ovs-controller manages any number of remote switches over OpenFlow
protocol, causing them to function as L2 MAC-learning switches or hub.
ovs-controller controls one or more OpenFlow switches, specified as
one or more of the following OpenFlow connection methods:
pssl:[port][:ip]
Listens for OpenFlow SSL connections on port (default: 6633).
The --private-key, --certificate, and
--ca-cert options are mandatory when this form is used. By
default, ovs-controller listens for connections to any local IP address,
but ip may be specified to listen only for connections to the
given ip.
ptcp:[port][:ip]
Listens for OpenFlow TCP connections on port (default: 6633).
By default, ovs-controller listens for connections to any local IP
address, but ip may be specified to listen only for connections
to the given ipAr.
punix:file
Listens for OpenFlow connections on the Unix domain server socket
named file.
ssl:ip[:port]
The specified SSL port (default: 6633) on the host at the given
ip, which must be expressed as an IP address (not a DNS name).
The --private-key, --certificate, and
--ca-cert options are mandatory when this form is used.
tcp:ip[:port]
The specified TCP port (default: 6633) on the host at the given
ip, which must be expressed as an IP address (not a DNS name).
unix:file
The Unix domain server socket named file.
OPTIONS
-n
--noflow
By default, ovs-controller sets up a flow in each OpenFlow switch
whenever it receives a packet whose destination is known due through
MAC learning. This option disables flow setup, so that every packet
in the network passes through the controller.
This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces switching
performance, so it should not be used in production.
--max-idle=secs|permanent
Sets secs as the number of seconds that a flow set up by the
controller will remain in the switch's flow table without any matching
packets being seen. If permanent is specified, which is not
recommended, flows will never expire. The default is 60 seconds.
This option affects only flows set up by the OpenFlow controller. In
some configurations, the switch can set up some flows
on its own. To set the idle time for those flows, pass
--max-idle to ovs-openflowd (on the switch).
This option has no effect when -n (or --noflow) is in use
(because the controller does not set up flows in that case).
-H
--hub
By default, the controller acts as an L2 MAC-learning switch. This
option changes its behavior to that of a hub that floods packets on
all but the incoming port.
If -H (or --hub) and -n (or --noflow) are used
together, then the cumulative effect is that every packet passes
through the controller and every packet is flooded.
This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces switching
performance, so it should not be used in production.
-w
--wildcard
By default, ovs-controller sets up exact-match flows. This
option allows it to set up wildcarded flows, which may reduce
flow-setup latency by causing less traffic to be sent up to the
controller.
This option has no effect when -n (or --noflow) is in use
(because the controller does not set up flows in that case).
-N
--normal
By default, ovs-controller directs packets to a particular port
or floods them. This option causes it to direct non-flooded packets
to the OpenFlow OFPP_NORMAL port. This allows the switch itself
to make decisions about packet destinations. Support for
OFPP_NORMAL is optional in OpenFlow, so this option may not well
with some non-Open vSwitch switches.
--mute
Prevents ovs-controller from replying to any OpenFlow messages sent
to it by switches.
This option is only for debugging the Open vSwitch implementation of
``fail open'' mode. It must not be used in production.
-q id
--queue=id
By default, ovs-controller uses the default OpenFlow queue for
sending packets and setting up flows. Use one of these options,
supplying id as an OpenFlow queue ID as a decimal number, to
instead use that specific queue.
This option is incompatible with -N or --normal and
with -H or --hub. If more than one is specified then
this option takes precedence.
This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality of service
setups.
-Q port-name:queue-id
--port-queue port-name:queue-id
Configures packets received on the port named port-name
(e.g. eth0) to be output on OpenFlow queue ID queue-id
(specified as a decimal number). For the specified port, this option
overrides the default specified on -q or --queue.
This option may be specified any number of times with different
Iport-name arguments.
This option is incompatible with -N or --normal and
with -H or --hub. If more than one is specified then
this option takes precedence.
This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality of service
setups.
--with-flows file
When a switch connects, push the flow entries as described in
file. Each line in file is a flow entry in the format
described for the add-flows command in the Flow Syntax
section of the ovs-ofctl(8) man page.
