ovn-nb(5) Open vSwitch Manual ovn-nb(5)
NAME
ovn-nb - OVN_Northbound database schema
This database is the interface between OVN and the cloud management
system (CMS), such as OpenStack, running above it. The CMS produces al‐
most all of the contents of the database. The ovn-northd program moni‐
tors the database contents, transforms it, and stores it into the
OVN_Southbound database.
We generally speak of ``the’’ CMS, but one can imagine scenarios in
which multiple CMSes manage different parts of an OVN deployment.
External IDs
Each of the tables in this database contains a special column, named
external_ids. This column has the same form and purpose each place it
appears.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
Key-value pairs for use by the CMS. The CMS might use
certain pairs, for example, to identify entities in its
own configuration that correspond to those in this data‐
base.
TABLE SUMMARY
The following list summarizes the purpose of each of the tables in the
OVN_Northbound database. Each table is described in more detail on a
later page.
Table Purpose
NB_Global Northbound configuration
Sample_Collector
Sample_Collector
Sample Sample
Copp Control plane protection
Logical_Switch
L2 logical switch
Logical_Switch_Port
L2 logical switch port
Forwarding_Group
forwarding group
Address_Set
Address Sets
Port_Group
Port Groups
Load_Balancer
load balancer
Load_Balancer_Group
load balancer group
Load_Balancer_Health_Check
load balancer
ACL Access Control List (ACL) rule
Logical_Router
L3 logical router
QoS QoS rule
Mirror Mirror Entry
Mirror_Rule
Mirror rule entry
Meter Meter entry
Meter_Band
Band for meter entries
Logical_Router_Port
L3 logical router port
Logical_Router_Static_Route
Logical router static routes
Logical_Router_Policy
Logical router policies
NAT NAT rules
DHCP_Options
DHCP options
DHCP_Relay
DHCP Relay
Connection
OVSDB client connections.
DNS Native DNS resolution
SSL SSL configuration.
Gateway_Chassis
Gateway_Chassis configuration.
HA_Chassis_Group
HA_Chassis_Group configuration.
HA_Chassis
HA_Chassis configuration.
BFD BFD configuration.
Static_MAC_Binding
Static_MAC_Binding configuration.
Chassis_Template_Var
Chassis_Template_Var configuration.
Sampling_App
Sampling_App configuration.
Network_Function_Group
network function group
Network_Function
network function
Network_Function_Health_Check
network function health check
NB_Global TABLE
Northbound configuration for an OVN system. This table must have ex‐
actly one row.
Summary:
Identity:
name string
Status:
nb_cfg integer
nb_cfg_timestamp integer
sb_cfg integer
sb_cfg_timestamp integer
hv_cfg integer
hv_cfg_timestamp integer
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Common options:
options map of string-string pairs
Options for configuring OVS BFD:
options : bfd-min-rx optional string
options : bfd-decay-min-rx
optional string
options : bfd-min-tx optional string
options : bfd-mult optional string
options : ignore_chassis_features
optional string
options : mac_prefix optional string
options : mac_binding_removal_limit
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
options : fdb_removal_limit
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
options : controller_event optional string, either true or false
options : northd_probe_interval
optional string
options : ic_probe_interval
optional string
options : nbctl_probe_interval
optional string
options : northd_trim_timeout
optional string
options : use_logical_dp_groups
optional string
options : use_parallel_build
optional string
options : ignore_lsp_down optional string
options : use_ct_inv_match optional string
options : default_acl_drop optional string
options : debug_drop_domain_id
optional string
options : debug_drop_collector_set
optional string
options : use_common_zone optional string, either true or false
options : northd-backoff-interval-ms
optional string
options : vxlan_mode optional string
options : always_tunnel optional string, either true or false
options : ecmp_nexthop_monitor_enable
optional string
options : enable_chassis_nb_cfg_update
optional string
Options for services health check confguration:
options : svc_monitor_mac
optional string
options : svc_monitor_mac_dst
optional string
options : svc_monitor_ip optional string
options : svc_monitor_ip_dst
optional string
Options for configuring interconnection route advertisement:
options : ic-route-adv optional string
options : ic-route-learn optional string
options : ic-route-adv-default
optional string
options : ic-route-learn-default
optional string
options : ic-route-adv-lb
optional string
options : ic-route-learn-lb
optional string
options : ic-route-denylist
optional string
Connection Options:
connections set of Connections
ssl optional SSL
Security Configurations:
ipsec boolean
Read-only Options:
options : max_tunid optional string
Details:
Identity:
name: string
The name of the OVN cluster, which uniquely identifies the OVN
cluster throughout all OVN clusters supposed to interconnect
with each other.
Status:
These columns allow a client to track the overall configuration state
of the system.
nb_cfg: integer
Sequence number for client to increment. When a client modifies
any part of the northbound database configuration and wishes to
wait for ovn-northd and possibly all of the hypervisors to fin‐
ish applying the changes, it may increment this sequence number.
nb_cfg_timestamp: integer
The timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, when ovn-northd
sees the latest nb_cfg and starts processing.
To print the timestamp as a human-readable date:
date -d "@$(ovn-nbctl get NB_Global . nb_cfg_timestamp | sed ’’s/...$//’’)"
sb_cfg: integer
Sequence number that ovn-northd sets to the value of nb_cfg af‐
ter it finishes applying the corresponding configuration changes
to the OVN_Southbound database.
sb_cfg_timestamp: integer
The timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, when ovn-northd
finishes applying the corresponding configuration changes to the
OVN_Southbound database successfully.
hv_cfg: integer
Sequence number that ovn-northd sets to the smallest sequence
number of all the chassis in the system, as reported in the
Chassis_Private table in the southbound database. Thus, hv_cfg
equals nb_cfg if all chassis are caught up with the northbound
configuration (which may never happen, if any chassis is down).
This value can regress, if a chassis was removed from the system
and rejoins before catching up.
If there are no chassis, then ovn-northd copies nb_cfg to
hv_cfg. Thus, in this case, the (nonexistent) hypervisors are
always considered to be caught up. This means that hypervisors
can be "caught up" even in cases where sb_cfg would show that
the southbound database is not. To detect when both the hypervi‐
sors and the southbound database are caught up, a client should
take the smaller of sb_cfg and hv_cfg.
hv_cfg_timestamp: integer
The largest timestamp, in milliseconds since the epoch, of the
smallest sequence number of all the chassis in the system, as
reported in the Chassis_Private table in the southbound data‐
base. In other words, this timestamp reflects the time when the
slowest chassis catches up with the northbound configuration,
which is useful for end-to-end control plane latency measure‐
ment.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Common options:
options: map of string-string pairs
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported
options are described individually below.
Options for configuring OVS BFD:
These options apply when ovn-controller configures OVS BFD on tunnels
interfaces. Please note these parameters refer to legacy OVS BFD imple‐
mentation and not to OVN BFD one.
options : bfd-min-rx: optional string
BFD option min-rx value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel
interfaces.
options : bfd-decay-min-rx: optional string
BFD option decay-min-rx value to use when configuring BFD on
tunnel interfaces.
options : bfd-min-tx: optional string
BFD option min-tx value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel
interfaces.
options : bfd-mult: optional string
BFD option mult value to use when configuring BFD on tunnel in‐
terfaces.
options : ignore_chassis_features: optional string
When set to false, the ovn-northd will evaluate the features
supported by each chassis and will only activate features that
are universally supported by all chassis. This approach is cru‐
cial for maintaining backward compatibility during an upgrade
when the ovn-northd is updated prior to the ovn-controller. How‐
ever, if any chassis is poorly managed and the upgrade is unsuc‐
cessful, it will restrict ovn-northd from activating the new
features.
Alternatively, setting this option to true instructs ovn-northd
to bypass the support status of features on each chassis and to
directly implement the latest features. This approach safeguards
the operation of ovn-northd from being adversely affected by a
mismatched configuration of a chassis.
The default setting for this option is false.
options : mac_prefix: optional string
Configure a given OUI to be used as prefix when L2 address is
dynamically assigned, e.g. 00:11:22
options : mac_binding_removal_limit: optional string, containing an in‐
teger, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
MAC binding aging bulk removal limit. This limits how many rows
can expire in a single transaction. Default value is 0 which is
unlimited. When we hit the limit next batch removal is delayed
by 5 s.
options : fdb_removal_limit: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 4,294,967,295
FDB aging bulk removal limit. This limits how many rows can ex‐
pire in a single transaction. Default value is 0 which is unlim‐
ited. When we hit the limit next batch removal is delayed by 5
s.
options : controller_event: optional string, either true or false
Value set by the CMS to enable/disable ovn-controller event re‐
porting. Traffic into OVS can raise a ’controller’ event that
results in a Controller_Event being written to the Con‐‐
troller_Event table in SBDB. When the CMS has seen the event and
taken appropriate action, it can remove the corresponding row in
Controller_Event table. The intention is for a CMS to see the
events and take some sort of action. Please see the Con‐‐
troller_Event table in SBDB. It is possible to associate a meter
to each controller event type in order to not overload the pinc‐
trl thread under heavy load. Each event type relies on a meter
with a defined name:
• empty_lb_backends: event-elb
options : northd_probe_interval: optional string
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN
Northbound and Southbound databases from ovn-northd, in mil‐
liseconds. If the value is zero, it disables the connection
keepalive feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at
least 1000 ms.
options : ic_probe_interval: optional string
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN
Northbound and Southbound databases from ovn-ic, in millisec‐
onds. If the value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive
feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at
least 1000 ms.
options : nbctl_probe_interval: optional string
The inactivity probe interval of the connection to the OVN
Northbound database from ovn-nbctl utility, in milliseconds. If
the value is zero, it disables the connection keepalive feature.
If the value is nonzero, then it will be forced to a value of at
least 1000 ms.
If the value is less than zero, then the default inactivity
probe interval for ovn-nbctl would be left intact (120000 ms).
options : northd_trim_timeout: optional string
When used, this configuration value specifies the time, in mil‐
liseconds, since the last ovn-northd active operation after
which memory trimming is performed. By default this is set to
30000 (30 seconds).
options : use_logical_dp_groups: optional string
Note: This option is deprecated, the only behavior is to always
combine logical flows by datapath groups. Changing the value or
removing this option all toghether will have no effect.
ovn-northd combines logical flows that differs only by logical
datapath into a single logical flow with logical datapath group
attached.
options : use_parallel_build: optional string
If set to true, ovn-northd will attempt to compute logical flows
in parallel.
Parallel computation is enabled only if the system has 4 or more
cores/threads available to be used by ovn-northd.
The default value is false.
options : ignore_lsp_down: optional string
If set to false, ARP/ND reply flows for logical switch ports
will be installed only if the port is up, i.e. claimed by a
Chassis. If set to true, these flows are installed regardless of
the status of the port, which can result in a situation that ARP
request to an IP is resolved even before the relevant VM/con‐
tainer is running. For environments where this is not an issue,
setting it to true can reduce the load and latency of the con‐
trol plane. The default value is true.
options : use_ct_inv_match: optional string
If set to false, ovn-northd will not use the ct.inv field in any
of the logical flow matches. The default value is true. If the
NIC supports offloading OVS datapath flows but doesn’t support
offloading ct_state inv flag, then the datapath flows matching
on this flag (either +inv or -inv) will not be offloaded. CMS
should consider setting use_ct_inv_match to false in such cases.
This results in a side effect of the invalid packets getting de‐
livered to the destination VIF, which otherwise would have been
dropped by OVN.
options : default_acl_drop: optional string
If set to true., ovn-northd will generate a logical flow to drop
all traffic in the ACL stages. By default this option is set to
false.
options : debug_drop_domain_id: optional string
If set to a 8-bit number and if debug_drop_collector_set is also
configured, ovn-northd will add a sample action to every logical
flow that contains a ’drop’ action. The 8 most significant bits
of the observation_domain_id field will be those specified in
the debug_drop_domain_id. The 24 least significant bits of the
observation_domain_id field will be the datapath’s key.
The observation_point_id will be set to the first 32 bits of the
logical flow’s UUID.
Note: This key is deprecated in favor of the value configured in
the Sampling_App table for the drop application.
options : debug_drop_collector_set: optional string
If set to a 32-bit number ovn-northd will add a sample action to
every logical flow that contains a ’drop’ action. The sample ac‐
tion will have the specified collector_set_id. The value must
match that of the local OVS configuration as described in
ovs-actions(7).
options : use_common_zone: optional string, either true or false
Default value is false. If set to true the SNAT and DNAT happens
in common zone, instead of happening in separate zones, depend‐
ing on the configuration. However, this option breaks traffic
when there is configuration of DGP + LB + SNAT on this LR. The
value true should be used only in case of HWOL compatibility
with GDP.
options : northd-backoff-interval-ms: optional string
Maximum interval that the northd incremental engine is delayed
by in milliseconds. Setting the value to nonzero delays the next
northd engine run by the previous run time, capped by the speci‐
fied value. If the value is zero the engine won’t be delayed at
all. The recommended period is smaller than 500 ms, beyond that
the latency of SB changes would be very noticeable.
options : vxlan_mode: optional string
By default if at least one chassis in OVN cluster has VXLAN en‐
cap, northd will run in a VXLAN mode. See man ovn-architec‐
ture(7) Tunnel Encapsulations paragraph for more details. In
case VXLAN encaps are needed on chassis only to support HW VTEP
functionality and main encap type is GENEVE, set this option to
false to use default non-VXLAN mode tunnel IDs allocation logic.
Please consider when OVN is running in OVN-interconnect mode and
it is using VXLAN encapsulation type, the max number of non-
transit logical switches and logical routers is reduced to 1024.
Plese note, in order to enable VXLAN encapsulation type for for
cross-AZ traffic, vxlan_mode parameter in IC_NB_Global TABLE
must be set to true.
options : always_tunnel: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, then the traffic destined to a VIF of a provider
logical switch (having a localnet port) will be tunnelled in‐
stead of sending it via the localnet port. This option will be
useful if CMS wants to connect overlay logical switches (without
localnet port) and provider logical switches to a router. With‐
out this option set, the traffic path will be a mix of tun‐
nelling and localnet ports (since routing is distributed) re‐
sulting in the leakage of the router port mac address to the up‐
stream switches and undefined behavior if NATting is involed.
This option is disabled by default.
options : ecmp_nexthop_monitor_enable: optional string
If set to true., ovn-northd will create entries in ECMP_Nexthop
TABLE to track ECMP routes created with --ecmp_symmetric_reply
option. By default this option is set to false.
options : enable_chassis_nb_cfg_update: optional string
If set to false, ovn-controllers will no longer update the
nb_cfg column in the Chassis_Private table of the OVN_Southbound
database. They will still update the external_ids:ovn-nb-cfg in
the local OVS integration bridge. By defailt this option is set
to true.
Options for services health check confguration:
These options are used when health configuration is enabled for
Load_Balancer and Network_Function services.
options : svc_monitor_mac: optional string
MAC Address used as the Ethernet source in health check probes.
If unspecified, a MAC address is automatically generated.
options : svc_monitor_mac_dst: optional string
MAC Address used as the Ethernet destination in health check
probes. If unspecified, a MAC address is automatically gener‐
ated. This applies only to Network Function health check probes
deployed in inline mode.
options : svc_monitor_ip: optional string
IP Address (IPv4 or IPv6) used as the source in health check
probes. This applies only to Network Function health check
probes deployed in inline mode.
options : svc_monitor_ip_dst: optional string
IP Address (IPv4 or IPv6) used as the destination in health
check probes. This applies only to Network Function health check
probes deployed in inline mode.
Options for configuring interconnection route advertisement:
These options control how routes are advertised between OVN deployments
for interconnection. If enabled, ovn-ic from different OVN deployments
exchanges routes between each other through the global OVN_IC_South‐‐
bound database. Only routers with ports connected to interconnection
transit switches participate in route advertisement. For each of these
routers, there are three types of routes to be advertised:
Firstly, the static routes configured in the router are advertised.
Secondly, the networks configured in the logical router ports that are
not on the transit switches are advertised. These are considered as di‐
rectly connected subnets on the router.
Thirdly, the vips of the load balancers associated with the logical
router are advertised.
Link local prefixes (IPv4 169.254.0.0/16 and IPv6 FE80::/10) are never
advertised.
The learned routes are added to the static_routes column of the Logi‐‐
cal_Router table, with external_ids:ic-learned-route set to the uuid of
the row in Route table of the OVN_IC_Southbound database.
options : ic-route-adv: optional string
A boolean value that enables route advertisement to the global
OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false.
options : ic-route-learn: optional string
A boolean value that enables route learning from the global
OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false.
options : ic-route-adv-default: optional string
A boolean value that enables advertising default route to the
global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false. This option
takes effect only when option ic-route-adv is true.
options : ic-route-learn-default: optional string
A boolean value that enables learning default route from the
global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is false. This option
takes effect only when option ic-route-learn is true.
options : ic-route-adv-lb: optional string
A boolean value that enables advertising routes for load bal‐
ancer vips to the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is
false. This option takes effect only when option ic-route-adv is
true.
options : ic-route-learn-lb: optional string
A boolean value that enables learning routes for load balancer
routes from the global OVN_IC_Southbound database. Default is
false. This option takes effect only when option ic-route-learn
is true.
options : ic-route-denylist: optional string
A string value contains a list of CIDRs delimited by ",". A
route will not be advertised or learned if the route’s prefix
belongs to any of the CIDRs listed.
Connection Options:
connections: set of Connections
Database clients to which the Open vSwitch database server
should connect or on which it should listen, along with options
for how these connections should be configured. See the Connec‐‐
tion table for more information.
ssl: optional SSL
Global SSL/TLS configuration.
Security Configurations:
ipsec: boolean
Tunnel encryption configuration. If this column is set to be
true, all OVN tunnels will be encrypted with IPsec.
Read-only Options:
options : max_tunid: optional string
The maximum supported tunnel ID. Depends on types of encapsula‐
tion enabled in the cluster.
Sample_Collector TABLE
Summary:
id integer, in range 1 to 255 (must be
unique within table)
name string
probability integer, in range 0 to 65,535
set_id integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
id: integer, in range 1 to 255 (must be unique within table)
Sample collector unique id used for differentiating collectors
that use the same set_id with different probability values. The
supported value range for IDs is 1-255.
name: string
Name of the sample collector.
probability: integer, in range 0 to 65,535
Sampling probability for this collector. It must be an integer
number between 0 and 65535. A value of 0 corresponds to no pack‐
ets being sampled while a value of 65535 corresponds to all
packets being sampled.
set_id: integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
The 32-bit integer identifier of the set of of collectors to
send packets to. See Flow_Sample_Collector_Set Table in ovs-
vswitchd’s database schema.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Sample TABLE
This table describes a Sampling configuration. Entries in other tables
might be associated with Sample entries to indicate how the sample
should be generated. For an example, see ACL.
Summary:
collectors set of Sample_Collectors
metadata integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
(must be unique within table)
Details:
collectors: set of Sample_Collectors
A list of references to Sample_Collector records to be used when
generating samples (e.g., IPFIX). A sample can be sent to multi‐
ple collectors simultaneously.
metadata: integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295 (must be unique within
table)
Will be used as Observation Point ID in every sample. The Obser‐
vation Domain ID will be generated by ovn-northd and includes
the logical datapath key as the least significant 24 bits and
the sampling application type (e.g., drop debugging) as the 8
most significant bits.
