches). They work in the same way when providing connectivity between logical ports on same chassis, but differently when connecting remote logical ports. Overlay logical switches connect remote logical ports by tunnels, while bridged logical switches provide connectivity to remote ports by bridging the packets to directly connected physical L2 segments with the help of localnet ports. Each bridged logical switch has one or more localnet ports, which have only one special address unknown.

Summary:

set of Logical_Switch_Ports
set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
set of Load_Balancer_Groups
set of ACLs
set of QoSes
set of weak reference to DNSes
set of Forwarding_Groups

string
optional string


optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295


optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 32,766
optional string, containing an integer, in range 15 to 3,600
optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 3,600
optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 10
optional string
optional string
optional string


optional string


optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 16,777,215

optional weak reference to Copp

optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false


map of string-string pairs

Details:

The logical ports connected to the logical switch.
It is an error for multiple logical switches to include the same logical port.
Set of load balancers associated to this logical switch.
Set of load balancers groups associated to this logical switch.
Access control rules that apply to packets within the logical switch.
QoS marking and metering rules that apply to packets within the logical switch.
This column defines the DNS records to be used for resolving internal DNS queries within the logical switch by the native DNS resolver. Please see the DNS table.
Groups a set of logical port endpoints for traffic going out of the logical switch.

Naming:

These columns provide names for the logical switch. From OVN’s perspective, these names have no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the database. There is no requirement for the name to be unique. (For a unique identifier for a logical switch, use its row UUID.)

(Originally, name was intended to serve the purpose of a human-friendly name, but the Neutron integration used it to uniquely identify its own switch object, in the format neutron-uuid. Later on, Neutron started propagating the friendly name of a switch as external_ids:neutron:network_name. Perhaps this can be cleaned up someday.)

A name for the logical switch.
Another name for the logical switch.

IP Address Assignment:

These options control automatic IP address management (IPAM) for ports attached to the logical switch. To enable IPAM for IPv4, set other_config:subnet and optionally other_config:exclude_ips. To enable IPAM for IPv6, set other_config:ipv6_prefix. IPv4 and IPv6 may be enabled together or separately.

To request dynamic address assignment for a particular port, use the dynamic keyword in the addresses column of the port’s Logical_Switch_Port row. This requests both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address, if IPAM for IPv4 and IPv6 are both enabled.

Set this to an IPv4 subnet, e.g. 192.168.0.0/24, to enable ovn-northd to automatically assign IP addresses within that subnet.
To exclude some addresses from automatic IP address management, set this to a list of the IPv4 addresses or ..-delimited ranges to exclude. The addresses or ranges should be a subset of those in other_config:subnet.
Whether listed or not, ovn-northd will never allocate the first or last address in a subnet, such as 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.0.255 in 192.168.0.0/24.
Examples:
  • 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.10
  • 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.30..192.168.0.60 192.168.0.110..192.168.0.120
  • 192.168.0.110..192.168.0.120 192.168.0.25..192.168.0.30 192.168.0.144
Set this to an IPv6 prefix to enable ovn-northd to automatically assign IPv6 addresses using this prefix. The assigned IPv6 address will be generated using the IPv6 prefix and the MAC address (converted to an IEEE EUI64 identifier) of the port. The IPv6 prefix defined here should be a valid IPv6 address ending with ::.
Examples:
  • aef0::
  • bef0:1234:a890:5678::
  • 8230:5678::
If set to the name of logical switch port of type router then, DHCP Relay is enabled for this logical switch provided the corresponding Logical_Router_Port has DHCP Relay configured.
Value used to request to assign L2 address only if neither subnet nor ipv6_prefix are specified
FDB aging threshold value in seconds. FDB exceeding this timeout will be automatically removed. The value defaults to 0, which means disabled.
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Switch. This value will be propagated to all Logical_Switch_Port when configured, but can be overwritten individually per Logical_Switch_Port. The value 0 means unlimited. When the option is not present the limit is not set and the zone limit is derived from OvS default datapath limit.

IP Multicast Snooping Options:

These options control IP Multicast Snooping configuration of the logical switch. To enable IP Multicast Snooping set other_config:mcast_snoop to true. To enable IP Multicast Querier set other_config:mcast_querier to true. If IP Multicast Querier is enabled other_config:mcast_eth_src and other_config:mcast_ip4_src must be set.

Enables/disables IP Multicast Snooping on the logical switch. Default: false.
Enables/disables IP Multicast Querier on the logical switch. Only applicable if other_config:mcast_snoop is enabled. Default: true.
Determines whether unregistered multicast traffic should be flooded or not. Only applicable if other_config:mcast_snoop is enabled. Default: false.
Number of multicast groups to be stored. Default: 2048.
Configures the IP Multicast Snooping group idle timeout (in seconds). Default: 300 seconds.
Configures the IP Multicast Querier interval between queries (in seconds). Default: other_config:mcast_idle_timeout / 2.
Configures the value of the "max-response" field in the multicast queries originated by the logical switch. Default: 1 second.
Configures the source Ethernet address for queries originated by the logical switch.
Configures the source IPv4 address for queries originated by the logical switch.
Configures the source IPv6 address for queries originated by the logical switch.

Interconnection:
The name of corresponding transit switch in OVN_IC_Northbound database. This kind of logical switch is created and controlled by ovn-ic.

Tunnel Key:
Configures the datapath tunnel key for the logical switch. Usually this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key for each datapath by itself. However, if it is configured, ovn-northd honors the configured value. The typical use case is for interconnection: the tunnel keys for transit switches need to be unique globally, so they are maintained in the global OVN_IC_Southbound database, and ovn-ic simply syncs the value from OVN_IC_Southbound through this config.
The control plane protection policy from table Copp used for metering packets sent to ovn-controller from ports of this logical switch.

Other options:
Determines whether VLAN tagged incoming traffic should be allowed. Note that this may have security implications when enabled for a logical switch with a tag=0 localnet port. If not properly isolated from other localnet ports, fabric traffic that belongs to other tagged networks may be passed through such a port.
Determines whether arp requests and ipv6 neighbor solicitations should be sent to all routers and other switchports (default) or if it should only be sent to switchports where the ip/mac address is unknown. Setting this to false can significantly reduce the load if the logical switch can receive arp requests for ips it does not know about. However setting this to false also means that garps are no longer forwarded to all routers and therefor the mac bindings of the routers are no longer updated.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Logical_Switch_Port TABLE

A port within an L2 logical switch.

Summary:


string (must be unique within table)
string


map of string-string pairs

optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295


optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false


optional string
optional string


optional string
optional string


optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string, must be mc_unknown
optional string, either true or false

optional string
optional string


optional string
optional string


optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false


optional string
optional integer, in range 0 to 4,095
optional integer, in range 1 to 4,095


optional boolean
optional boolean


set of strings
optional string
set of strings


optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
optional weak reference to DHCP_Options

set of weak reference to Mirrors
optional HA_Chassis_Group

optional string


optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 32,767


map of string-string pairs

Details:

Core Features:
The logical port name.
For entities (VMs or containers) that are spawned in the hypervisor, the name used here must match those used in the external_ids:iface-id in the Open_vSwitch database’s Interface table, because hypervisors use external_ids:iface-id as a lookup key to identify the network interface of that entity.
For containers that share a VIF within a VM, the name can be any unique identifier. See Containers, below, for more information.
A logical switch port may not have the same name as a logical router port, but the database schema cannot enforce this.
Specify a type for this logical port. Logical ports can be used to model other types of connectivity into an OVN logical switch. The following types are defined:
(empty string)
A VM (or VIF) interface.
A connection to a logical router. The value of options:router-port specifies the name of the Logical_Router_Port to which this logical switch port is connected.
A connection to a locally accessible network from ovn-controller instances that have a corresponding bridge mapping. A logical switch can have multiple localnet ports attached. This type is used to model direct connectivity to existing networks. In this case, each chassis should have a mapping for one of the physical networks only. Note: nothing said above implies that a chassis cannot be plugged to multiple physical networks as long as they belong to different switches.
A connection to a local VIF. Traffic that arrives on a localport is never forwarded over a tunnel to another chassis. These ports are present on every chassis and have the same address in all of them. This is used to model connectivity to local services that run on every hypervisor.
A connection to a physical network.
A port to a logical switch on a VTEP gateway.
Represents a logical port which is external and not having an OVS port in the integration bridge. OVN will never receive any traffic from this port or send any traffic to this port. OVN can support native services like DHCPv4/DHCPv6/DNS for this port. If ha_chassis_group is defined, ovn-controller running in the active chassis of the HA chassis group will bind this port to provide these native services. It is expected that this port belong to a bridged logical switch (with a localnet port).
It is recommended to use the same HA chassis group for all the external ports of a logical switch. Otherwise, the physical switch might see MAC flap issue when different chassis provide the native services. For example when supporting native DHCPv4 service, DHCPv4 server mac (configured in options:server_mac column in table DHCP_Options) originating from different ports can cause MAC flap issue. The MAC of the logical router IP(s) can also flap if the same HA chassis group is not set for all the external ports of a logical switch.
Below are some of the use cases where external ports can be used.
  • VMs connected to SR-IOV nics - Traffic from these VMs by passes the kernel stack and local ovn-controller do not bind these ports and cannot serve the native services.
  • When CMS supports provisioning baremetal servers.
Represents a logical port which does not have an OVS port in the integration bridge and has a virtual ip configured in the options:virtual-ip column. This virtual ip can move around between the logical ports configured in the options:virtual-parents column.
One of the use case where virtual ports can be used is.
•
The virtual ip represents a load balancer vip and the virtual parents provide load balancer service in an active-standby setup with the active virtual parent owning the virtual ip.
A remote port is to model a port that resides remotely on another OVN, which is on the other side of a transit logical switch for OVN interconnection. This type of ports are created by ovn-ic instead of by CMS. Any change to the port will be automatically overwritten by ovn-ic.

Options:
This column provides key/value settings specific to the logical port type. The type-specific options are described individually below.

Options for router ports:

These options apply when type is router.

Required. The name of the Logical_Router_Port to which this logical switch port is connected.
This is used to send gratuitous ARPs for SNAT and DNAT IP addresses via the localnet port that is attached to the same logical switch as this type router port. This option is specified on a logical switch port that is connected to a gateway router, or a logical switch port that is connected to a distributed gateway port on a logical router.
This must take one of the following forms:
Gratuitous ARPs will be sent for all SNAT and DNAT external IP addresses and for all load balancer IP addresses defined on the options:router-port’s logical router, using the options:router-port’s MAC address.
This form of options:nat-addresses is valid for logical switch ports where options:router-port is the name of a port on a gateway router, or the name of a distributed gateway port.
Supported only in OVN 2.8 and later. Earlier versions required NAT addresses to be manually synchronized.
Example: 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 158.36.44.22 158.36.44.24. This would result in generation of gratuitous ARPs for IP addresses 158.36.44.22 and 158.36.44.24 with a MAC address of 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7.
This form of options:nat-addresses is only valid for logical switch ports where options:router-port is the name of a port on a gateway router.
If options:nat-addresses is set to router, Gratuitous ARPs will be sent for all SNAT and DNAT external IP addresses defined on the options:router-port’s logical router, using the options:router-port’s MAC address, not cosidering configured load balancers.
Optional. A list of MAC and addresses/cidrs or just addresses/cidrs that this logical switch router port will reply to ARP/NDP requests. Examples: 169.254.239.254 169.254.239.2, 0a:58:a9:fe:01:01 169.254.239.254 169.254.239.2 169.254.238.0/24, fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::1 fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::2, 0a:58:a9:fe:01:01 fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::0/64. Theoptions:router-port’s logical router should have a route to forward packets sent to configured proxy ARP MAC/IPs to an appropriate destination.
Optional. Enable conntrack for the router port whose peer is l3dgw_port if set to true. The default value is false.
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Switch_Port. This value has priority over limit specified on Logical_Switch when configured. The value 0 means unlimited. When the option is not present the limit is not set and the zone limit is derived from OvS default datapath limit.

