7 .TH ovs\-vswitchd 8 "June 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
11 ovs\-vswitchd \- Open vSwitch daemon
18 A daemon that manages and controls any number of Open vSwitch switches
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 switches may be configured with any of the following
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.
54 Connectivity to an external OpenFlow controller, such as NOX.
57 Only a single instance of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is intended to run at a time.
58 A single \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR can manage any number of switch instances, up
59 to the maximum number of supported Open vSwitch datapaths.
61 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR does all the necessary management of Open vSwitch datapaths
62 itself. Thus, external tools, such \fBovs\-dpctl\fR(8), are not needed for
63 managing datapaths in conjunction with \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR, and their use
64 to modify datapaths when \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is running can interfere with
65 its operation. (\fBovs\-dpctl\fR may still be useful for diagnostics.)
67 An Open vSwitch datapath kernel module must be loaded for \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
68 to be useful. Please refer to the \fBINSTALL.Linux\fR file included in the
69 Open vSwitch distribution for instructions on how to build and load
70 the Open vSwitch kernel module.
73 .IP "\fB--fake-proc-net\fR"
74 Causes \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR to simulate some files in \fB/proc/net/vlan\fR
75 and \fB/proc/net/bonding\fR that some legacy software expects to
76 exist. This option should only be used if such legacy software is
77 actually in use. It requires the \fBbrcompat_mod.ko\fR kernel module
83 .so lib/leak-checker.man
85 .SH "RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS"
86 \fBovs\-appctl\fR(8) can send commands to a running
87 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR process. The currently supported commands are
88 described below. The command descriptions assume an understanding of
89 how to configure Open vSwitch, as described in
90 \fBovs-vswitchd.conf\fR(5).
91 .SS "OVS\-VSWITCHD COMMANDS"
92 These commands manage the \fBovs-vswitchd\fR process.
93 .IP "\fBvswitchd/reload\fR"
94 Reloads the \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR configuration file, as if a
95 \fBSIGHUP\fR signal were received. The command completes only after
96 reloading is finished, in particular after all datapaths have been
97 created and destroyed and ports added and removed as specified by the
100 These commands manage bridges.
101 .IP "\fBfdb/show\fR \fIbridge\fR"
102 Lists each MAC address/VLAN pair learned by the specified \fIbridge\fR,
103 along with the port on which it was learned and the age of the entry,
106 .IP "\fBbridge/dump-flows\fR \fIbridge\fR"
107 Lists all flows in \fIbridge\fR, including those normally hidden to
108 commands such as \fBovs-ofctl dump-flows\fR. Flows set up by mechanisms
109 such as in-band control and fail-open are hidden from the controller
110 since it is not allowed to modify or override them.
112 These commands manage bonded ports on an Open vSwitch's bridges. To
113 understand some of these commands, it is important to understand a
114 detail of the bonding implementation called ``MAC hashing.'' Instead
115 of directly assigning Ethernet source addresses to slaves, the bonding
116 implementation computes a function that maps an 48-bit Ethernet source
117 addresses into an 8-bit value (a ``MAC hash'' value). All of the
118 Ethernet addresses that map to a single 8-bit value are then assigned
120 .IP "\fBbond/list\fR"
121 Lists all of the bonds, and their slaves, on each bridge.
123 .IP "\fBbond/show\fR \fIport\fR"
124 Lists all of the bond-specific information about the given bonded
125 \fIport\fR: updelay, downdelay, time until the next rebalance. Also
126 lists information about each slave: whether it is enabled or disabled,
127 the time to completion of an updelay or downdelay if one is in
128 progress, whether it is the active slave, the MAC hashes assigned to
129 the slave, and the MAC learning table entries that hash to each MAC.
130 .IP "\fBbond/migrate\fR \fIport\fR \fIhash\fR \fIslave\fR"
131 Assigns a given MAC hash to a new slave. \fIport\fR specifies the
132 bond port, \fIhash\fR either the MAC hash to be migrated (as a decimal
133 number between 0 and 255) or an Ethernet address to be hashed, and
134 \fIslave\fR the new slave to be assigned.
136 The reassignment is not permanent: rebalancing or fail-over will
137 cause the MAC hash to be shifted to a new slave in the usual
140 A MAC hash cannot be migrated to a disabled slave.
141 .IP "\fBbond/set-active-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
142 Sets \fIslave\fR as the active slave on \fIport\fR. \fIslave\fR must
143 currently be enabled.
145 The setting is not permanent: a new active slave will be selected
146 if \fIslave\fR becomes disabled.
147 .IP "\fBbond/enable-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
148 .IQ "\fBbond/disable-slave\fR \fIport\fR \fIslave\fR"
149 Enables (or disables) \fIslave\fR on the given bond \fIport\fR, skipping any
150 updelay (or downdelay).
152 This setting is not permanent: it persists only until the carrier
153 status of \fIslave\fR changes.
154 .IP "\fBbond/hash\fR \fImac\fR"
155 Returns the hash value which would be used for \fImac\fR.
157 .so lib/vlog-unixctl.man
160 .BR ovs\-vswitchd.conf (5),
161 .BR ovs\-brcompatd (8),
162 \fBINSTALL.Linux\fR in the Open vSwitch distribution.