Copp TABLE
This table is used to define control plane protection policies, i.e.,
associate entries from table Meter to control protocol names.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
meters : arp optional string
meters : arp-resolve optional string
meters : dhcpv4-opts optional string
meters : dhcpv6-opts optional string
meters : dns optional string
meters : event-elb optional string
meters : icmp4-error optional string
meters : icmp6-error optional string
meters : igmp optional string
meters : nd-na optional string
meters : nd-ns optional string
meters : nd-ns-resolve optional string
meters : nd-ra-opts optional string
meters : tcp-reset optional string
meters : bfd optional string
meters : reject optional string
meters : svc-monitor optional string
meters : dhcpv4-relay optional string
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
CoPP name.
meters : arp: optional string
Rate limiting meter for ARP packets (request/reply) used for
learning neighbors.
meters : arp-resolve: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require resolving the next-
hop (through ARP).
meters : dhcpv4-opts: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding DHCPv4 op‐
tions.
meters : dhcpv6-opts: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding DHCPv6 op‐
tions.
meters : dns: optional string
Rate limiting meter for DNS query packets that need to be
replied to.
meters : event-elb: optional string
Rate limiting meter for empty load balancer events.
meters : icmp4-error: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with an
ICMP error.
meters : icmp6-error: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with an
ICMPv6 error.
meters : igmp: optional string
Rate limiting meter for IGMP packets.
meters : nd-na: optional string
Rate limiting meter for ND neighbor advertisement packets used
for learning neighbors.
meters : nd-ns: optional string
Rate limiting meter for ND neighbor solicitation packets used
for learning neighbors.
meters : nd-ns-resolve: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require resolving the next-
hop (through ND).
meters : nd-ra-opts: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require adding ND router
advertisement options.
meters : tcp-reset: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that require replying with TCP
RST packet.
meters : bfd: optional string
Rate limiting meter for BFD packets.
meters : reject: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that trigger a reject action
meters : svc-monitor: optional string
Rate limiting meter for packets that are arriving to service
monitor MAC address.
meters : dhcpv4-relay: optional string
Rate limiting meter for DHCPv4 relay packets (request/response)
when DHCPv4 Relay functionality is enabled.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Logical_Switch TABLE
Each row represents one L2 logical switch.
There are two kinds of logical switches, that is, ones that fully vir‐
tualize the network (overlay logical switches) and ones that provide
simple connectivity to physical networks (bridged logical switches).
They work in the same way when providing connectivity between logical
ports on same chassis, but differently when connecting remote logical
ports. Overlay logical switches connect remote logical ports by tun‐
nels, while bridged logical switches provide connectivity to remote
ports by bridging the packets to directly connected physical L2 seg‐
ments with the help of localnet ports. Each bridged logical switch has
one or more localnet ports, which have only one special address un‐‐
known.
Summary:
ports set of Logical_Switch_Ports
load_balancer set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
load_balancer_group set of Load_Balancer_Groups
acls set of ACLs
qos_rules set of QoSes
dns_records set of weak reference to DNSes
forwarding_groups set of Forwarding_Groups
Naming:
name string
external_ids : neutron:network_name
optional string
IP Address Assignment:
other_config : subnet optional string
other_config : exclude_ips optional string
other_config : ipv6_prefix optional string
other_config : dhcp_relay_port
optional string
other_config : mac_only optional string, either true or false
other_config : fdb_age_threshold
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
other_config : ct-zone-limit
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
other_config : enable-stateless-acl-with-lb
optional string, either true or false
other_config : dynamic-routing-vni
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 16,777,215
other_config : dynamic-routing-fdb-prefer-local
optional string, either true or false
other_config : dynamic-routing-arp-prefer-local
optional string, either true or false
other_config : dynamic-routing-redistribute
optional string
IP Multicast Snooping Options:
other_config : mcast_snoop optional string, either true or false
other_config : mcast_querier
optional string, either true or false
other_config : mcast_flood_unregistered
optional string, either true or false
other_config : mcast_table_size
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 32,766
other_config : mcast_idle_timeout
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 15 to 3,600
other_config : mcast_query_interval
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 3,600
other_config : mcast_query_max_response
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 10
other_config : mcast_eth_src
optional string
other_config : mcast_ip4_src
optional string
other_config : mcast_ip6_src
optional string
Interconnection:
other_config : interconn-ts
optional string
other_config : ic-vxlan_mode
optional string, either true or false
Tunnel Key:
other_config : requested-tnl-key
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 16,777,215
copp optional weak reference to Copp
Other options:
other_config : vlan-passthru
optional string, either true or false
other_config : broadcast-arps-to-all-routers
optional string, either true or false
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
ports: set of Logical_Switch_Ports
The logical ports connected to the logical switch.
It is an error for multiple logical switches to include the same
logical port.
load_balancer: set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
Set of load balancers associated to this logical switch.
load_balancer_group: set of Load_Balancer_Groups
Set of load balancers groups associated to this logical switch.
acls: set of ACLs
Access control rules that apply to packets within the logical
switch.
qos_rules: set of QoSes
QoS marking and metering rules that apply to packets within the
logical switch.
dns_records: set of weak reference to DNSes
This column defines the DNS records to be used for resolving in‐
ternal DNS queries within the logical switch by the native DNS
resolver. Please see the DNS table.
forwarding_groups: set of Forwarding_Groups
Groups a set of logical port endpoints for traffic going out of
the logical switch.
Naming:
These columns provide names for the logical switch. From OVN’s perspec‐
tive, these names have no special meaning or purpose other than to pro‐
vide convenience for human interaction with the database. There is no
requirement for the name to be unique. (For a unique identifier for a
logical switch, use its row UUID.)
(Originally, name was intended to serve the purpose of a human-friendly
name, but the Neutron integration used it to uniquely identify its own
switch object, in the format neutron-uuid. Later on, Neutron started
propagating the friendly name of a switch as external_ids:neutron:net‐‐
work_name. Perhaps this can be cleaned up someday.)
name: string
A name for the logical switch.
external_ids : neutron:network_name: optional string
Another name for the logical switch.
IP Address Assignment:
These options control automatic IP address management (IPAM) for ports
attached to the logical switch. To enable IPAM for IPv4, set other_con‐‐
fig:subnet and optionally other_config:exclude_ips. To enable IPAM for
IPv6, set other_config:ipv6_prefix. IPv4 and IPv6 may be enabled to‐
gether or separately.
To request dynamic address assignment for a particular port, use the
dynamic keyword in the addresses column of the port’s Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Port row. This requests both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address, if
IPAM for IPv4 and IPv6 are both enabled.
other_config : subnet: optional string
Set this to an IPv4 subnet, e.g. 192.168.0.0/24, to enable
ovn-northd to automatically assign IP addresses within that sub‐
net.
other_config : exclude_ips: optional string
To exclude some addresses from automatic IP address management,
set this to a list of the IPv4 addresses or ..-delimited ranges
to exclude. The addresses or ranges should be a subset of those
in other_config:subnet.
Whether listed or not, ovn-northd will never allocate the first
or last address in a subnet, such as 192.168.0.0 or
192.168.0.255 in 192.168.0.0/24.
Examples:
• 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.10
• 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.30..192.168.0.60
192.168.0.110..192.168.0.120
• 192.168.0.110..192.168.0.120 192.168.0.25..192.168.0.30
192.168.0.144
other_config : ipv6_prefix: optional string
Set this to an IPv6 prefix to enable ovn-northd to automatically
assign IPv6 addresses using this prefix. The assigned IPv6 ad‐
dress will be generated using the IPv6 prefix and the MAC ad‐
dress (converted to an IEEE EUI64 identifier) of the port. The
IPv6 prefix defined here should be a valid IPv6 address ending
with ::.
Examples:
• aef0::
• bef0:1234:a890:5678::
• 8230:5678::
other_config : dhcp_relay_port: optional string
If set to the name of logical switch port of type router then,
DHCP Relay is enabled for this logical switch provided the cor‐
responding Logical_Router_Port has DHCP Relay configured.
other_config : mac_only: optional string, either true or false
Value used to request to assign L2 address only if neither sub‐
net nor ipv6_prefix are specified
other_config : fdb_age_threshold: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
FDB aging threshold value in seconds. FDB exceeding this timeout
will be automatically removed. The value defaults to 0, which
means disabled.
other_config : ct-zone-limit: optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Switch. This value will be
propagated to all Logical_Switch_Port when configured, but can
be overwritten individually per Logical_Switch_Port. The value 0
means unlimited. When the option is not present the limit is not
set and the zone limit is derived from OvS default datapath
limit.
other_config : enable-stateless-acl-with-lb: optional string, either
true or false
This option must be set to true for stateless ACL to work with
load balancers. When enabled, packets with the ct.inv flag will
not be dropped, even if use_ct_inv_match is set to true. De‐
fault: false.
other_config : dynamic-routing-vni: optional string, containing an in‐
teger, in range 0 to 16,777,215
This defines the vni number associated with EVPN domain that the
Logical Switch is supposed to connect to.
The ovn-controller expects three interfaces to exist within the
BGP vrf: br-$vni, lo-$vni and vxlan-$vni.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to re‐
moval/change in the future.
other_config : dynamic-routing-fdb-prefer-local: optional string, ei‐
ther true or false
This option defines the preference of FDB lookup, if set to true
OVN will try to find the FDB entry in SB FDB table first. Then
it tries to resolve the FDB via ovn-controller local EVPN FDB
cache. The option defaults to false.
Only relevant if other_config:dynamic-routing-vni is set to
valid VNI.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to re‐
moval/change in the future.
other_config : dynamic-routing-arp-prefer-local: optional string, ei‐
ther true or false
This option defines the preference of ARP/ND lookup. If set to
true OVN routers connected to EVPN Logical Switches on which re‐
mote neighbor entries have been learned (Type-2 MAC+IP EVPN
routes) will give precedence to any ARP/ND entries they might
have in the SB Mac_Binding table before trying to resolve the
MAC address via the ovn-controller local EVPN ARP/ND cache. The
option defaults to false.
Only relevant if other_config:dynamic-routing-vni is set to
valid VNI.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to re‐
moval/change in the future.
other_config : dynamic-routing-redistribute: optional string
Only relevant if other_config:dynamic-routing-vni is set to
valid VNI.
If fdb is specified then ovn-controller will advertise all work‐
loads that are local to the chassis. The applies to VIFs, con‐
tainer ports, virtual ports, connected DGPs and connected GW
routers.
If ip is specified then ovn-controller will advertise all
IPs/MACs bindings that are local to the chassis. This applies to
VIFs and router ports.
NOTE: this feature is experimental and may be subject to re‐
moval/change in the future.
IP Multicast Snooping Options:
These options control IP Multicast Snooping configuration of the logi‐
cal switch. To enable IP Multicast Snooping set other_con‐‐
fig:mcast_snoop to true. To enable IP Multicast Querier set other_con‐‐
fig:mcast_querier to true. If IP Multicast Querier is enabled
other_config:mcast_eth_src and other_config:mcast_ip4_src must be set.
other_config : mcast_snoop: optional string, either true or false
Enables/disables IP Multicast Snooping on the logical switch.
Default: false.
other_config : mcast_querier: optional string, either true or false
Enables/disables IP Multicast Querier on the logical switch.
Only applicable if other_config:mcast_snoop is enabled. Default:
true.
other_config : mcast_flood_unregistered: optional string, either true
or false
Determines whether unregistered multicast traffic should be
flooded or not. Only applicable if other_config:mcast_snoop is
enabled. Default: false.
other_config : mcast_table_size: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 1 to 32,766
Number of multicast groups to be stored. Default: 2048.
other_config : mcast_idle_timeout: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 15 to 3,600
Configures the IP Multicast Snooping group idle timeout (in sec‐
onds). Default: 300 seconds.
other_config : mcast_query_interval: optional string, containing an in‐
teger, in range 1 to 3,600
Configures the IP Multicast Querier interval between queries (in
seconds). Default: other_config:mcast_idle_timeout / 2.
other_config : mcast_query_max_response: optional string, containing an
integer, in range 1 to 10
Configures the value of the "max-response" field in the multi‐
cast queries originated by the logical switch. Default: 1 sec‐
ond.
other_config : mcast_eth_src: optional string
Configures the source Ethernet address for queries originated by
the logical switch.
other_config : mcast_ip4_src: optional string
Configures the source IPv4 address for queries originated by the
logical switch.
other_config : mcast_ip6_src: optional string
Configures the source IPv6 address for queries originated by the
logical switch.
Interconnection:
other_config : interconn-ts: optional string
The name of corresponding transit switch in OVN_IC_Northbound
database. This kind of logical switch is created and controlled
by ovn-ic.
other_config : ic-vxlan_mode: optional string, either true or false
ic-vxlan_mode is set to true by ovn-ic when it runs VXLAN as en‐
capsulation protocol for cross-AZ traffic. Default value is
false.
Tunnel Key:
other_config : requested-tnl-key: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 1 to 16,777,215
Configures the datapath tunnel key for the logical switch. Usu‐
ally this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique
key for each datapath by itself. However, if it is configured,
ovn-northd honors the configured value. The typical use case is
for interconnection: the tunnel keys for transit switches need
to be unique globally, so they are maintained in the global
OVN_IC_Southbound database, and ovn-ic simply syncs the value
from OVN_IC_Southbound through this config.
copp: optional weak reference to Copp
The control plane protection policy from table Copp used for me‐
tering packets sent to ovn-controller from ports of this logical
switch.
Other options:
other_config : vlan-passthru: optional string, either true or false
Determines whether VLAN tagged incoming traffic should be al‐
lowed. Note that this may have security implications when en‐
abled for a logical switch with a tag=0 localnet port. If not
properly isolated from other localnet ports, fabric traffic that
belongs to other tagged networks may be passed through such a
port.
other_config : broadcast-arps-to-all-routers: optional string, either
true or false
Determines whether arp requests and ipv6 neighbor solicitations
should be sent to all routers and other switchports (default) or
if it should only be sent to switchports where the ip/mac ad‐
dress is unknown. Setting this to false can significantly reduce
the load if the logical switch can receive arp requests for ips
it does not know about. However setting this to false also means
that garps are no longer forwarded to all routers and therefor
the mac bindings of the routers are no longer updated.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Logical_Switch_Port TABLE
A port within an L2 logical switch.
Summary:
Core Features:
name string (must be unique within table)
type string
Options:
options map of string-string pairs
Options for router ports:
options : router-port optional string
options : nat-addresses optional string
options : exclude-lb-vips-from-garp
optional string
options : exclude-router-ips-from-garp
optional string
options : arp_proxy optional string
options : enable_router_port_acl
optional string, either true or false
options : ct-zone-limit optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
Options for localnet ports:
options : network_name optional string
options : ethtype optional string
options : localnet_learn_fdb
optional string, either true or false
Options for l2gateway ports:
options : network_name optional string
options : l2gateway-chassis
optional string
Options for vtep ports:
options : vtep-physical-switch
optional string
options : vtep-logical-switch
optional string
VMI (or VIF) Options:
options : requested-chassis
optional string
options : activation-strategy
optional string
options : iface-id-ver optional string
options : qos_min_rate optional string
options : qos_max_rate optional string
options : qos_burst optional string
options : hostname optional string
options : force_fdb_lookup
optional string, either true or false
options : disable_garp_rarp
optional string, either true or false
options : pkt_clone_type optional string, must be mc_unknown
options : disable_arp_nd_rsp
optional string, either true or false
options : lsp_learn_mac optional string, either true or false
options : receive_multicast
optional string, either true or false
options : is-nf optional string, either true or false
options : nf-linked-port optional string
VIF Plugging Options:
options : vif-plug-type
optional string
options : vif-plug-mtu-request
optional string
Virtual port Options:
options : virtual-ip optional string
options : virtual-parents
optional string
IP Multicast Snooping Options:
options : mcast_flood optional string, either true or false
options : mcast_flood_reports
optional string, either true or false
Containers:
parent_name optional string
tag_request optional integer, in range 0 to 4,095
tag optional integer, in range 1 to 4,095
Port State:
up optional boolean
enabled optional boolean
Addressing:
addresses set of strings
dynamic_addresses optional string
port_security set of strings
peer optional string
DHCP:
dhcpv4_options optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
dhcpv6_options optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
mirror_rules set of weak reference to Mirrors
ha_chassis_group optional HA_Chassis_Group
Naming:
external_ids : neutron:port_name
optional string
Tunnel Key:
options : requested-tnl-key
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 32,767
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
Core Features:
name: string (must be unique within table)
The logical port name.
For entities (VMs or containers) that are spawned in the hyper‐
visor, the name used here must match those used in the exter‐‐
nal_ids:iface-id in the Open_vSwitch database’s Interface table,
because hypervisors use external_ids:iface-id as a lookup key to
identify the network interface of that entity.
For containers that share a VIF within a VM, the name can be any
unique identifier. See Containers, below, for more information.
A logical switch port may not have the same name as a logical
router port, but the database schema cannot enforce this.
type: string
Specify a type for this logical port. Logical ports can be used
to model other types of connectivity into an OVN logical switch.
The following types are defined:
(empty string)
A VM (or VIF) interface.
router A connection to a logical router. The value of op‐‐
tions:router-port specifies the name of the Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Port to which this logical switch port is con‐
nected.
switch A connection to another logical switch. The value of peer
specifies the name of the Logical_Switch_Port to which
this logical switch port is connected. Such ports always
have an implicit "unknown" address, because the address
information is not leaked between directly connected
switches.
localnet
A connection to a locally accessible network from
ovn-controller instances that have a corresponding bridge
mapping. A logical switch can have multiple localnet
ports attached. This type is used to model direct connec‐
tivity to existing networks. In this case, each chassis
should have a mapping for one of the physical networks
only. Note: nothing said above implies that a chassis
cannot be plugged to multiple physical networks as long
as they belong to different switches.
localport
A connection to a local VIF. Traffic that arrives on a
localport is never forwarded over a tunnel to another
chassis. These ports are present on every chassis and
have the same address in all of them. This is used to
model connectivity to local services that run on every
hypervisor.
l2gateway
A connection to a physical network.
vtep A port to a logical switch on a VTEP gateway.
external
Represents a logical port which is external and not hav‐
ing an OVS port in the integration bridge. OVN will never
receive any traffic from this port or send any traffic to
this port. OVN can support native services like
DHCPv4/DHCPv6/DNS for this port. If ha_chassis_group is
defined, ovn-controller running in the active chassis of
the HA chassis group will bind this port to provide these
native services. It is expected that this port belong to
a bridged logical switch (with a localnet port).
It is recommended to use the same HA chassis group for
all the external ports of a logical switch. Otherwise,
the physical switch might see MAC flap issue when differ‐
ent chassis provide the native services. For example when
supporting native DHCPv4 service, DHCPv4 server mac (con‐
figured in options:server_mac column in table DHCP_Op‐‐
tions) originating from different ports can cause MAC
flap issue. The MAC of the logical router IP(s) can also
flap if the same HA chassis group is not set for all the
external ports of a logical switch.
Below are some of the use cases where external ports can
be used.
• VMs connected to SR-IOV nics - Traffic from these
VMs by passes the kernel stack and local ovn-con‐‐
troller do not bind these ports and cannot serve
the native services.
• When CMS supports provisioning baremetal servers.
virtual
Represents a logical port which does not have an OVS port
in the integration bridge and has a virtual ip configured
in the options:virtual-ip column. This virtual ip can
move around between the logical ports configured in the
options:virtual-parents column.
One of the use case where virtual ports can be used is.
• The virtual ip represents a load balancer vip and
the virtual parents provide load balancer service
in an active-standby setup with the active virtual
parent owning the virtual ip.
remote A remote port is to model a port that resides remotely on
another OVN, which is on the other side of a transit log‐
ical switch for OVN interconnection. This type of ports
are created by ovn-ic instead of by CMS. Any change to
the port will be automatically overwritten by ovn-ic.
Options:
options: map of string-string pairs
This column provides key/value settings specific to the logical
port type. The type-specific options are described individually
below.
Options for router ports:
These options apply when type is router.
options : router-port: optional string
Required. The name of the Logical_Router_Port to which this log‐
ical switch port is connected.
options : nat-addresses: optional string
This is used to send gratuitous ARPs for SNAT and DNAT IP ad‐
dresses via the localnet port that is attached to the same logi‐
cal switch as this type router port. This option is specified on
a logical switch port that is connected to a gateway router, or
a logical switch port that is connected to a distributed gateway
port on a logical router.