Options for localnet ports:

These options apply when type is localnet.

Required. The name of the network to which the localnet port is connected. Each hypervisor, via ovn-controller, uses its local configuration to determine exactly how to connect to this locally accessible network, if at all.
Optional. VLAN EtherType field value for encapsulating VLAN headers. Supported values: 802.1q (default), 802.1ad.
Optional. Allows localnet port to learn MACs and store them in FDB table if set to true. The default value is false.

Options for l2gateway ports:

These options apply when type is l2gateway.

Required. The name of the network to which the l2gateway port is connected. The L2 gateway, via ovn-controller, uses its local configuration to determine exactly how to connect to this network.
Required. The chassis on which the l2gateway logical port should be bound to. ovn-controller running on the defined chassis will connect this logical port to the physical network.

Options for vtep ports:

These options apply when type is vtep.

Required. The name of the VTEP gateway.
Required. A logical switch name connected by the VTEP gateway.

VMI (or VIF) Options:

These options apply to logical ports with type having (empty string)

If set, identifies a specific chassis (by name or hostname) that is allowed to bind this port. Using this option will prevent thrashing between two chassis trying to bind the same port during a live migration. It can also prevent similar thrashing due to a mis-configuration, if a port is accidentally created on more than one chassis.
If set to a comma separated list, the first entry identifies the main chassis and the rest are one or more additional chassis that are allowed to bind the same port.
When multiple chassis are set for the port, and the logical switch is connected to an external network through a localnet port, tunneling is enforced for the port to guarantee delivery of packets directed to the port to all its locations. This has MTU implications because the network used for tunneling must have MTU larger than localnet for stable connectivity.
If the same host co-hosts more than one controller instance (either belonging to the same or separate clusters), special attention should be given to consistently using unique chassis names used in this option. It is advised that chassis names - and not host names - are used for this option.
If used with multiple chassis set in requested-chassis, specifies an activation strategy for all additional chassis. By default, no activation strategy is used, meaning additional port locations are immediately available for use. When set to "rarp", the port is blocked for ingress and egress communication until a RARP packet is sent from a new location. The "rarp" strategy is useful in live migration scenarios for virtual machines.
If set, this port will be bound by ovn-controller only if this same key and value is configured in the external_ids column in the Open_vSwitch database’s Interface table.
If set, indicates the minimum guaranteed rate available for data sent from this interface, in bit/s.
If set, indicates the maximum rate for data sent from this interface, in bit/s. The traffic will be shaped according to this limit.
If set, indicates the maximum burst size for data sent from this interface, in bits.
If set, indicates the DHCPv4 option "Hostname" (option code 12) associated for this Logical Switch Port. If DHCPv4 is enabled for this Logical Switch Port, hostname dhcp option will be included in DHCP reply.
This option is supported only if the Logical Switch Port is of default type (i.e. type set to empty_string) and also addresses column contains unknown. If set to true, MAC addresses (if configured) are not installed in the l2 lookup table but the MAC addresses are learnt and stored in the FDB table. The default value is false.
If set to true, GARP and RARP announcements are not sent when a VIF port is created on a bridged logical switch. The default value is false.
If set to mc_unknown, packets going to this VIF get cloned to all unknown ports connected to the same Logical Switch.
If set to true, ARP/ND responder flows are not installed for the IP addresses configured on this logical port. Default: false.

VIF Plugging Options:
If set, OVN will attempt to perform plugging of this VIF. In order to get this port plugged by the OVN controller, OVN must be built with support for VIF plugging. The default behavior is for the CMS to do the VIF plugging. Each VIF plug provider have their own options namespaced by name, for example "vif-plug:representor:key". Please refer to the VIF plug provider documentation located in Documentation/topics/vif-plug-providers/ for more information.
Requested MTU for plugged interfaces. When set the OVN controller will fill the mtu_request column of the Open vSwitch database’s Interface table. This in turn will make OVS vswitchd update the MTU of the linked interface.

Virtual port Options:

These options apply when type is virtual.

This option represents the virtual IPv4 address.
This options represents a set of logical port names (with in the same logical switch) which can own the virtual ip configured in the options:virtual-ip. All these virtual parents should add the virtual ip in the port_security if port security addressed are enabled.

IP Multicast Snooping Options:

These options apply when the port is part of a logical switch which has other_config :mcast_snoop set to true.

If set to true, multicast packets (except reports) are unconditionally forwarded to the specific port. Default: false.
If set to true, multicast reports are unconditionally forwarded to the specific port. Default: false.

Containers:

When a large number of containers are nested within a VM, it may be too expensive to dedicate a VIF to each container. OVN can use VLAN tags to support such cases. Each container is assigned a VLAN ID and each packet that passes between the hypervisor and the VM is tagged with the appropriate ID for the container. Such VLAN IDs never appear on a physical wire, even inside a tunnel, so they need not be unique except relative to a single VM on a hypervisor.

These columns are used for VIFs that represent nested containers using shared VIFs. For VMs and for containers that have dedicated VIFs, they are empty.

The VM interface through which the nested container sends its network traffic. This must match the name column for some other Logical_Switch_Port. Note: for performance of the OVN Southbound database conditional monitoring, unlike for regular VIFs, ovn-controller will register to get updates about all OVN Southbound database Port_Binding table records that correspond to nested container ports even if external_ids:ovn-monitor-all is set to false. See ovn-controller(8) for more information.
The VLAN tag in the network traffic associated with a container’s network interface. The client can request ovn-northd to allocate a tag that is unique within the scope of a specific parent (specified in parent_name) by setting a value of 0 in this column. The allocated value is written by ovn-northd in the tag column. (Note that these tags are allocated and managed locally in ovn-northd, so they cannot be reconstructed in the event that the database is lost.) The client can also request a specific non-zero tag and ovn-northd will honor it and copy that value to the tag column.
When type is set to localnet or l2gateway, this can be set to indicate that the port represents a connection to a specific VLAN on a locally accessible network. The VLAN ID is used to match incoming traffic and is also added to outgoing traffic.
The VLAN tag allocated by ovn-northd based on the contents of the tag_request column.

Port State:
This column is populated by ovn-northd, rather than by the CMS plugin as is most of this database. When a logical port is bound to a physical location in the OVN Southbound database Binding table, ovn-northd sets this column to true; otherwise, or if the port becomes unbound later, it sets it to false. If this column is empty, the port is not considered up. This allows the CMS to wait for a VM’s (or container’s) networking to become active before it allows the VM (or container) to start.
Logical ports of router type are an exception to this rule. They are considered to be always up, that is this column is always set to true.
This column is used to administratively set port state. If this column is empty or is set to true, the port is enabled. If this column is set to false, the port is disabled. A disabled port has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.

Addressing:
Addresses owned by the logical port.
Each element in the set must take one of the following forms:
An Ethernet address defined is owned by the logical port. Like a physical Ethernet NIC, a logical port ordinarily has a single fixed Ethernet address.
When a OVN logical switch processes a unicast Ethernet frame whose destination MAC address is in a logical port’s addresses column, it delivers it only to that port, as if a MAC learning process had learned that MAC address on the port.
If IPv4 or IPv6 address(es) (or both) are defined, it indicates that the logical port owns the given IP addresses.
If IPv4 address(es) are defined, the OVN logical switch uses this information to synthesize responses to ARP requests without traversing the physical network. The OVN logical router connected to the logical switch, if any, uses this information to avoid issuing ARP requests for logical switch ports.
Note that the order here is important. The Ethernet address must be listed before the IP address(es) if defined.
Examples:
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7
This indicates that the logical port owns the above mac address.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 10.0.0.4 20.0.0.4
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac address and two IPv4 addresses.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 fdaa:15f2:72cf:0:f816:3eff:fe20:3f41
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac address and 1 IPv6 address.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 10.0.0.4 fdaa:15f2:72cf:0:f816:3eff:fe20:3f41
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac address and 1 IPv4 address and 1 IPv6 address.
This indicates that the logical port has an unknown set of Ethernet addresses. When an OVN logical switch processes a unicast Ethernet frame whose destination MAC address is not in any logical port’s addresses column, it delivers it to the port (or ports) whose addresses columns include unknown.
Use dynamic to make ovn-northd generate a globally unique MAC address, choose an unused IPv4 address with the logical port’s subnet (if other_config:subnet is set in the port’s Logical_Switch), and generate an IPv6 address from the MAC address (if other_config:ipv6_prefix is set in the port’s Logical_Switch) and store them in the port’s dynamic_addresses column.
Only one element containing dynamic may appear in addresses.


