1ovn-controller(8) OVN Manual ovn-controller(8)
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6 ovn-controller - Open Virtual Network local controller
7
9 ovn-controller [options] [ovs-database]
10
12 ovn-controller is the local controller daemon for OVN, the Open Virtual
13 Network. It connects up to the OVN Southbound database (see ovn-sb(5))
14 over the OVSDB protocol, and down to the Open vSwitch database (see
15 ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5)) over the OVSDB protocol and to ovs-vswitchd(8)
16 via OpenFlow. Each hypervisor and software gateway in an OVN deployment
17 runs its own independent copy of ovn-controller; thus, ovn-controller’s
18 downward connections are machine-local and do not run over a physical
19 network.
20
22 ACL log messages are logged through ovn-controller’s logging mechanism.
23 ACL log entries have the module acl_log at log level info. Configuring
24 logging is described below in the Logging Options section.
25
27 Daemon Options
28 --pidfile[=pidfile]
29 Causes a file (by default, program.pid) to be created indicating
30 the PID of the running process. If the pidfile argument is not
31 specified, or if it does not begin with /, then it is created in
32 .
33 If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
35 --overwrite-pidfile
37 By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pid‐
38 file already exists and is locked by a running process, the dae‐
39 mon refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to
40 instead overwrite the pidfile.
41 When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.
43 --detach
45 Runs this program as a background process. The process forks,
46 and in the child it starts a new session, closes the standard
47 file descriptors (which has the side effect of disabling logging
48 to the console), and changes its current directory to the root
49 (unless --no-chdir is specified). After the child completes its
50 initialization, the parent exits.
51 --monitor
53 Creates an additional process to monitor this program. If it
54 dies due to a signal that indicates a programming error (SIGA‐
55 BRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU,
56 or SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If
57 the daemon dies or exits for another reason, the monitor process
58 exits.
59 This option is normally used with --detach, but it also func‐
61 tions without it.
62 --no-chdir
64 By default, when --detach is specified, the daemon changes its
65 current working directory to the root directory after it de‐
66 taches. Otherwise, invoking the daemon from a carelessly chosen
67 directory would prevent the administrator from unmounting the
68 file system that holds that directory.
69 Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing the
71 daemon from changing its current working directory. This may be
72 useful for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to
73 write core dumps into the current working directory and the root
74 directory is not a good directory to use.
75 This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.
77 --no-self-confinement
79 By default this daemon will try to self-confine itself to work
80 with files under well-known directories determined at build
81 time. It is better to stick with this default behavior and not
82 to use this flag unless some other Access Control is used to
83 confine daemon. Note that in contrast to other access control
84 implementations that are typically enforced from kernel-space
85 (e.g. DAC or MAC), self-confinement is imposed from the user-
86 space daemon itself and hence should not be considered as a full
87 confinement strategy, but instead should be viewed as an addi‐
88 tional layer of security.
89 --user=user:group
91 Causes this program to run as a different user specified in
92 user:group, thus dropping most of the root privileges. Short
93 forms user and :group are also allowed, with current user or
94 group assumed, respectively. Only daemons started by the root
95 user accepts this argument.
96 On Linux, daemons will be granted CAP_IPC_LOCK and
98 CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICES before dropping root privileges. Daemons
99 that interact with a datapath, such as ovs-vswitchd, will be
100 granted three additional capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN,
101 CAP_NET_BROADCAST and CAP_NET_RAW. The capability change will
102 apply even if the new user is root.
103 On Windows, this option is not currently supported. For security
105 reasons, specifying this option will cause the daemon process
106 not to start.
107 Logging Options
109 -v[spec]
110 --verbose=[spec]
111 Sets logging levels. Without any spec, sets the log level for ev‐
112 ery module and destination to dbg. Otherwise, spec is a list of
113 words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from each
114 category below:
115 • A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list command
117 on ovs-appctl(8), limits the log level change to the speci‐
118 fied module.
119 • syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change to
121 only to the system log, to the console, or to a file, re‐
122 spectively. (If --detach is specified, the daemon closes
123 its standard file descriptors, so logging to the console
124 will have no effect.)
125 On Windows platform, syslog is accepted as a word and is
127 only useful along with the --syslog-target option (the word
128 has no effect otherwise).
