1 .TH dpctl 8 "May 2008" "OpenFlow" "OpenFlow Manual"
4 dpctl \- administer OpenFlow datapaths
8 [\fIoptions\fR] \fIcommand \fR[\fIswitch\fR] [\fIargs\fR&...]
13 program is a command line tool for monitoring and administering OpenFlow
14 datapaths. It is able to show the current state of a datapath,
15 including features, configuration, and tables entries. When using the
16 OpenFlow kernel module,
18 is used to add, delete, modify, and monitor datapaths.
20 Most \fBdpctl\fR commands take an argument that specifies the
21 method for connecting to an OpenFlow switch. The following connection
22 methods are supported:
26 The local Netlink datapath numbered \fIdp_idx\fR. This form requires
27 that the local host has the OpenFlow kernel module for Linux loaded.
30 \fBssl:\fIhost\fR[\fB:\fIport\fR]
31 The specified SSL \fIport\fR (default: 976) on the given remote
32 \fIhost\fR. The \fB--private-key\fR, \fB--certificate\fR, and
33 \fB--ca-cert\fR options are mandatory when this form is used.
36 \fBtcp:\fIhost\fR[\fB:\fIport\fR]
37 The specified TCP \fIport\fR (default: 975) on the given remote
42 With the \fBdpctl\fR program, datapaths running in the kernel can be
43 created, deleted, modified, and monitored. A single machine may
44 host up to 32 datapaths (numbered 0 to 31). In most situations,
45 a machine hosts only one datapath.
47 A newly created datapath is not associated with any of the
48 host's network devices thus does not process any incoming
49 traffic. To intercept and process traffic on a given network device, the
50 network device must be explicitly added to a datapath through the
53 The following commands manage local datapaths.
56 \fBadddp nl:\fIdp_idx\fR
57 Creates datapath numbered \fIdp_idx\fR on the local host. This will
58 fail if \fIdp_idx\fR is not in the range 0 to 31, or if the datapath
59 with that number already exists on the host.
62 \fBdeldp nl:\fIdp_idx\fR
63 Deletes datapath \fIdp_idx\fR on the local host. \fIdp_idx\fR must be
64 an existing datapath. All of a datapath's network devices must be
65 explicitly removed before the datapath can be deleted (see \fBdelif\fR
69 \fBaddif nl:\fIdp_idx netdev\fR
70 Adds \fInetdev\fR to the list of network devices datapath
71 \fIdp_idx\fR monitors, where \fIdp_idx\fR is the ID of an existing
72 datapath, and \fInetdev\fR is the name of one of the host's
73 network devices, e.g. \fBeth0\fR. Once a network device has been added
74 to a datapath, the datapath has complete ownership of the network device's
75 traffic and the network device appears silent to the rest of the system.
78 \fBdelif nl:\fIdp_idx netdev\fR
79 Removes \fInetdev\fR from the list of network devices datapath
80 \fIdp_idx\fR monitors.
83 \fBmonitor nl:\fIdp_idx\fR
84 Prints to the console all OpenFlow packets sent by datapath
85 \fIdp_idx\fR to its controller, where \fIdp_idx\fR is the ID of an
89 \fBbenchmark-nl nl:\fIdp_idx n size\fR
90 Checks the netlink performance between the kernel and userspace.
91 This is done by sending \fIN\fR packets of \fIsize\fR bytes from
92 the kernel module to dpctl.
95 The following commands can be used regardless of the connection method.
99 Prints to the console information on datapath \fIswitch\fR including
100 information on its flow tables and ports.
103 \fBdump-tables \fIswitch\fR
104 Prints to the console statistics for each of the flow tables used by
105 datapath \fIswitch\fR.
108 \fBdump-ports \fIswitch\fR
109 Prints to the console statistics for each of the network devices
110 associated with datapath \fIswitch\fR.
113 \fBdump-flows \fIswitch \fR[\fIflows\fR]
114 Prints to the console all flow entries in datapath \fIswitch\fR's
115 tables that match \fIflows\fR. If \fIflows\fR is omitted, all flows
116 in the datapath are retrieved. See \fBFLOW SYNTAX\fR, below, for the
117 syntax of \fIflows\fR.
120 \fBdump-aggregate \fIswitch \fR[\fIflows\fR]
121 Prints to the console aggregate statistics for flows in datapath
122 \fSWITCH\fR's tables that match \fIflows\fR. If \fIflows\fR is omitted,
123 the statistics are aggregated across all flows in the datapath's flow
124 tables. See \fBFLOW SYNTAX\fR, below, for the syntax of \fIflows\fR.