These act like dynamic alone but specify particular IPv4 or IPv6 addresses to use. OVN IPAM will still automatically allocate the other address if configured appropriately. Example: dynamic 192.168.0.1 2001::1.
This acts like dynamic alone but specifies a particular MAC address to use. OVN IPAM will still automatically allocate IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, or both, if configured appropriately. Example: 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 dynamic
Accepted only when type is router. This indicates that the Ethernet, IPv4, and IPv6 addresses for this logical switch port should be obtained from the connected logical router port, as specified by router-port in options.
The resulting addresses are used to populate the logical switch’s destination lookup, and also for the logical switch to generate ARP and ND replies.
If the connected logical router port has a distributed gateway port specified and the logical router has rules specified in nat with external_mac, then those addresses are also used to populate the switch’s destination lookup.
Supported only in OVN 2.7 and later. Earlier versions required router addresses to be manually synchronized.
Addresses assigned to the logical port by ovn-northd, if dynamic is specified in addresses. Addresses will be of the same format as those that populate the addresses column. Note that dynamically assigned addresses are constructed and managed locally in ovn-northd, so they cannot be reconstructed in the event that the database is lost.
This column controls the addresses from which the host attached to the logical port (``the host’’) is allowed to send packets and to which it is allowed to receive packets. If this column is empty, all addresses are permitted.
Each element in the set must begin with one Ethernet address. This would restrict the host to sending packets from and receiving packets to the ethernet addresses defined in the logical port’s port_security column. It also restricts the inner source MAC addresses that the host may send in ARP and IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets. The host is always allowed to receive packets to multicast and broadcast Ethernet addresses.
Each element in the set may additionally contain one or more IPv4 or IPv6 addresses (or both), with optional masks. If a mask is given, it must be a CIDR mask. In addition to the restrictions described for Ethernet addresses above, such an element restricts the IPv4 or IPv6 addresses from which the host may send and to which it may receive packets to the specified addresses. A masked address, if the host part is zero, indicates that the host is allowed to use any address in the subnet; if the host part is nonzero, the mask simply indicates the size of the subnet. In addition:
•
If any IPv4 address is given, the host is also allowed to receive packets to the IPv4 local broadcast address 255.255.255.255 and to IPv4 multicast addresses (224.0.0.0/4). If an IPv4 address with a mask is given, the host is also allowed to receive packets to the broadcast address in that specified subnet.
If any IPv4 address is given, the host is additionally restricted to sending ARP packets with the specified source IPv4 address. (RARP is not restricted.)
•
If any IPv6 address is given, the host is also allowed to receive packets to IPv6 multicast addresses (ff00::/8).
If any IPv6 address is given, the host is additionally restricted to sending IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Solicitation or Advertisement packets with the specified source address or, for solicitations, the unspecified address.
If an element includes an IPv4 address, but no IPv6 addresses, then IPv6 traffic is not allowed. If an element includes an IPv6 address, but no IPv4 address, then IPv4 and ARP traffic is not allowed.
This column uses the same lexical syntax as the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Pipeline table. Multiple addresses within an element may be space or comma separated.
This column is provided as a convenience to cloud management systems, but all of the features that it implements can be implemented as ACLs using the ACL table.
Examples:
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7
The host may send traffic from and receive traffic to the specified MAC address, and to receive traffic to Ethernet multicast and broadcast addresses, but not otherwise. The host may not send ARP or IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets with inner source Ethernet addresses other than the one specified.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 192.168.1.10/24
This adds further restrictions to the first example. The host may send IPv4 packets from or receive IPv4 packets to only 192.168.1.10, except that it may also receive IPv4 packets to 192.168.1.255 (based on the subnet mask), 255.255.255.255, and any address in 224.0.0.0/4. The host may not send ARPs with a source Ethernet address other than 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 or source IPv4 address other than 192.168.1.10. The host may not send or receive any IPv6 (including IPv6 Neighbor Discovery) traffic.
"80:fa:5b:12:42:ba", "80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 192.168.1.10/24"
The host may send traffic from and receive traffic to the specified MAC addresses, and to receive traffic to Ethernet multicast and broadcast addresses, but not otherwise. With MAC 80:fa:5b:12:42:ba, the host may send traffic from and receive traffic to any L3 address. With MAC 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7, the host may send IPv4 packets from or receive IPv4 packets to only 192.168.1.10, except that it may also receive IPv4 packets to 192.168.1.255 (based on the subnet mask), 255.255.255.255, and any address in 224.0.0.0/4. The host may not send or receive any IPv6 (including IPv6 Neighbor Discovery) traffic.

DHCP:
This column defines the DHCPv4 Options to be included by the ovn-controller when it replies to the DHCPv4 requests. Please see the DHCP_Options table.
This column defines the DHCPv6 Options to be included by the ovn-controller when it replies to the DHCPv6 requests. Please see the DHCP_Options table.
Mirror rules that apply to logical switch port which is the source. Please see the Mirror table.
References a row in the OVN Northbound database’s HA_Chassis_Group table. It indicates the HA chassis group to use if the type is set to external. If type is not external, this column is ignored.

Naming:
This column gives an optional human-friendly name for the port. This name has no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the northbound database.
Neutron copies this from its own port object’s name. (Neutron ports do are not assigned human-friendly names by default, so it will often be empty.)

Tunnel Key:
Configures the port binding tunnel key for the port. Usually this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key for each port by itself. However, if it is configured, ovn-northd honors the configured value. The typical use case is for interconnection: the tunnel keys for ports on transit switches need to be unique globally, so they are maintained in the global OVN_IC_Southbound database, and ovn-ic simply syncs the value from OVN_IC_Southbound through this config.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
The ovn-northd program copies all these pairs into the external_ids column of the Port_Binding table in OVN_Southbound database.

Forwarding_Group TABLE

Each row represents one forwarding group.

Summary:

string
string
string
boolean
set of 1 or more strings

map of string-string pairs

Details:

A name for the forwarding group. This name has no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the ovn-nb database.
The virtual IP address assigned to the forwarding group. It will respond with vmac when an ARP request is sent for vip.
The virtual MAC address assigned to the forwarding group.
If set to true, liveness is enabled for child ports otherwise it is disabled.
List of child ports in the forwarding group.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Address_Set TABLE

Each row in this table represents a named set of addresses. An address set may contain Ethernet, IPv4, or IPv6 addresses with optional bitwise or CIDR masks. Address set may ultimately be used in ACLs to compare against fields such as ip4.src or ip6.src. A single address set must contain addresses of the same type. As an example, the following would create an address set with three IP addresses:




      ovn-nbctl create Address_Set name=set1 addresses=’10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.3’

Address sets may be used in the match column of the ACL table. For syntax information, see the details of the expression language used for the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_Southbound database.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
set of strings

map of string-string pairs

Details:

A name for the address set. Names are ASCII and must match [a-zA-Z_.][a-zA-Z_.0-9]*.
The set of addresses in string form.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Port_Group TABLE

Each row in this table represents a named group of logical switch ports.

Port groups may be used in the match column of the ACL table. For syntax information, see the details of the expression language used for the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_Southbound database.

For each port group, there are two address sets generated to the Address_Set table of the OVN_Southbound database, containing the IP addresses of the group of ports, one for IPv4, and the other for IPv6, with name being the name of the Port_Group followed by a suffix _ip4 for IPv4 and _ip6 for IPv6. The generated address sets can be used in the same way as regular address sets in the match column of the ACL table. For syntax information, see the details of the expression language used for the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_Southbound database.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
set of weak reference to Logical_Switch_Ports
set of ACLs

map of string-string pairs

Details:

A name for the port group. Names are ASCII and must match [a-zA-Z_.][a-zA-Z_.0-9]*.
The logical switch ports belonging to the group in uuids.
Access control rules that apply to the port group. Applying an ACL to a port group has the same effect as applying the ACL to all logical lswitches that the ports of the port group belong to.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Load_Balancer TABLE

Each row represents one load balancer.

Summary:

string
map of string-string pairs
optional string, one of sctp, tcp, or udp

set of Load_Balancer_Health_Checks
map of string-string pairs

set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src, ip_dst, ip_src, tp_dst, or tp_src

map of string-string pairs


optional string, either true or false
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false

Details:

A name for the load balancer. This name has no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the ovn-nb database.
A map of virtual IP addresses (and an optional port number with : as a separator) associated with this load balancer and their corresponding endpoint IP addresses (and optional port numbers with : as separators) separated by commas. If the destination IP address (and port number) of a packet leaving a container or a VM matches the virtual IP address (and port number) provided here as a key, then OVN will statefully replace the destination IP address by one of the provided IP address (and port number) in this map as a value. IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported for load balancing; however a VIP of one address family may not be mapped to a destination IP address of a different family. If specifying an IPv6 address with a port, the address portion must be enclosed in square brackets. Examples for keys are "192.168.1.4" and "[fd0f::1]:8800". Examples for value are "10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2" and "20.0.0.10:8800, 20.0.0.11:8800".
When the Load_Balancer is added to the logical_switch, the VIP has to be in a different subnet than the one used for the logical_switch. Since VIP is in a different subnet, you should connect your logical switch to either a OVN logical router or a real router (this is because the client can now send a packet with VIP as the destination IP address and router’s mac address as the destination MAC address).
Valid protocols are tcp, udp, or sctp. This column is useful when a port number is provided as part of the vips column. If this column is empty and a port number is provided as part of vips column, OVN assumes the protocol to be tcp.

Health Checks:

OVN supports health checks for load balancer endpoints. When health checks are enabled, the load balancer uses only healthy endpoints.

Suppose that vips contains a key-value pair 10.0.0.10:80=10.0.0.4:8080,20.0.0.4:8080. To enable health checks for this virtual’s endpoints, add two key-value pairs to ip_port_mappings, with keys 10.0.0.4 and 20.0.0.4, and add to health_check a reference to a Load_Balancer_Health_Check row whose vip is set to 10.0.0.10. The same approach can be used for IPv6 as well.

Load balancer health checks associated with this load balancer.
Maps from endpoint IP to a colon-separated pair of logical port name and source IP, e.g. port_name:sourc_ip for IPv4. Health checks are sent to this port with the specified source IP. For IPv6 square brackets must be used around IP address, e.g: port_name:[sourc_ip]
For example, in the example above, IP to port mappings might be defined as 10.0.0.4=sw0-p1:10.0.0.2 and 20.0.0.4=sw1-p1:20.0.0.2, if the values given were suitable ports and IP addresses.
For IPv6 IP to port mappings might be defined as [2001::1]=sw0-p1:[2002::1].
OVN native load balancers are supported using the OpenFlow groups of type select. OVS supports two selection methods: dp_hash and hash (with optional fields specified) in selecting the buckets of a group. Please see the OVS documentation (man ovs-ofctl) for more details on the selection methods. Each endpoint IP (and port if set) is mapped to a bucket in the group flow.
CMS can choose the hash selection method by setting the selection fields in this column. ovs-vswitchd uses the specified fields in generating the hash.
dp_hash selection method uses the assistance of datapath to calculate the hash and it is expected to be faster than hash selection method. So CMS should take this into consideration before using the hash method. Please consult the OVS documentation and OVS sources for the implementation details.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Load_Balancer options:
If the load balancer is created with --reject option and it has no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp) or an ICMP port unreachable packet (for all other kind of traffic) will be sent whenever an incoming packet is received for this load-balancer. Please note using --reject option will disable empty_lb SB controller event for this load balancer.
IP to be used as source IP for packets that have been hair-pinned after load balancing. The default behavior when the option is not set is to use the load balancer VIP as source IP. This option may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on it, separated by a space character.
If the load balancing rule is configured with skip_snat option, the option lb_force_snat_ip configured for the logical router that references this load balancer will not be applied for this load balancer.
If set to true, then neighbor routers will have logical flows added that will allow for routing to the VIP IP. It also will have ARP resolution logical flows added. By setting this option, it means there is no reason to create a Logical_Router_Static_Route from neighbor routers to this NAT address. It also means that no ARP request is required for neighbor routers to learn the IP-MAC mapping for this VIP IP. For more information about what flows are added for IP routes, please see the ovn-northd manpage section on IP Routing.
If set to all, then routers on which the load balancer is applied reply to ARP/neighbor discovery requests for all VIPs of the load balancer. If set to reachable, then routers on which the load balancer is applied reply to ARP/neighbor discovery requests only for VIPs that are part of a router’s subnet. If set to none, then routers on which the load balancer is applied never reply to ARP/neighbor discovery requests for any of the load balancer VIPs. Load balancers with options:template=true do not support reachable as a valid mode. The default value of this option, if not specified, is reachable for regular load balancers and none for template load balancers.
Option to be set to true, if the load balancer is a template. The load balancer VIPs and backends must be using Chassis_Template_Var in their definitions.
Load balancer template VIP supported formats are:



^VIP_VAR[:^PORT_VAR|:port]
where VIP_VAR and PORT_VAR are keys of the Chassis_Template_Var variables records.
Note: The VIP and PORT cannot be combined into a single template variable. For example, a Chassis_Template_Var variable expanding to 10.0.0.1:8080 is not valid if used as VIP.
Load balancer template backend supported formats are:



^BACKEND_VAR1[:^PORT_VAR1|:port],^BACKEND_VAR2[:^PORT_VAR2|:port]





or





^BACKENDS_VAR1,^BACKENDS_VAR2
where BACKEND_VAR1, PORT_VAR1, BACKEND_VAR2, PORT_VAR2, BACKENDS_VAR1 and BACKENDS_VAR2 are keys of the Chassis_Template_Var variables records.
Address family used by the load balancer. Supported values are ipv4 and ipv6. The address-family is only used for load balancers with options:template=true. For explicit load balancers, setting the address-family has no effect.
If the CMS provides a positive value (in seconds) for affinity_timeout, OVN will dnat connections received from the same client to this lb to the same backend if received in the affinity timeslot. Max supported affinity_timeout is 65535 seconds.
The value indicates whether ovn-controller should flush CT entries that are related to this LB. The flush happens if the LB is removed, any of the backends is updated/removed or the LB is not considered local anymore by the ovn-controller. This option is set to false by default.