This must take one of the following forms:
router Gratuitous ARPs will be sent for all SNAT and DNAT exter‐
nal IP addresses and for all load balancer IP addresses
defined on the options:router-port’s logical router, us‐
ing the options:router-port’s MAC address.
This form of options:nat-addresses is valid for logical
switch ports where options:router-port is the name of a
port on a gateway router, or the name of a distributed
gateway port.
Supported only in OVN 2.8 and later. Earlier versions re‐
quired NAT addresses to be manually synchronized.
Ethernet address followed by one or more IPv4 addresses
Example: 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 158.36.44.22 158.36.44.24.
This would result in generation of gratuitous ARPs for IP
addresses 158.36.44.22 and 158.36.44.24 with a MAC ad‐
dress of 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7.
This form of options:nat-addresses is only valid for log‐
ical switch ports where options:router-port is the name
of a port on a gateway router.
options : exclude-lb-vips-from-garp: optional string
If options:nat-addresses is set to router, Gratuitous ARPs will
be sent for all SNAT and DNAT external IP addresses defined on
the options:router-port’s logical router, using the op‐‐
tions:router-port’s MAC address, not cosidering configured load
balancers.
options : exclude-router-ips-from-garp: optional string
If options:nat-addresses is set to router, Gratuitous ARPs will
not be sent for router port IP addresses and SNAT IP addresses
(if SNAT IP is same as the router port IP) defined on its peer
router port. Do not set this option if the router port IPs are
also used as SNAT and DNAT IPs.
options : arp_proxy: optional string
Optional. A list of MAC and addresses/cidrs or just ad‐
dresses/cidrs that this logical switch router port will reply to
ARP/NDP requests. Examples: 169.254.239.254 169.254.239.2,
0a:58:a9:fe:01:01 169.254.239.254 169.254.239.2
169.254.238.0/24, fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::1 fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::2,
0a:58:a9:fe:01:01 fd7b:6b4d:7b25:d22f::0/64. Theoptions:router-
port’s logical router should have a route to forward packets
sent to configured proxy ARP MAC/IPs to an appropriate destina‐
tion.
options : enable_router_port_acl: optional string, either true or false
Optional. Enable conntrack for the router port whose peer is
l3dgw_port if set to true. The default value is false.
options : ct-zone-limit: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 4,294,967,295
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Switch_Port. This value
has priority over limit specified on Logical_Switch when config‐
ured. The value 0 means unlimited. When the option is not
present the limit is not set and the zone limit is derived from
OvS default datapath limit.
Options for localnet ports:
These options apply when type is localnet.
options : network_name: optional string
Required. The name of the network to which the localnet port is
connected. Each hypervisor, via ovn-controller, uses its local
configuration to determine exactly how to connect to this lo‐
cally accessible network, if at all.
options : ethtype: optional string
Optional. VLAN EtherType field value for encapsulating VLAN
headers. Supported values: 802.1q (default), 802.1ad.
options : localnet_learn_fdb: optional string, either true or false
Optional. Allows localnet port to learn MACs and store them in
FDB table if set to true. The default value is false.
Options for l2gateway ports:
These options apply when type is l2gateway.
options : network_name: optional string
Required. The name of the network to which the l2gateway port is
connected. The L2 gateway, via ovn-controller, uses its local
configuration to determine exactly how to connect to this net‐
work.
options : l2gateway-chassis: optional string
Required. The chassis on which the l2gateway logical port should
be bound to. ovn-controller running on the defined chassis will
connect this logical port to the physical network.
Options for vtep ports:
These options apply when type is vtep.
options : vtep-physical-switch: optional string
Required. The name of the VTEP gateway.
options : vtep-logical-switch: optional string
Required. A logical switch name connected by the VTEP gateway.
VMI (or VIF) Options:
These options apply to logical ports with type having (empty string)
options : requested-chassis: optional string
If set, identifies a specific chassis (by name or hostname) that
is allowed to bind this port. Using this option will prevent
thrashing between two chassis trying to bind the same port dur‐
ing a live migration. It can also prevent similar thrashing due
to a mis-configuration, if a port is accidentally created on
more than one chassis.
If set to a comma separated list, the first entry identifies the
main chassis and the rest are one or more additional chassis
that are allowed to bind the same port.
When multiple chassis are set for the port, and the logical
switch is connected to an external network through a localnet
port, tunneling is enforced for the port to guarantee delivery
of packets directed to the port to all its locations. This has
MTU implications because the network used for tunneling must
have MTU larger than localnet for stable connectivity.
If the same host co-hosts more than one controller instance (ei‐
ther belonging to the same or separate clusters), special atten‐
tion should be given to consistently using unique chassis names
used in this option. It is advised that chassis names - and not
host names - are used for this option.
options : activation-strategy: optional string
If used with multiple chassis set in requested-chassis, speci‐
fies an activation strategy for all additional chassis. By de‐
fault, no activation strategy is used, meaning additional port
locations are immediately available for use. The option supports
a comma separated list where you can combine 3 protocols,
"rarp", "garp" and "na". When any of the protocols is set, the
port is blocked for ingress and egress communication until a
specified protocol packet is sent from a new location. The acti‐
vation strategy is useful in live migration scenarios for vir‐
tual machines.
options : iface-id-ver: optional string
If set, this port will be bound by ovn-controller only if this
same key and value is configured in the external_ids column in
the Open_vSwitch database’s Interface table.
options : qos_min_rate: optional string
If set, indicates the minimum guaranteed rate available for data
sent from this interface, in bit/s.
options : qos_max_rate: optional string
If set, indicates the maximum rate for data sent from this in‐
terface, in bit/s. The traffic will be shaped according to this
limit.
options : qos_burst: optional string
If set, indicates the maximum burst size for data sent from this
interface, in bits.
options : hostname: optional string
If set, indicates the DHCPv4 option "Hostname" (option code 12)
associated for this Logical Switch Port. If DHCPv4 is enabled
for this Logical Switch Port, hostname dhcp option will be in‐
cluded in DHCP reply.
options : force_fdb_lookup: optional string, either true or false
This option is supported only if the Logical Switch Port is of
default type (i.e. type set to empty_string) and also addresses
column contains unknown. If set to true, MAC addresses (if con‐
figured) are not installed in the l2 lookup table but the MAC
addresses are learnt and stored in the FDB table. The default
value is false.
options : disable_garp_rarp: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, GARP and RARP announcements are not sent when a
VIF port is created on a bridged logical switch. The default
value is false.
options : pkt_clone_type: optional string, must be mc_unknown
If set to mc_unknown, packets going to this VIF get cloned to
all unknown ports connected to the same Logical Switch.
options : disable_arp_nd_rsp: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, ARP/ND responder flows are not installed for the
IP addresses configured on this logical port. Default: false.
options : lsp_learn_mac: optional string, either true or false
If set to false, source MAC address is not learnt by FDB when
packets are received on this port. The default value is true.
options : receive_multicast: optional string, either true or false
If set to false, multicast traffic is not forwarded to this
port. The default value is true.
options : is-nf: optional string, either true or false
Needs to be set to true for Network Function ports. These are
the ports used as inport or outport in Network_Function table.
The default value is false.
options : nf-linked-port: optional string
Each row in Network_Function table refers to two logical switch
ports under the columns inport and outport. The port identified
as inport needs to have this option set to the port identified
as outport, and vice-versa.
VIF Plugging Options:
options : vif-plug-type: optional string
If set, OVN will attempt to perform plugging of this VIF. In or‐
der to get this port plugged by the OVN controller, OVN must be
built with support for VIF plugging. The default behavior is for
the CMS to do the VIF plugging. Each VIF plug provider have
their own options namespaced by name, for example "vif-plug:rep‐
resentor:key". Please refer to the VIF plug provider documenta‐
tion located in Documentation/topics/vif-plug-providers/ for
more information.
options : vif-plug-mtu-request: optional string
Requested MTU for plugged interfaces. When set the OVN con‐
troller will fill the mtu_request column of the Open vSwitch
database’s Interface table. This in turn will make OVS vswitchd
update the MTU of the linked interface.
Virtual port Options:
These options apply when type is virtual.
options : virtual-ip: optional string
This option represents the virtual IPv4 address.
options : virtual-parents: optional string
This options represents a set of logical port names (with in the
same logical switch) which can own the virtual ip configured in
the options:virtual-ip. All these virtual parents should add the
virtual ip in the port_security if port security addressed are
enabled.
IP Multicast Snooping Options:
These options apply when the port is part of a logical switch which has
other_config :mcast_snoop set to true.
options : mcast_flood: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, multicast packets (except reports) are uncondi‐
tionally forwarded to the specific port. Default: false.
options : mcast_flood_reports: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, multicast reports are unconditionally forwarded
to the specific port. Default: false.
Containers:
When a large number of containers are nested within a VM, it may be too
expensive to dedicate a VIF to each container. OVN can use VLAN tags to
support such cases. Each container is assigned a VLAN ID and each
packet that passes between the hypervisor and the VM is tagged with the
appropriate ID for the container. Such VLAN IDs never appear on a phys‐
ical wire, even inside a tunnel, so they need not be unique except rel‐
ative to a single VM on a hypervisor.
These columns are used for VIFs that represent nested containers using
shared VIFs. For VMs and for containers that have dedicated VIFs, they
are empty.
parent_name: optional string
The VM interface through which the nested container sends its
network traffic. This must match the name column for some other
Logical_Switch_Port. Note: for performance of the OVN Southbound
database conditional monitoring, unlike for regular VIFs,
ovn-controller will register to get updates about all OVN South‐
bound database Port_Binding table records that correspond to
nested container ports even if external_ids:ovn-monitor-all is
set to false. See ovn-controller(8) for more information.
tag_request: optional integer, in range 0 to 4,095
The VLAN tag in the network traffic associated with a con‐
tainer’s network interface. The client can request ovn-northd to
allocate a tag that is unique within the scope of a specific
parent (specified in parent_name) by setting a value of 0 in
this column. The allocated value is written by ovn-northd in the
tag column. (Note that these tags are allocated and managed lo‐
cally in ovn-northd, so they cannot be reconstructed in the
event that the database is lost.) The client can also request a
specific non-zero tag and ovn-northd will honor it and copy that
value to the tag column.
When type is set to localnet or l2gateway, this can be set to
indicate that the port represents a connection to a specific
VLAN on a locally accessible network. The VLAN ID is used to
match incoming traffic and is also added to outgoing traffic.
tag: optional integer, in range 1 to 4,095
The VLAN tag allocated by ovn-northd based on the contents of
the tag_request column.
Port State:
up: optional boolean
This column is populated by ovn-northd, rather than by the CMS
plugin as is most of this database. When a logical port is bound
to a physical location in the OVN Southbound database Binding
table, ovn-northd sets this column to true; otherwise, or if the
port becomes unbound later, it sets it to false. If this column
is empty, the port is not considered up. This allows the CMS to
wait for a VM’s (or container’s) networking to become active be‐
fore it allows the VM (or container) to start.
Logical ports of router type are an exception to this rule. They
are considered to be always up, that is this column is always
set to true.
enabled: optional boolean
This column is used to administratively set port state. If this
column is empty or is set to true, the port is enabled. If this
column is set to false, the port is disabled. A disabled port
has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.
Addressing:
addresses: set of strings
Addresses owned by the logical port.
Each element in the set must take one of the following forms:
Ethernet address followed by zero or more IPv4 or IPv6 addresses
(or both)
An Ethernet address defined is owned by the logical port.
Like a physical Ethernet NIC, a logical port ordinarily
has a single fixed Ethernet address.
When a OVN logical switch processes a unicast Ethernet
frame whose destination MAC address is in a logical
port’s addresses column, it delivers it only to that
port, as if a MAC learning process had learned that MAC
address on the port.
If IPv4 or IPv6 address(es) (or both) are defined, it in‐
dicates that the logical port owns the given IP ad‐
dresses.
If IPv4 address(es) are defined, the OVN logical switch
uses this information to synthesize responses to ARP re‐
quests without traversing the physical network. The OVN
logical router connected to the logical switch, if any,
uses this information to avoid issuing ARP requests for
logical switch ports.
Note that the order here is important. The Ethernet ad‐
dress must be listed before the IP address(es) if de‐
fined.
Examples:
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7
This indicates that the logical port owns the
above mac address.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 10.0.0.4 20.0.0.4
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac
address and two IPv4 addresses.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 fdaa:15f2:72cf:0:f816:3eff:fe20:3f41
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac
address and 1 IPv6 address.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 10.0.0.4
fdaa:15f2:72cf:0:f816:3eff:fe20:3f41
This indicates that the logical port owns the mac
address and 1 IPv4 address and 1 IPv6 address.
unknown
This indicates that the logical port has an unknown set
of Ethernet addresses. When an OVN logical switch
processes a unicast Ethernet frame whose destination MAC
address is not in any logical port’s addresses column, it
delivers it to the port (or ports) whose addresses
columns include unknown.
dynamic
Use dynamic to make ovn-northd generate a globally unique
MAC address, choose an unused IPv4 address with the logi‐
cal port’s subnet (if other_config:subnet is set in the
port’s Logical_Switch), and generate an IPv6 address from
the MAC address (if other_config:ipv6_prefix is set in
the port’s Logical_Switch) and store them in the port’s
dynamic_addresses column.
Only one element containing dynamic may appear in ad‐‐
dresses.
dynamic ip
dynamic ipv6
dynamic ip ipv6
These act like dynamic alone but specify particular IPv4 or
IPv6 addresses to use. OVN IPAM will still automatically
allocate the other address if configured appropriately. Ex‐
ample: dynamic 192.168.0.1 2001::1.
mac dynamic
This acts like dynamic alone but specifies a particular MAC
address to use. OVN IPAM will still automatically allocate
IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, or both, if configured appropri‐
ately. Example: 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 dynamic
router
Accepted only when type is router. This indicates that the
Ethernet, IPv4, and IPv6 addresses for this logical switch
port should be obtained from the connected logical router
port, as specified by router-port in options.
The resulting addresses are used to populate the logical
switch’s destination lookup, and also for the logical
switch to generate ARP and ND replies.
If the connected logical router port has a distributed
gateway port specified and the logical router has rules
specified in nat with external_mac, then those addresses
are also used to populate the switch’s destination lookup.
Supported only in OVN 2.7 and later. Earlier versions re‐
quired router addresses to be manually synchronized.
dynamic_addresses: optional string
Addresses assigned to the logical port by ovn-northd, if dynamic
is specified in addresses. Addresses will be of the same format
as those that populate the addresses column. Note that dynami‐
cally assigned addresses are constructed and managed locally in
ovn-northd, so they cannot be reconstructed in the event that
the database is lost.
port_security: set of strings
This column controls the addresses from which the host attached
to the logical port (``the host’’) is allowed to send packets
and to which it is allowed to receive packets. If this column is
empty, all addresses are permitted.
Each element in the set must begin with one Ethernet address.
This would restrict the host to sending packets from and receiv‐
ing packets to the ethernet addresses defined in the logical
port’s port_security column. It also restricts the inner source
MAC addresses that the host may send in ARP and IPv6 Neighbor
Discovery packets. The host is always allowed to receive packets
to multicast and broadcast Ethernet addresses.
Each element in the set may additionally contain one or more
IPv4 or IPv6 addresses (or both), with optional masks. If a mask
is given, it must be a CIDR mask. In addition to the restric‐
tions described for Ethernet addresses above, such an element
restricts the IPv4 or IPv6 addresses from which the host may
send and to which it may receive packets to the specified ad‐
dresses. A masked address, if the host part is zero, indicates
that the host is allowed to use any address in the subnet; if
the host part is nonzero, the mask simply indicates the size of
the subnet. In addition:
• If any IPv4 address is given, the host is also allowed to
receive packets to the IPv4 local broadcast address
255.255.255.255 and to IPv4 multicast addresses
(224.0.0.0/4). If an IPv4 address with a mask is given,
the host is also allowed to receive packets to the broad‐
cast address in that specified subnet.
If any IPv4 address is given, the host is additionally
restricted to sending ARP packets with the specified
source IPv4 address. (RARP is not restricted.)
• If any IPv6 address is given, the host is also allowed to
receive packets to IPv6 multicast addresses (ff00::/8).
If any IPv6 address is given, the host is additionally
restricted to sending IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Solicita‐
tion or Advertisement packets with the specified source
address or, for solicitations, the unspecified address.
If an element includes an IPv4 address, but no IPv6 addresses,
then IPv6 traffic is not allowed. If an element includes an IPv6
address, but no IPv4 address, then IPv4 and ARP traffic is not
allowed.
This column uses the same lexical syntax as the match column in
the OVN Southbound database’s Pipeline table. Multiple addresses
within an element may be space or comma separated.
This column is provided as a convenience to cloud management
systems, but all of the features that it implements can be im‐
plemented as ACLs using the ACL table.
Examples:
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7
The host may send traffic from and receive traffic to the
specified MAC address, and to receive traffic to Ethernet
multicast and broadcast addresses, but not otherwise. The
host may not send ARP or IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets
with inner source Ethernet addresses other than the one
specified.
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 192.168.1.10/24
This adds further restrictions to the first example. The
host may send IPv4 packets from or receive IPv4 packets
to only 192.168.1.10, except that it may also receive
IPv4 packets to 192.168.1.255 (based on the subnet mask),
255.255.255.255, and any address in 224.0.0.0/4. The host
may not send ARPs with a source Ethernet address other
than 80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 or source IPv4 address other than
192.168.1.10. The host may not send or receive any IPv6
(including IPv6 Neighbor Discovery) traffic.
"80:fa:5b:12:42:ba", "80:fa:5b:06:72:b7 192.168.1.10/24"
The host may send traffic from and receive traffic to the
specified MAC addresses, and to receive traffic to Ether‐
net multicast and broadcast addresses, but not otherwise.
With MAC 80:fa:5b:12:42:ba, the host may send traffic
from and receive traffic to any L3 address. With MAC
80:fa:5b:06:72:b7, the host may send IPv4 packets from or
receive IPv4 packets to only 192.168.1.10, except that it
may also receive IPv4 packets to 192.168.1.255 (based on
the subnet mask), 255.255.255.255, and any address in
224.0.0.0/4. The host may not send or receive any IPv6
(including IPv6 Neighbor Discovery) traffic.
peer: optional string
For a switch port used to connect two logical switches, this
identifies the other switch port in the pair by name.
For a switch port attached to a logical router, this column is
empty.
DHCP:
dhcpv4_options: optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
This column defines the DHCPv4 Options to be included by the
ovn-controller when it replies to the DHCPv4 requests. Please
see the DHCP_Options table.
dhcpv6_options: optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
This column defines the DHCPv6 Options to be included by the
ovn-controller when it replies to the DHCPv6 requests. Please
see the DHCP_Options table.
mirror_rules: set of weak reference to Mirrors
Mirror rules that apply to logical switch port which is the
source. Please see the Mirror table.
ha_chassis_group: optional HA_Chassis_Group
References a row in the OVN Northbound database’s HA_Chas‐‐
sis_Group table. It indicates the HA chassis group to use if the
type is set to external. If type is not external, this column is
ignored.
Naming:
external_ids : neutron:port_name: optional string
This column gives an optional human-friendly name for the port.
This name has no special meaning or purpose other than to pro‐
vide convenience for human interaction with the northbound data‐
base.
Neutron copies this from its own port object’s name. (Neutron
ports do are not assigned human-friendly names by default, so it
will often be empty.)
Tunnel Key:
options : requested-tnl-key: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 1 to 32,767
Configures the port binding tunnel key for the port. Usually
this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key
for each port by itself. However, if it is configured,
ovn-northd honors the configured value. The typical use case is
for interconnection: the tunnel keys for ports on transit
switches need to be unique globally, so they are maintained in
the global OVN_IC_Southbound database, and ovn-ic simply syncs
the value from OVN_IC_Southbound through this config.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
The ovn-northd program copies all these pairs into the exter‐‐
nal_ids column of the Port_Binding table in OVN_Southbound data‐
base.