129 • off, emer, err, warn, info, or dbg, to control the log
131 level. Messages of the given severity or higher will be
132 logged, and messages of lower severity will be filtered
133 out. off filters out all messages. See ovs-appctl(8) for a
134 definition of each log level.
135 Case is not significant within spec.
137 Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file will
139 not take place unless --log-file is also specified (see below).
140 For compatibility with older versions of OVS, any is accepted as a
142 word but has no effect.
143 -v
145 --verbose
146 Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --ver‐
147 bose=dbg.
148 -vPATTERN:destination:pattern
150 --verbose=PATTERN:destination:pattern
151 Sets the log pattern for destination to pattern. Refer to ovs-ap‐
152 pctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern.
153 -vFACILITY:facility
155 --verbose=FACILITY:facility
156 Sets the RFC5424 facility of the log message. facility can be one
157 of kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, clock,
158 ftp, ntp, audit, alert, clock2, local0, local1, local2, local3,
159 local4, local5, local6 or local7. If this option is not specified,
160 daemon is used as the default for the local system syslog and lo‐
161 cal0 is used while sending a message to the target provided via
162 the --syslog-target option.
163 --log-file[=file]
165 Enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it is used
166 as the exact name for the log file. The default log file name used
167 if file is omitted is /var/log/ovn/program.log.
168 --syslog-target=host:port
170 Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the sys‐
171 tem syslog. The host must be a numerical IP address, not a host‐
172 name.
173 --syslog-method=method
175 Specify method as how syslog messages should be sent to syslog
176 daemon. The following forms are supported:
177 • libc, to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of using
179 this options is that libc adds fixed prefix to every mes‐
180 sage before it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over
181 /dev/log UNIX domain socket.
182 • unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is pos‐
184 sible to specify arbitrary message format with this option.
185 However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use hard coded
186 parser function anyway that limits UNIX domain socket use.
187 If you want to use arbitrary message format with older
188 rsyslogd versions, then use UDP socket to localhost IP ad‐
189 dress instead.
190 • udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this method it is
192 possible to use arbitrary message format also with older
193 rsyslogd. When sending syslog messages over UDP socket ex‐
194 tra precaution needs to be taken into account, for example,
195 syslog daemon needs to be configured to listen on the spec‐
196 ified UDP port, accidental iptables rules could be inter‐
197 fering with local syslog traffic and there are some secu‐
198 rity considerations that apply to UDP sockets, but do not
199 apply to UNIX domain sockets.
200 • null, to discard all messages logged to syslog.
202 The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment vari‐
204 able; if it is unset, the default is libc.
205 PKI Options
207 PKI configuration is required in order to use SSL for the connections
208 to the Northbound and Southbound databases.
209 -p privkey.pem
211 --private-key=privkey.pem
212 Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as
213 identity for outgoing SSL connections.
214 -c cert.pem
216 --certificate=cert.pem
217 Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certi‐
218 fies the private key specified on -p or --private-key to be
219 trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certifi‐
220 cate authority (CA) that the peer in SSL connections will
221 use to verify it.
222 -C cacert.pem
224 --ca-cert=cacert.pem
225 Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate for ver‐
226 ifying certificates presented to this program by SSL peers.
227 (This may be the same certificate that SSL peers use to
228 verify the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or
229 it may be a different one, depending on the PKI design in
230 use.)
231 -C none
233 --ca-cert=none
234 Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL
235 peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means
236 that certificates cannot be verified to be those of known
237 trusted hosts.
238 --bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem
240 When cacert.pem exists, this option has the same effect
241 as -C or --ca-cert. If it does not exist, then the exe‐
242 cutable will attempt to obtain the CA certificate from
243 the SSL peer on its first SSL connection and save it to
244 the named PEM file. If it is successful, it will immedi‐
245 ately drop the connection and reconnect, and from then on
246 all SSL connections must be authenticated by a certifi‐
247 cate signed by the CA certificate thus obtained.
248 This option exposes the SSL connection to a man-in-the-
250 middle attack obtaining the initial CA certificate, but
251 it may be useful for bootstrapping.
252 This option is only useful if the SSL peer sends its CA
254 certificate as part of the SSL certificate chain. The SSL
255 protocol does not require the server to send the CA cer‐
256 tificate.