Load_Balancer_Group TABLE

Each row represents a logical grouping of load balancers. It is up to the CMS to decide the criteria on which load balancers are grouped together. To simplify configuration and to optimize its processing load balancers that must be associated to the same set of logical switches and/or logical routers should be grouped together.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
set of weak reference to Load_Balancers

Details:

A name for the load balancer group. This name has no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the ovn-nb database.
A set of load balancers.

Load_Balancer_Health_Check TABLE

Each row represents one load balancer health check.

Summary:

string

optional string, containing an integer
optional string, containing an integer
optional string, containing an integer
optional string, containing an integer


map of string-string pairs

Details:

vip whose endpoints should be monitored for health check.

Health check options:
The interval, in seconds, between health checks.
The time, in seconds, after which a health check times out.
The number of successful checks after which the endpoint is considered online.
The number of failure checks after which the endpoint is considered offline.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

ACL TABLE

Each row in this table represents one ACL rule for a logical switch or a port group that points to it through its acls column. The action column for the highest-priority matching row in this table determines a packet’s treatment. If no row matches, packets are allowed by default. (Default-deny treatment is possible: add a rule with priority 0, 1 as match, and deny as action.)

Summary:

integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
integer, in range 0 to 32,767
string, either from-lport or to-lport
string
string, one of allow-related, allow-stateless, allow, drop, pass, or reject
integer, in range 0 to 3

optional string


boolean
optional string, at most 63 characters long
optional string, one of alert, debug, info, notice, or warning
optional string

optional Sample
optional Sample

map of string-string pairs

optional string

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Associates an identifier with the ACL. The same value will be written to corresponding connection tracker entry. The value should be a valid 32-bit unsigned integer. This value can help in debugging from connection tracker side. For example, through this "label" we can backtrack to the ACL rule which is causing a "leaked" connection. Connection tracker entries are created only for allowed connections so the label is valid only for allow and allow-related actions.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID defined in the sample_new or sample_est configuration.
The ACL rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority take precedence over those with lower. If two ACL rules with the same priority both match, then the one actually applied to a packet is undefined.
Return traffic from an allow-related flow is always allowed and cannot be changed through an ACL.
allow-stateless flows always take precedence before stateful ACLs, regardless of their priority. (Both allow and allow-related ACLs can be stateful.)
Direction of the traffic to which this rule should apply:
  • from-lport: Used to implement filters on traffic arriving from a logical port. These rules are applied to the logical switch’s ingress pipeline.
  • to-lport: Used to implement filters on traffic forwarded to a logical port. These rules are applied to the logical switch’s egress pipeline.
The packets that the ACL should match, in the same expression language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Logical_Flow table. The outport logical port is only available in the to-lport direction (the inport is available in both directions).
By default all traffic is allowed. When writing a more restrictive policy, it is important to remember to allow flows such as ARP and IPv6 neighbor discovery packets.
Note that you can not create an ACL matching on a port with type=router or type=localnet.
The action to take when the ACL rule matches:
  • allow-stateless: Always forward the packet in stateless manner, omitting connection tracking mechanism, regardless of other rules defined for the switch. May require defining additional rules for inbound replies. For example, if you define a rule to allow outgoing TCP traffic directed to an IP address, then you probably also want to define another rule to allow incoming TCP traffic coming from this same IP address. In addition, traffic that matches stateless ACLs will bypass load-balancer DNAT/un-DNAT processing. Stateful ACLs should be used instead if the traffic is supposed to be load-balanced.
  • allow: Forward the packet. It will also send the packets through connection tracking when allow-related rules exist on the logical switch. Otherwise, it’s equivalent to allow-stateless.
  • allow-related: Forward the packet and related traffic (e.g. inbound replies to an outbound connection).
  • drop: Silently drop the packet.
  • reject: Drop the packet, replying with a RST for TCP or ICMPv4/ICMPv6 unreachable message for other IPv4/IPv6-based protocols.
  • pass: Pass to the next ACL tier. If using multiple ACL tiers, a match on this ACL will stop evaluating ACLs at the current tier and move to the next one. If not using ACL tiers or if a pass ACL is matched at the final tier, then the options:default_acl_drop option from the NB_Global table is used to determine how to proceed.
The hierarchical tier that this ACL belongs to.
ACLs can be assigned to numerical tiers. When evaluating ACLs, an internal counter is used to determine which tier of ACLs should be evaluated. Tier 0 ACLs are evaluated first. If no verdict can be determined, then tier 1 ACLs are evaluated next. This continues until the maximum tier value is reached. If all tiers of ACLs are evaluated and no verdict is reached, then the options:default_acl_drop option from table NB_Global is used to determine how to proceed.
In this version of OVN, the maximum tier value for ACLs is 3, meaning there are 4 tiers of ACLs allowed (0-3).

options:

ACLs options.

If set to true, the ACL will be applied after load balancing stage. Supported only for from-lport direction.
The main use case of this option is to support ACLs matching on the destination IP address of the packet for the backend IPs of load balancers.
OVN will apply the from-lport ACLs in two stages. ACLs without this option apply-after-lb set, will be applied before the load balancer stage and ACLs with this option set will be applied after the load balancer stage. The priorities are indepedent between these stages and may not be obvious to the CMS. Hence CMS should be extra careful when using this option and should carefully evaluate the priorities of all the ACLs and the default deny/allow ACLs if any.

Logging:

These columns control whether and how OVN logs packets that match an ACL.

If set to true, packets that match the ACL will trigger a log message on the transport node or nodes that perform ACL processing. Logging may be combined with any action.
If set to false, the remaining columns in this group have no significance.
This name, if it is provided, is included in log records. It provides the administrator and the cloud management system a way to associate a log record with a particular ACL.
The severity of the ACL. The severity levels match those of syslog, in decreasing level of severity: alert, warning, notice, info, or debug. When the column is empty, the default is info.
The name of a meter to rate-limit log messages for the ACL. The string must match the name column of a row in the Meter table. By default, log messages are not rate-limited. In order to ensure that the same Meter rate limits multiple ACL logs separately, set the fair column.
The entry in the Sample table to use for sampling for new sessions matched by this ACL. In case the ACL is stateless this is used for sampling all traffic matched by the ACL.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID defined in the sample_new configuration.
The entry in the Sample table to use for sampling for established/related sessions matched by this ACL.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID defined in the sample_est configuration.

Common Columns:
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported options are described individually below.

ACL configuration options:
If set to true, then log when reply or related traffic is admitted from a stateful ACL. In order for this option to function, the log option must be set to true and a label must be set, and it must be unique to the ACL. The label is necessary as it is the only means to associate the reply traffic with the ACL to which it belongs. It must be unique, because otherwise it is ambiguous which ACL will be matched. Note: If this option is enabled, an extra flow is installed in order to log the related traffic. Therefore, if this is enabled on all ACLs, then the total number of flows necessary to log the ACL traffic is doubled, compared to if this option is not enabled.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Logical_Router TABLE

Each row represents one L3 logical router.

Summary:

set of Logical_Router_Ports
set of Logical_Router_Static_Routes
set of Logical_Router_Policys
optional boolean
set of NATs
set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
set of Load_Balancer_Groups

string
optional string

optional weak reference to Copp

optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 16,777,215
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 65,535
optional string
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295


map of string-string pairs

Details:

The router’s ports.
Zero or more static routes for the router.
Zero or more routing policies for the router.
This column is used to administratively set router state. If this column is empty or is set to true, the router is enabled. If this column is set to false, the router is disabled. A disabled router has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.
One or more NAT rules for the router. NAT rules only work on Gateway routers, and on distributed routers with one and only one distributed gateway port.
Set of load balancers associated to this logical router. Load balancer Load balancer rules only work on the Gateway routers or routers with one and only one distributed gateway port.
Set of load balancers groups associated to this logical router.

Naming:

These columns provide names for the logical router. From OVN’s perspective, these names have no special meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interaction with the northbound database. There is no requirement for the name to be unique. (For a unique identifier for a logical router, use its row UUID.)

(Originally, name was intended to serve the purpose of a human-friendly name, but the Neutron integration used it to uniquely identify its own router object, in the format neutron-uuid. Later on, Neutron started propagating the friendly name of a router as external_ids:neutron:router_name. Perhaps this can be cleaned up someday.)

A name for the logical router.
Another name for the logical router.
The control plane protection policy from table Copp used for metering packets sent to ovn-controller from logical ports of this router.

Options:

Additional options for the logical router.