Forwarding_Group TABLE
Each row represents one forwarding group.
Summary:
name string
vip string
vmac string
liveness boolean
child_port set of 1 or more strings
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string
A name for the forwarding group. This name has no special mean‐
ing or purpose other than to provide convenience for human in‐
teraction with the ovn-nb database.
vip: string
The virtual IP address assigned to the forwarding group. It will
respond with vmac when an ARP request is sent for vip.
vmac: string
The virtual MAC address assigned to the forwarding group.
liveness: boolean
If set to true, liveness is enabled for child ports otherwise it
is disabled.
child_port: set of 1 or more strings
List of child ports in the forwarding group.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Address_Set TABLE
Each row in this table represents a named set of addresses. An address
set may contain Ethernet, IPv4, or IPv6 addresses with optional bitwise
or CIDR masks. Address set may ultimately be used in ACLs to compare
against fields such as ip4.src or ip6.src. A single address set must
contain addresses of the same type. As an example, the following would
create an address set with three IP addresses:
ovn-nbctl create Address_Set name=set1 addresses=’’10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.3’’
Address sets may be used in the match column of the ACL table. For syn‐
tax information, see the details of the expression language used for
the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_Southbound data‐
base.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
addresses set of strings
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
A name for the address set. Names are ASCII and must match
[a-zA-Z_.][a-zA-Z_.0-9]*.
addresses: set of strings
The set of addresses in string form.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Port_Group TABLE
Each row in this table represents a named group of logical switch
ports.
Port groups may be used in the match column of the ACL table. For syn‐
tax information, see the details of the expression language used for
the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_Southbound data‐
base.
For each port group, there are two address sets generated to the Ad‐‐
dress_Set table of the OVN_Southbound database, containing the IP ad‐
dresses of the group of ports, one for IPv4, and the other for IPv6,
with name being the name of the Port_Group followed by a suffix _ip4
for IPv4 and _ip6 for IPv6. The generated address sets can be used in
the same way as regular address sets in the match column of the ACL ta‐
ble. For syntax information, see the details of the expression language
used for the match column in the Logical_Flow table of the OVN_South‐‐
bound database.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
ports set of weak reference to Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Ports
acls set of ACLs
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
A name for the port group. Names are ASCII and must match
[a-zA-Z_.][a-zA-Z_.0-9]*.
ports: set of weak reference to Logical_Switch_Ports
The logical switch ports belonging to the group in uuids.
acls: set of ACLs
Access control rules that apply to the port group. Applying an
ACL to a port group has the same effect as applying the ACL to
all logical lswitches that the ports of the port group belong
to.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Load_Balancer TABLE
Each row represents one load balancer.
Summary:
name string
vips map of string-string pairs
protocol optional string, one of sctp, tcp, or udp
Health Checks:
health_check set of Load_Balancer_Health_Checks
ip_port_mappings map of string-string pairs
selection_fields set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src,
ip_dst, ip_src, ipv6_dst, ipv6_src,
tp_dst, or tp_src
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Load_Balancer options:
options : reject optional string, either true or false
options : hairpin_snat_ip optional string
options : skip_snat optional string
options : add_route optional string
options : neighbor_responder
optional string
options : template optional string
options : address-family optional string
options : affinity_timeout optional string
options : ct_flush optional string, either true or false
options : use_stateless_nat
optional string, either true or false
Details:
name: string
A name for the load balancer. This name has no special meaning
or purpose other than to provide convenience for human interac‐
tion with the ovn-nb database.
vips: map of string-string pairs
A map of virtual IP addresses (and an optional port number with
: as a separator) associated with this load balancer and their
corresponding endpoint IP addresses (and optional port numbers
with : as separators) separated by commas. If the destination IP
address (and port number) of a packet leaving a container or a
VM matches the virtual IP address (and port number) provided
here as a key, then OVN will statefully replace the destination
IP address by one of the provided IP address (and port number)
in this map as a value. IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported
for load balancing; however a VIP of one address family may not
be mapped to a destination IP address of a different family. If
specifying an IPv6 address with a port, the address portion must
be enclosed in square brackets. Examples for keys are
"192.168.1.4" and "[fd0f::1]:8800". Examples for value are
"10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2" and "20.0.0.10:8800, 20.0.0.11:8800".
When the Load_Balancer is added to the logical_switch, the VIP
has to be in a different subnet than the one used for the logi‐‐
cal_switch. Since VIP is in a different subnet, you should con‐
nect your logical switch to either a OVN logical router or a
real router (this is because the client can now send a packet
with VIP as the destination IP address and router’s mac address
as the destination MAC address).
protocol: optional string, one of sctp, tcp, or udp
Valid protocols are tcp, udp, or sctp. This column is useful
when a port number is provided as part of the vips column. If
this column is empty and a port number is provided as part of
vips column, OVN assumes the protocol to be tcp.
Health Checks:
OVN supports health checks for load balancer endpoints. When health
checks are enabled, the load balancer uses only healthy endpoints.
Suppose that vips contains a key-value pair
10.0.0.10:80=10.0.0.4:8080,20.0.0.4:8080. To enable health checks for
this virtual’s endpoints, add two key-value pairs to ip_port_mappings,
with keys 10.0.0.4 and 20.0.0.4, and add to health_check a reference to
a Load_Balancer_Health_Check row whose vip is set to 10.0.0.10. The
same approach can be used for IPv6 as well.
health_check: set of Load_Balancer_Health_Checks
Load balancer health checks associated with this load balancer.
ip_port_mappings: map of string-string pairs
Maps from endpoint IP to a colon-separated pair of logical port
name and source IP, e.g. port_name:sourc_ip for IPv4. Health
checks are sent to this port with the specified source IP. For
IPv6 square brackets must be used around IP address, e.g:
port_name:[sourc_ip] Remote endpoint: Specify :target_zone_name
at the end of the above syntax to create remote health checks in
a specific zone.
For example, in the example above, IP to port mappings might be
defined as 10.0.0.4=sw0-p1:10.0.0.2 and
20.0.0.4=sw1-p1:20.0.0.2, if the values given were suitable
ports and IP addresses. And remote endpoint:
10.0.0.4=sw0-p1:10.0.0.2:az1, where sw0-p1 - logical port in
az1.
For IPv6 IP to port mappings might be defined as
[2001::1]=sw0-p1:[2002::1]. Remote endpoint: same as for IP.
selection_fields: set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src, ip_dst,
ip_src, ipv6_dst, ipv6_src, tp_dst, or tp_src
OVN native load balancers are supported using the OpenFlow
groups of type select. OVS supports two selection methods:
dp_hash and hash (with optional fields specified) in selecting
the buckets of a group. Please see the OVS documentation (man
ovs-ofctl) for more details on the selection methods. Each end‐
point IP (and port if set) is mapped to a bucket in the group
flow.
CMS can choose the hash selection method by setting the selec‐
tion fields in this column. ovs-vswitchd uses the specified
fields in generating the hash.
Example: {ip_proto,ip_src,ip_dst} for a 3-tuple match. Example:
{ip_proto,ipv6_src,ipv6_dst} for an IPv6 match. Example:
{ip_proto,ip_src,ip_dst,tp_src,tp_dst}. Example:
{ip_src,ip_dst,ipv6_src,ipv6_dst,tp_src,tp_dst}.
dp_hash selection method uses the assistance of datapath to cal‐
culate the hash and it is expected to be faster than hash selec‐
tion method. So CMS should take this into consideration before
using the hash method. Please consult the OVS documentation and
OVS sources for the implementation details.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Load_Balancer options:
options : reject: optional string, either true or false
If the load balancer is created with --reject option and it has
no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp) or an ICMP
port unreachable packet (for all other kind of traffic) will be
sent whenever an incoming packet is received for this load-bal‐
ancer. Please note using --reject option will disable empty_lb
SB controller event for this load balancer.
options : hairpin_snat_ip: optional string
IP to be used as source IP for packets that have been hair-
pinned after load balancing. The default behavior when the op‐
tion is not set is to use the load balancer VIP as source IP.
This option may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on
it, separated by a space character.
options : skip_snat: optional string
If the load balancing rule is configured with skip_snat option,
the option lb_force_snat_ip configured for the logical router
that references this load balancer will not be applied for this
load balancer.
options : add_route: optional string
If set to true, then neighbor routers will have logical flows
added that will allow for routing to the VIP IP. It also will
have ARP resolution logical flows added. By setting this option,
it means there is no reason to create a Logical_Router_Sta‐‐
tic_Route from neighbor routers to this NAT address. It also
means that no ARP request is required for neighbor routers to
learn the IP-MAC mapping for this VIP IP. For more information
about what flows are added for IP routes, please see the
ovn-northd manpage section on IP Routing.
options : neighbor_responder: optional string
If set to all, then routers on which the load balancer is ap‐
plied reply to ARP/neighbor discovery requests for all VIPs of
the load balancer. If set to reachable, then routers on which
the load balancer is applied reply to ARP/neighbor discovery re‐
quests only for VIPs that are part of a router’s subnet. If set
to none, then routers on which the load balancer is applied
never reply to ARP/neighbor discovery requests for any of the
load balancer VIPs. Load balancers with options:template=true do
not support reachable as a valid mode. The default value of this
option, if not specified, is reachable for regular load bal‐
ancers and none for template load balancers.
options : template: optional string
Option to be set to true, if the load balancer is a template.
The load balancer VIPs and backends must be using Chassis_Tem‐‐
plate_Var in their definitions.
Load balancer template VIP supported formats are:
^VIP_VAR[:^PORT_VAR|:port]
where VIP_VAR and PORT_VAR are keys of the Chassis_Template_Var
variables records.
Note: The VIP and PORT cannot be combined into a single template
variable. For example, a Chassis_Template_Var variable expanding
to 10.0.0.1:8080 is not valid if used as VIP.
Load balancer template backend supported formats are:
^BACKEND_VAR1[:^PORT_VAR1|:port],^BACKEND_VAR2[:^PORT_VAR2|:port]
or
^BACKENDS_VAR1,^BACKENDS_VAR2
where BACKEND_VAR1, PORT_VAR1, BACKEND_VAR2, PORT_VAR2, BACK‐‐
ENDS_VAR1 and BACKENDS_VAR2 are keys of the Chassis_Template_Var
variables records.
In the above examples, square brackets are only used to indicate
choosing between the enclosed options. But when adding to Chas‐‐
sis_Template_Var variables backend IPv6 addresses must be en‐
closed in []. VIPs must not be enclosed in []. For example: lb‐‐
vip="3001::10",lbport=12010,lbback="[2001::1]",
ip6_back="[2001::1]:12010"
options : address-family: optional string
Address family used by the load balancer. Supported values are
ipv4 and ipv6. The address-family is only used for load bal‐
ancers with options:template=true. For explicit load balancers,
setting the address-family has no effect.
options : affinity_timeout: optional string
If the CMS provides a positive value (in seconds) for affin‐‐
ity_timeout, OVN will dnat connections received from the same
client to this lb to the same backend if received in the affin‐
ity timeslot. Max supported affinity_timeout is 65535 seconds.
options : ct_flush: optional string, either true or false
The value indicates whether ovn-controller should flush CT en‐
tries that are related to this LB. The flush happens if the LB
is removed, any of the backends is updated/removed or the LB is
not considered local anymore by the ovn-controller. This option
is set to false by default.
options : use_stateless_nat: optional string, either true or false
If the load balancer is configured with use_stateless_nat option
to true, the logical router that references this load balancer
will use Stateless NAT rules when the logical router has multi‐
ple distributed gateway ports(DGP). Otherwise, the outbound
traffic may be dropped in scenarios where we have different
chassis for each DGP. This option is set to false by default.
Load_Balancer_Group TABLE
Each row represents a logical grouping of load balancers. It is up to
the CMS to decide the criteria on which load balancers are grouped to‐
gether. To simplify configuration and to optimize its processing load
balancers that must be associated to the same set of logical switches
and/or logical routers should be grouped together.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
load_balancer set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
A name for the load balancer group. This name has no special
meaning or purpose other than to provide convenience for human
interaction with the ovn-nb database.
load_balancer: set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
A set of load balancers.
Load_Balancer_Health_Check TABLE
Each row represents one load balancer health check.
Summary:
vip string
Health check options:
options : interval optional string, containing an integer
options : timeout optional string, containing an integer
options : success_count optional string, containing an integer
options : failure_count optional string, containing an integer
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
vip: string
vip whose endpoints should be monitored for health check.
Health check options:
options : interval: optional string, containing an integer
The interval, in seconds, between health checks.
options : timeout: optional string, containing an integer
The time, in seconds, after which a health check times out.
options : success_count: optional string, containing an integer
The number of successful checks after which the endpoint is con‐
sidered online.
options : failure_count: optional string, containing an integer
The number of failure checks after which the endpoint is consid‐
ered offline.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
ACL TABLE
Each row in this table represents one ACL rule for a logical switch or
a port group that points to it through its acls column. The action col‐
umn for the highest-priority matching row in this table determines a
packet’s treatment. If no row matches, packets are allowed by default.
(Default-deny treatment is possible: add a rule with priority 0, 1 as
match, and deny as action.)
Summary:
label integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
direction string, either from-lport or to-lport
match string
action string, one of allow-related, al‐‐
low-stateless, allow, drop, pass, or re‐‐
ject
tier integer, in range 0 to 3
network_function_group optional Network_Function_Group
options:
options : apply-after-lb optional string
options : persist-established
optional string
Logging:
log boolean
name optional string, at most 63 characters
long
severity optional string, one of alert, debug,
info, notice, or warning
meter optional string
sample_new optional Sample
sample_est optional Sample
Common Columns:
options map of string-string pairs
ACL configuration options:
options : log-related optional string
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
label: integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
Associates an identifier with the ACL. The same value will be
written to corresponding connection tracker entry. The value
should be a valid 32-bit unsigned integer. This value can help
in debugging from connection tracker side. For example, through
this "label" we can backtrack to the ACL rule which is causing a
"leaked" connection. Connection tracker entries are created only
for allowed connections so the label is valid only for allow and
allow-related actions.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated
to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID
defined in the sample_new or sample_est configuration.
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
The ACL rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority
take precedence over those with lower. If two ACL rules with the
same priority both match, then the one actually applied to a
packet is undefined.
Return traffic from an allow-related flow is always allowed and
cannot be changed through an ACL.
allow-stateless flows always take precedence before stateful
ACLs, regardless of their priority. (Both allow and allow-re‐‐
lated ACLs can be stateful.)
direction: string, either from-lport or to-lport
Direction of the traffic to which this rule should apply:
• from-lport: Used to implement filters on traffic arriving
from a logical port. These rules are applied to the logi‐
cal switch’s ingress pipeline.
• to-lport: Used to implement filters on traffic forwarded
to a logical port. These rules are applied to the logical
switch’s egress pipeline.
match: string
The packets that the ACL should match, in the same expression
language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound data‐
base’s Logical_Flow table. The outport logical port is only
available in the to-lport direction (the inport is available in
both directions).
By default all traffic is allowed. When writing a more restric‐
tive policy, it is important to remember to allow flows such as
ARP and IPv6 neighbor discovery packets.
Note that you can not create an ACL matching on a port with
type=router or type=localnet.
action: string, one of allow-related, allow-stateless, allow, drop,
pass, or reject
The action to take when the ACL rule matches:
• allow-stateless: Always forward the packet in stateless
manner, omitting connection tracking mechanism, regard‐
less of other rules defined for the switch. May require
defining additional rules for inbound replies. For exam‐
ple, if you define a rule to allow outgoing TCP traffic
directed to an IP address, then you probably also want to
define another rule to allow incoming TCP traffic coming
from this same IP address. In addition, traffic that
matches stateless ACLs will bypass load-balancer DNAT/un-
DNAT processing. Stateful ACLs should be used instead if
the traffic is supposed to be load-balanced.
• allow: Forward the packet. It will also send the packets
through connection tracking when allow-related rules ex‐
ist on the logical switch. Otherwise, it’s equivalent to
allow-stateless.
• allow-related: Forward the packet and related traffic
(e.g. inbound replies to an outbound connection).
• drop: Silently drop the packet.
• reject: Drop the packet, replying with a RST for TCP or
ICMPv4/ICMPv6 unreachable message for other
IPv4/IPv6-based protocols.
• pass: Pass to the next ACL tier. If using multiple ACL
tiers, a match on this ACL will stop evaluating ACLs at
the current tier and move to the next one. If not using
ACL tiers or if a pass ACL is matched at the final tier,
then the options:default_acl_drop option from the
NB_Global table is used to determine how to proceed.
tier: integer, in range 0 to 3
The hierarchical tier that this ACL belongs to.
ACLs can be assigned to numerical tiers. When evaluating ACLs,
an internal counter is used to determine which tier of ACLs
should be evaluated. Tier 0 ACLs are evaluated first. If no ver‐
dict can be determined, then tier 1 ACLs are evaluated next.
This continues until the maximum tier value is reached. If all
tiers of ACLs are evaluated and no verdict is reached, then the
options:default_acl_drop option from table NB_Global is used to
determine how to proceed.
In this version of OVN, the maximum tier value for ACLs is 3,
meaning there are 4 tiers of ACLs allowed (0-3).
network_function_group: optional Network_Function_Group
Group of network functions to which the traffic matching this
ACL is redirected.
options:
ACLs options.
options : apply-after-lb: optional string
If set to true, the ACL will be applied after load balancing
stage. Supported only for from-lport direction.
The main use case of this option is to support ACLs matching on
the destination IP address of the packet for the backend IPs of
load balancers.
OVN will apply the from-lport ACLs in two stages. ACLs without
this option apply-after-lb set, will be applied before the load
balancer stage and ACLs with this option set will be applied af‐
ter the load balancer stage. The priorities are indepedent be‐
tween these stages and may not be obvious to the CMS. Hence CMS
should be extra careful when using this option and should care‐
fully evaluate the priorities of all the ACLs and the default
deny/allow ACLs if any.
options : persist-established: optional string
This option applies only to ACLs whose action is set to al‐‐
low-related.
allow-related ACLs create a conntrack entry when a packet
matches the ACL’s match column. Typically, traffic must continue
to match these conditions in order to continue to be allowed by
the ACL. With this option set to true, then the ACL match is by‐
passed once the original match occurs. Instead, a mark bit in
the conntrack entry is used to allow the traffic. This means
that traffic will continue to be allowed even if the ACL’s match
changes and no longer matches the established traffic.
The traffic will stop being allowed automatically if this option
is set to false, if the ACL’s action is changed to something
other than allow-related, or if the ACL is destroyed.
Logging:
These columns control whether and how OVN logs packets that match an
ACL.
log: boolean
If set to true, packets that match the ACL will trigger a log
message on the transport node or nodes that perform ACL process‐
ing. Logging may be combined with any action.
If set to false, the remaining columns in this group have no
significance.
name: optional string, at most 63 characters long
This name, if it is provided, is included in log records. It
provides the administrator and the cloud management system a way
to associate a log record with a particular ACL.
severity: optional string, one of alert, debug, info, notice, or warn‐‐
ing
The severity of the ACL. The severity levels match those of sys‐
log, in decreasing level of severity: alert, warning, notice,
info, or debug. When the column is empty, the default is info.
meter: optional string
The name of a meter to rate-limit log messages for the ACL. The
string must match the name column of a row in the Meter table.
By default, log messages are not rate-limited. In order to en‐
sure that the same Meter rate limits multiple ACL logs sepa‐
rately, set the fair column.
sample_new: optional Sample
The entry in the Sample table to use for sampling for new ses‐
sions matched by this ACL. In case the ACL is stateless this is
used for sampling all traffic matched by the ACL.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated
to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID
defined in the sample_new configuration.
sample_est: optional Sample
The entry in the Sample table to use for sampling for estab‐
lished/related sessions matched by this ACL.
Note: if an ACL has both sampling enabled and a label associated
to it then the label value overrides the observation point ID
defined in the sample_est configuration.
Common Columns:
options: map of string-string pairs
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported
options are described individually below.