257 This option is mutually exclusive with -C and --ca-cert.
259 --peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem
261 Specifies a PEM file that contains one or more additional
262 certificates to send to SSL peers. peer-cacert.pem should
263 be the CA certificate used to sign the program’s own cer‐
264 tificate, that is, the certificate specified on -c or
265 --certificate. If the program’s certificate is self-
266 signed, then --certificate and --peer-ca-cert should
267 specify the same file.
268 This option is not useful in normal operation, because
270 the SSL peer must already have the CA certificate for the
271 peer to have any confidence in the program’s identity.
272 However, this offers a way for a new installation to
273 bootstrap the CA certificate on its first SSL connection.
274 Other Options
276 -h
277 --help
278 Prints a brief help message to the console.
279 -V
281 --version
282 Prints version information to the console.
283
285 ovn-controller retrieves most of its configuration information from the
286 local Open vSwitch’s ovsdb-server instance. The default location is
287 db.sock in the local Open vSwitch’s "run" directory. It may be overrid‐
288 den by specifying the ovs-database argument as an OVSDB active or pas‐
289 sive connection method, as described in ovsdb(7).
290 ovn-controller assumes it gets configuration information from the fol‐
292 lowing keys in the Open_vSwitch table of the local OVS instance:
293 external_ids:system-id
295 The chassis name to use in the Chassis table. Changing
296 the system-id while ovn-controller is running is not di‐
297 rectly supported. Users have two options: either first
298 gracefully stop ovn-controller or manually delete the
299 stale Chassis and Chassis_Private records after changing
300 the system-id. Note that the chassis name can also be
301 provided via the system-id-override file in the local OVN
302 "etc" directory or via the -n command-line option. The
303 following precedence is used: first, the command-line op‐
304 tion is read; if not present, the system-id-override file
305 is read; if not present, then the name configured in the
306 database is used.
307 external_ids:hostname
309 The hostname to use in the Chassis table.
310 external_ids:ovn-bridge
312 The integration bridge to which logical ports are at‐
313 tached. The default is br-int. If this bridge does not
314 exist when ovn-controller starts, it will be created au‐
315 tomatically with the default configuration suggested in
316 ovn-architecture(7). When more than one controllers are
317 running on the same host, external_ids:ovn-bridge-CHAS‐
318 SIS_NAME should be set for each of them, pointing to a
319 unique bridge. This is required to avoid controllers
320 stepping on each others’ feet.
321 external_ids:ovn-bridge-datapath-type
323 This configuration is optional. If set, then the datapath
324 type of the integration bridge will be set to the config‐
325 ured value. If this option is not set, then ovn-con‐
326 troller will not modify the existing datapath-type of the
327 integration bridge.
328 external_ids:ovn-remote
330 The OVN database that this system should connect to for
331 its configuration, in one of the same forms documented
332 above for the ovs-database.
333 external_ids:ovn-monitor-all
335 A boolean value that tells if ovn-controller should moni‐
336 tor all records of tables in ovs-database. If set to
337 false, it will conditionally monitor the records that is
338 needed in the current chassis.
339 It is more efficient to set it to true in use cases where
341 the chassis would anyway need to monitor most of the
342 records in OVN Southbound database, which would save the
343 overhead of conditions processing, especially for server
344 side. Typically, set it to true for environments that all
345 workloads need to be reachable from each other.
346 NOTE: for efficiency and scalability in common scenarios
348 ovn-controller unconditionally monitors all sub-ports
349 (ports with parent_port set) regardless of the ovn-moni‐
350 tor-all value.
351 Default value is false.
353 external_ids:ovn-remote-probe-interval
355 The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the
356 OVN database, in milliseconds. If the value is zero, it
357 disables the connection keepalive feature.
358 If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a
360 value of at least 1000 ms.
361 external_ids:ovn-openflow-probe-interval
363 The inactivity probe interval of the OpenFlow connection
364 to the OpenvSwitch integration bridge, in seconds. If the
365 value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive fea‐
366 ture.
367 If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a
369 value of at least 5s.