If set, indicates that the logical router in question is a Gateway router (which is centralized) and resides in the set chassis. The same value is also used by ovn-controller to uniquely identify the chassis in the OVN deployment and comes from external_ids:system-id in the Open_vSwitch table of Open_vSwitch database.
The Gateway router can only be connected to a distributed router via a switch if SNAT and DNAT are to be configured in the Gateway router.
If set, indicates a set of IP addresses to use to force SNAT a packet that has already been DNATed in the gateway router. When multiple gateway routers are configured, a packet can potentially enter any of the gateway router, get DNATted and eventually reach the logical switch port. For the return traffic to go back to the same gateway router (for unDNATing), the packet needs a SNAT in the first place. This can be achieved by setting the above option with a gateway specific set of IP addresses. This option may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on it, separated by a a space.
If set, this option can take two possible type of values. Either a set of IP addresses or the string value - router_ip.
If a set of IP addresses are configured, it indicates to use to force SNAT a packet that has already been load-balanced in the gateway router. When multiple gateway routers are configured, a packet can potentially enter any of the gateway routers, get DNATted as part of the load-balancing and eventually reach the logical switch port. For the return traffic to go back to the same gateway router (for unDNATing), the packet needs a SNAT in the first place. This can be achieved by setting the above option with a gateway specific set of IP addresses. This option may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on it, separated by a space character.
If it is configured with the value router_ip, then the load balanced packet is SNATed with the IP of router port (attached to the gateway router) selected as the destination after taking the routing decision.
Enables/disables IP multicast relay between logical switches connected to the logical router. Default: False.
If set to true, the router will resolve neighbor routers’ MAC addresses only by dynamic ARP/ND, instead of prepopulating static mappings for all neighbor routers in the ARP/ND Resolution stage. This reduces number of flows, but requires ARP/ND messages to resolve the IP-MAC bindings when needed. It is false by default. It is recommended to set to true when a large number of logical routers are connected to the same logical switch but most of them never need to send traffic between each other. By default, ovn-northd does not create mappings to NAT and load balancer addresess. However, for NAT and load balancer addresses that have the add_route option added, ovn-northd will create logical flows that map NAT and load balancer IP addresses to the appropriate MAC address. Setting dynamic_neigh_routers to true will prevent the automatic creation of these logical flows.
This option controls the behavior when handling IPv4 ARP requests or IPv6 ND-NS packets - whether a dynamic neighbor (MAC binding) entry is added/updated.
true - Always learn the MAC-IP binding, and add/update the MAC binding entry.
false - If there is a MAC binding for that IP and the MAC is different, or, if TPA of ARP request belongs to any router port on this router, then update/add that MAC-IP binding. Otherwise, don’t update/add entries.
It is true by default. It is recommended to set to false when a large number of logical routers are connected to the same logical switch but most of them never need to send traffic between each other, to reduce the size of the MAC binding table.
Configures the datapath tunnel key for the logical router. This is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key for each datapath by itself. However, if it is configured, ovn-northd honors the configured value.
Use the requested conntrack zone for SNAT with this router. This can be useful if egress traffic from the host running OVN comes from both OVN and other sources. This way, OVN and the other sources can make use of the same conntrack zone.
Specifies the MAC binding aging thresholds based on CIDRs, with the format: entry[;entry[...]], where each entry has the format: [cidr:]threshold
  • cidr: Can be either an IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR.
  • threshold: Threshold value in seconds. MAC bindings with IP addresses matching the specified CIDR that exceed this timeout will be automatically removed.
If an entry is provided without an CIDR (just the threshold value), it specifies the default threshold for MAC bindings that don’t match any of the given CIDRs. If there are multiple default threshold entries in the option, the behavior is undefined.
If there are multiple CIDRs matching a MAC binding IP, the one with the longest prefix length takes effect. If there are multiple entries with the same CIDR in the option, the behavior is undefined.
If no matching CIDR is found for a MAC binding IP, and no default threshold is specified, the behavior defaults to the original: the binding will not be removed based on age.
The value can also default to an empty string, which means that the aging threshold is disabled. Any string not in the above format is regarded as invalid and the aging is disabled.
Example: 192.168.0.0/16:300;192.168.10.0/24:0;fe80::/10:600;1200
This sets a threshold of 300 seconds for MAC bindings with IP addresses in the 192.168.0.0/16 range, excluding the 192.168.1.0/24 range (for which the aging is disabled), a threshold of 600 seconds for MAC bindings with IP addresses in the fe80::/10 IPv6 range, and a default threshold of 1200 seconds for all other MAC bindings.
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Router. The value 0 means unlimited. When the option is not present the limit is not set and the zone limit is derived from OvS default datapath limit.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

QoS TABLE

Each row in this table represents one QoS rule for a logical switch that points to it through its qos_rules column. Two types of QoS are supported: DSCP marking and metering. A match with the highest-priority will have QoS applied to it. If the action column is specified, then matching packets will have DSCP marking applied. If the bandwidth column is specified, then matching packets will have metering applied. action and bandwidth are not exclusive, so both marking and metering by defined for the same QoS entry. If no row matches, packets will not have any QoS applied.

Summary:

integer, in range 0 to 32,767
string, either from-lport or to-lport
string
map of string-integer pairs, key either dscp or mark, value in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
map of string-integer pairs, key either burst or rate, value in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
map of string-string pairs

Details:

The QoS rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority take precedence over those with lower. If two QoS rules with the same priority both match, then the one actually applied to a packet is undefined.
The value of this field is similar to ACL column in the OVN Northbound database’s ACL table.
The packets that the QoS rules should match, in the same expression language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Logical_Flow table. The outport logical port is only available in the to-lport direction (the inport is available in both directions).
When dscp action is specified, matching flows will have have DSCP marking applied. When mark action is specified, matching flows will have packet marking applied.
  • dscp: The value of this action should be in the range of 0 to 63 (inclusive).
  • mark: The value of this action should be a positive integer.
When specified, matching packets will have bandwidth metering applied. Traffic over the limit will be dropped.
  • rate: The value of rate limit in kbps.
  • burst: The value of burst rate limit in kilobits. This is optional and needs to specify the rate.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Mirror TABLE

Each row in this table represents a mirror that can be used for port mirroring. These mirrors are referenced by the mirror_rules column in the Logical_Switch_Port table.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
string, one of both, from-lport, or to-lport
string
string, one of erspan, gre, or local
integer
map of string-string pairs

Details:

Represents the name of the mirror.
The value of this field represents selection criteria of the mirror. to-lport mirrors the packets coming into logical port. from-lport mirrors the packets going out of logical port. both mirrors for both directions.
The value of this field represents the destination/sink of the mirror. If the type is gre or erspan, the value indicates the tunnel remote IP (either IPv4 or IPv6). For a type of local, this field defines a local interface on the OVS integration bridge to be used as the mirror destination. The interface must possess external-ids:mirror-id that matches this string.
The value of this field specifies the mirror type - gre, erspan or local.
The value of this field represents the tunnel ID. If the configured tunnel type is gre, this field represents the GRE key value and if the configured tunnel type is erspan it represents the erspan_idx value. It is ignored if the type is local.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Meter TABLE

Each row in this table represents a meter that can be used for QoS or rate-limiting.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
string, either kbps or pktps
set of 1 or more Meter_Bands
optional boolean
map of string-string pairs

Details:

A name for this meter.
Names that begin with "__" (two underscores) are reserved for OVN internal use and should not be added manually.
The unit for rate and burst_rate parameters in the bands entry. kbps specifies kilobits per second, and pktps specifies packets per second.
The bands associated with this meter. Each band specifies a rate above which the band is to take the action action. If multiple bands’ rates are exceeded, then the band with the highest rate among the exceeded bands is selected.
This column is used to further describe the desired behavior of the meter when there are multiple references to it. If this column is empty or is set to false, the rate will be shared across all rows that refer to the same Meter name. Conversely, when this column is set to true, each user of the same Meter will be rate-limited on its own.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Meter_Band TABLE

Each row in this table represents a meter band which specifies the rate above which the configured action should be applied. These bands are referenced by the bands column in the Meter table.

Summary:

string, must be drop
integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
map of string-string pairs

Details:

The action to execute when this band matches. The only supported action is drop.
The rate limit for this band, in kilobits per second or bits per second, depending on whether the parent Meter entry’s unit column specified kbps or pktps.
The maximum burst allowed for the band in kilobits or packets, depending on whether kbps or pktps was selected in the parent Meter entry’s unit column. If the size is zero, the switch is free to select some reasonable value depending on its configuration.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Logical_Router_Port TABLE

A port within an L3 logical router.

Exactly one Logical_Router row must reference a given logical router port.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
set of 1 or more strings
string
optional boolean
optional DHCP_Relay

optional HA_Chassis_Group
set of Gateway_Chassises

optional string, either true or false
optional string, either bridged or overlay

set of strings

optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string


optional string, either true or false
optional string, containing an integer, in range 1 to 32,767
optional string, either true or false
optional string, either true or false
optional string
optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to 65,535
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, either true or false


optional string


map of string-string pairs


optional string

Details:

A name for the logical router port.
In addition to provide convenience for human interaction with the northbound database, this column is used as reference by its patch port in Logical_Switch_Port or another logical router port in Logical_Router_Port.
A logical router port may not have the same name as a logical switch port, but the database schema cannot enforce this.
The IP addresses and netmasks of the router. For example, 192.168.0.1/24 indicates that the router’s IP address is 192.168.0.1 and that packets destined to 192.168.0.x should be routed to this port.
A logical router port always adds a link-local IPv6 address (fe80::/64) automatically generated from the interface’s MAC address using the modified EUI-64 format.
The Ethernet address that belongs to this router port.
This column is used to administratively set port state. If this column is empty or is set to true, the port is enabled. If this column is set to false, the port is disabled. A disabled port has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.
This column is used to enabled DHCP Relay. Please refer to DHCP_Relay table.

Distributed Gateway Ports:

Gateways, as documented under Gateways in the OVN architecture guide, provide limited connectivity between logical networks and physical ones. OVN support multiple kinds of gateways. The Logical_Router_Port table can be used two different ways to configure distributed gateway ports, which are one kind of gateway. These two forms of configuration exist for historical reasons. Both of them produce the same kind of OVN southbound records and the same behavior in practice.

If either of these are set, this logical router port represents a distributed gateway port that connects this router to a logical switch with a localnet port or a connection to another OVN deployment.

Also mentioned in the OVN architecture guide, distributed gateway ports can also be used for scalability reasons in deployments where logical switches are dedicated to chassises rather than distributed.

The preferred way to configure a gateway is ha_chassis_group, but gateway_chassis is also supported for backward compatibility. Only one of these should be set at a time on a given LRP, since they configure the same features.

Even when a gateway is configured, the logical router port still effectively resides on each chassis. However, due to the implications of the use of L2 learning in the physical network, as well as the need to support advanced features such as one-to-many NAT (aka IP masquerading), a subset of the logical router processing is handled in a centralized manner on the gateway chassis.

There can be more than one distributed gateway ports configured on each logical router, each connecting to different L2 segments. Load-balancing is not yet supported on logical routers with more than one distributed gateway ports.

For each distributed gateway port, it may have more than one gateway chassises. When more than one gateway chassis is specified, OVN only uses one at a time. OVN can rely on OVS BFD implementation to monitor gateway connectivity, preferring the highest-priority gateway that is online. Priorities are specified in the priority column of Gateway_Chassis or HA_Chassis.

ovn-northd programs the external_mac rules specified in the LRP’s LR into the peer logical switch’s destination lookup on the chassis where the logical_port resides. In addition, the logical router’s MAC address is automatically programmed in the peer logical switch’s destination lookup flow on the gateway chasssis. If it is desired to generate gratuitous ARPs for NAT addresses, then set the peer LSP’s options:nat-addresses to router.

OVN 20.03 and earlier supported a third way to configure distributed gateway ports using options:redirect-chassis to specify the gateway chassis. This method is no longer supported. Any remaining users should switch to one of the newer methods instead. A gateway_chassis may be easily configured from the command line, e.g. ovn-nbctl lrp-set-gateway-chassis lrp chassis.

Designates an HA_Chassis_Group to provide gateway high availability.
Designates one or more Gateway_Chassis for the logical router port.