Use this option more than once to add flows from multiple files.
Public Key Infrastructure Options
-pprivkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as ovs-controller's
identity for outgoing SSL connections.
-ccert.pem
--certificate=cert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certifies the
private key specified on -p or --private-key to be
trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certificate
authority (CA) that the peer in SSL connections will use to verify it.
-Ccacert.pem
--ca-cert=cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate that ovs-controller
should use to verify certificates presented to it by SSL peers. (This
may be the same certificate that SSL peers use to verify the
certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or it may
be a different one, depending on the PKI design in use.)
-C none
--ca-cert=none
Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL peers. This
introduces a security risk, because it means that certificates cannot
be verified to be those of known trusted hosts.
--peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file that contains one or more additional certificates
to send to SSL peers. peer-cacert.pem should be the CA
certificate used to sign ovs-controller's own certificate, that is, the
certificate specified on -c or --certificate. If
ovs-controller's certificate is self-signed, then --certificate
and --peer-ca-cert should specify the same file.
This option is not useful in normal operation, because the SSL peer
must already have the CA certificate for the peer to have any
confidence in ovs-controller's identity. However, this offers a way for
a new installation to bootstrap the CA certificate on its first SSL
connection.
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, ovs-controller.pid) to be created indicating
the PID of the running process. If the pidfile argument is not
specified, or
if it does not begin with /, then it is created in
/var/run/openvswitch.
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pidfile
already exists and is locked by a running process, ovs-controller refuses
to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to instead
overwrite the pidfile.
When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.
--detach
Causes ovs-controller to detach itself from the foreground session and
run as a background process.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor the ovs-controller daemon. If
the daemon dies due to a signal that indicates a programming error
(e.g. SIGSEGV, SIGABRT), then the monitor process starts a
new copy of it. If the daemon die or exits for another reason, the
monitor process exits.
This option is normally used with --detach, but it also
functions without it.
--no-chdir
By default, when --detach is specified, ovs-controller
changes its current working directory to the root directory after it
detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovs-controller from a carelessly chosen
directory would prevent the administrator from unmounting the file
system that holds that directory.
Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing
ovs-controller from changing its current working directory. This may be
useful for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to write
core dumps into the current working directory and the root directory
is not a good directory to use.
This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.
Sets the logging level for module in facility to
level:
•
module may be any valid module name (as displayed by the
--list action on ovs-appctl(8)), or the special name
ANY to set the logging levels for all modules.
•
facility may be syslog, console, or file to
set the levels for logging to the system log, the console, or a file
respectively, or ANY to set the logging levels for both
facilities. If it is omitted, facility defaults to ANY.
Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file
will not take place unless --log-file is also specified (see
below).
•
level must be one of emer, err, warn,
info, or
dbg, designating the minimum severity of a message for it to be
logged. If it is omitted, level defaults to dbg.
-v, --verbose
Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to
--verbose=ANY:ANY:dbg.
Sets the log pattern for facility to pattern. Refer to
ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern.
--log-file[=file]
Enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it is
used as the exact name for the log file. The default log file name
used if file is omitted is /var/log/openvswitch/ovs-controller.log.
--unixctl=socket
Sets the name of the control socket on which ovs-controller listens for
runtime management commands (see RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS,
below). If socket does not begin with /, it is
interpreted as relative to /var/run/openvswitch. If --unixctl is
not used at all, the default socket is
/var/run/openvswitch/ovs-controller.pid.ctl, where pid is ovs-controller's
process ID.
Specifying none for socket disables the control socket
feature.
-h, --help
Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V, --version
Prints version information to the console.
EXAMPLES
To bind locally to port 6633 (the default) and wait for incoming
connections from OpenFlow switches:
% ovs-controller ptcp:
BUGS
Configuring a Citrix XenServer to connect to a particular controller
only points the remote OVSDB management connection to that controller.
It does not also configure OpenFlow connections, because the manager
is expected to do that over the management protocol.
ovs-controller is not an Open vSwitch manager and does not know
how to do that.
As a stopgap workaround, ovs-vsctl can wait for an OVSDB
connection and set the controller, e.g.: