7 .TH ovs\-appctl 8 "November 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
11 ovs\-appctl \- utility for configuring running Open vSwitch daemons
14 \fBovs\-appctl\fR [\fB\-\-target=\fItarget\fR | \fB\-t\fR \fItarget\fR]
15 \fIcommand \fR[\fIarg\fR...]
17 \fBovs\-appctl\fR \-\-help
19 \fBovs\-appctl\fR \-\-version
21 Open vSwitch daemons accept certain commands at runtime to control their
22 behavior and query their settings. Every daemon accepts a common set of
23 commands documented under \fBCOMMON COMMANDS\fR below. Some daemons
24 support additional commands documented in their own manpages.
25 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR in particular accepts a number of additional
26 commands documented in \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR(8).
28 The \fBovs\-appctl\fR program provides a simple way to invoke these
29 commands. The command to be sent is specified on \fBovs\-appctl\fR's
30 command line as non-option arguments. \fBovs\-appctl\fR sends the
31 command and prints the daemon's response on standard output.
33 In normal use only a single option is accepted:
34 .IP "\fB\-t \fItarget\fR"
35 .IQ "\fB\-\-target=\fItarget\fR"
36 Tells \fBovs\-appctl\fR which daemon to contact.
38 If \fItarget\fR begins with \fB/\fR it must name a Unix domain socket
39 on which an Open vSwitch daemon is listening for control channel
40 connections. By default, each daemon listens on a Unix domain socket
41 named \fB@RUNDIR@/\fIprogram\fB.\fIpid\fB.ctl\fR, where \fIprogram\fR
42 is the program's name and \fIpid\fR is its process ID. For example,
43 if \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR has PID 123, it would listen on
44 \fB@RUNDIR@/ovs\-vswitchd.123.ctl\fR.
46 Otherwise, \fBovs\-appctl\fR looks for a pidfile, that is, a file
47 whose contents are the process ID of a running process as a decimal
48 number, named \fB@RUNDIR@/\fItarget\fB.pid\fR. (The \fB\-\-pidfile\fR
49 option makes an Open vSwitch daemon create a pidfile.)
50 \fBovs\-appctl\fR reads the pidfile, then looks for a Unix socket
51 named \fB@RUNDIR@/\fItarget\fB.\fIpid\fB.ctl\fR, where \fIpid\fR is
52 replaced by the process ID read from the pidfile, and uses that file
53 as if it had been specified directly as the target.
55 The default target is \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR.
58 Every Open vSwitch daemon supports a common set of commands, which are
59 documented in this section.
62 These commands display daemon-specific commands and the running version.
63 Note that these commands are different from the \fB\-\-help\fR and
64 \fB\-\-version\fR options that return information about the
65 \fBovs\-appctl\fR utility itself.
68 Lists the commands supported by the target.
71 Displays the version and compilation date of the target.
74 Open vSwitch has several log levels. The highest-severity log level is:
77 No message is ever logged at this level, so setting a logging
78 facility's log level to \fBoff\fR disables logging to that facility.
81 The following log levels, in order of descending severity, are
85 A major failure forced a process to abort.
87 A high-level operation or a subsystem failed. Attention is
90 A low-level operation failed, but higher-level subsystems may be able
93 Information that may be useful in retrospect when investigating
96 Information useful only to someone with intricate knowledge of the
97 system, or that would commonly cause too-voluminous log output. Log
98 messages at this level are not logged by default.
101 Every Open vSwitch daemon supports the following commands for examining
102 and adjusting log levels.
103 .IP "\fBvlog/list\fR"
104 Lists the known logging modules and their current levels.
106 .IP "\fBvlog/set\fR [\fIspec\fR]"
107 Sets logging levels. Without any \fIspec\fR, sets the log level for
108 every module and facility to \fBdbg\fR. Otherwise, \fIspec\fR is a
109 list of words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from
114 A valid module name, as displayed by the \fBvlog/list\fR command on
115 \fBovs\-appctl\fR(8), limits the log level change to the specified
119 \fBsyslog\fR, \fBconsole\fR, or \fBfile\fR, to limit the log level
120 change to only to the system log, to the console, or to a file,
124 \fBoff\fR, \fBemer\fR, \fBerr\fR, \fBwarn\fR, \fBinfo\fR, or
125 \fBdbg\fR, to control the log level. Messages of the given severity
126 or higher will be logged, and messages of lower severity will be
127 filtered out. \fBoff\fR filters out all messages.
131 Case is not significant within \fIspec\fR.
133 Regardless of the log levels set for \fBfile\fR, logging to a file
134 will not take place unless the target application was invoked with the
135 \fB\-\-log\-file\fR option.
137 For compatibility with older versions of OVS, \fBany\fR is accepted as
138 a word but has no effect.
140 .IP "\fBvlog/set PATTERN:\fIfacility\fB:\fIpattern\fR"
141 Sets the log pattern for \fIfacility\fR to \fIpattern\fR. Each time a
142 message is logged to \fIfacility\fR, \fIpattern\fR determines the
143 message's formatting. Most characters in \fIpattern\fR are copied
144 literally to the log, but special escapes beginning with \fB%\fR are
149 The name of the application logging the message, e.g. \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR.
152 The name of the module (as shown by \fBovs\-appctl \-\-list\fR) logging
156 The current date and time in ISO 8601 format (YYYY\-MM\-DD HH:MM:SS).
158 .IP \fB%d{\fIformat\fB}\fR
159 The current date and time in the specified \fIformat\fR, which takes
160 the same format as the \fItemplate\fR argument to \fBstrftime\fR(3).
163 The current UTC date and time in ISO 8601 format (YYYY\-MM\-DD HH:MM:SS).
165 .IP \fB%D{\fIformat\fB}\fR
166 The current UTC date and time in the specified \fIformat\fR, which takes
167 the same format as the \fItemplate\fR argument to \fBstrftime\fR(3).
170 The message being logged.
173 A serial number for this message within this run of the program, as a
174 decimal number. The first message a program logs has serial number 1,
175 the second one has serial number 2, and so on.
181 The level at which the message is logged, e.g. \fBDBG\fR.
184 The program's process ID (pid), as a decimal number.
187 The number of milliseconds elapsed from the start of the application
188 to the time the message was logged.
195 A few options may appear between the \fB%\fR and the format specifier
196 character, in this order:
200 Left justify the escape's expansion within its field width. Right
201 justification is the default.
204 Pad the field to the field width with \fB0\fRs. Padding with spaces
208 A number specifies the minimum field width. If the escape expands to
209 fewer characters than \fIwidth\fR then it is padded to fill the field
210 width. (A field wider than \fIwidth\fR is not truncated to fit.)
214 The default pattern for console and file output is \fB%D{%Y-%m-%dT
215 %H:%M:%SZ}|%05N|%c|%p|%m\fR; for syslog output, \fB%05N|%c|%p|%m\fR.
218 Daemons written in Python (e.g. \fBovs\-xapi\-sync\fR,
219 \fBovs\-monitor\-ipsec) do not allow control over the log pattern.
221 .IP "\fBvlog/reopen\fR"
222 Causes the daemon to close and reopen its log file. (This
223 is useful after rotating log files, to cause a new log file to be
226 This has no effect if the target application was not invoked with the
227 \fB\-\-log\-file\fR option.
235 \fBovs\-appctl\fR can control all Open vSwitch daemons, including:
236 .BR ovs\-vswitchd (8),
238 .BR ovsdb\-server (8).