+.ds PN vswitchd
+.
+.TH vswitchd 8 "December 2008" "OpenFlow" "OpenFlow Manual"
+.
+.SH NAME
+vswitchd \- OpenFlow-based virtual switch daemon
+.
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B vswitchd
+\fB--config=\fIfile\fR|\fIdir\fR\&...
+[\fIoption\fR]\&...
+.
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+A daemon that manages and controls any number of OpenFlow-based
+virtual switches on the local machine.
+.PP
+At startup or upon receipt of a \fBSIGHUP\fR signal, \fBvswitchd\fR
+reads the configuration files or directories specified on the command
+line. It sets up OpenFlow datapaths and then operates switching
+across each bridge described in its configuration files.
+.PP
+\fBvswitchd\fR virtual switches may be configured with any of the
+following features:
+.
+.IP \(bu
+L2 switching with MAC learning.
+.
+.IP \(bu
+NIC bonding with automatic fail-over and source MAC-based TX load
+balancing ("SLB").
+.
+.IP \(bu
+802.1Q VLAN support.
+.
+.IP \(bu
+Port mirroring, with optional VLAN tagging.
+.
+.IP \(bu
+802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol support.
+.
+.IP \(bu
+Connectivity to an external OpenFlow controller, such as NOX.
+.
+.PP
+Only a single instance of \fBvswitchd\fR is intended to run at a time.
+A single \fBvswitchd\fR can manage any number of virtual switches, up
+to the maximum number of datapaths supported by the OpenFlow
+implementation.
+.PP
+\fBvswitchd\fR does all the necessary management of OpenFlow datapaths
+itself. Thus, external tools, such \fBdpctl\fR(8), are not needed for
+managing datapaths in conjunction with \fBvswitchd\fR, and their use
+to modify datapaths when \fBvswitchd\fR is running can interfere with
+its operation. (\fBdpctl\fR may still be useful for diagnostics.)
+.PP
+An OpenFlow datapath kernel module must be loaded for \fBvswitchd\fR
+to be useful. Please refer to the \fBINSTALL\fR file included in the
+OpenFlow source distribution for instructions on how to build and load
+the OpenFlow kernel module.
+.PP
+.SH OPTIONS
+.
+At least one of the following options is required:
+.
+.TP
+\fB-F \fIfile\fR|\fIdir\fR, \fB--config=\fIfile\fR|\fIdir\fR
+.
+The \fB-F\fR or \fB--config\fR option specifies a configuration file
+or directory. If a regular file is named, then \fBvswitchd\fR reads
+that file. If a directory is named, then \fBvswitchd\fR reads all the
+files in that directory whose names consist entirely of English
+letters, digits, and the special characters \fB._-\fR and do not begin
+with \fB.\fR.
+.IP
+For a description of \fBvswitchd\fR configuration syntax, see
+\fBvswitchd.conf\fR(5).
+.
+.PP
+The rest of \fBvswitchd\fR's options are truly optional:
+.
+.so lib/daemon.man
+.so lib/vlog.man
+.so lib/common.man
+.
+.SH "BUGS"
+.
+The \fB--brcompat\fR kluge should not be necessary. It will be
+removed in the future.
+.PP
+Only OpenFlow kernel-based datapaths are currently supported. In the
+future, this restriction may be lifted.
+.PP
+Only Linux 2.6.\fIx\fR is currently supported.
+.
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.BR vswitchd.conf (5),
+.BR vlogconf (8),
+\fBINSTALL\fR in the OpenFlow distribution.
--- /dev/null
+.\" -*- nroff -*-
+.TH vswitchd.conf 5 "December 2008" "OpenFlow" "OpenFlow Manual"
+.
+.SH NAME
+vswitchd.conf \- configuration file for \fBvswitchd.conf\fR
+.
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+\fBvswitchd\fR(8), the virtual switch daemon, is configured using one
+or more configuration files named on the command line. This manual
+page describes the syntax of these configuration files.
+.PP
+The configuration file is based on key-value pairs, which are given
+one per line in the form \fIkey\fB=\fIvalue\fR. Each \fIkey\fR
+consists of one or more parts separated by dots,
+e.g. \fIpart1\fB.\fIpart2\fB.\fIpart3\fR. Each \fIpart\fR may consist
+only of the English letters, digits, and the special characters
+\fB_-@$:+\fR. White space within \fIvalue\fR is significant, the
+presence of white space at the beginning of a line is used for
+determining whether a key-value pair is within a section (see below),
+and other white space is ignored.