ACL configuration options:
options : log-related: optional string
If set to true, then log when reply or related traffic is admit‐
ted from a stateful ACL. In order for this option to function,
the log option must be set to true and a label must be set, and
it must be unique to the ACL. The label is necessary as it is
the only means to associate the reply traffic with the ACL to
which it belongs. It must be unique, because otherwise it is am‐
biguous which ACL will be matched. Note: If this option is en‐
abled, an extra flow is installed in order to log the related
traffic. Therefore, if this is enabled on all ACLs, then the to‐
tal number of flows necessary to log the ACL traffic is doubled,
compared to if this option is not enabled.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Logical_Router TABLE
Each row represents one L3 logical router.
Summary:
ports set of Logical_Router_Ports
static_routes set of Logical_Router_Static_Routes
policies set of Logical_Router_Policys
enabled optional boolean
nat set of NATs
load_balancer set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
load_balancer_group set of Load_Balancer_Groups
Naming:
name string
external_ids : neutron:router_name
optional string
copp optional weak reference to Copp
Options:
options : chassis optional string
options : dnat_force_snat_ip
optional string
options : lb_force_snat_ip optional string
options : mcast_relay optional string, either true or false
options : dynamic_neigh_routers
optional string, either true or false
options : always_learn_from_arp_request
optional string, either true or false
options : requested-tnl-key
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 16,777,215
options : snat-ct-zone optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 65,535
options : mac_binding_age_threshold
optional string
options : ct-zone-limit optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
options : dynamic-routing optional string, either true or false
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute
optional string
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute-local-only
optional string, either true or false
options : dynamic-routing-vrf-name
optional string
options : dynamic-routing-vrf-id
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
options : ct-commit-all optional string, either true or false
options : ic-route-filter-adv
optional string
options : ic-route-filter-learn
optional string
options : ic-route-deny-adv
optional string
options : ic-route-deny-learn
optional string
options : disable_garp_rarp
optional string, either true or false
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Transit router:
Details:
ports: set of Logical_Router_Ports
The router’s ports.
static_routes: set of Logical_Router_Static_Routes
Zero or more static routes for the router.
policies: set of Logical_Router_Policys
Zero or more routing policies for the router.
enabled: optional boolean
This column is used to administratively set router state. If
this column is empty or is set to true, the router is enabled.
If this column is set to false, the router is disabled. A dis‐
abled router has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.
nat: set of NATs
One or more NAT rules for the router. NAT rules only work on
Gateway routers, and on distributed routers with one and only
one distributed gateway port.
load_balancer: set of weak reference to Load_Balancers
Set of load balancers associated to this logical router. Load
balancer rules only work without limitations on the Gateway
routers or routers with one and only one distributed gateway
port (DGP). Load balancers will only work in scenarios that use
more than one DGP when the multiple DGPs are associated with the
same gateway chassis, this way this chassis can apply/maintain
the conntrack state without problems. To use a load balancer in
scenarios with DGPs associated with different gateway chassis
(e.g. ECMP routes), consider using the use_stateless_nat option
to true in the load balancer options column.
load_balancer_group: set of Load_Balancer_Groups
Set of load balancers groups associated to this logical router.
Naming:
These columns provide names for the logical router. From OVN’s perspec‐
tive, these names have no special meaning or purpose other than to pro‐
vide convenience for human interaction with the northbound database.
There is no requirement for the name to be unique. (For a unique iden‐
tifier for a logical router, use its row UUID.)
(Originally, name was intended to serve the purpose of a human-friendly
name, but the Neutron integration used it to uniquely identify its own
router object, in the format neutron-uuid. Later on, Neutron started
propagating the friendly name of a router as external_ids:neu‐‐
tron:router_name. Perhaps this can be cleaned up someday.)
name: string
A name for the logical router.
external_ids : neutron:router_name: optional string
Another name for the logical router.
copp: optional weak reference to Copp
The control plane protection policy from table Copp used for me‐
tering packets sent to ovn-controller from logical ports of this
router.
Options:
Additional options for the logical router.
options : chassis: optional string
If set, indicates that the logical router in question is a Gate‐
way router (which is centralized) and resides in the set chas‐
sis. The same value is also used by ovn-controller to uniquely
identify the chassis in the OVN deployment and comes from exter‐‐
nal_ids:system-id in the Open_vSwitch table of Open_vSwitch
database.
The Gateway router can only be connected to a distributed router
via a switch if SNAT and DNAT are to be configured in the Gate‐
way router.
options : dnat_force_snat_ip: optional string
If set, indicates a set of IP addresses to use to force SNAT a
packet that has already been DNATed in the gateway router. When
multiple gateway routers are configured, a packet can poten‐
tially enter any of the gateway router, get DNATted and eventu‐
ally reach the logical switch port. For the return traffic to go
back to the same gateway router (for unDNATing), the packet
needs a SNAT in the first place. This can be achieved by setting
the above option with a gateway specific set of IP addresses.
This option may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on
it, separated by a a space.
options : lb_force_snat_ip: optional string
If set, this option can take two possible type of values. Either
a set of IP addresses or the string value - router_ip.
If a set of IP addresses are configured, it indicates to use to
force SNAT a packet that has already been load-balanced in the
gateway router. When multiple gateway routers are configured, a
packet can potentially enter any of the gateway routers, get
DNATted as part of the load-balancing and eventually reach the
logical switch port. For the return traffic to go back to the
same gateway router (for unDNATing), the packet needs a SNAT in
the first place. This can be achieved by setting the above op‐
tion with a gateway specific set of IP addresses. This option
may have exactly one IPv4 and/or one IPv6 address on it, sepa‐
rated by a space character.
If it is configured with the value router_ip, then the load bal‐
anced packet is SNATed with the IP of router port (attached to
the gateway router) selected as the destination after taking the
routing decision.
options : mcast_relay: optional string, either true or false
Enables/disables IP multicast relay between logical switches
connected to the logical router. Default: False.
options : dynamic_neigh_routers: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, the router will resolve neighbor routers’ MAC
addresses only by dynamic ARP/ND, instead of prepopulating sta‐
tic mappings for all neighbor routers in the ARP/ND Resolution
stage. This reduces number of flows, but requires ARP/ND mes‐
sages to resolve the IP-MAC bindings when needed. It is false by
default. It is recommended to set to true when a large number of
logical routers are connected to the same logical switch but
most of them never need to send traffic between each other. By
default, ovn-northd does not create mappings to NAT and load
balancer addresess. However, for NAT and load balancer addresses
that have the add_route option added, ovn-northd will create
logical flows that map NAT and load balancer IP addresses to the
appropriate MAC address. Setting dynamic_neigh_routers to true
will prevent the automatic creation of these logical flows.
options : always_learn_from_arp_request: optional string, either true
or false
This option controls the behavior when handling IPv4 ARP re‐
quests or IPv6 ND-NS packets - whether a dynamic neighbor (MAC
binding) entry is added/updated.
true - Always learn the MAC-IP binding, and add/update the MAC
binding entry.
false - If there is a MAC binding for that IP and the MAC is
different, or, if TPA of ARP request belongs to any router port
on this router, then update/add that MAC-IP binding. Otherwise,
don’t update/add entries.
It is true by default. It is recommended to set to false when a
large number of logical routers are connected to the same logi‐
cal switch but most of them never need to send traffic between
each other, to reduce the size of the MAC binding table.
options : requested-tnl-key: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 1 to 16,777,215
Configures the datapath tunnel key for the logical router. This
is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key for
each datapath by itself. However, if it is configured,
ovn-northd honors the configured value.
options : snat-ct-zone: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 65,535
Use the requested conntrack zone for SNAT with this router. This
can be useful if egress traffic from the host running OVN comes
from both OVN and other sources. This way, OVN and the other
sources can make use of the same conntrack zone.
options : mac_binding_age_threshold: optional string
Specifies the MAC binding aging thresholds based on CIDRs, with
the format: entry[;entry[...]], where each entry has the format:
[cidr:]threshold
• cidr: Can be either an IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR.
• threshold: Threshold value in seconds. MAC bindings with
IP addresses matching the specified CIDR that exceed this
timeout will be automatically removed.
If an entry is provided without an CIDR (just the threshold
value), it specifies the default threshold for MAC bindings that
don’t match any of the given CIDRs. If there are multiple de‐
fault threshold entries in the option, the behavior is unde‐
fined.
If there are multiple CIDRs matching a MAC binding IP, the one
with the longest prefix length takes effect. If there are multi‐
ple entries with the same CIDR in the option, the behavior is
undefined.
If no matching CIDR is found for a MAC binding IP, and no de‐
fault threshold is specified, the behavior defaults to the orig‐
inal: the binding will not be removed based on age.
The value can also default to an empty string, which means that
the aging threshold is disabled. Any string not in the above
format is regarded as invalid and the aging is disabled.
Example: 192.168.0.0/16:300;192.168.10.0/24:0;fe80::/10:600;1200
This sets a threshold of 300 seconds for MAC bindings with IP
addresses in the 192.168.0.0/16 range, excluding the
192.168.1.0/24 range (for which the aging is disabled), a
threshold of 600 seconds for MAC bindings with IP addresses in
the fe80::/10 IPv6 range, and a default threshold of 1200 sec‐
onds for all other MAC bindings.
options : ct-zone-limit: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 4,294,967,295
CT zone limit value for given Logical_Router. The value 0 means
unlimited. When the option is not present the limit is not set
and the zone limit is derived from OvS default datapath limit.
options : dynamic-routing: optional string, either true or false
If set to true then this Logical_Router can participate in dy‐
namic routing with components outside of OVN. It will synchro‐
nize all routes to the soutbound Advertised_Route table that are
relevant for the router. This includes:
• all "connected" routes implicitly created by networks as‐
sociated with this Logical Router
• all Logical_Router_Static_Route that are applied to this
Logical Router
Users will need to use the following settings to opt into individual
route types that should be advertised. See:
• options:dynamic-routing-redistribute on Logical_Router
• options:dynamic-routing-redistribute on Logi‐
cal_Router_Port
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute: optional string
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing is set to true.
This is a list of elements separated by ,.
If connected is in the list then northd will synchronize all
"connected" routes to the southbound Advertised_Route table.
"Connected" here means routes implicitly created by networks as‐
sociated with the LRPs.
If connected-as-host is in the list then northd will enumerate
all actively used individual IPs of a "connected" route and an‐
nounce these IPs as host routes instead of announcing the sub‐
net. This includes LSP and LRP addresses on the network as well
as NAT entries of remove Logical_Routers on this network. Set‐
ting this implies the setting connected. This setting can be
used to:
• allow the fabric outside of OVN to drop traffic towards
IP addresses that are not actually used. This traffic
would otherwise hit this LR and then be dropped.
• If this LR has multiple LRPs connected to the fabric on
different chassis: allows the fabric outside of OVN to
steer packets to the chassis which already hosts this
backing ip address.
If static is in the list then northd will synchronize all Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Static_Route to the southbound Advertised_Route ta‐
ble.
If lb is in the list then northd will create entries in Adver‐‐
tised_Route table for each Load Balancer VIP on this router and
it’s neighboring routers. Neighboring routers are those that are
either directly connected, via Logical Router Port, or those
that are connected via shared Logical Switch.
If nat is in the list then northd will create entries in Adver‐‐
tised_Route table for each NAT’s external IP on this router and
it’s neighboring routers. Neighboring routers are those that are
either directly connected, via Logical Router Port, or those
that are connected via shared Logical Switch.
This value can be overwritten on a per LRP basis using op‐‐
tions:dynamic-routing-redistribute on the Logical_Router_Port.
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute-local-only: optional string, ei‐
ther true or false
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing is set to true.
This controls whether ovn-controller will advertise Adver‐‐
tised_Route records only on the chassis where their tracked_port
is bound. Default: false.
options : dynamic-routing-vrf-name: optional string
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing is set to true.
This defines the name of the vrf the ovn-controller will use to
advertise and learn routes. If not set the vrf will be named
"ovnvrf" with the options:dynamic-routing-vrf-id or datapath id
of the Logical Router appended to it.
The vrf name must be a valid linux interface name. If it is too
long the generated name will be used instead.
The vrf table id is not affected by this setting. For details
see options:dynamic-routing-maintain-vrf on the Logical_Router.
options : dynamic-routing-vrf-id: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing is set to true.
This defines the vrf table id used by the specified vrf. When
not set or set to invalid value datapath id of the Logical
Router will be used instead.
This can also affect the vrf name. For details see options:dy‐‐
namic-routing-vrf-name on the Logical_Router.
options : ct-commit-all: optional string, either true or false
When enabled the LR will commit traffic in a zone that is state‐
ful. The traffic is not commited to both zones but it is selec‐
tive based whether there is stateful DNAT/SNAT or both. The com‐
mit all will prevent issues with ct.inv packets as it will pre‐
vent the commit of reply traffic, which could happen in some
cases. This also helps with HWOL as there shouldn’t be any match
on ct.new for established sessions as we will commit everything
in addition to already existing stateful NATs and LBs.
options : ic-route-filter-adv: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router. A route will be advertised if the
route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This allows
to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of advertising routes in
ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-filter-learn: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router. A route will be learned if the
route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This allows
to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of learning routes in
ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-deny-adv: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router. A route will not be advertised if
the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This al‐
lows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of advertising
routes in ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-deny-learn: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router. A route will not be learned if
the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This al‐
lows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of learning routes
in ovn-ic daemon.
options : disable_garp_rarp: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, GARP and RARP announcements are not sent by all
the VIF peer ports of this logical router. The default value is
false.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Transit router:
In order to achieve status of Transit Router for Logical_Router there
needs to be at least one Logical_Router_Port that is considered remote.
The LRP can be remote only if it has options:requested-chassis set to
chassis that is considered remote. See Logical_Router_Port for more de‐
tails.
In order for the Transit Router to work properly all the tunnel keys
for the Transit Router itself and its router ports need to match in all
AZs e.g. TR in AZ1 and AZ2 need to have the same tunnel key. Remote
ports for AZ2 in AZ1 need to have the same tunnel key as local ports in
AZ2 and vice versa. It’s also possible that the router has non-transit
ports, without options:requested-chassis set; their keys also need to
match in all AZs.
The Transit Router behaves as distributed router which means that it
has the same limitations for stateful flows like NAT and LBs and it
will lose the CT state between AZs.
QoS TABLE
Each row in this table represents one QoS rule for a logical switch
that points to it through its qos_rules column. Two types of QoS are
supported: DSCP marking and metering. A match with the highest-priority
will have QoS applied to it. If the action column is specified, then
matching packets will have DSCP marking applied. If the bandwidth col‐
umn is specified, then matching packets will have metering applied. ac‐‐
tion and bandwidth are not exclusive, so both marking and metering by
defined for the same QoS entry. If no row matches, packets will not
have any QoS applied.
Summary:
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
direction string, either from-lport or to-lport
match string
action map of string-integer pairs, key either
dscp or mark, value in range 0 to
4,294,967,295
bandwidth map of string-integer pairs, key either
burst or rate, value in range 1 to
4,294,967,295
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
The QoS rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority
take precedence over those with lower. If two QoS rules with the
same priority both match, then the one actually applied to a
packet is undefined.
direction: string, either from-lport or to-lport
The value of this field is similar to ACL column in the OVN
Northbound database’s ACL table.
match: string
The packets that the QoS rules should match, in the same expres‐
sion language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound
database’s Logical_Flow table. The outport logical port is only
available in the to-lport direction (the inport is available in
both directions).
action: map of string-integer pairs, key either dscp or mark, value in
range 0 to 4,294,967,295
When dscp action is specified, matching flows will have have
DSCP marking applied. When mark action is specified, matching
flows will have packet marking applied.
• dscp: The value of this action should be in the range of
0 to 63 (inclusive).
• mark: The value of this action should be a positive inte‐
ger.
bandwidth: map of string-integer pairs, key either burst or rate, value
in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
When specified, matching packets will have bandwidth metering
applied. Traffic over the limit will be dropped.
• rate: The value of rate limit in kbps.
• burst: The value of burst rate limit in kilobits. This is
optional and needs to specify the rate.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Mirror TABLE
Each row in this table represents a mirror that can be used for port
mirroring. These mirrors are referenced by the mirror_rules column in
the Logical_Switch_Port table.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
filter string, one of both, from-lport, or
to-lport
sink string
type string, one of erspan, gre, local, or
lport
index integer
mirror_rules set of Mirror_Rules
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Represents the name of the mirror.
filter: string, one of both, from-lport, or to-lport
The value of this field represents selection criteria of the
mirror. to-lport mirrors the packets coming into logical port.
from-lport mirrors the packets going out of logical port. both
mirrors for both directions.
sink: string
The value of this field represents the destination/sink of the
mirror. If the type is gre or erspan, the value indicates the
tunnel remote IP (either IPv4 or IPv6). For a type of local,
this field defines a local interface on the OVS integration
bridge to be used as the mirror destination. The interface must
possess external-ids:mirror-id that matches this string.
type: string, one of erspan, gre, local, or lport
The value of this field specifies the mirror type - gre, erspan,
local or lport.
index: integer
The value of this field represents the tunnel ID. If the config‐
ured tunnel type is gre, this field represents the GRE key value
and if the configured tunnel type is erspan it represents the
erspan_idx value. It is ignored if the type is local.
mirror_rules: set of Mirror_Rules
The value of this field represents the mirror rule for filtering
mirror traffic.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Mirror_Rule TABLE
Each row in this table represents a mirror rule that can be used for
filtering of lport mirrored traffic.
Summary:
match string
action string, either mirror or skip
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
Details:
match: string
The match expression, describing which packets should be exe‐
cuted against Mirror Rule action. The Logical_Flow expression
language is used.
action: string, either mirror or skip
The action to take when the Mirror Rule matches:
• mirror: Mirror the matched packet.
• skip: Do not mirror matched packet.
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
The Mirror Rule priority. Rule with higher priority takes prece‐
dence over those with lower. A rule is uniquely identified by
the priority and match string.
Meter TABLE
Each row in this table represents a meter that can be used for QoS or
rate-limiting.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
unit string, either kbps or pktps
bands set of 1 or more Meter_Bands
fair optional boolean
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
A name for this meter.
Names that begin with "__" (two underscores) are reserved for
OVN internal use and should not be added manually.
unit: string, either kbps or pktps
The unit for rate and burst_rate parameters in the bands entry.
kbps specifies kilobits per second, and pktps specifies packets
per second.
bands: set of 1 or more Meter_Bands
The bands associated with this meter. Each band specifies a rate
above which the band is to take the action action. If multiple
bands’ rates are exceeded, then the band with the highest rate
among the exceeded bands is selected.
fair: optional boolean
This column is used to further describe the desired behavior of
the meter when there are multiple references to it. If this col‐
umn is empty or is set to false, the rate will be shared across
all rows that refer to the same Meter name. Conversely, when
this column is set to true, each user of the same Meter will be
rate-limited on its own.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Meter_Band TABLE
Each row in this table represents a meter band which specifies the rate
above which the configured action should be applied. These bands are
referenced by the bands column in the Meter table.
Summary:
action string, must be drop
rate integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
burst_size integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
action: string, must be drop
The action to execute when this band matches. The only supported
action is drop.
rate: integer, in range 1 to 4,294,967,295
The rate limit for this band, in kilobits per second or bits per
second, depending on whether the parent Meter entry’s unit col‐
umn specified kbps or pktps.
burst_size: integer, in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
The maximum burst allowed for the band in kilobits or packets,
depending on whether kbps or pktps was selected in the parent
Meter entry’s unit column. If the size is zero, the switch is
free to select some reasonable value depending on its configura‐
tion.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Logical_Router_Port TABLE
A port within an L3 logical router.