Options for Physical VLAN MTU Issues:

MTU issues arise in mixing tunnels with logical networks that are bridged to a physical VLAN. For an explanation of the MTU issues, see Physical VLAN MTU Issues in the OVN architecture document. The following options, which are alternatives, provide solutions. Both of them cause packets to be sent over localnet instead of tunnels, but they differ in whether some or all packets are sent this way. The most prominent tradeoff between these options is that reside-on-redirect-chassis is easier to configure and that redirect-type performs better for east-west traffic.

If set to true, this option forces all traffic across the logical router port to pass through the gateway chassis using a hop across a localnet port. This changes behavior in two ways:
  • Without this option, east-west traffic passes directly between source and destination chassis (or even within a single chassis, for co-located VMs). With this option, all east-west traffic passes through the gateway chassis.
  • Without this option, traffic between the gateway chassis and other chassis is encapsulated in tunnels. With this option, traffic passes over a localnet interface.
This option may usefully be set only on logical router ports that connect a distributed logical router to a logical switch with VIFs. It should not be set on a distributed gateway port.
OVN honors this option only if the logical router has one and only one distributed gateway port and if the LRP’s peer switch has a localnet port.
If set to bridged on a distributed gateway port, this option causes OVN to redirect packets to the gateway chassis over a localnet port instead of a tunnel. The relevant chassis must share a localnet port.
This feature requires the administrator or the CMS to configure each participating chassis with a unique Ethernet address for the logical router by setting ovn-chassis-mac-mappings in the Open vSwitch database, for use by ovn-controller.
Setting this option to overlay or leaving it unset has no effect. This option may usefully be set only on a distributed gateway port when there is one and only one distributed gateway port on the logical router. It is otherwise ignored.
This column contains IPv6 prefix obtained by prefix delegation router according to RFC 3633

ipv6_ra_configs:

This column defines the IPv6 ND RA address mode and ND MTU Option to be included by ovn-controller when it replies to the IPv6 Router solicitation requests.

The address mode to be used for IPv6 address configuration. The supported values are:
  • slaac: Address configuration using Router Advertisement (RA) packet. The IPv6 prefixes defined in the Logical_Router_Port table’s networks column will be included in the RA’s ICMPv6 option - Prefix information.
  • dhcpv6_stateful: Address configuration using DHCPv6.
  • dhcpv6_stateless: Address configuration using Router Advertisement (RA) packet. Other IPv6 options are provided by DHCPv6.
Default Router Preference (PRF) indicates whether to prefer this router over other default routers (RFC 4191). Possible values are:
  • HIGH: mapped to 0x01 in RA PRF field
  • MEDIUM: mapped to 0x00 in RA PRF field
  • LOW: mapped to 0x11 in RA PRF field
Route Info is used to configure Route Info Option sent in Router Advertisement according to RFC 4191. Route Info is a comma separated string where each field provides PRF and prefix for a given route (e.g: HIGH-aef1::11/48,LOW-aef2::11/96) Possible PRF values are:
  • HIGH: mapped to 0x01 in RA PRF field
  • MEDIUM: mapped to 0x00 in RA PRF field
  • LOW: mapped to 0x11 in RA PRF field
The recommended MTU for the link. Default is 0, which means no MTU Option will be included in RA packet replied by ovn-controller. Per RFC 2460, the mtu value is recommended no less than 1280, so any mtu value less than 1280 will be considered as no MTU Option.
If set to true, then this router interface will send router advertisements periodically. The default is false.
The maximum number of seconds to wait between sending periodic router advertisements. This option has no effect if ipv6_ra_configs:send_periodic is false. The default is 600.
The minimum number of seconds to wait between sending periodic router advertisements. This option has no effect if ipv6_ra_configs:send_periodic is false. The default is one-third of ipv6_ra_configs:max_interval, i.e. 200 seconds if that key is unset.
IPv6 address of RDNSS server announced in RA packets. At the moment OVN supports just one RDNSS server.
DNS Search List announced in RA packets. Multiple DNS Search List must be ’comma’ separated (e.g. "a.b.c, d.e.f")

Options:

Additional options for the logical router port.

If set to true, multicast traffic (including reports) are unconditionally forwarded to the specific port.
This option applies when the port is part of a logical router which has options:mcast_relay set to true.
Default: false.
Configures the port binding tunnel key for the port. Usually this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key for each port by itself. However, if it is configured, ovn-northd honors the configured value.
If set to true, enable IPv6 prefix delegation state machine on this logical router port (RFC3633). IPv6 prefix delegation is available just on a gateway router or on a gateway router port.
If set to true, this interface will receive an IPv6 prefix according to RFC3663
Designates lookup Logical_Router_Static_Routes with specified route_table value. Routes to directly connected networks from same Logical Router and routes without route_table option set have higher priority than routes with route_table option set.
If set, logical flows will be added to router pipeline to check packet length. If packet length is greater than the value set, ICMPv4 type 3 (Destination Unreachable) code 4 (Fragmentation Needed and Don’t Fragment was Set) or ICMPv6 type 2 (Packet Too Big) code 0 (no route to destination) packets will be generated. This allows for Path MTU Discovery.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to removal/change in the future.
This option expects a name of a Logical Switch Port that’s present in the peer’s Logical Switch. If set, it causes any traffic that’s destined for Logical Router Port’s IP addresses (including its IPv6 LLA) and the ports associated with routing protocols defined ip routing-protocols option, to be redirected to the specified Logical Switch Port. This allows external routing daemons to be bound to a port in OVN’s Logical Switch and act as if they were listening on Logical Router Port’s IP addresses.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to removal/change in the future.
This option expects a comma-separated list of routing, and routing-related protocols, whose control plane traffic will be redirected to a port specified in routing-protocol-redirect option. Currently supported options are:
  • BGP (forwards TCP port 179)
  • BFD (forwards UDP port 3784)
When configured, represents a match expression, in the same expression language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Logical_Flow table. Packets matching this expression will bypass the length check configured through the options:gateway_mtu option.
This option is applicable only if the router port is a distributed gateway port i.e if the ha_chassis_group column or gateway_chassis is set.
If set to true, routing for the router port’s networks (set in the column networks) is centralized on the gateway chassis which claims this distributed gateway port.
Additionally for this option to take effect, below conditions must be met:
  • The Logical router has only one distributed gateway port.
  • The router port’s peer logical switch has no localnet ports.

Attachment:

A given router port serves one of two purposes:

  • To attach a logical switch to a logical router. A logical router port of this type is referenced by exactly one Logical_Switch_Port of type router. The value of name is set as router-port in column options of Logical_Switch_Port. In this case peer column is empty.
  • To connect one logical router to another. This requires a pair of logical router ports, each connected to a different router. Each router port in the pair specifies the other in its peer column. No Logical_Switch refers to the router port.
For a router port used to connect two logical routers, this identifies the other router port in the pair by name.
For a router port attached to a logical switch, this column is empty.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
The ovn-northd program copies all these pairs into the external_ids column of the Port_Binding table in OVN_Southbound database.

Status:

Additional status about the logical router port.

This option is populated by ovn-northd.
When a distributed gateway port is bound to a location in the OVN Southbound database Port_Binding ovn-northd will populate this key with the name of the Chassis that is currently hosting this port.

Logical_Router_Static_Route TABLE

Each record represents a static route.

When multiple routes match a packet, the longest-prefix match is chosen. For a given prefix length, a dst-ip route is preferred over a src-ip route.

When there are ECMP routes, i.e. multiple routes with same prefix and policy, one of them will be selected based on the 5-tuple hashing of the packet header.

Summary:

string
optional string, either dst-ip or src-ip
string
optional string
optional weak reference to BFD
string
optional string

map of string-string pairs


map of string-string pairs
optional string
optional string

Details:

IP prefix of this route (e.g. 192.168.100.0/24).
If it is specified, this setting describes the policy used to make routing decisions. This setting must be one of the following strings:
  • src-ip: This policy sends the packet to the nexthop when the packet’s source IP address matches ip_prefix.
  • dst-ip: This policy sends the packet to the nexthop when the packet’s destination IP address matches ip_prefix.
If not specified, the default is dst-ip.
Nexthop IP address for this route. Nexthop IP address should be the IP address of a connected router port or the IP address of a logical port or can be set to discard for dropping packets which match the given route.
The name of the Logical_Router_Port via which the packet needs to be sent out. This is optional and when not specified, OVN will automatically figure this out based on the nexthop. When this is specified and there are multiple IP addresses on the router port and none of them are in the same subnet of nexthop, OVN chooses the first IP address as the one via which the nexthop is reachable.
Reference to BFD row if the route has associated a BFD session
Any string to place route to separate routing table. If Logical Router Port has configured value in options:route_table other than empty string, OVN performs route lookup for all packets entering Logical Router ingress pipeline from this port in the following manner:
  • 1. First lookup among "global" routes: routes without route_table value set and routes to directly connected networks.
  • 2. Next lookup among routes with same route_table value as specified in LRP’s options:route_table field.
ovn-ic populates this key if the route is learned from the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. In this case the value will be set to the uuid of the row in Route table of the OVN_IC_Southbound database.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Common options:
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported options are described individually below.
If true, then
  • New ingress-originated traffic that arrives over this route will have its reply traffic bypass ECMP route selection and will be sent out this route instead.
  • For the egress-originated traffic, the ingress reply traffic route gets saved. And the subsequent traffic will bypass ECMP route selection and instead be sent out the same route.
Note that this option overrides any rules set in the Logical_Router_policy table. This option only works on gateway routers (routers that have options:chassis set).
In case ovn-interconnection has been learned this route, it will have its origin set: either "connected" or "static". This key is supposed to be written only by ovn-ic daemon. ovn-northd then checks this value when generating Logical Flows. Logical_Router_Static_Route records with same ip_prefix within same Logical Router will have next lookup order based on origin key value:
1.
connected
2.
static

Logical_Router_Policy TABLE

Each row in this table represents one routing policy for a logical router that points to it through its policies column. The action column for the highest-priority matching row in this table determines a packet’s treatment. If no row matches, packets are allowed by default. (Default-deny treatment is possible: add a rule with priority 0, 1 as match, and drop as action.)

Summary:

integer, in range 0 to 32,767
string
string, one of allow, drop, or reroute
optional string
set of strings
set of weak reference to BFDs
optional string

map of string-string pairs

Details:

The routing policy’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority take precedence over those with lower. A rule is uniquely identified by the priority and match string.
The packets that the routing policy should match, in the same expression language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Logical_Flow table.
By default all traffic is allowed. When writing a more restrictive policy, it is important to remember to allow flows such as ARP and IPv6 neighbor discovery packets.
The action to take when the routing policy matches:
  • allow: Forward the packet.
  • drop: Silently drop the packet.
  • reroute: Reroute packet to nexthop or nexthops.
Note: This column is deprecated in favor of nexthops.
Next-hop IP address for this route, which should be the IP address of a connected router port or the IP address of a logical port.
Next-hop ECMP IP addresses for this route. Each IP in the list should be the IP address of a connected router port or the IP address of a logical port.
One IP from the list is selected as next hop.
Reference to BFD row if the route policy has associated some BFD sessions.
Marks the packet with the value specified when the router policy is applied. CMS can inspect this packet marker and take some decisions if desired. This value is not preserved when the packet goes out on the wire.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

NAT TABLE

Each record represents a NAT rule.