127 \fBadd-flow \fIswitch flow\fR
128 Add the flow entry as described by \fIflow\fR to the datapath \fIswitch\fR's
129 tables. The flow entry is in the format described in \fBFLOW SYNTAX\fR,
133 \fBadd-flows \fIswitch file\fR
134 Add flow entries as described in \fIfile\fR to the datapath \fIswitch\fR's
135 tables. Each line in \fIfile\fR is a flow entry in the format
136 described in \fBFLOW SYNTAX\fR, below.
139 \fBdel-flows \fIswitch \fR[\fIflow\fR]
140 Deletes entries from the datapath \fIswitch\fR's tables that match
141 \fIflow\fR. If \fIflow\fR is omitted, all flows in the datapath's
142 tables are removed. See \fBFLOW SYNTAX\fR, below, for the syntax of
146 \fBping \fIswitch \fR[\fIn\fR]
147 Sends a series of 10 echo request packets to \fIswitch\fR and times
148 each reply. The echo request packets consist of an OpenFlow header
149 plus \fIn\fR bytes (default: 64) of randomly generated payload. This
150 measures the latency of individual requests.
153 \fBbenchmark \fIswitch n count\fR
154 Sends \fIcount\fR echo request packets that each consist of an
155 OpenFlow header plus \fIn\fR bytes of payload and waits for each
156 response. Reports the total time required. This is a measure of the
157 maximum bandwidth to \fIswitch\fR for round-trips of \fIn\fR-byte
162 Some \fBdpctl\fR commands accept an argument that describes a flow or
163 flows. Such flow descriptions comprise a series
164 \fIfield\fB=\fIvalue\fR assignments, separated by commas or white
167 The following field assignments describe how a flow matches a packet.
168 If any of these assignments is omitted from the flow syntax, the field
169 is treated as a wildcard; thus, if all of them are omitted, the
170 resulting flow matches all packets. The string \fB*\fR or \fBANY\fR
171 may be specified a value to explicitly mark any of these fields as a
174 .IP \fBin_port=\fIport_no\fR
175 Matches physical port \fIport_no\fR. Switch ports are numbered as
176 displayed by \fBdpctl show\fR.
178 .IP \fBdl_vlan=\fIvlan\fR
179 Matches IEEE 802.1q virtual LAN tag \fIvlan\fR. Specify \fB0xffff\fR
180 as \fIvlan\fR to match packets that are not tagged with a virtual LAN;
181 otherwise, specify a number between 0 and 4095, inclusive, as the
182 12-bit VLAN ID to match.
184 .IP \fBdl_src=\fImac\fR
185 Matches Ethernet source address \fImac\fR, which should be specified
186 as 6 pairs of hexadecimal digits delimited by colons,
187 e.g. \fB00:0A:E4:25:6B:B0\fR.
189 .IP \fBdl_dst=\fImac\fR
190 Matches Ethernet destination address \fImac\fR.
192 .IP \fBdl_type=\fIethertype\fR
193 Matches Ethernet protocol type \fIethertype\fR, which should be
194 specified as a integer between 0 and 65535, inclusive, either in
195 decimal or as a hexadecimal number prefixed by \fB0x\fR,
196 e.g. \fB0x0806\fR to match ARP packets.
198 .IP \fBnw_src=\fIip\fR
199 Matches IPv4 source address \fIip\fR, which should be specified as an
200 IP address or host name, e.g. \fB192.168.1.1\fR or
201 \fBwww.example.com\fR.
203 .IP \fBnw_dst=\fInw_dst\fR
204 Matches IPv4 destination address \fIip\fR.
206 .IP \fBnw_proto=\fIproto\fR
207 Matches IP protocol type \fIproto\fR, which should be specified as a
208 decimal number between 0 and 255, inclusive, e.g. 6 to match TCP
211 .IP \fBtp_src=\fIport\fR
212 Matches UDP or TCP source port \fIport\fR, which should be specified
213 as a decimal number between 0 and 65535, inclusive, e.g. 80 to match
214 packets originating from a HTTP server.
216 .IP \fBtp_dst=\fIport\fR
217 Matches UDP or TCP destination port \fIport\fR.
220 The \fBadd-flow\fR and \fBadd-flows\fR commands require an additional field:
222 .IP \fIactions\fB=\fItarget\fR[\fB,\fItarget\fR...]\fR
223 Specifies a comma-separated list of actions to take on a packet when the
224 flow entry matches. The \fItarget\fR may be a decimal port number
225 designating the physical port on which to output the packet, or one of
226 the following keywords:
229 .IP \fBoutput\fR:\fIport\fR
230 Outputs the packet on the port specified by \fIport\fR.
233 Subjects the packet to the device's normal L2/L3 processing. (This
234 action is not implemented by all OpenFlow switches.)
