NAME¶
ovs-controller - simple OpenFlow controller reference implementation
SYNOPSIS¶
ovs-controller [
options]
method [method]...
DESCRIPTION¶
ovs-controller manages any number of remote switches over OpenFlow
protocol, causing them to function as L2 MAC-learning switches or hub.
ovs-controller controls one or more OpenFlow switches, specified as one
or more of the following OpenFlow connection methods:
- pssl:[port][:ip]
- Listens for OpenFlow SSL connections on port
(default: 6633). The --private-key, --certificate, and
--ca-cert options are mandatory when this form is used. By default,
ovs-controller listens for connections to any local IP address, but
ip may be specified to listen only for connections to the given
ip.
- ptcp:[port][:ip]
- Listens for OpenFlow TCP connections on port
(default: 6633). By default, ovs-controller listens for connections
to any local IP address, but ip may be specified to listen only for
connections to the given ip.
- punix:file
- Listens for OpenFlow connections on the Unix domain server
socket named file.
- ssl:ip[:port]
- The specified SSL port (default: 6633) on the host
at the given ip, which must be expressed as an IP address (not a
DNS name). The --private-key, --certificate, and
--ca-cert options are mandatory when this form is used.
- tcp:ip[:port]
- The specified TCP port (default: 6633) on the host
at the given ip, which must be expressed as an IP address (not a
DNS name).
- unix:file
- The Unix domain server socket named file.
OPTIONS¶
- -n
-
- --noflow
- By default, ovs-controller sets up a flow in each
OpenFlow switch whenever it receives a packet whose destination is known
due through MAC learning. This option disables flow setup, so that every
packet in the network passes through the controller.
- This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces
switching performance, so it should not be used in production.
- --max-idle=secs|permanent
- Sets secs as the number of seconds that a flow set
up by the controller will remain in the switch's flow table without any
matching packets being seen. If permanent is specified, which is
not recommended, flows will never expire. The default is 60 seconds.
- This option has no effect when -n (or
--noflow) is in use (because the controller does not set up flows
in that case).
- -H
-
- --hub
- By default, the controller acts as an L2 MAC-learning
switch. This option changes its behavior to that of a hub that floods
packets on all but the incoming port.
- If -H (or --hub) and -n (or
--noflow) are used together, then the cumulative effect is that
every packet passes through the controller and every packet is
flooded.
- This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces
switching performance, so it should not be used in production.
- -w[wildcard_mask]
-
- --wildcards[=wildcard_mask]
- By default, ovs-controller sets up exact-match
flows. This option allows it to set up wildcarded flows, which may reduce
flow setup latency by causing less traffic to be sent up to the
controller.
- The optional wildcard_mask is an OpenFlow wildcard
bitmask in hexadecimal that specifies the fields to wildcard. If no
wildcard_mask is specified, the default value 0x2820F0 is used
which specifies L2-only switching and wildcards L3 and L4 fields. Another
interesting value is 0x2000EC, which specifies L3-only switching and
wildcards L2 and L4 fields.
- This option has no effect when -n (or
--noflow) is in use (because the controller does not set up flows
in that case).
- -N
-
- --normal
- By default, ovs-controller directs packets to a
particular port or floods them. This option causes it to direct
non-flooded packets to the OpenFlow OFPP_NORMAL port. This allows
the switch itself to make decisions about packet destinations. Support for
OFPP_NORMAL is optional in OpenFlow, so this option may not well
with some non-Open vSwitch switches.
- --mute
- Prevents ovs-controller from replying to any OpenFlow
messages sent to it by switches.
- This option is only for debugging the Open vSwitch
implementation of ``fail open'' mode. It must not be used in
production.
- -q id
-
- --queue=id
- By default, ovs-controller uses the default OpenFlow
queue for sending packets and setting up flows. Use one of these options,
supplying id as an OpenFlow queue ID as a decimal number, to
instead use that specific queue.
- This option is incompatible with -N or
--normal and with -H or --hub. If more than one is
specified then this option takes precedence.
- This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality
of service setups.
- -Q port-name:queue-id
- --port-queue
port-name:queue-id
- Configures packets received on the port named
port-name (e.g. eth0) to be output on OpenFlow queue ID
queue-id (specified as a decimal number). For the specified port,
this option overrides the default specified on -q or
--queue.
- This option may be specified any number of times with
different port-name arguments.
- This option is incompatible with -N or
--normal and with -H or --hub. If more than one is
specified then this option takes precedence.
- This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality
of service setups.
- --with-flows file
- When a switch connects, push the flow entries as described
in file. Each line in file is a flow entry in the format
described for the add-flows command in the Flow Syntax
section of the ovs-ofctl(8) man page.
- Use this option more than once to add flows from multiple
files.
Public Key Infrastructure Options¶
- -p privkey.pem
-
- --private-key=privkey.pem
- Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as
ovs-controller's identity for outgoing SSL connections.