Summary:

string, one of dnat, dnat_and_snat, or snat
string
optional string
string
string
optional string
optional Address_Set
optional Address_Set
optional weak reference to Logical_Router_Port
string
integer, in range 0 to 32,767
optional string
optional string

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Type of the NAT rule.
  • When type is dnat, the externally visible IP address external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the logical space.
  • When type is snat, IP packets with their source IP address that either matches the IP address in logical_ip or is in the network provided by logical_ip is SNATed into the IP address in external_ip.
  • When type is dnat_and_snat, the externally visible IP address external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the logical space. In addition, IP packets with the source IP address that matches logical_ip is SNATed into the IP address in external_ip.
An IPv4 address.
A MAC address.
This is only used on the gateway port on distributed routers. This must be specified in order for the NAT rule to be processed in a distributed manner on all chassis. If this is not specified for a NAT rule on a distributed router, then this NAT rule will be processed in a centralized manner on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis.
This MAC address must be unique on the logical switch that the gateway port is attached to. If the MAC address used on the logical_port is globally unique, then that MAC address can be specified as this external_mac.
L4 source port range
Range of ports, from which a port number will be picked that will replace the source port of to be NATed packet. This is basically PAT (port address translation).
Value of the column is in the format, port_lo-port_hi. For example: external_port_range : "1-30000"
Valid range of ports is 1-65535.
An IPv4 network (e.g 192.168.1.0/24) or an IPv4 address.
The name of the logical port where the logical_ip resides.
This is only used on distributed routers. This must be specified in order for the NAT rule to be processed in a distributed manner on all chassis. If this is not specified for a NAT rule on a distributed router, then this NAT rule will be processed in a centralized manner on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis.
It represents Address Set of external ips that NAT rule is applicable to. For SNAT type NAT rules, this refers to destination addresses. For DNAT type NAT rules, this refers to source addresses.
This configuration overrides the default NAT behavior of applying a rule solely based on internal IP. Without this configuration, NAT happens without considering the external IP (i.e dest/source for snat/dnat type rule). With this configuration NAT rule is applied ONLY if external ip is in the input Address Set.
It represents Address Set of external ips that NAT rule is NOT applicable to. For SNAT type NAT rules, this refers to destination addresses. For DNAT type NAT rules, this refers to source addresses.
This configuration overrides the default NAT behavior of applying a rule solely based on internal IP. Without this configuration, NAT happens without considering the external IP (i.e dest/source for snat/dnat type rule). With this configuration NAT rule is NOT applied if external ip is in the input Address Set.
If there are NAT rules in a logical router with overlapping IP prefixes (including /32), then usage of exempted_ext_ips should be avoided in following scenario. a. SNAT rule (let us say RULE1) with logical_ip PREFIX/MASK (let us say 50.0.0.0/24). b. SNAT rule (let us say RULE2) with logical_ip PREFIX/MASK+1 (let us say 50.0.0.0/25). c. Now, if exempted_ext_ips is associated with RULE2, then a logical ip which matches both 50.0.0.0/24 and 50.0.0.0/25 may get the RULE2 applied to it instead of RULE1.
allowed_ext_ips and exempted_ext_ips are mutually exclusive to each other. If both Address Sets are set for a rule, then the NAT rule is not considered.
A distributed gateway port in the Logical_Router_Port table where the NAT rule needs to be applied.
When multiple distributed gateway ports are configured on a Logical_Router, applying a NAT rule at each of the distributed gateway ports might not be desired. Consider the case where a logical router has 2 distributed gateway port, one with networks 50.0.0.10/24 and the other with networks 60.0.0.10/24. If the logical router has a NAT rule of type snat, logical_ip 10.1.1.0/24 and external_ip 50.1.1.20/24, the rule needs to be selectively applied on matching packets entering/leaving through the distributed gateway port with networks 50.0.0.10/24.
When a logical router has multiple distributed gateway ports and this column is not set for a NAT rule, then the rule will be applied at the distributed gateway port which is in the same network as the external_ip of the NAT rule, if such a router port exists. If logical router has a single distributed gateway port and this column is not set for a NAT rule, the rule will be applied at the distributed gateway port even if the router port is not in the same network as the external_ip of the NAT rule.
The packets that the NAT rules should match, in addition to the match that is created based on the NAT type, in the same expression language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound database’s Logical_Flow table. This allows for more fine-grained control over the NAT rule.
The NAT rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority take precedence over those with lower. The priority is taken into account only if the match is defined.
Indicates if a dnat_and_snat rule should lead to connection tracking state or not.
If set to true, then neighbor routers will have logical flows added that will allow for routing to the NAT address. It also will have ARP resolution logical flows added. By setting this option, it means there is no reason to create a Logical_Router_Static_Route from neighbor routers to this NAT address. It also means that no ARP request is required for neighbor routers to learn the IP-MAC mapping for this NAT address. This option only applies to NATs of type dnat and dnat_and_snat. For more information about what flows are added for IP routes, please see the ovn-northd manpage section on IP Routing.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

DHCP_Options TABLE

OVN implements native DHCPv4 support which caters to the common use case of providing an IPv4 address to a booting instance by providing stateless replies to DHCPv4 requests based on statically configured address mappings. To do this it allows a short list of DHCPv4 options to be configured and applied at each compute host running ovn-controller.

OVN also implements native DHCPv6 support which provides stateless replies to DHCPv6 requests.

Summary:

string


optional string
optional string
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295


optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string


optional string, either 0 or 1
optional string, either 0 or 1
optional string, either 0 or 1


optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 255
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 255
optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to 65,535
optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to 4,294,967,295
optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to 4,294,967,295
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 255
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 255
optional string, containing an integer, in range 0 to 255


optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string


optional string


optional string



optional string


optional string


optional string
optional string
optional string


map of string-string pairs

Details:

The DHCPv4/DHCPv6 options will be included if the logical port has its IP address in this cidr.

DHCPv4 options:

The CMS should define the set of DHCPv4 options as key/value pairs in the options column of this table. For ovn-controller to include these DHCPv4 options, the dhcpv4_options of Logical_Switch_Port should refer to an entry in this table.

Mandatory DHCPv4 options:

The following options must be defined.

The IP address for the DHCP server to use. This should be in the subnet of the offered IP. This is also included in the DHCP offer as option 54, ``server identifier.’’
The Ethernet address for the DHCP server to use.
The offered lease time in seconds,
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 51.

IPv4 DHCP Options:

Below are the supported DHCPv4 options whose values are an IPv4 address, e.g. 192.168.1.1. Some options accept multiple IPv4 addresses enclosed within curly braces, e.g. {192.168.1.2, 192.168.1.3}. Please refer to RFC 2132 for more details on DHCPv4 options and their codes.

The IP address of a gateway for the client to use. This should be in the subnet of the offered IP. The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 3.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 1.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 6.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 7.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 9.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 16.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 21.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 32.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 41.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 42.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 44.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 121.
This option can contain one or more static routes, each of which consists of a destination descriptor and the IP address of the router that should be used to reach that destination. Please see RFC 3442 for more details.
Example: {30.0.0.0/24,10.0.0.10, 0.0.0.0/0,10.0.0.1}
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 249. This option is similar to classless_static_route supported by Microsoft Windows DHCPv4 clients.
The DHCPv4 option code for setting the "Next server IP address" field in the DHCP header.

Boolean DHCP Options:

These options accept a Boolean value, expressed as 0 for false or 1 for true.

The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 19.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 31.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 36.

Integer DHCP Options:

These options accept a nonnegative integer value.

The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 23.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 37.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 26.
This specifies the time interval from address assignment until the client begins trying to renew its address. The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 58.
This specifies the time interval from address assignment until the client begins trying to rebind its address. The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 59.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 35. This option specifies the timeout in seconds for ARP cache entries.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 38. This option specifies the interval that the client TCP should wait before sending a keepalive message on a TCP connection.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 46.

String DHCP Options:

These options accept a string value.

The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 252. This option is used as part of web proxy auto discovery to provide a URL for a web proxy.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 67. This option is used to identify a bootfile.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 210. In PXELINUX’ case this option is used to set a common path prefix, instead of deriving it from the bootfile name.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 150. The option contains one or more IPv4 addresses that the client MAY use. This option is Cisco proprietary, the IEEE standard that matches with this requirement is option 66 (tftp_server).
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 12. If set, indicates the DHCPv4 option "Hostname". Alternatively, this option can be configured in options:hostname column in table Logical_Switch_Port. If Hostname option value is set in both conflicting Logical_Switch_Port and DHCP_Options tables, Logical_Switch_Port takes precedence.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 15. This option specifies the domain name that client should use when resolving hostnames via the Domain Name System.
"bootfile_name_alt" option is used to support iPXE. When both "bootfile_name" and "bootfile_name_alt" are provided by the CMS, "bootfile_name" will be used for option 67 if the dhcp request contains etherboot option (175), otherwise "bootfile_name_alt" will be used.
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 28. This option specifies the IP address used as a broadcast address.

DHCP Options of type host_id:

These options accept either an IPv4 address or a string value.

The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 66.

DHCP Options of type domains:

These options accept string value which is a comma separated list of domain names. The domain names are encoded based on RFC 1035.

The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 119.

DHCPv6 options:

OVN also implements native DHCPv6 support. The CMS should define the set of DHCPv6 options as key/value pairs. The define DHCPv6 options will be included in the DHCPv6 response to the DHCPv6 Solicit/Request/Confirm packet from the logical ports having the IPv6 addresses in the cidr.

Mandatory DHCPv6 options:

The following options must be defined.

The Ethernet address for the DHCP server to use. This is also included in the DHCPv6 reply as option 2, ``Server Identifier’’ to carry a DUID identifying a server between a client and a server. ovn-controller defines DUID based on Link-layer Address [DUID-LL].

IPv6 DHCPv6 options:

Below are the supported DHCPv6 options whose values are an IPv6 address, e.g. aef0::4. Some options accept multiple IPv6 addresses enclosed within curly braces, e.g. {aef0::4, aef0::5}. Please refer to RFC 3315 for more details on DHCPv6 options and their codes.

The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 23. This option specifies the DNS servers that the VM should use.

String DHCPv6 options:

These options accept string values.

The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 24. This option specifies the domain search list the client should use to resolve hostnames with DNS.
Example: "ovn.org".
This option specifies the OVN native DHCPv6 will work in stateless mode, which means OVN native DHCPv6 will not offer IPv6 addresses for VM/VIF ports, but only reply other configurations, such as DNS and domain search list. When setting this option with string value "true", VM/VIF will configure IPv6 addresses by stateless way. Default value for this option is false.
The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 39. If set, indicates the DHCPv6 option "FQDN".

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

DHCP_Relay TABLE

OVN implements native DHCPv4 relay support which caters to the common use case of relaying the DHCP requests to external DHCP server.