+.PP
+Configuration files may optionally be divided into sections. A
+section begins with a section header, which is a line of the form
+\fB[\fIsection\fB]\fR or \fB[\fIsection\fB "\fIsubsection\fB"]\fR.
+The \fIsection\fR and optional \fIsubsection\fR must fit the syntax
+described for \fIkey\fR above, and the \fB[\fR must appear in the
+leftmost column of the line. Following a section header, key-value
+pairs indented with white space are implicitly within the specified
+\fIsection\fR and optional \fIsubsection\fR; that is,
+.RS
+.nf
+[mysec "mysubsec"]
+ key = value
+.fi
+.RE
+and
+.RS
+.nf
+mysec.mysubsec.key = value
+.fi
+.RE
+are equivalent. The first key-value pair at the left margin following
+a section header ends the section; outside a section, indented
+key-value pairs will be flagged as an error.
+.PP
+If a single key is specified more than once, that key has multiple
+values, one value for each time the key is specified. The ordering of
+key-value pairs, and the ordering of multiple values for a single key,
+within a configuration file or a set of configuration files is not
+significant.
+.PP
+Blank lines, lines that consist only of white space, and lines that
+begin with \fB#\fR (optionally preceded by white space) are ignored.
+.PP
+The following subsections describe how key-value pairs are used to
+configure \fBswitchd\fR.
+.SS "Bridge Configuration"
+A bridge (switch) with a given \fIname\fR is configured by specifying
+the names of its network devices as values for key
+\fBbridge.\fIname\fB.port\fR.
+.PP
+The following syntax defines a bridge named \fBmybr\fR, configured
+with network devices \fBeth0\fR, \fBeth1\fR, and \fBeth2\fR:
+.RS
+.nf
+
+[bridge "mybr"]
+ port = eth0
+ port = eth1
+ port = eth2
+.fi
+.RE
+.SS "802.1Q VLAN tagging"
+By default, bridge ports are trunk ports. Define key
+\fBvlan.\fIport\fB.tag\fR to an integer value \fIvid\fR between 1 and
+4095, inclusive, to instead designate the named \fIport\fR as a member
+of 802.1Q VLAN \fIvid\fR. When \fIport\fR is assigned a VLAN tag this
+way, frames arriving on trunk ports will be forwarded to \fIport\fR
+only if they are tagged with VLAN \fIvid\fR, and frames arriving on
+other VLAN ports will be forwarded to \fIport\fR only if their
+\fIvid\fR values are equal. (Frames received on \fIport\fR will not
+have an 802.1Q header.)
+.PP
+The following syntax makes network device \fBeth0\fR a member of VLAN
+101:
+.PP
+.RS
+.nf
+
+[vlan "eth0"]
+ tag = 101
+
+.fi
+.RE
+.SS "Network Device Bonding"
+Bonding allows multiple "slave" network devices to be treated as if
+they were a single virtual "bonded" network device. It is useful for
+load balancing and fail-over.
+.PP
+\fBvswitchd\fR supports "source load balancing" (SLB) bonding, which
+assigns flows to slaves based on source MAC address, with periodic
+rebalancing as traffic patterns change. This form of bonding does not
+require 802.3ad or other special support from the upstream switch to
+which the slave devices are connected.
+.PP
+To configure bonding, create a virtual bonding device by specifying
+the slave network device names as values for
+\fBbonding.\fIname\fB.slave\fR, then specify \fIname\fR as a bridge
+port. The chosen \fIname\fR should not be the name of any real
+network device on the host system.
+.PP
+The following syntax bonds \fBeth0\fR and \fBeth1\fR into a bonding
+device named \fBbond0\fR, which is added to bridge \fBmybr\fR along
+with physical network devices \fBeth2\fR and \fBeth3\fR:
+.PP
+.RS
+.nf
+
+[bridge "mybr"]
+ port = bond0
+ port = eth2
+ port = eth3
+
+[bonding "bond0"]
+ slave = eth0
+ slave = eth1
+
+.fi
+.RE
+
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.BR vswitchd (8).
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