370 external_ids:ovn-encap-type
372 The encapsulation type that a chassis should use to con‐
373 nect to this node. Multiple encapsulation types may be
374 specified with a comma-separated list. Each listed encap‐
375 sulation type will be paired with ovn-encap-ip.
376 Supported tunnel types for connecting hypervisors and
378 gateways are geneve, vxlan, and stt.
379 Due to the limited amount of metadata in vxlan, the capa‐
381 bilities and performance of connected gateways and hyper‐
382 visors will be reduced versus other tunnel formats.
383 external_ids:ovn-encap-ip
385 The IP address that a chassis should use to connect to
386 this node using encapsulation types specified by exter‐
387 nal_ids:ovn-encap-type.
388 external_ids:ovn-encap-df_default
390 indicates the DF flag handling of the encapulation. Set
391 to true to set the DF flag for new data paths or false to
392 clear the DF flag.
393 external_ids:ovn-bridge-mappings
395 A list of key-value pairs that map a physical network
396 name to a local ovs bridge that provides connectivity to
397 that network. An example value mapping two physical net‐
398 work names to two ovs bridges would be: phys‐
399 net1:br-eth0,physnet2:br-eth1.
400 external_ids:ovn-encap-csum
402 ovn-encap-csum indicates that encapsulation checksums can
403 be transmitted and received with reasonable performance.
404 It is a hint to senders transmitting data to this chassis
405 that they should use checksums to protect OVN metadata.
406 Set to true to enable or false to disable. Depending on
407 the capabilities of the network interface card, enabling
408 encapsulation checksum may incur performance loss. In
409 such cases, encapsulation checksums can be disabled.
410 external_ids:ovn-encap-tos
412 ovn-encap-tos indicates the value to be applied to OVN
413 tunnel interface’s option:tos as specified in the
414 Open_vSwitch database Interface table. Please refer to
415 Open VSwitch Manual for details.
416 external_ids:ovn-cms-options
418 A list of options that will be consumed by the CMS Plugin
419 and which specific to this particular chassis. An example
420 would be: cms_option1,cms_option2:foo.
421 external_ids:ovn-transport-zones
423 The transport zone(s) that this chassis belongs to.
424 Transport zones is a way to group different chassis so
425 that tunnels are only formed between members of the same
426 group(s). Multiple transport zones may be specified with
427 a comma-separated list. For example: tz1,tz2,tz3.
428 If not set, the Chassis will be considered part of a de‐
430 fault transport zone.
431 external_ids:ovn-chassis-mac-mappings
433 A list of key-value pairs that map a chassis specific mac
434 to a physical network name. An example value mapping two
435 chassis macs to two physical network names would be:
436 physnet1:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff,physnet2:a1:b2:c3:d4:e5:f6.
437 These are the macs that ovn-controller will replace a
438 router port mac with, if packet is going from a distrib‐
439 uted router port on vlan type logical switch.
440 external_ids:ovn-is-interconn
442 The boolean flag indicates if the chassis is used as an
443 interconnection gateway.
444 external_ids:ovn-match-northd-version
446 The boolean flag indicates if ovn-controller needs to
447 check ovn-northd version. If this flag is set to true and
448 the ovn-northd’s version (reported in the Southbound
449 database) doesn’t match with the ovn-controller’s inter‐
450 nal version, then it will stop processing the southbound
451 and local Open vSwitch database changes. The default
452 value is considered false if this option is not defined.
453 external_ids:ovn-ofctrl-wait-before-clear
455 The time, in milliseconds, to wait before clearing flows
456 in OVS after OpenFlow connection/reconnection during
457 ovn-controller initialization. The purpose of this wait
458 is to give time for ovn-controller to compute the new
459 flows before clearing existing ones, to avoid data plane
460 down time during ovn-controller restart/upgrade at large
461 scale environments where recomputing the flows takes more
462 than a few seconds or even longer. It is difficult for
463 ovn-controller to determine when the new flows computing
464 is completed, because of the dynamics in the cloud envi‐
465 ronments, which is why this configuration is provided for
466 users to adjust based on the scale of the environment. By
467 default, it is 0, which means clearing existing flows
468 without waiting. Not setting the value, or setting it too
469 small, may result in data plane down time during up‐
470 grade/restart, while setting it too big may result in un‐
471 necessary extra control plane latency of applying new
472 changes of CMS during upgrade/restart. In most cases, a
473 slightly bigger value is not harmful, because the extra
474 control plane latency happens only once during the Open‐
475 Flow connection. To get a reasonable range of the value
476 setting, it is recommended to run the below commands on a
477 node in the target environment and then set this configu‐
478 ration to twice the value of Maximum shown in the output
479 of the second command.