Summary:

string
optional string
map of string-string pairs

map of string-string pairs

Details:

A name for the DHCP Relay.
The DHCPv4 server IP address.
Future purpose.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Connection TABLE

Configuration for a database connection to an Open vSwitch database (OVSDB) client.

This table primarily configures the Open vSwitch database server (ovsdb-server).

The Open vSwitch database server can initiate and maintain active connections to remote clients. It can also listen for database connections.

Summary:


string (must be unique within table)


optional integer, at least 1,000
optional integer


boolean
optional string
optional string, one of ACTIVE, BACKOFF, CONNECTING, IDLE, or VOID
optional string, containing an integer, at least 0
optional string, containing an integer, at least 0
optional string
optional string
optional string
optional string, containing an integer, at least 2
optional string, containing an integer


map of string-string pairs
map of string-string pairs

Details:

Core Features:
Connection methods for clients.
The following connection methods are currently supported:
The specified SSL port on the host at the given host, which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound library) or an IP address. A valid SSL configuration must be provided when this form is used, this configuration can be specified via command-line options or the SSL table.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
SSL support is an optional feature that is not always built as part of Open vSwitch.
The specified TCP port on the host at the given host, which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound library) or an IP address. If host is an IPv6 address, wrap it in square brackets, e.g. tcp:[::1]:6640.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
Listens for SSL connections on the specified TCP port. Specify 0 for port to have the kernel automatically choose an available port. If host, which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound library) or an IP address, is specified, then connections are restricted to the resolved or specified local IPaddress (either IPv4 or IPv6 address). If host is an IPv6 address, wrap in square brackets, e.g. pssl:6640:[::1]. If host is not specified then it listens only on IPv4 (but not IPv6) addresses. A valid SSL configuration must be provided when this form is used, this can be specified either via command-line options or the SSL table.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
SSL support is an optional feature that is not always built as part of Open vSwitch.
Listens for connections on the specified TCP port. Specify 0 for port to have the kernel automatically choose an available port. If host, which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound library) or an IP address, is specified, then connections are restricted to the resolved or specified local IP address (either IPv4 or IPv6 address). If host is an IPv6 address, wrap it in square brackets, e.g. ptcp:6640:[::1]. If host is not specified then it listens only on IPv4 addresses.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
When multiple clients are configured, the target values must be unique. Duplicate target values yield unspecified results.

Client Failure Detection and Handling:
Maximum number of milliseconds to wait between connection attempts. Default is implementation-specific.
Maximum number of milliseconds of idle time on connection to the client before sending an inactivity probe message. If Open vSwitch does not communicate with the client for the specified number of seconds, it will send a probe. If a response is not received for the same additional amount of time, Open vSwitch assumes the connection has been broken and attempts to reconnect. Default is implementation-specific. A value of 0 disables inactivity probes.

Status:

Key-value pair of is_connected is always updated. Other key-value pairs in the status columns may be updated depends on the target type.

When target specifies a connection method that listens for inbound connections (e.g. ptcp: or punix:), both n_connections and is_connected may also be updated while the remaining key-value pairs are omitted.

On the other hand, when target specifies an outbound connection, all key-value pairs may be updated, except the above-mentioned two key-value pairs associated with inbound connection targets. They are omitted.

true if currently connected to this client, false otherwise.
A human-readable description of the last error on the connection to the manager; i.e. strerror(errno). This key will exist only if an error has occurred.
The state of the connection to the manager:
Connection is disabled.
Attempting to reconnect at an increasing period.
Attempting to connect.
Connected, remote host responsive.
Connection is idle. Waiting for response to keep-alive.
These values may change in the future. They are provided only for human consumption.
The amount of time since this client last successfully connected to the database (in seconds). Value is empty if client has never successfully been connected.
The amount of time since this client last disconnected from the database (in seconds). Value is empty if client has never disconnected.
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the connection holds. Omitted if the connection does not hold any locks.
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the connection is currently waiting to acquire. Omitted if the connection is not waiting for any locks.
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the connection has had stolen by another OVSDB client. Omitted if no locks have been stolen from this connection.
When target specifies a connection method that listens for inbound connections (e.g. ptcp: or pssl:) and more than one connection is actually active, the value is the number of active connections. Otherwise, this key-value pair is omitted.
When target is ptcp: or pssl:, this is the TCP port on which the OVSDB server is listening. (This is particularly useful when target specifies a port of 0, allowing the kernel to choose any available port.)

Common Columns:

The overall purpose of these columns is described under Common Columns at the beginning of this document.

DNS TABLE

Each row in this table stores the DNS records. The Logical_Switch table’s dns_records references these records.

Summary:

map of string-string pairs
optional string
map of string-string pairs

Details:

Key-value pair of DNS records with DNS query name as the key and value as a string of IP address(es) separated by comma or space. For PTR requests, the key-value pair can be Reverse IPv4 address.in-addr.arpa and the value DNS domain name. For IPv6 addresses, the key has to be Reverse IPv6 address.ip6.arpa.
Example: "vm1.ovn.org" = "10.0.0.4 aef0::4"
Example: "4.0.0.10.in-addr.arpa" = "vm1.ovn.org"
If set to true, then the OVN will be the main responsible for DNS Records within this row.
A DNS row with this option set to true can be created for domains that the user needs to configure locally and don’t care about IPv6 only interested in IPv4 or vice versa. This will let ovn send IPv4 DNS reply and reject/ignore IPv6 queries to save the waiting for a timeout on those uninteresting queries.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

SSL TABLE

SSL configuration for ovn-nb database access.

Summary:

string
string
string
boolean
string
string

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Name of a PEM file containing the private key used as the switch’s identity for SSL connections to the controller.
Name of a PEM file containing a certificate, signed by the certificate authority (CA) used by the controller and manager, that certifies the switch’s private key, identifying a trustworthy switch.
Name of a PEM file containing the CA certificate used to verify that the switch is connected to a trustworthy controller.
If set to true, then Open vSwitch will attempt to obtain the CA certificate from the controller on its first SSL connection and save it to the named PEM file. If it is successful, it will immediately drop the connection and reconnect, and from then on all SSL connections must be authenticated by a certificate signed by the CA certificate thus obtained. This option exposes the SSL connection to a man-in-the-middle attack obtaining the initial CA certificate. It may still be useful for bootstrapping.
List of SSL protocols to be enabled for SSL connections. The default when this option is omitted is TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2.
List of ciphers (in OpenSSL cipher string format) to be supported for SSL connections. The default when this option is omitted is HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5.

Common Columns:

The overall purpose of these columns is described under Common Columns at the beginning of this document.

Gateway_Chassis TABLE

Association of a chassis to a logical router port. The traffic going out through an specific router port will be redirected to a chassis, or a set of them in high availability configurations.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
string
integer, in range 0 to 32,767
map of string-string pairs

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Name of the Gateway_Chassis.
A suggested, but not required naming convention is ${port_name}_${chassis_name}.
Name of the chassis that we want to redirect traffic through for the associated logical router port. The value must match the name column of the Chassis table in the OVN_Southbound database.
This is the priority of a chassis among all Gateway_Chassis belonging to the same logical router port.
Reserved for future use.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

HA_Chassis_Group TABLE

Table representing a group of chassis which can provide high availability services. Each chassis in the group is represented by the table HA_Chassis. The HA chassis with highest priority will be the active chassis of this group. If the active chassis failover is detected, the HA chassis with the next higher priority takes over the responsibility of providing the HA. If a distributed gateway router port references a row in this table, then the active HA chassis in this group provides the gateway functionality.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
set of HA_Chassises

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Name of the HA_Chassis_Group. Name should be unique.
A list of HA chassis which belongs to this group.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

HA_Chassis TABLE

Summary:

string
integer, in range 0 to 32,767

map of string-string pairs

Details:

Name of the chassis which is part of the HA chassis group. The value must match the name column of the Chassis table in the OVN_Southbound database.
Priority of the chassis. Chassis with highest priority will be the active chassis.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

BFD TABLE

Contains BFD parameter for ovn-controller BFD configuration. OVN BFD implementation is used to provide detection of failures in the path between adjacent forwarding engines, including the OVN interfaces. OVN BFD provides link status info to OVN northd in order to update logical flows according to the status of BFD endpoints. In the current implementation OVN BFD is used to check next-hop status for ECMP routes. Please note BFD table refers to OVN BFD implementation and not to OVS legacy one.

Summary:


string
string
optional integer, at least 1
optional integer
optional integer, at least 1
map of string-string pairs
map of string-string pairs


optional string, one of admin_down, down, init, or up

Details:

Configuration:

ovn-northd reads configuration from these columns.

OVN logical port when BFD engine is running.
BFD peer IP address.
This is the minimum interval, in milliseconds, that the local system would like to use when transmitting BFD Control packets, less any jitter applied. The value zero is reserved. Default value is 1000 ms.
This is the minimum interval, in milliseconds, between received BFD Control packets that this system is capable of supporting, less any jitter applied by the sender. If this value is zero, the transmitting system does not want the remote system to send any periodic BFD Control packets.
Detection time multiplier. The negotiated transmit interval, multiplied by this value, provides the Detection Time for the receiving system in Asynchronous mode. Default value is 5.
Reserved for future use.
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Status Reporting:

ovn-northd writes BFD status into these columns.

BFD port logical states. Possible values are:
  • admin_down
  • down
  • init
  • up

Static_MAC_Binding TABLE

Each record represents a Static_MAC_Binding entry for a logical router.

Summary:


string
string
string
boolean

Details:

Configuration:

ovn-northd reads configuration from these columns and propagates the value to SBDB.

The logical router port for the binding.
The bound IP address.
The Ethernet address to which the IP is bound.
Override dynamically learnt MACs.

Chassis_Template_Var TABLE

One record per chassis, each containing a map, variables, between template variable names and their value for that specific chassis. A template variable has a name and potentially different values on different hypervisors in the OVN cluster. For example, two rows, R1 = (.chassis=C1, variables={(N: V1)} and R2 = (.chassis=C2, variables={(N: V2)} will make ovn-controller running on chassis C1 and C2 interpret the token N either as V1 (on C1) or as V2 (on C2). Users can refer to template variables from within other logical components, e.g., within ACL, QoS or Logical_Router_Policy matches or from Load_Balancer VIP and backend definitions.

If a template variable is referenced on a chassis for which that variable is not defined then ovn-controller running on that chassis will just interpret it as a raw string literal.

Summary:

string (must be unique within table)
map of string-string pairs

map of string-string pairs

Details:

The chassis this set of variable values applies to.
The set of variable values for a given chassis.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.

Sampling_App TABLE

Summary:

string, one of acl-est, acl-new, or drop (must be unique within table)
integer, in range 1 to 255

map of string-string pairs

Details:

The type of the application to be configured for sampling. Currently supported options are: "drop", "acl-new", "acl-est".
The identifier to be encoded in the samples generated for this type of application. This identifier is used as part of the sample’s observation domain ID.

Common Columns:
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
DB Schema 7.6.0 Open vSwitch 24.09.0