237 Outputs the packet on all switch physical ports other than the port on
238 which it was received and any ports on which flooding is disabled
239 (typically, these would be ports disabled by the IEEE 802.1D spanning
243 Outputs the packet on all switch physical ports other than the port on
244 which it was received.
246 .IP \fBcontroller\fR:\fImax_len\fR
247 Sends the packet to the OpenFlow controller as a ``packet in''
248 message. If \fImax_len\fR is a number, then it specifies the maximum
249 number of bytes that should be sent. If \fImax_len\fR is \fBALL\fR or
250 omitted, then the entire packet is sent.
253 Outputs the packet on the ``local port,'' which corresponds to the
254 \fBof\fIn\fR network device (see \fBCONTACTING THE CONTROLLER\fR in
255 \fBsecchan\fR(8) for information on the \fBof\fIn\fR network device).
257 .IP \fBmod_vlan\fR:\fIvlan_id\fR
258 Modifies the VLAN tag on a packet. If \fIvlan_id\fR is a number, then
259 the VLAN tag is added or modified as necessary to match the value
260 specified. If \fIvlan_id\fR is \fBSTRIP\fR, then the VLAN tag is
261 stripped from the packet if one is present. (This action is not
262 implemented by all OpenFlow switches.)
266 (The OpenFlow protocol supports other actions that \fBdpctl\fR does
267 not yet expose to the user.)
270 The \fBadd-flows\fR and \fBdel-flows\fR commands support an additional
273 .IP \fBpriority=\fIvalue\fR
274 Sets the priority of the flow to be added or deleted to \fIvalue\fR,
275 which should be a number between 0 and 65535, inclusive. If this
276 field is not specified, it defaults to 32768.
279 The \fBdump-flows\fR and \fBdump-aggregate\fR commands support an
280 additional optional field:
282 .IP \fBtable=\fInumber\fR
283 If specified, limits the flows about which statistics are gathered to
284 those in the table with the given \fInumber\fR. Tables are numbered
285 as shown by the \fBdump-tables\fR command.
287 If this field is not specified, or if \fInumber\fR is given as
288 \fB255\fR, statistics are gathered about flows from all tables.
292 \fB-p\fR, \fB--private-key=\fIprivkey.pem\fR
293 Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as the
294 identity for SSL connections to a switch.
297 \fB-c\fR, \fB--certificate=\fIcert.pem\fR
298 Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate, signed by the
299 controller's certificate authority (CA), that certifies the
300 private key to identify a trustworthy controller.
303 \fB-C\fR, \fB--ca-cert=\fIcacert.pem\fR
304 Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate used to verify that
305 a switch is trustworthy.
308 .BR \-h ", " \-\^\-help
309 Prints a brief help message to the console.
312 \fB-v\fR \fImodule\fB:\fIfacility\fB:\fIlevel\fR, \fB--verbose=\fImodule\fB:\fIfacility\fB:\fIlevel\fR
313 Sets the logging level for \fImodule\fR in \fIfacility\fR to
314 \fIlevel\fR. The \fImodule\fR may be any valid module name (as
315 displayed by the \fB--list\fR action on \fBvlogconf\fR(8)), or the
316 special name \fBANY\fR to set the logging levels for all modules. The
317 \fIfacility\fR may be \fBsyslog\fR or \fBconsole\fR to set the levels
318 for logging to the system log or to the console, respectively, or
319 \fBANY\fR to set the logging levels for both facilities. The
320 \fIlevel\fR must be one of \fBemer\fR, \fBerr\fR, \fBwarn\fR, or
321 \fBdbg\fR, designating the minimum severity of a message for it to be
325 \fB-v\fR, \fB--verbose\fR
326 Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to
327 \fB--verbose=ANY:ANY:dbg\fR.
330 .BR \-V ", " \-\^\-version
331 Prints version information to the console.
335 A typical dpctl command sequence for controlling an OpenFlow kernel module:
338 Create datapath numbered 0:
340 .B % dpctl adddp nl:0
343 Add two network devices to the new datapath:
345 .B % dpctl addif nl:0 eth0
346 .B % dpctl addif nl:0 eth1
349 Monitor traffic received by the datapath (exit with control-C):
351 .B % dpctl monitor nl:0
355 View the datapath's table stats after some traffic has passed through:
357 .B % dpctl dump-tables nl:0
360 View the flow entries in the datapath:
362 .B % dpctl dump-flows nl:0
365 Remove network devices from the datapath when finished:
367 .B % dpctl delif nl:0 eth0
368 .B % dpctl delif nl:0 eth1
373 .B % dpctl deldp nl:0