480 • ovn-appctl -t ovn-controller inc-engine/recompute
482 • ovn-appctl -t ovn-controller stopwatch/show
484 flow-generation
485 external_ids:ovn-enable-lflow-cache
487 The boolean flag indicates if ovn-controller should en‐
488 able/disable the logical flow in-memory cache it uses
489 when processing Southbound database logical flow changes.
490 By default caching is enabled.
491 external_ids:ovn-limit-lflow-cache
493 When used, this configuration value determines the maxi‐
494 mum number of logical flow cache entries ovn-controller
495 may create when the logical flow cache is enabled. By de‐
496 fault the size of the cache is unlimited.
497 external_ids:ovn-memlimit-lflow-cache-kb
499 When used, this configuration value determines the maxi‐
500 mum size of the logical flow cache (in KB) ovn-controller
501 may create when the logical flow cache is enabled. By de‐
502 fault the size of the cache is unlimited.
503 external_ids:ovn-trim-limit-lflow-cache
505 When used, this configuration value sets the minimum num‐
506 ber of entries in the logical flow cache starting with
507 which automatic memory trimming is performed. By default
508 this is set to 10000 entries.
509 external_ids:ovn-trim-wmark-perc-lflow-cache
511 When used, this configuration value sets the percentage
512 from the high watermark number of entries in the logical
513 flow cache under which automatic memory trimming is per‐
514 formed. E.g., if the trim watermark percentage is set to
515 50%, automatic memory trimming happens only when the num‐
516 ber of entries in the logical flow cache gets reduced to
517 less than half of the last measured high watermark. By
518 default this is set to 50.
519 external_ids:ovn-trim-timeout-ms
521 When used, this configuration value specifies the time,
522 in milliseconds, since the last logical flow cache opera‐
523 tion after which ovn-controller performs memory trimming
524 regardless of how many entries there are in the cache. By
525 default this is set to 30000 (30 seconds).
526 external_ids:ovn-set-local-ip
528 The boolean flag indicates if ovn-controller when create
529 tunnel ports should set local_ip parameter. Can be hepl‐
530 ful to pin source outer IP for the tunnel when multiple
531 interfaces are used on the host for overlay traffic. This
532 is also useful when running multiple ovn-controller in‐
533 stances on the same chassis, in which case this setting
534 will guarantee that their tunnel ports have unique con‐
535 figuration and can exist in parallel.
536 external_ids:garp-max-timeout-sec
538 When used, this configuration value specifies the maximum
539 timeout (in seconds) between two consecutive GARP packets
540 sent by ovn-controller. ovn-controller by default sends
541 just 4 GARP packets with an exponential backoff timeout.
542 Setting external_ids:garp-max-timeout-sec allows to cap
543 for the exponential backoff used by ovn-controller to
544 send GARPs packets.
545 Most of configuration options listed above can also be set for a par‐
547 ticular chassis name (see external_ids:system-id for more informa‐
548 tion). This can be achieved by setting external_ids:option-[chassis]
549 instead of external_ids:option. For example, set external_ids:ovn-en‐
550 cap-ip-otherhv to use a particular IP address for the controller in‐
551 stance named otherhv. Name specific configuration options always over‐
552 ride any global options set in the database.
553 Chassis-specific configuration options in the database plus the ability
555 to configure the chassis name to use via the system-id-override file or
556 command line allows to run multiple ovn-controller instances with
557 unique chassis names on the same host using the same vswitchd instance.
558 This may be useful when running a hybrid setup with more than one CMS
559 managing ports on the host, or to use different datapath types on the
560 same host. Make sure you also set external_ids:ovn-set-local-ip when
561 using such configuration. Also note that this ability is highly experi‐
562 mental and has known limitations (for example, stateful ACLs are not
563 supported). Use at your own risk.