Exactly one Logical_Router row must reference a given logical router
port.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
networks set of strings
mac string
enabled optional boolean
dhcp_relay optional DHCP_Relay
Distributed Gateway Ports:
ha_chassis_group optional HA_Chassis_Group
gateway_chassis set of Gateway_Chassises
Options for Physical VLAN MTU Issues:
options : reside-on-redirect-chassis
optional string, either true or false
options : redirect-type optional string, either bridged or over‐‐
lay
ipv6_prefix set of strings
ipv6_ra_configs:
ipv6_ra_configs : address_mode
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : router_preference
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : route_info
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : mtu optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : send_periodic
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : max_interval
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : min_interval
optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : rdnss optional string
ipv6_ra_configs : dnssl optional string
Options:
options : mcast_flood optional string, either true or false
options : requested-tnl-key
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 1 to 32,767
options : prefix_delegation
optional string, either true or false
options : prefix optional string, either true or false
options : route_table optional string
options : gateway_mtu optional string, containing an integer,
in range 68 to 65,535
options : routing-protocol-redirect
optional string
options : routing-protocols
optional string
options : gateway_mtu_bypass
optional string
options : ic-route-tag optional string
options : ic-route-filter-tag
optional string
options : requested-chassis
optional string
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute
optional string
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute-local-only
optional string, either true or false
options : dynamic-routing-maintain-vrf
optional string, either true or false
options : dynamic-routing-port-name
optional string
options : ic-route-filter-adv
optional string
options : ic-route-filter-learn
optional string
options : ic-route-deny-adv
optional string
options : ic-route-deny-learn
optional string
Attachment:
peer optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Status:
status : hosting-chassis optional string
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
A name for the logical router port.
In addition to provide convenience for human interaction with
the northbound database, this column is used as reference by its
patch port in Logical_Switch_Port or another logical router port
in Logical_Router_Port.
A logical router port may not have the same name as a logical
switch port, but the database schema cannot enforce this.
networks: set of strings
The IP addresses and netmasks of the router. For example,
192.168.0.1/24 indicates that the router’s IP address is
192.168.0.1 and that packets destined to 192.168.0.x should be
routed to this port. These are optional.
A logical router port always adds a link-local IPv6 address
(fe80::/64) automatically generated from the interface’s MAC ad‐
dress using the modified EUI-64 format.
mac: string
The Ethernet address that belongs to this router port.
enabled: optional boolean
This column is used to administratively set port state. If this
column is empty or is set to true, the port is enabled. If this
column is set to false, the port is disabled. A disabled port
has all ingress and egress traffic dropped.
dhcp_relay: optional DHCP_Relay
This column is used to enabled DHCP Relay. Please refer to
DHCP_Relay table.
Distributed Gateway Ports:
Gateways, as documented under Gateways in the OVN architecture guide,
provide limited connectivity between logical networks and physical
ones. OVN support multiple kinds of gateways. The Logical_Router_Port
table can be used two different ways to configure distributed gateway
ports, which are one kind of gateway. These two forms of configuration
exist for historical reasons. Both of them produce the same kind of OVN
southbound records and the same behavior in practice.
If either of these are set, this logical router port represents a dis‐
tributed gateway port that connects this router to a logical switch
with a localnet port or a connection to another OVN deployment.
Also mentioned in the OVN architecture guide, distributed gateway ports
can also be used for scalability reasons in deployments where logical
switches are dedicated to chassises rather than distributed.
The preferred way to configure a gateway is ha_chassis_group, but gate‐‐
way_chassis is also supported for backward compatibility. Only one of
these should be set at a time on a given LRP, since they configure the
same features.
Even when a gateway is configured, the logical router port still effec‐
tively resides on each chassis. However, due to the implications of the
use of L2 learning in the physical network, as well as the need to sup‐
port advanced features such as one-to-many NAT (aka IP masquerading), a
subset of the logical router processing is handled in a centralized
manner on the gateway chassis.
There can be more than one distributed gateway ports configured on each
logical router, each connecting to different L2 segments. Load-balanc‐
ing is not yet supported on logical routers with more than one distrib‐
uted gateway ports.
For each distributed gateway port, it may have more than one gateway
chassises. When more than one gateway chassis is specified, OVN only
uses one at a time. OVN can rely on OVS BFD implementation to monitor
gateway connectivity, preferring the highest-priority gateway that is
online. Priorities are specified in the priority column of Gate‐‐
way_Chassis or HA_Chassis.
ovn-northd programs the external_mac rules specified in the LRP’s LR
into the peer logical switch’s destination lookup on the chassis where
the logical_port resides. In addition, the logical router’s MAC address
is automatically programmed in the peer logical switch’s destination
lookup flow on the gateway chasssis. If it is desired to generate gra‐
tuitous ARPs for NAT addresses, then set the peer LSP’s options:nat-ad‐‐
dresses to router.
OVN 20.03 and earlier supported a third way to configure distributed
gateway ports using options:redirect-chassis to specify the gateway
chassis. This method is no longer supported. Any remaining users should
switch to one of the newer methods instead. A gateway_chassis may be
easily configured from the command line, e.g. ovn-nbctl lrp-set-gate‐‐
way-chassis lrp chassis.
ha_chassis_group: optional HA_Chassis_Group
Designates an HA_Chassis_Group to provide gateway high avail‐
ability.
gateway_chassis: set of Gateway_Chassises
Designates one or more Gateway_Chassis for the logical router
port.
Options for Physical VLAN MTU Issues:
MTU issues arise in mixing tunnels with logical networks that are
bridged to a physical VLAN. For an explanation of the MTU issues, see
Physical VLAN MTU Issues in the OVN architecture document. The follow‐
ing options, which are alternatives, provide solutions. Both of them
cause packets to be sent over localnet instead of tunnels, but they
differ in whether some or all packets are sent this way. The most
prominent tradeoff between these options is that reside-on-redi‐‐
rect-chassis is easier to configure and that redirect-type performs
better for east-west traffic.
options : reside-on-redirect-chassis: optional string, either true or
false
If set to true, this option forces all traffic across the logi‐
cal router port to pass through the gateway chassis using a hop
across a localnet port. This changes behavior in two ways:
• Without this option, east-west traffic passes directly
between source and destination chassis (or even within a
single chassis, for co-located VMs). With this option,
all east-west traffic passes through the gateway chassis.
• Without this option, traffic between the gateway chassis
and other chassis is encapsulated in tunnels. With this
option, traffic passes over a localnet interface.
This option may usefully be set only on logical router ports
that connect a distributed logical router to a logical switch
with VIFs. It should not be set on a distributed gateway port.
OVN honors this option only if the logical router has one and
only one distributed gateway port and if the LRP’s peer switch
has a localnet port.
options : redirect-type: optional string, either bridged or overlay
If set to bridged on a distributed gateway port, this option
causes OVN to redirect packets to the gateway chassis over a lo‐‐
calnet port instead of a tunnel. The relevant chassis must share
a localnet port.
This feature requires the administrator or the CMS to configure
each participating chassis with a unique Ethernet address for
the logical router by setting ovn-chassis-mac-mappings in the
Open vSwitch database, for use by ovn-controller.
Setting this option to overlay or leaving it unset has no ef‐
fect. This option may usefully be set only on a distributed
gateway port when there is one and only one distributed gateway
port on the logical router. It is otherwise ignored.
ipv6_prefix: set of strings
This column contains IPv6 prefix obtained by prefix delegation
router according to RFC 3633
ipv6_ra_configs:
This column defines the IPv6 ND RA address mode and ND MTU Option to be
included by ovn-controller when it replies to the IPv6 Router solicita‐
tion requests.
ipv6_ra_configs : address_mode: optional string
The address mode to be used for IPv6 address configuration. The
supported values are:
• slaac: Address configuration using Router Advertisement
(RA) packet. The IPv6 prefixes defined in the Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Port table’s networks column will be included
in the RA’s ICMPv6 option - Prefix information.
• dhcpv6_stateful: Address configuration using DHCPv6.
• dhcpv6_stateless: Address configuration using Router Ad‐
vertisement (RA) packet. Other IPv6 options are provided
by DHCPv6.
ipv6_ra_configs : router_preference: optional string
Default Router Preference (PRF) indicates whether to prefer this
router over other default routers (RFC 4191). Possible values
are:
• HIGH: mapped to 0x01 in RA PRF field
• MEDIUM: mapped to 0x00 in RA PRF field
• LOW: mapped to 0x11 in RA PRF field
ipv6_ra_configs : route_info: optional string
Route Info is used to configure Route Info Option sent in Router
Advertisement according to RFC 4191. Route Info is a comma sepa‐
rated string where each field provides PRF and prefix for a
given route (e.g: HIGH-aef1::11/48,LOW-aef2::11/96) Possible PRF
values are:
• HIGH: mapped to 0x01 in RA PRF field
• MEDIUM: mapped to 0x00 in RA PRF field
• LOW: mapped to 0x11 in RA PRF field
ipv6_ra_configs : mtu: optional string
The recommended MTU for the link. Default is 0, which means no
MTU Option will be included in RA packet replied by ovn-con‐
troller. Per RFC 2460, the mtu value is recommended no less than
1280, so any mtu value less than 1280 will be considered as no
MTU Option.
ipv6_ra_configs : send_periodic: optional string
If set to true, then this router interface will send router ad‐
vertisements periodically. This option has no effect if
ipv6_ra_configs:address_mode is not set. The default is false.
ipv6_ra_configs : max_interval: optional string
The maximum number of seconds to wait between sending periodic
router advertisements. This option has no effect if ipv6_ra_con‐‐
figs:send_periodic is false. The default is 600.
ipv6_ra_configs : min_interval: optional string
The minimum number of seconds to wait between sending periodic
router advertisements. This option has no effect if ipv6_ra_con‐‐
figs:send_periodic is false. The default is one-third of
ipv6_ra_configs:max_interval, i.e. 200 seconds if that key is
unset.
ipv6_ra_configs : rdnss: optional string
IPv6 address of RDNSS server announced in RA packets. At the mo‐
ment OVN supports just one RDNSS server.
ipv6_ra_configs : dnssl: optional string
DNS Search List announced in RA packets. Multiple DNS Search
List must be ’comma’ separated (e.g. "a.b.c, d.e.f")
Options:
Additional options for the logical router port.
options : mcast_flood: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, multicast traffic (including reports) are uncon‐
ditionally forwarded to the specific port.
This option applies when the port is part of a logical router
which has options:mcast_relay set to true.
Default: false.
options : requested-tnl-key: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 1 to 32,767
Configures the port binding tunnel key for the port. Usually
this is not needed because ovn-northd will assign an unique key
for each port by itself. However, if it is configured,
ovn-northd honors the configured value.
options : prefix_delegation: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, enable IPv6 prefix delegation state machine on
this logical router port (RFC3633). IPv6 prefix delegation is
available just on a gateway router or on a gateway router port.
options : prefix: optional string, either true or false
If set to true, this interface will receive an IPv6 prefix ac‐
cording to RFC3663
options : route_table: optional string
Designates lookup for Logical_Router_Static_Routes with the
specified route_table value. See detailed explanation for routes
lookup behavior in Logical_Router_Static_Route:route_table field
description.
options : gateway_mtu: optional string, containing an integer, in range
68 to 65,535
If set, logical flows will be added to router pipeline to check
packet length. If packet length is greater than the value set,
ICMPv4 type 3 (Destination Unreachable) code 4 (Fragmentation
Needed and Don’t Fragment was Set) or ICMPv6 type 2 (Packet Too
Big) code 0 (no route to destination) packets will be generated.
This allows for Path MTU Discovery.
options : routing-protocol-redirect: optional string
This option expects a name of a Logical Switch Port that’s
present in the peer’s Logical Switch. If set, it causes any
traffic that’s destined for Logical Router Port’s IP addresses
(including its IPv6 LLA) and the ports associated with routing
protocols defined ip routing-protocols option, to be redirected
to the specified Logical Switch Port. This allows external rout‐
ing daemons to be bound to a port in OVN’s Logical Switch and
act as if they were listening on Logical Router Port’s IP ad‐
dresses.
options : routing-protocols: optional string
This option expects a comma-separated list of routing, and rout‐
ing-related protocols, whose control plane traffic will be redi‐
rected to a port specified in routing-protocol-redirect option.
Currently supported options are:
• BGP (forwards TCP port 179)
• BFD (forwards UDP port 3784)
Note that for BGP to work in "unnumbered mode" (advertising IPv4
routes over IPv6 network, with automatic on-link peer discov‐
ery), Logical Router Port needs to enable sending of periodic
IPv6 Router Announcements (see the ipv6_ra_configs:send_peri‐‐
odic). Recommended minimal configuration of periodic RAs for BGP
unnumbered:
• ipv6_ra_configs:address_mode = slaac (Any valid value is
OK, but the option needs to be set)
• ipv6_ra_configs:send_periodic = true
• ipv6_ra_configs:max_interval = 10
• ipv6_ra_configs:min_interval = 5
Feel free to adjust max and min interval values, but be aware that they
influence speed at which the initial BGP session is established. With
the above values, the session will be established in 5 to 10 seconds.
Please refer to RFC 8950 for more details about advertising IPv4 net‐
works over IPv6 next-hop addresses.
options : gateway_mtu_bypass: optional string
When configured, represents a match expression, in the same ex‐
pression language used for the match column in the OVN South‐
bound database’s Logical_Flow table. Packets matching this ex‐
pression will bypass the length check configured through the op‐‐
tions:gateway_mtu option.
options : ic-route-tag: optional string
This option expects a name of a route-tag that’s present in the
Logical Router Port. If set, it causes any route advertised by
the Logical Router Port to include the route-tag in the exter‐‐
nal_ids register of the advertised route entry in the Route ta‐
ble of the OVN_IC_Southbound database. This allows to tag and
filter route tags in the process of advertising and learning
routes in ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-filter-tag: optional string
This option expects a name of a filtered route-tag that’s
present in the Logical Router Port. If set, it causes any route
learned by the Logical Router Port with the route-tag present in
the external_ids register of the advertised route entry in the
Route table of the OVN_IC_Southbound database, will be filtered
and not learned by the ovn-ic daemon.
options : requested-chassis: optional string
If set, identifies a specific chassis (by name or hostname) that
is allowed to bind this port. This option is valid only for
chassis that have options:is-remote=true, in other words for
chassis that are in different Availability zone. The option ac‐
cepts only single value.
By assigning remote chassis the Logical_Router gains status of
Transit Router see Logical_Router table for more details.
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute: optional string
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing on the respective Logi‐
cal_Router is set to true.
This is a list of elements separated by ,.
If connected is in the list then northd will synchronize all
"connected" routes to the southbound Advertised_Route table.
"Connected" here means routes implicitly created by networks as‐
sociated with the LRPs.
If connected-as-host is in the list then northd will enumerate
all actively used individual IPs of a "connected" route and an‐
nounce these IPs as host routes instead of announcing the sub‐
net. This includes LSP and LRP addresses on the network as well
as NAT entries of remove Logical_Routers on this network. Set‐
ting this implies the setting connected. This setting can be
used to:
• allow the fabric outside of OVN to drop traffic towards
IP addresses that are not actually used. This traffic
would otherwise hit this LR and then be dropped.
• If this LR has multiple LRPs connected to the fabric on
different chassis: allows the fabric outside of OVN to
steer packets to the chassis which already hosts this
backing ip address.
If static is in the list then northd will synchronize all Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Static_Route to the southbound Advertised_Route ta‐
ble.
If lb is in the list then northd will create entries in Adver‐‐
tised_Route table for each Load Balancer VIP on this port’s
router, and it’s neighboring routers. Neighboring routers are
those that are either directly connected to this Logical Router
Port, or those that are connected via shared Logical Switch.
If nat is in the list then northd will create entries in Adver‐‐
tised_Route table for each NAT’s external IP on this port’s
router, and it’s neighboring routers. Neighboring routers are
those that are either directly connected to this Logical Router
Port, or those that are connected via shared Logical Switch.
If not set the value from options:dynamic-routing-redistribute
on the Logical_Router will be used.
options : dynamic-routing-redistribute-local-only: optional string, ei‐
ther true or false
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing is set to true.
This controls whether ovn-controller will advertise Adver‐‐
tised_Route records only on the chassis where their tracked_port
is bound.
If not set the value from options:dynamic-routing-redistribute-
local-only on the Logical_Router will be used.
options : dynamic-routing-maintain-vrf: optional string, either true or
false
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing on the respective Logi‐
cal_Router is set to true.
If this LRP is bound to a specific chassis then the ovn-con‐
troller of this chassis will maintain a vrf. This vrf will con‐
tain all the routes that should be announced from this LRP. Un‐
less options:dynamic-routing-vrf-name is set the vrf will be
named "ovnvrf" with the options:dynamic-routing-vrf-id or data‐
path id of the Logical Router appended to it.
If the setting is not set or false the ovn-controller will ex‐
pect this VRF to already exist. Some tooling outside of OVN
needs to ensure this.
The VRF table ID is the same as the tunnel key of the Logi‐
cal_Router datapath. If this setting is false the tooling out‐
side of OVN needs to ensure that this is the case.
options : dynamic-routing-port-name: optional string
Only relevant if options:dynamic-routing on the respective Logi‐
cal_Router is set to true. Only learn routes associated with the
interface locally bound to the LSP or LRP specified here. This
allows a single chassis to learn different routes on separate
LRPs bound to this chassis. This is usefully e.g. in the case of
a chassis with multiple links towards the network fabric where
all of them run BGP individually. This option allows to have a
1:1 mapping between a single LRP and an individual link. If the
port referenced by this name is bound locally on the ovn-con‐
troller we lookup the linux interface name of this port. This
interface name is then used for the route filtering, so only
routes that have this interface as nexthop will be learned. As
there might not always be such a port bound on the ovn-con‐
troller this value can also be an arbitrary string. The ovn-con‐
troller will lookup the port name in the local external_ids:dy‐‐
namic-routing-port-mapping. This is a list separated by , that
contains port=interfacename pairs. If a match is found in there
the configured interface name is used instead of the autodiscov‐
ery. Also it is then irrelevant if the port is bound locally.
options : ic-route-filter-adv: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router Port. A route will be advertised
if the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This
allows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of advertising
routes in ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-filter-learn: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router Port. A route will be learned if
the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This al‐
lows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of learning routes
in ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-deny-adv: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router Port. A route will not be adver‐
tised if the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed.
This allows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of advertis‐
ing routes in ovn-ic daemon.
options : ic-route-deny-learn: optional string
This option expects list of CIDRs delimited by "," that’s
present in the Logical Router Port. A route will not be learned
if the route’s prefix belongs to any of the CIDRs listed. This
allows to filter CIDR prefixes in the process of learning routes
in ovn-ic daemon.
Attachment:
A given router port serves one of two purposes:
• To attach a logical switch to a logical router. A logical
router port of this type is referenced by exactly one
Logical_Switch_Port of type router. The value of name is
set as router-port in column options of Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Port. In this case peer column is empty.
• To connect one logical router to another. This requires a
pair of logical router ports, each connected to a differ‐
ent router. Each router port in the pair specifies the
other in its peer column. No Logical_Switch refers to the
router port.
peer: optional string
For a router port used to connect two logical routers, this
identifies the other router port in the pair by name.
For a router port attached to a logical switch, this column is
empty.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
The ovn-northd program copies all these pairs into the exter‐‐
nal_ids column of the Port_Binding table in OVN_Southbound data‐
base.
Status:
Additional status about the logical router port.
status : hosting-chassis: optional string
This option is populated by ovn-northd.
When a distributed gateway port is bound to a location in the
OVN Southbound database Port_Binding ovn-northd will populate
this key with the name of the Chassis that is currently hosting
this port.
Logical_Router_Static_Route TABLE
Each record represents a static route.
When multiple routes match a packet, the longest-prefix match is cho‐
sen. For a given prefix length, a dst-ip route is preferred over a
src-ip route.
When there are ECMP routes, i.e. multiple routes with same prefix and
policy, one of them will be selected based on the 5-tuple hashing of
the packet header.