- -c cert.pem
-
- --certificate=cert.pem
- Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that
certifies the private key specified on -p or --private-key
to be trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certificate
authority (CA) that the peer in SSL connections will use to verify
it.
- -C cacert.pem
-
- --ca-cert=cacert.pem
- Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate that
ovs-controller should use to verify certificates presented to it by
SSL peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL peers use to verify
the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or it may
be a different one, depending on the PKI design in use.)
- -C none
-
- --ca-cert=none
- Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL
peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means that certificates
cannot be verified to be those of known trusted hosts.
- --peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem
- Specifies a PEM file that contains one or more additional
certificates to send to SSL peers. peer-cacert.pem should be the CA
certificate used to sign ovs-controller's own certificate, that is,
the certificate specified on -c or --certificate. If
ovs-controller's certificate is self-signed, then
--certificate and --peer-ca-cert should specify the same
file.
- This option is not useful in normal operation, because the
SSL peer must already have the CA certificate for the peer to have any
confidence in ovs-controller's identity. However, this offers a way
for a new installation to bootstrap the CA certificate on its first SSL
connection.
- --pidfile[=pidfile]
- Causes a file (by default, ovs-controller.pid) to be
created indicating the PID of the running process. If the pidfile
argument is not specified, or if it does not begin with /, then it
is created in /var/run/openvswitch.
- If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is
created.
- --overwrite-pidfile
- By default, when --pidfile is specified and the
specified pidfile already exists and is locked by a running process,
ovs-controller refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile
to cause it to instead overwrite the pidfile.
- When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no
effect.
- --detach
- Causes ovs-controller to detach itself from the
foreground session and run as a background process.
- --monitor
- Creates an additional process to monitor the
ovs-controller daemon. If the daemon dies due to a signal that
indicates a programming error (e.g. SIGSEGV, SIGABRT), then
the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon die or exits
for another reason, the monitor process exits.
- This option is normally used with --detach, but it
also functions without it.
- --no-chdir
- By default, when --detach is specified,
ovs-controller changes its current working directory to the root
directory after it detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovs-controller
from a carelessly chosen directory would prevent the administrator from
unmounting the file system that holds that directory.
- Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior,
preventing ovs-controller from changing its current working
directory. This may be useful for collecting core files, since it is
common behavior to write core dumps into the current working directory and
the root directory is not a good directory to use.
- This option has no effect when --detach is not
specified.
- -vmodule[:facility[:level]],
--verbose=module[:facility[:level]]
- Sets the logging level for module in facility
to level:
- •
- module may be any valid module name (as displayed by
the --list action on ovs-appctl(8)), or the special name
ANY to set the logging levels for all modules.
- •
- facility may be syslog, console, or
file to set the levels for logging to the system log, the console,
or a file respectively, or ANY to set the logging levels for both
facilities. If it is omitted, facility defaults to ANY.
- Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging
to a file will not take place unless --log-file is also specified
(see below).
- •
- level must be one of off, emer,
err, warn, info, or dbg, designating the
minimum severity of a message for it to be logged. If it is omitted,
level defaults to dbg. See ovs-appctl(8) for a
definition of each log level.
- -v, --verbose
- Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to
--verbose=ANY:ANY:dbg.
- -vPATTERN:facility:pattern,
--verbose=PATTERN: facility:pattern
- Sets the log pattern for facility to pattern.
Refer to ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for
pattern.
- --log-file[=file]
- Enables logging to a file. If file is specified,
then it is used as the exact name for the log file. The default log file
name used if file is omitted is
/var/log/openvswitch/ovs-controller.log.
- --unixctl=socket
- Sets the name of the control socket on which
ovs-controller listens for runtime management commands (see
RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS, below). If socket does not
begin with /, it is interpreted as relative to
/var/run/openvswitch. If --unixctl is not used at all, the
default socket is
/var/run/openvswitch/ovs-controller.pid.ctl, where
pid is ovs-controller's process ID. Specifying none
for socket disables the control socket feature.
- -h, --help
- Prints a brief help message to the console.
- -V, --version
- Prints version information to the console.
EXAMPLES¶
To bind locally to port 6633 (the default) and wait for incoming connections
from OpenFlow switches:
- % ovs-controller ptcp:
BUGS¶
Configuring a Citrix XenServer to connect to a particular controller only points
the remote OVSDB management connection to that controller. It does not also
configure OpenFlow connections, because the manager is expected to do that
over the management protocol.
ovs-controller is not an Open vSwitch
manager and does not know how to do that.
As a stopgap workaround,
ovs-vsctl can wait for an OVSDB connection and
set the controller, e.g.:
- % ovs-vsctl -t0 --db=pssl: --certificate=cert.pem
--ca-cert=none --private-key=privkey.pem
--peer-ca-cert=cacert.pem set-controller ssl: ip
SEE ALSO¶
ovs-appctl(8),
ovs-ofctl(8),
ovs-dpctl(8)