564 ovn-controller reads the following values from the Open_vSwitch data‐
566 base of the local OVS instance:
567 datapath-type from Bridge table
569 This value is read from local OVS integration bridge row
570 of Bridge table and populated in other_config:datapath-
571 type of the Chassis table in the OVN_Southbound database.
572 iface-types from Open_vSwitch table
574 This value is populated in external_ids:iface-types of
575 the Chassis table in the OVN_Southbound database.
576 private_key, certificate, ca_cert, and bootstrap_ca_cert from
578 SSL table
579 These values provide the SSL configuration used for con‐
580 necting to the OVN southbound database server when an SSL
581 connection type is configured via external_ids:ovn-re‐
582 mote. Note that this SSL configuration can also be pro‐
583 vided via command-line options, the configuration in the
584 database takes precedence if both are present.
585
587 ovn-controller uses a number of external_ids keys in the Open vSwitch
588 database to keep track of ports and interfaces. For proper operation,
589 users should not change or clear these keys:
590 external_ids:ovn-chassis-id in the Port table
592 The presence of this key identifies a tunnel port within
593 the integration bridge as one created by ovn-controller
594 to reach a remote chassis. Its value is the chassis ID of
595 the remote chassis.
596 external_ids:ct-zone-* in the Bridge table
598 Logical ports and gateway routers are assigned a connec‐
599 tion tracking zone by ovn-controller for stateful ser‐
600 vices. To keep state across restarts of ovn-controller,
601 these keys are stored in the integration bridge’s Bridge
602 table. The name contains a prefix of ct-zone- followed by
603 the name of the logical port or gateway router’s zone
604 key. The value for this key identifies the zone used for
605 this port.
606 external_ids:ovn-localnet-port in the Port table
608 The presence of this key identifies a patch port as one
609 created by ovn-controller to connect the integration
610 bridge and another bridge to implement a localnet logical
611 port. Its value is the name of the logical port with type
612 set to localnet that the port implements. See exter‐
613 nal_ids:ovn-bridge-mappings, above, for more information.
614 Each localnet logical port is implemented as a pair of
616 patch ports, one in the integration bridge, one in a dif‐
617 ferent bridge, with the same external_ids:ovn-local‐
618 net-port value.
619 external_ids:ovn-l2gateway-port in the Port table
621 The presence of this key identifies a patch port as one
622 created by ovn-controller to connect the integration
623 bridge and another bridge to implement a l2gateway logi‐
624 cal port. Its value is the name of the logical port with
625 type set to l2gateway that the port implements. See ex‐
626 ternal_ids:ovn-bridge-mappings, above, for more informa‐
627 tion.
628 Each l2gateway logical port is implemented as a pair of
630 patch ports, one in the integration bridge, one in a dif‐
631 ferent bridge, with the same external_ids:ovn-l2gate‐
632 way-port value.
633 external-ids:ovn-l3gateway-port in the Port table
635 This key identifies a patch port as one created by
636 ovn-controller to implement a l3gateway logical port. Its
637 value is the name of the logical port with type set to
638 l3gateway. This patch port is similar to the OVN logical
639 patch port, except that l3gateway port can only be bound
640 to a particular chassis.
641 external-ids:ovn-logical-patch-port in the Port table
643 This key identifies a patch port as one created by
644 ovn-controller to implement an OVN logical patch port
645 within the integration bridge. Its value is the name of
646 the OVN logical patch port that it implements.
647 external-ids:ovn-startup-ts in the Bridge table
649 This key represents the timestamp (in milliseconds) at
650 which ovn-controller process was started.
651 external-ids:ovn-nb-cfg in the Bridge table
653 This key represents the last known OVN_South‐
654 bound.SB_Global.nb_cfg value for which all flows have
655 been successfully installed in OVS.
656 external-ids:ovn-nb-cfg-ts in the Bridge table
658 This key represents the timestamp (in milliseconds) of
659 the last known OVN_Southbound.SB_Global.nb_cfg value for
660 which all flows have been successfully installed in OVS.
661 external_ids:ovn-installed and external_ids:ovn-installed-ts in
663 the Interface table
664 This key is set after all openflow operations correspond‐
665 ing to the OVS interface have been processed by ovs-
666 vswitchd. At the same time a timestamp, in milliseconds
667 since the epoch, is stored in external_ids:ovn-in‐
668 stalled-ts.