Summary:
ip_prefix string
policy optional string, either dst-ip or src-ip
nexthop string
output_port optional string
bfd optional weak reference to BFD
selection_fields set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src,
ip_dst, ip_proto, ip_src, ipv6_dst,
ipv6_src, tp_dst, or tp_src
route_table string
external_ids : ic-learned-route
optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Common options:
options map of string-string pairs
options : ecmp_symmetric_reply
optional string
options : origin optional string
Details:
ip_prefix: string
IP prefix of this route (e.g. 192.168.100.0/24).
policy: optional string, either dst-ip or src-ip
If it is specified, this setting describes the policy used to
make routing decisions. This setting must be one of the follow‐
ing strings:
• src-ip: This policy sends the packet to the nexthop when
the packet’s source IP address matches ip_prefix.
• dst-ip: This policy sends the packet to the nexthop when
the packet’s destination IP address matches ip_prefix.
If not specified, the default is dst-ip.
nexthop: string
Nexthop IP address for this route. Nexthop IP address should be
the IP address of a connected router port or the IP address of a
logical port or can be set to discard for dropping packets which
match the given route.
output_port: optional string
The name of the Logical_Router_Port via which the packet needs
to be sent out. This is optional and when not specified, OVN
will automatically figure this out based on the nexthop. When
this is specified and there are multiple IP addresses on the
router port and none of them are in the same subnet of nexthop,
OVN chooses the first IP address as the one via which the nex‐‐
thop is reachable.
bfd: optional weak reference to BFD
Reference to BFD row if the route has associated a BFD session
selection_fields: set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src, ip_dst,
ip_proto, ip_src, ipv6_dst, ipv6_src, tp_dst, or tp_src
ECMP routes use OpenFlow groups of type select to pick a nexthop
among the list of available nexthops. OVS supports two selection
methods: dp_hash and hash for hash computation and selecting the
buckets of a group. OVN by default uses dp_hash. In order to use
the hash selection method, specify the allowed match fields in
selection fields. Please see the OVS documentation (man ovs-
ofctl) for more details on selection methods and fields.
To match on Layer 4 ports use tp_src and tp_dst. This match is
applicable only for TCP, UDP, SCTP and will be ignored for all
other IP packets. When matching on Layer 4 ports, match on
ip_proto will be implicitly added in the select action.
Example: {ip_proto,ip_src,ip_dst} for a 3-tuple match. Example:
{ip_proto,ipv6_src,ipv6_dst} for an IPv6 match. Example:
{ip_proto,ip_src,ip_dst,tp_src,tp_dst}. Example:
{ip_src,ip_dst,ipv6_src,ipv6_dst,tp_src,tp_dst}.
route_table: string
Specify any string to assign a route to a separate routing ta‐
ble. When a Logical Router Port has a configured value in op‐‐
tions:route_table, only static routes with the same routing ta‐
ble value are considered. A more detailed description of the
route lookup behavior is provided below:
When a packet enters Logical Router (LR), it examines the fol‐
lowing list of routes:
• All routes to directly connected networks of the LR (in‐
cluding networks that are learned from other availability
zones within the same LR through OVN-IC).
• All static routes of the LR that have the same route_ta‐‐
ble field value as that of the Logical Router Port’s op‐‐
tions:route_table (If the option is absent, static routes
with an empty route_table field are considered).
From the resulting list of routes, the route with the longest
prefix match takes precedence over others.
external_ids : ic-learned-route: optional string
ovn-ic populates this key if the route is learned from the
global OVN_IC_Southbound database. In this case the value will
be set to the uuid of the row in Route table of the
OVN_IC_Southbound database.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Common options:
options: map of string-string pairs
This column provides general key/value settings. The supported
options are described individually below.
options : ecmp_symmetric_reply: optional string
If true, then
• New ingress-originated traffic that arrives over this
route will have its reply traffic bypass ECMP route se‐
lection and will be sent out this route instead.
• For the egress-originated traffic, the ingress reply
traffic route gets saved. And the subsequent traffic will
bypass ECMP route selection and instead be sent out the
same route.
Note that this option overrides any rules set in the Logi‐‐
cal_Router_policy table. This option only works on gateway
routers (routers that have options:chassis set).
options : origin: optional string
In case ovn-interconnection has been learned this route, it will
have its origin set: either "connected" or "static". This key is
supposed to be written only by ovn-ic daemon. ovn-northd then
checks this value when generating Logical Flows. Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Static_Route records with same ip_prefix within same
Logical Router will have next lookup order based on origin key
value:
1. connected
2. static
Logical_Router_Policy TABLE
Each row in this table represents one routing policy for a logical
router that points to it through its policies column. The action column
for the highest-priority matching row in this table determines a
packet’s treatment. If no row matches, packets are allowed by default.
(Default-deny treatment is possible: add a rule with priority 0, 1 as
match, and drop as action.)
Summary:
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
chain optional string
match string
action string, one of allow, drop, jump, or
reroute
jump_chain optional string
nexthop optional string
nexthops set of strings
output_port optional weak reference to Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Port
bfd_sessions set of weak reference to BFDs
options : pkt_mark optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
The routing policy’s priority. Rules with numerically higher
priority take precedence over those with lower. A rule is
uniquely identified by the priority, chain and match string.
chain: optional string
The routing policy rule’s chain name. Only rules with empty
chain name are traversed by default. Other chains are traversed
as response to jump action.
match: string
The packets that the routing policy should match, in the same
expression language used for the match column in the OVN South‐
bound database’s Logical_Flow table.
By default all traffic is allowed. When writing a more restric‐
tive policy, it is important to remember to allow flows such as
ARP and IPv6 neighbor discovery packets.
action: string, one of allow, drop, jump, or reroute
The action to take when the routing policy matches:
• allow: Forward the packet.
• drop: Silently drop the packet.
• reroute: Reroute packet to nexthop or nexthops.
• jump: Start examining rules that have the same chain
value as specified in jump_chain.
jump_chain: optional string
The routing policy rule’s chain name selected to be examined
next.
nexthop: optional string
Note: This column is deprecated in favor of nexthops.
Next-hop IP address for this route, which should be the IP ad‐
dress of a connected router port or the IP address of a logical
port.
nexthops: set of strings
Next-hop ECMP IP addresses for this route. Each IP in the list
should be the IP address of a connected router port or the IP
address of a logical port.
One IP from the list is selected as next hop.
output_port: optional weak reference to Logical_Router_Port
The Logical_Router_Port via which the packet needs to be sent
out. This is optional and when not specified, OVN will automati‐
cally figure this out based on the nexthops column. When this is
specified and there are multiple IP addresses on the router port
and none of them are in the same subnet of nexthops, OVN chooses
the first IP address as the one via which the nexthops are
reachable. NOTE: for now OVN does not support configuring the
output port on ECMP reroute policies (with more than one value
in the nexthops column).
bfd_sessions: set of weak reference to BFDs
Reference to BFD row if the route policy has associated some BFD
sessions.
options : pkt_mark: optional string
Marks the packet with the value specified when the router policy
is applied. CMS can inspect this packet marker and take some de‐
cisions if desired. This value is not preserved when the packet
goes out on the wire.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
NAT TABLE
Each record represents a NAT rule.
Summary:
type string, one of dnat, dnat_and_snat, or
snat
external_ip string
external_mac optional string
external_port_range string
logical_ip string
logical_port optional string
allowed_ext_ips optional Address_Set
exempted_ext_ips optional Address_Set
gateway_port optional weak reference to Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Port
match string
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
options : stateless optional string
options : add_route optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
type: string, one of dnat, dnat_and_snat, or snat
Type of the NAT rule.
• When type is dnat, the externally visible IP address ex‐‐
ternal_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the
logical space.
• When type is snat, IP packets with their source IP ad‐
dress that either matches the IP address in logical_ip or
is in the network provided by logical_ip is SNATed into
the IP address in external_ip.
• When type is dnat_and_snat, the externally visible IP ad‐
dress external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip
in the logical space. In addition, IP packets with the
source IP address that matches logical_ip is SNATed into
the IP address in external_ip.
external_ip: string
An IPv4 address.
external_mac: optional string
A MAC address.
This is only used on the gateway port on distributed routers.
This must be specified in order for the NAT rule to be processed
in a distributed manner on all chassis. If this is not specified
for a NAT rule on a distributed router, then this NAT rule will
be processed in a centralized manner on the gateway port in‐
stance on the gateway chassis.
This MAC address must be unique on the logical switch that the
gateway port is attached to. If the MAC address used on the log‐‐
ical_port is globally unique, then that MAC address can be spec‐
ified as this external_mac.
external_port_range: string
L4 source port range
Range of ports, from which a port number will be picked that
will replace the source port of to be NATed packet. This is ba‐
sically PAT (port address translation).
Value of the column is in the format, port_lo-port_hi. For exam‐
ple: external_port_range : "1-30000"
Valid range of ports is 1-65535.
logical_ip: string
An IPv4 network (e.g 192.168.1.0/24) or an IPv4 address.
logical_port: optional string
The name of the logical port where the logical_ip resides.
This is only used on distributed routers. This must be specified
in order for the NAT rule to be processed in a distributed man‐
ner on all chassis. If this is not specified for a NAT rule on a
distributed router, then this NAT rule will be processed in a
centralized manner on the gateway port instance on the gateway
chassis.
allowed_ext_ips: optional Address_Set
It represents Address Set of external ips that NAT rule is ap‐
plicable to. For SNAT type NAT rules, this refers to destination
addresses. For DNAT type NAT rules, this refers to source ad‐
dresses.
This configuration overrides the default NAT behavior of apply‐
ing a rule solely based on internal IP. Without this configura‐
tion, NAT happens without considering the external IP (i.e
dest/source for snat/dnat type rule). With this configuration
NAT rule is applied ONLY if external ip is in the input Address
Set.
exempted_ext_ips: optional Address_Set
It represents Address Set of external ips that NAT rule is NOT
applicable to. For SNAT type NAT rules, this refers to destina‐
tion addresses. For DNAT type NAT rules, this refers to source
addresses.
This configuration overrides the default NAT behavior of apply‐
ing a rule solely based on internal IP. Without this configura‐
tion, NAT happens without considering the external IP (i.e
dest/source for snat/dnat type rule). With this configuration
NAT rule is NOT applied if external ip is in the input Address
Set.
If there are NAT rules in a logical router with overlapping IP
prefixes (including /32), then usage of exempted_ext_ips should
be avoided in following scenario. a. SNAT rule (let us say
RULE1) with logical_ip PREFIX/MASK (let us say 50.0.0.0/24). b.
SNAT rule (let us say RULE2) with logical_ip PREFIX/MASK+1 (let
us say 50.0.0.0/25). c. Now, if exempted_ext_ips is associated
with RULE2, then a logical ip which matches both 50.0.0.0/24 and
50.0.0.0/25 may get the RULE2 applied to it instead of RULE1.
allowed_ext_ips and exempted_ext_ips are mutually exclusive to
each other. If both Address Sets are set for a rule, then the
NAT rule is not considered.
gateway_port: optional weak reference to Logical_Router_Port
A distributed gateway port in the Logical_Router_Port table
where the NAT rule needs to be applied.
When multiple distributed gateway ports are configured on a Log‐‐
ical_Router, applying a NAT rule at each of the distributed
gateway ports might not be desired. Consider the case where a
logical router has 2 distributed gateway port, one with networks
50.0.0.10/24 and the other with networks 60.0.0.10/24. If the
logical router has a NAT rule of type snat, logical_ip
10.1.1.0/24 and external_ip 50.1.1.20/24, the rule needs to be
selectively applied on matching packets entering/leaving through
the distributed gateway port with networks 50.0.0.10/24.
When a logical router has multiple distributed gateway ports and
this column is not set for a NAT rule, then the rule will be ap‐
plied at the distributed gateway port which is in the same net‐
work as the external_ip of the NAT rule, if such a router port
exists. If logical router has a single distributed gateway port
and this column is not set for a NAT rule, the rule will be ap‐
plied at the distributed gateway port even if the router port is
not in the same network as the external_ip of the NAT rule.
match: string
The packets that the NAT rules should match, in addition to the
match that is created based on the NAT type, in the same expres‐
sion language used for the match column in the OVN Southbound
database’s Logical_Flow table. This allows for more fine-grained
control over the NAT rule.
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
The NAT rule’s priority. Rules with numerically higher priority
take precedence over those with lower. The priority is taken
into account only if the match is defined.
options : stateless: optional string
Indicates if a dnat_and_snat rule should lead to connection
tracking state or not.
options : add_route: optional string
If set to true, then neighbor routers will have logical flows
added that will allow for routing to the NAT address. It also
will have ARP resolution logical flows added. By setting this
option, it means there is no reason to create a Logi‐‐
cal_Router_Static_Route from neighbor routers to this NAT ad‐
dress. It also means that no ARP request is required for neigh‐
bor routers to learn the IP-MAC mapping for this NAT address.
This option only applies to NATs of type dnat and dnat_and_snat.
For more information about what flows are added for IP routes,
please see the ovn-northd manpage section on IP Routing.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
DHCP_Options TABLE
OVN implements native DHCPv4 support which caters to the common use
case of providing an IPv4 address to a booting instance by providing
stateless replies to DHCPv4 requests based on statically configured ad‐
dress mappings. To do this it allows a short list of DHCPv4 options to
be configured and applied at each compute host running ovn-controller.
OVN also implements native DHCPv6 support which provides stateless
replies to DHCPv6 requests.
Summary:
cidr string
DHCPv4 options:
Mandatory DHCPv4 options:
options : server_id optional string
options : server_mac optional string
options : lease_time optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 4,294,967,295
IPv4 DHCP Options:
options : router optional string
options : netmask optional string
options : dns_server optional string
options : log_server optional string
options : lpr_server optional string
options : swap_server optional string
options : policy_filter optional string
options : router_solicitation
optional string
options : nis_server optional string
options : ntp_server optional string
options : netbios_name_server
optional string
options : classless_static_route
optional string
options : ms_classless_static_route
optional string
options : next_server optional string
Boolean DHCP Options:
options : ip_forward_enable
optional string, either 0 or 1
options : router_discovery
optional string, either 0 or 1
options : ethernet_encap optional string, either 0 or 1
Integer DHCP Options:
options : default_ttl optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 255
options : tcp_ttl optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 255
options : mtu optional string, containing an integer,
in range 68 to 65,535
options : T1 optional string, containing an integer,
in range 68 to 4,294,967,295
options : T2 optional string, containing an integer,
in range 68 to 4,294,967,295
options : arp_cache_timeout
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 255
options : tcp_keepalive_interval
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 255
options : netbios_node_type
optional string, containing an integer,
in range 0 to 255
String DHCP Options:
options : wpad optional string
options : bootfile_name optional string
options : path_prefix optional string
options : tftp_server_address
optional string
options : hostname optional string
options : domain_name optional string
options : bootfile_name_alt
optional string
options : broadcast_address
optional string
DHCP Options of type host_id:
options : tftp_server optional string
DHCP Options of type domains:
options : domain_search_list
optional string
DHCPv6 options:
Mandatory DHCPv6 options:
options : server_id optional string
IPv6 DHCPv6 options:
options : dns_server optional string
String DHCPv6 options:
options : domain_search optional string
options : dhcpv6_stateless
optional string
options : fqdn optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
cidr: string
The DHCPv4/DHCPv6 options will be included if the logical port
has its IP address in this cidr.
DHCPv4 options:
The CMS should define the set of DHCPv4 options as key/value pairs in
the options column of this table. For ovn-controller to include these
DHCPv4 options, the dhcpv4_options of Logical_Switch_Port should refer
to an entry in this table.
Mandatory DHCPv4 options:
The following options must be defined.
options : server_id: optional string
The IP address for the DHCP server to use. This should be in the
subnet of the offered IP. This is also included in the DHCP of‐
fer as option 54, ``server identifier.’’
options : server_mac: optional string
The Ethernet address for the DHCP server to use.
options : lease_time: optional string, containing an integer, in range
0 to 4,294,967,295
The offered lease time in seconds,
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 51.
IPv4 DHCP Options:
Below are the supported DHCPv4 options whose values are an IPv4 ad‐
dress, e.g. 192.168.1.1. Some options accept multiple IPv4 addresses
enclosed within curly braces, e.g. {192.168.1.2, 192.168.1.3}. Please
refer to RFC 2132 for more details on DHCPv4 options and their codes.
options : router: optional string
The IP address of a gateway for the client to use. This should
be in the subnet of the offered IP. The DHCPv4 option code for
this option is 3.
options : netmask: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 1.
options : dns_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 6.
options : log_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 7.
options : lpr_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 9.
options : swap_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 16.
options : policy_filter: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 21.
options : router_solicitation: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 32.
options : nis_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 41.
options : ntp_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 42.
options : netbios_name_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 44.
options : classless_static_route: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 121.
This option can contain one or more static routes, each of which
consists of a destination descriptor and the IP address of the
router that should be used to reach that destination. Please see
RFC 3442 for more details.
Example: {30.0.0.0/24,10.0.0.10, 0.0.0.0/0,10.0.0.1}
options : ms_classless_static_route: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 249. This option is
similar to classless_static_route supported by Microsoft Windows
DHCPv4 clients.
options : next_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for setting the "Next server IP address"
field in the DHCP header.
Boolean DHCP Options:
These options accept a Boolean value, expressed as 0 for false or 1 for
true.
options : ip_forward_enable: optional string, either 0 or 1
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 19.
options : router_discovery: optional string, either 0 or 1
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 31.
options : ethernet_encap: optional string, either 0 or 1
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 36.
Integer DHCP Options:
These options accept a nonnegative integer value.
options : default_ttl: optional string, containing an integer, in range
0 to 255
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 23.
options : tcp_ttl: optional string, containing an integer, in range 0
to 255
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 37.
options : mtu: optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to
65,535
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 26.
options : T1: optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to
4,294,967,295
This specifies the time interval from address assignment until
the client begins trying to renew its address. The DHCPv4 option
code for this option is 58.
options : T2: optional string, containing an integer, in range 68 to
4,294,967,295
This specifies the time interval from address assignment until
the client begins trying to rebind its address. The DHCPv4 op‐
tion code for this option is 59.
options : arp_cache_timeout: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 255
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 35. This option speci‐
fies the timeout in seconds for ARP cache entries.
options : tcp_keepalive_interval: optional string, containing an inte‐
ger, in range 0 to 255
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 38. This option speci‐
fies the interval that the client TCP should wait before sending
a keepalive message on a TCP connection.
options : netbios_node_type: optional string, containing an integer, in
range 0 to 255
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 46.
String DHCP Options:
These options accept a string value.
options : wpad: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 252. This option is
used as part of web proxy auto discovery to provide a URL for a
web proxy.
options : bootfile_name: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 67. This option is
used to identify a bootfile.
options : path_prefix: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 210. In PXELINUX’ case
this option is used to set a common path prefix, instead of de‐
riving it from the bootfile name.
options : tftp_server_address: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 150. The option con‐
tains one or more IPv4 addresses that the client MAY use. This
option is Cisco proprietary, the IEEE standard that matches with
this requirement is option 66 (tftp_server).
options : hostname: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 12. If set, indicates
the DHCPv4 option "Hostname". Alternatively, this option can be
configured in options:hostname column in table Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Port. If Hostname option value is set in both con‐
flicting Logical_Switch_Port and DHCP_Options tables, Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Port takes precedence.
options : domain_name: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 15. This option speci‐
fies the domain name that client should use when resolving host‐
names via the Domain Name System.
options : bootfile_name_alt: optional string
"bootfile_name_alt" option is used to support iPXE. When both
"bootfile_name" and "bootfile_name_alt" are provided by the CMS,
"bootfile_name" will be used for option 67 if the dhcp request
contains etherboot option (175), otherwise "bootfile_name_alt"
will be used.
options : broadcast_address: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 28. This option speci‐
fies the IP address used as a broadcast address.
DHCP Options of type host_id:
These options accept either an IPv4 address or a string value.
options : tftp_server: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 66.
