7 .TH ovs\-vswitchd 8 "March 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
11 ovs\-vswitchd \- virtual switch daemon
18 A daemon that manages and controls any number of virtual switches on
21 The mandatory \fIconfig\fR argument specifies a configuration file.
22 For a description of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR configuration syntax, see
23 \fBovs\-vswitchd.conf\fR(5).
25 At startup or upon receipt of a \fBSIGHUP\fR signal, \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
26 reads the configuration file. It sets up Open vSwitch datapaths and then
27 operates switching across each bridge described in its configuration
28 files. If a logfile was specified on the command line it will also
29 be opened or reopened.
31 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR virtual switches may be configured with any of the
35 L2 switching with MAC learning.
38 NIC bonding with automatic fail-over and source MAC-based TX load
45 Port mirroring, with optional VLAN tagging.
48 NetFlow v5 flow logging.
51 Connectivity to an external OpenFlow controller, such as NOX.
54 Only a single instance of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is intended to run at a time.
55 A single \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR can manage any number of virtual switches, up
56 to the maximum number of supported Open vSwitch datapaths.
58 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR does all the necessary management of Open vSwitch datapaths
59 itself. Thus, external tools, such \fBovs\-dpctl\fR(8), are not needed for
60 managing datapaths in conjunction with \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR, and their use
61 to modify datapaths when \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is running can interfere with
62 its operation. (\fBovs\-dpctl\fR may still be useful for diagnostics.)
64 An Open vSwitch datapath kernel module must be loaded for \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
65 to be useful. Please refer to the \fBINSTALL\fR file included in the
66 Open vSwitch distribution for instructions on how to build and load
67 the Open vSwitch kernel module.
70 .IP "\fB--mlockall\fR"
71 Causes \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR to call the \fBmlockall()\fR function, to
72 attempt to lock all of its process memory into physical RAM,
73 preventing the kernel from paging any of its memory to disk. This
74 helps to avoid networking interruptions due to system memory pressure.
76 Some systems do not support \fBmlockall()\fR at all, and other systems
77 only allow privileged users, such as the superuser, to use it.
78 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR emits a log message if \fBmlockall()\fR is
79 unavailable or unsuccessful.
81 .IP "\fB--fake-proc-net\fR"
82 Causes \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR to simulate some files in \fB/proc/net/vlan\fR
83 and \fB/proc/net/bonding\fR that some legacy software expects to
84 exist. This option should only be used if such legacy software is
85 actually in use. It requires the \fBbrcompat_mod.ko\fR kernel module
91 .so lib/leak-checker.man
93 .SH "RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS"
94 \fBovs\-appctl\fR(8) can send commands to a running
95 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR process. The currently supported commands are
96 described below. The command descriptions assume an understanding of
97 how to configure Open vSwitch, as described in
98 \fBovs-vswitchd.conf\fR(5).
99 .SS "OVS\-VSWITCHD COMMANDS"
100 These commands manage the \fBovs-vswitchd\fR process.
101 .IP "\fBvswitchd/reload\fR"
102 Reloads the \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR configuration file, as if a
103 \fBSIGHUP\fR signal were received. The command completes only after
104 reloading is finished, in particular after all datapaths have been
105 created and destroyed and ports added and removed as specified by the
107 .SS "BRIDGE COMMANDS"
108 These commands manage bridges.
109 .IP "\fBfdb/show\fR \fIbridge\fR"
110 Lists each MAC address/VLAN pair learned by the specified \fIbridge\fR,
111 along with the port on which it was learned and the age of the entry,
114 .IP "\fBbridge/dump-flows\fR \fIbridge\fR"
115 Lists all flows in \fIbridge\fR, including those normally hidden to
116 commands such as \fBovs-ofctl dump-flows\fR. Flows set up by mechanisms
117 such as in-band control and fail-open are hidden from the controller
118 since it is not allowed to modify or override them.
120 These commands manage bonded ports on an Open vSwitch's bridges. To
121 understand some of these commands, it is important to understand a
122 detail of the bonding implementation called ``MAC hashing.'' Instead
123 of directly assigning Ethernet source addresses to slaves, the bonding
124 implementation computes a function that maps an 48-bit Ethernet source
125 addresses into an 8-bit value (a ``MAC hash'' value). All of the
126 Ethernet addresses that map to a single 8-bit value are then assigned
128 .IP "\fBbond/list\fR"
129 Lists all of the bonds, and their slaves, on each bridge.
131 .IP "\fBbond/show\fR \fIport\fR"
132 Lists all of the bond-specific information about the given bonded
133 \fIport\fR: updelay, downdelay, time until the next rebalance. Also
134 lists information about each slave: whether it is enabled or disabled,
135 the time to completion of an updelay or downdelay if one is in
136 progress, whether it is the active slave, the MAC hashes assigned to
137 the slave, and the MAC learning table entries that hash to each MAC.
138 .IP "\fBbond/migrate\fR \fIport\fR \fIhash\fR \fIslave\fR"
139 Assigns a given MAC hash to a new slave. \fIport\fR specifies the
140 bond port, \fIhash\fR either the MAC hash to be migrated (as a decimal
141 number between 0 and 255) or an Ethernet address to be hashed, and
142 \fIslave\fR the new slave to be assigned.
144 The reassignment is not permanent: rebalancing or fail-over will
145 cause the MAC hash to be shifted to a new slave in the usual
148 A MAC hash cannot be migrated to a disabled slave.
149 .IP "\fBbond/set-active-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
150 Sets \fIslave\fR as the active slave on \fIport\fR. \fIslave\fR must
151 currently be enabled.
153 The setting is not permanent: a new active slave will be selected
154 if \fIslave\fR becomes disabled.
155 .IP "\fBbond/enable-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
156 .IQ "\fBbond/disable-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
157 Enables (or disables) \fIslave\fR on the given bond \fIport\fR, skipping any
158 updelay (or downdelay).
160 This setting is not permanent: it persists only until the carrier
161 status of \fIslave\fR changes.
163 .so lib/vlog-unixctl.man
166 .BR ovs\-vswitchd.conf (5),
167 .BR ovs\-brcompatd (8),
168 \fBINSTALL\fR in the Open vSwitch distribution.