669
671 ovn-controller reads from much of the OVN_Southbound database to guide
672 its operation. ovn-controller also writes to the following tables:
673 Chassis
675 Upon startup, ovn-controller creates a row in this table
676 to represent its own chassis. Upon graceful termination,
677 e.g. with ovs-appctl -t ovn-controller exit (but not
678 SIGTERM), ovn-controller removes its row.
679 Encap Upon startup, ovn-controller creates a row or rows in
681 this table that represent the tunnel encapsulations by
682 which its chassis can be reached, and points its Chassis
683 row to them. Upon graceful termination, ovn-controller
684 removes these rows.
685 Port_Binding
687 At runtime, ovn-controller sets the chassis columns of
688 ports that are resident on its chassis to point to its
689 Chassis row, and, conversely, clears the chassis column
690 of ports that point to its Chassis row but are no longer
691 resident on its chassis. The chassis column has a weak
692 reference type, so when ovn-controller gracefully exits
693 and removes its Chassis row, the database server automat‐
694 ically clears any remaining references to that row.
695 MAC_Binding
697 At runtime, ovn-controller updates the MAC_Binding table
698 as instructed by put_arp and put_nd logical actions.
699 These changes persist beyond the lifetime of ovn-con‐
700 troller.
701
703 ovs-appctl can send commands to a running ovn-controller process. The
704 currently supported commands are described below.
705 exit Causes ovn-controller to gracefully terminate.
707 ct-zone-list
709 Lists each local logical port and its connection tracking
710 zone.
711 meter-table-list
713 Lists each meter table entry and its local meter id.
714 group-table-list
716 Lists each group table entry and its local group id.
717 inject-pkt microflow
719 Injects microflow into the connected Open vSwitch in‐
720 stance. microflow must contain an ingress logical port
721 (inport argument) that is present on the Open vSwitch in‐
722 stance.
723 The microflow argument describes the packet whose for‐
725 warding is to be simulated, in the syntax of an OVN logi‐
726 cal expression, as described in ovn-sb(5), to express
727 constraints. The parser understands prerequisites; for
728 example, if the expression refers to ip4.src, there is no
729 need to explicitly state ip4 or eth.type == 0x800.
730 connection-status
732 Show OVN SBDB connection status for the chassis.
733 recompute
735 Trigger a full compute iteration in ovn-controller based
736 on the contents of the Southbound database and local OVS
737 database.
738 This command is intended to use only in the event of a
740 bug in the incremental processing engine in ovn-con‐
741 troller to avoid inconsistent states. It should therefore
742 be used with care as full recomputes are cpu intensive.
743 sb-cluster-state-reset
745 Reset southbound database cluster status when databases
746 are destroyed and rebuilt.
747 If all databases in a clustered southbound database are
749 removed from disk, then the stored index of all databases
750 will be reset to zero. This will cause ovn-controller to
751 be unable to read or write to the southbound database,
752 because it will always detect the data as stale. In such
753 a case, run this command so that ovn-controller will re‐
754 set its local index so that it can interact with the
755 southbound database again.
756 debug/delay-nb-cfg-report seconds
758 This command is used to delay ovn-controller updating the
759 nb_cfg back to OVN_Southbound database. This is useful
760 when ovn-nbctl --wait=hv is used to measure end-to-end
761 latency in a large scale environment. See ovn-nbctl(8)
762 for more details.
763 lflow-cache/flush
765 Flushes the ovn-controller logical flow cache.
766 lflow-cache/show-stats
768 Displays logical flow cache statistics: enabled/disabled,
769 per cache type entry counts.
770 inc-engine/show-stats
772 Display ovn-controller engine counters. For each engine
773 node the following counters have been added:
774 • recompute
776 • compute
778 • abort
780 inc-engine/show-stats engine_node_name counter_name
782 Display the ovn-controller engine counter(s) for the
783 specified engine_node_name. counter_name is optional and
784 can be one of recompute, compute or abort.
785 inc-engine/clear-stats
787 Reset ovn-controller engine counters.
788OVN 23.09.2 ovn-controller ovn-controller(8)