DHCP Options of type domains:
These options accept string value which is a comma separated list of
domain names. The domain names are encoded based on RFC 1035.
options : domain_search_list: optional string
The DHCPv4 option code for this option is 119.
DHCPv6 options:
OVN also implements native DHCPv6 support. The CMS should define the
set of DHCPv6 options as key/value pairs. The define DHCPv6 options
will be included in the DHCPv6 response to the DHCPv6 Solicit/Re‐
quest/Confirm packet from the logical ports having the IPv6 addresses
in the cidr.
Mandatory DHCPv6 options:
The following options must be defined.
options : server_id: optional string
The Ethernet address for the DHCP server to use. This is also
included in the DHCPv6 reply as option 2, ``Server Identifier’’
to carry a DUID identifying a server between a client and a
server. ovn-controller defines DUID based on Link-layer Address
[DUID-LL].
IPv6 DHCPv6 options:
Below are the supported DHCPv6 options whose values are an IPv6 ad‐
dress, e.g. aef0::4. Some options accept multiple IPv6 addresses en‐
closed within curly braces, e.g. {aef0::4, aef0::5}. Please refer to
RFC 3315 for more details on DHCPv6 options and their codes.
options : dns_server: optional string
The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 23. This option speci‐
fies the DNS servers that the VM should use.
String DHCPv6 options:
These options accept string values.
options : domain_search: optional string
The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 24. This option speci‐
fies the domain search list the client should use to resolve
hostnames with DNS.
Example: "ovn.org".
options : dhcpv6_stateless: optional string
This option specifies the OVN native DHCPv6 will work in state‐
less mode, which means OVN native DHCPv6 will not offer IPv6 ad‐
dresses for VM/VIF ports, but only reply other configurations,
such as DNS and domain search list. When setting this option
with string value "true", VM/VIF will configure IPv6 addresses
by stateless way. Default value for this option is false.
options : fqdn: optional string
The DHCPv6 option code for this option is 39. If set, indicates
the DHCPv6 option "FQDN".
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
DHCP_Relay TABLE
OVN implements native DHCPv4 relay support which caters to the common
use case of relaying the DHCP requests to external DHCP server.
Summary:
name string
servers optional string
options map of string-string pairs
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string
A name for the DHCP Relay.
servers: optional string
The DHCPv4 server IP address.
options: map of string-string pairs
Future purpose.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Connection TABLE
Configuration for a database connection to an Open vSwitch database
(OVSDB) client.
This table primarily configures the Open vSwitch database server
(ovsdb-server).
The Open vSwitch database server can initiate and maintain active con‐
nections to remote clients. It can also listen for database connec‐
tions.
Summary:
Core Features:
target string (must be unique within table)
Client Failure Detection and Handling:
max_backoff optional integer, at least 1,000
inactivity_probe optional integer
Status:
is_connected boolean
status : last_error optional string
status : state optional string, one of ACTIVE, BACKOFF,
CONNECTING, IDLE, or VOID
status : sec_since_connect optional string, containing an integer,
at least 0
status : sec_since_disconnect
optional string, containing an integer,
at least 0
status : locks_held optional string
status : locks_waiting optional string
status : locks_lost optional string
status : n_connections optional string, containing an integer,
at least 2
status : bound_port optional string, containing an integer
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
other_config map of string-string pairs
Details:
Core Features:
target: string (must be unique within table)
Connection methods for clients.
The following connection methods are currently supported:
ssl:host[:port]
The specified SSL/TLS port on the host at the given host,
which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound li‐
brary) or an IP address. A valid SSL/TLS configuration
must be provided when this form is used, this configura‐
tion can be specified via command-line options or the SSL
table.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
SSL/TLS support is an optional feature that is not always
built as part of OVN or Open vSwitch.
tcp:host[:port]
The specified TCP port on the host at the given host,
which can either be a DNS name (if built with unbound li‐
brary) or an IP address. If host is an IPv6 address, wrap
it in square brackets, e.g. tcp:[::1]:6640.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
pssl:[port][:host]
Listens for SSL/TLS connections on the specified TCP
port. Specify 0 for port to have the kernel automatically
choose an available port. If host, which can either be a
DNS name (if built with unbound library) or an IP ad‐
dress, is specified, then connections are restricted to
the resolved or specified local IPaddress (either IPv4 or
IPv6 address). If host is an IPv6 address, wrap in square
brackets, e.g. pssl:6640:[::1]. If host is not specified
then it listens only on IPv4 (but not IPv6) addresses. A
valid SSL/TLS configuration must be provided when this
form is used, this can be specified either via command-
line options or the SSL table.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
SSL/TLS support is an optional feature that is not always
built as part of OVN or Open vSwitch.
ptcp:[port][:host]
Listens for connections on the specified TCP port. Spec‐
ify 0 for port to have the kernel automatically choose an
available port. If host, which can either be a DNS name
(if built with unbound library) or an IP address, is
specified, then connections are restricted to the re‐
solved or specified local IP address (either IPv4 or IPv6
address). If host is an IPv6 address, wrap it in square
brackets, e.g. ptcp:6640:[::1]. If host is not specified
then it listens only on IPv4 addresses.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
When multiple clients are configured, the target values must be
unique. Duplicate target values yield unspecified results.
Client Failure Detection and Handling:
max_backoff: optional integer, at least 1,000
Maximum number of milliseconds to wait between connection at‐
tempts. Default is implementation-specific.
inactivity_probe: optional integer
Maximum number of milliseconds of idle time on connection to the
client before sending an inactivity probe message. If Open
vSwitch does not communicate with the client for the specified
number of seconds, it will send a probe. If a response is not
received for the same additional amount of time, Open vSwitch
assumes the connection has been broken and attempts to recon‐
nect. Default is implementation-specific. A value of 0 disables
inactivity probes.
Status:
Key-value pair of is_connected is always updated. Other key-value pairs
in the status columns may be updated depends on the target type.
When target specifies a connection method that listens for inbound con‐
nections (e.g. ptcp: or punix:), both n_connections and is_connected
may also be updated while the remaining key-value pairs are omitted.
On the other hand, when target specifies an outbound connection, all
key-value pairs may be updated, except the above-mentioned two key-
value pairs associated with inbound connection targets. They are omit‐
ted.
is_connected: boolean
true if currently connected to this client, false otherwise.
status : last_error: optional string
A human-readable description of the last error on the connection
to the manager; i.e. strerror(errno). This key will exist only
if an error has occurred.
status : state: optional string, one of ACTIVE, BACKOFF, CONNECTING,
IDLE, or VOID
The state of the connection to the manager:
VOID Connection is disabled.
BACKOFF
Attempting to reconnect at an increasing period.
CONNECTING
Attempting to connect.
ACTIVE Connected, remote host responsive.
IDLE Connection is idle. Waiting for response to keep-alive.
These values may change in the future. They are provided only
for human consumption.
status : sec_since_connect: optional string, containing an integer, at
least 0
The amount of time since this client last successfully connected
to the database (in seconds). Value is empty if client has never
successfully been connected.
status : sec_since_disconnect: optional string, containing an integer,
at least 0
The amount of time since this client last disconnected from the
database (in seconds). Value is empty if client has never dis‐
connected.
status : locks_held: optional string
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the con‐
nection holds. Omitted if the connection does not hold any
locks.
status : locks_waiting: optional string
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the con‐
nection is currently waiting to acquire. Omitted if the connec‐
tion is not waiting for any locks.
status : locks_lost: optional string
Space-separated list of the names of OVSDB locks that the con‐
nection has had stolen by another OVSDB client. Omitted if no
locks have been stolen from this connection.
status : n_connections: optional string, containing an integer, at
least 2
When target specifies a connection method that listens for in‐
bound connections (e.g. ptcp: or pssl:) and more than one con‐
nection is actually active, the value is the number of active
connections. Otherwise, this key-value pair is omitted.
status : bound_port: optional string, containing an integer
When target is ptcp: or pssl:, this is the TCP port on which the
OVSDB server is listening. (This is particularly useful when
target specifies a port of 0, allowing the kernel to choose any
available port.)
Common Columns:
The overall purpose of these columns is described under Common Columns
at the beginning of this document.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
other_config: map of string-string pairs
DNS TABLE
Each row in this table stores the DNS records. The Logical_Switch ta‐
ble’s dns_records references these records.
Summary:
records map of string-string pairs
options : ovn-owned optional string
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
records: map of string-string pairs
Key-value pair of DNS records with DNS query name as the key and
value as a string of IP address(es) separated by comma or space.
For PTR requests, the key-value pair can be Reverse IPv4 ad‐‐
dress.in-addr.arpa and the value DNS domain name. For IPv6 ad‐
dresses, the key has to be Reverse IPv6 address.ip6.arpa.
Example: "vm1.ovn.org" = "10.0.0.4 aef0::4"
Example: "4.0.0.10.in-addr.arpa" = "vm1.ovn.org"
options : ovn-owned: optional string
If set to true, then the OVN will be the main responsible for
DNS Records within this row.
A DNS row with this option set to true can be created for do‐
mains that the user needs to configure locally and don’t care
about IPv6 only interested in IPv4 or vice versa. This will let
ovn send IPv4 DNS reply and reject/ignore IPv6 queries to save
the waiting for a timeout on those uninteresting queries.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
SSL TABLE
SSL/TLS configuration for ovn-nb database access.
Summary:
private_key string
certificate string
ca_cert string
bootstrap_ca_cert boolean
ssl_protocols string
ssl_ciphers string
ssl_ciphersuites string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
private_key: string
Name of a PEM file containing the private key used as the
switch’s identity for SSL/TLS connections to the controller.
certificate: string
Name of a PEM file containing a certificate, signed by the cer‐
tificate authority (CA) used by the controller and manager, that
certifies the switch’s private key, identifying a trustworthy
switch.
ca_cert: string
Name of a PEM file containing the CA certificate used to verify
that the switch is connected to a trustworthy controller.
bootstrap_ca_cert: boolean
If set to true, then Open vSwitch will attempt to obtain the CA
certificate from the controller on its first SSL/TLS connection
and save it to the named PEM file. If it is successful, it will
immediately drop the connection and reconnect, and from then on
all SSL/TLS connections must be authenticated by a certificate
signed by the CA certificate thus obtained. This option exposes
the SSL/TLS connection to a man-in-the-middle attack obtaining
the initial CA certificate. It may still be useful for boot‐
strapping.
ssl_protocols: string
Range or a comma- or space-delimited list of the SSL/TLS proto‐
cols to enable for SSL/TLS connections.
Supported protocols include TLSv1.2 and TLSv1.3. Ranges can be
provided in a form of two protocol names separated with a dash
(TLSv1.2-TLSv1.3), or as a single protocol name with a plus sign
(TLSv1.2+). The value can be a list of protocols or exactly one
range. The range is a preferred way of specifying protocols and
the configuration always behaves as if the range between the
minimum and the maximum specified version is provided, i.e., if
the value is set to TLSv1.X,TLSv1.(X+2), the TLSv1.(X+1) will
also be enabled as if it was a range. Regardless of order, the
highest protocol supported by both sides will be chosen when
making the connection.
The default when this option is omitted is TLSv1.2+.
ssl_ciphers: string
List of ciphers (in OpenSSL cipher string format) to be sup‐
ported for SSL/TLS connections with TLSv1.2. The default when
this option is omitted is DEFAULT:@SECLEVEL=2.
ssl_ciphersuites: string
List of ciphersuites (in OpenSSL ciphersuites string format) to
be supported for SSL/TLS connections with TLSv1.3 and later. De‐
fault value from OpenSSL will be used when this option is omit‐
ted.
Common Columns:
The overall purpose of these columns is described under Common Columns
at the beginning of this document.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
Gateway_Chassis TABLE
Association of a chassis to a logical router port. The traffic going
out through an specific router port will be redirected to a chassis, or
a set of them in high availability configurations.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
chassis_name string
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
options map of string-string pairs
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Name of the Gateway_Chassis.
A suggested, but not required naming convention is
${port_name}_${chassis_name}.
chassis_name: string
Name of the chassis that we want to redirect traffic through for
the associated logical router port. The value must match the
name column of the Chassis table in the OVN_Southbound database.
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
This is the priority of a chassis among all Gateway_Chassis be‐
longing to the same logical router port.
options: map of string-string pairs
Reserved for future use.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
HA_Chassis_Group TABLE
Table representing a group of chassis which can provide high availabil‐
ity services. Each chassis in the group is represented by the table
HA_Chassis. The HA chassis with highest priority will be the active
chassis of this group. If the active chassis failover is detected, the
HA chassis with the next higher priority takes over the responsibility
of providing the HA. If a distributed gateway router port references a
row in this table, then the active HA chassis in this group provides
the gateway functionality.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
ha_chassis set of HA_Chassises
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Name of the HA_Chassis_Group. Name should be unique.
ha_chassis: set of HA_Chassises
A list of HA chassis which belongs to this group.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
HA_Chassis TABLE
Summary:
chassis_name string
priority integer, in range 0 to 32,767
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
chassis_name: string
Name of the chassis which is part of the HA chassis group. The
value must match the name column of the Chassis table in the
OVN_Southbound database.
priority: integer, in range 0 to 32,767
Priority of the chassis. Chassis with highest priority will be
the active chassis.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
BFD TABLE
Contains BFD parameter for ovn-controller BFD configuration. OVN BFD
implementation is used to provide detection of failures in the path be‐
tween adjacent forwarding engines, including the OVN interfaces. OVN
BFD provides link status info to OVN northd in order to update logical
flows according to the status of BFD endpoints. In the current imple‐
mentation OVN BFD is used to check next-hop status for ECMP routes.
Please note BFD table refers to OVN BFD implementation and not to OVS
legacy one.
Summary:
Configuration:
logical_port string
dst_ip string
min_tx optional integer, at least 1
min_rx optional integer
detect_mult optional integer, at least 1
options map of string-string pairs
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Status Reporting:
status optional string, one of admin_down, down,
init, or up
Details:
Configuration:
ovn-northd reads configuration from these columns.
logical_port: string
OVN logical port when BFD engine is running.
dst_ip: string
BFD peer IP address.
min_tx: optional integer, at least 1
This is the minimum interval, in milliseconds, that the local
system would like to use when transmitting BFD Control packets,
less any jitter applied. The value zero is reserved. Default
value is 1000 ms.
min_rx: optional integer
This is the minimum interval, in milliseconds, between received
BFD Control packets that this system is capable of supporting,
less any jitter applied by the sender. If this value is zero,
the transmitting system does not want the remote system to send
any periodic BFD Control packets.
detect_mult: optional integer, at least 1
Detection time multiplier. The negotiated transmit interval,
multiplied by this value, provides the Detection Time for the
receiving system in Asynchronous mode. Default value is 5.
options: map of string-string pairs
Reserved for future use.
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Status Reporting:
ovn-northd writes BFD status into these columns.
status: optional string, one of admin_down, down, init, or up
BFD port logical states. Possible values are:
• admin_down
• down
• init
• up
Static_MAC_Binding TABLE
Each record represents a Static_MAC_Binding entry for a logical router.
Summary:
Configuration:
logical_port string
ip string
mac string
override_dynamic_mac boolean
Details:
Configuration:
ovn-northd reads configuration from these columns and propagates the
value to SBDB.
logical_port: string
The logical router port for the binding.
ip: string
The bound IP address.
mac: string
The Ethernet address to which the IP is bound.
override_dynamic_mac: boolean
Override dynamically learnt MACs.
Chassis_Template_Var TABLE
One record per chassis, each containing a map, variables, between tem‐
plate variable names and their value for that specific chassis. A tem‐
plate variable has a name and potentially different values on different
hypervisors in the OVN cluster. For example, two rows, R1 = (.chas‐‐
sis=C1, variables={(N: V1)} and R2 = (.chassis=C2, variables={(N: V2)}
will make ovn-controller running on chassis C1 and C2 interpret the to‐
ken N either as V1 (on C1) or as V2 (on C2). Users can refer to tem‐
plate variables from within other logical components, e.g., within ACL,
QoS or Logical_Router_Policy matches or from Load_Balancer VIP and
backend definitions.
If a template variable is referenced on a chassis for which that vari‐
able is not defined then ovn-controller running on that chassis will
just interpret it as a raw string literal.
Summary:
chassis string (must be unique within table)
variables map of string-string pairs
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
chassis: string (must be unique within table)
The chassis this set of variable values applies to.
variables: map of string-string pairs
The set of variable values for a given chassis.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Sampling_App TABLE
Summary:
type string, one of acl-est, acl-new, or drop
(must be unique within table)
id integer, in range 1 to 255
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
type: string, one of acl-est, acl-new, or drop (must be unique within
table)
The type of the application to be configured for sampling. Cur‐
rently supported options are: "drop", "acl-new", "acl-est".
id: integer, in range 1 to 255
The identifier to be encoded in the samples generated for this
type of application. This identifier is used as part of the sam‐
ple’s observation domain ID.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Network_Function_Group TABLE
Each row contains a list of Network_Function. Traffic redirection is
achieved by referencing a Network_Function_Group from an ACL. Health
monitoring of each Network_Function is performed based on parameters
defined in Network_Function_Health_Check. Traffic matching the ACL is
redirected to one of the active Network_Functions. If all are detected
as down, traffic is redirected to one of the Network_Functions regard‐
less of status.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
id integer, in range 1 to 255 (must be
unique within table)
network_function set of Network_Functions
network_function_active optional Network_Function
mode string, must be inline
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Name of the Network_Function_Group. Name should be unique.
id: integer, in range 1 to 255 (must be unique within table)
A unique integer between 1 and 255 must be assigned to each Net‐‐
work_Function_Group.
network_function: set of Network_Functions
A list of network functions which belong to this group.
network_function_active: optional Network_Function
Current active Network_Function. This column is populated by
northd based on health monitoring status.
mode: string, must be inline
Traffic forwarding mode, with default and only value as "in‐
line". The "inline" mode means that the network function is di‐
rectly in the path of traffic, with traffic being redirected
through it.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Network_Function TABLE
Each row represents one network function entity. This contains a pair
of logical_switch_ports. Traffic that matches the ACL is redirected to
inport for from-lport ACLs and to outport for to-lport ACLs. Once the
traffic is received on the other port, it continues through the stan‐
dard OVN pipeline. Response traffic follows the reverse path: it is
redirected to the outport for from-lport ACLs and to the inport for to-
lport ACLs. Once the traffic is received on the other port, it is
processed by the regular OVN pipeline. NOTE: 1. The Network Function
MUST NOT modify the packet headers. 2. The Network Function is not sup‐
ported when used in conjunction with Load Balancer.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
inport Logical_Switch_Port
outport Logical_Switch_Port
health_check optional Network_Function_Health_Check
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Name of the Network_Function. Name should be unique.
inport: Logical_Switch_Port
Logical_Switch_Port where request traffic for from-lport ACL and
response traffic for to-lport ACL is redirected.
outport: Logical_Switch_Port
Logical_Switch_Port where request traffic for to-lport ACL and
response traffic for from-lport ACL is redirected.
health_check: optional Network_Function_Health_Check
Network_Function_Health_Check associated with this network func‐
tion.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Network_Function_Health_Check TABLE
Each row represents one network function health check.
Summary:
name string (must be unique within table)
Health check options:
options : interval optional string, containing an integer
options : timeout optional string, containing an integer
options : success_count optional string, containing an integer
options : failure_count optional string, containing an integer
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
Details:
name: string (must be unique within table)
Name of the Network_Function_Health_Check. Name should be
unique.
Health check options:
options : interval: optional string, containing an integer
The interval, in seconds, between health checks. Default: 5s.
options : timeout: optional string, containing an integer
The time, in seconds, after which a health check times out. De‐
fault: 3s.
options : success_count: optional string, containing an integer
The number of successful checks after which the Network_Function
is considered online. Default: 1.
options : failure_count: optional string, containing an integer
The number of failure checks after which the Network_Function is
considered offline. Default: 1.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
Open vSwitch 25.09.90 DB Schema 7.14.0 ovn-nb(5)