ovn-nbctl(8) OVN Manual ovn-nbctl(8)
NAME
ovn-nbctl - Open Virtual Network northbound db management utility
SYNOPSIS
ovn-nbctl [options] command [arg...]
DESCRIPTION
The ovn-nbctl program configures the OVN_Northbound database by providing a
high-level interface to its configuration database. See ovn-nb(5) for com‐
prehensive documentation of the database schema.
ovn-nbctl connects to an ovsdb-server process that maintains an OVN_North‐
bound configuration database. Using this connection, it queries and possi‐
bly applies changes to the database, depending on the supplied commands.
ovn-nbctl can perform any number of commands in a single run, implemented
as a single atomic transaction against the database.
The ovn-nbctl command line begins with global options (see OPTIONS below
for details). The global options are followed by one or more commands. Each
command should begin with -- by itself as a command-line argument, to sepa‐
rate it from the following commands. (The -- before the first command is
optional.) The command itself starts with command-specific options, if any,
followed by the command name and any arguments.
DAEMON MODE
When it is invoked in the most ordinary way, ovn-nbctl connects to an OVSDB
server that hosts the northbound database, retrieves a partial copy of the
database that is complete enough to do its work, sends a transaction re‐
quest to the server, and receives and processes the server’s reply. In com‐
mon interactive use, this is fine, but if the database is large, the step
in which ovn-nbctl retrieves a partial copy of the database can take a long
time, which yields poor performance overall.
To improve performance in such a case, ovn-nbctl offers a "daemon mode," in
which the user first starts ovn-nbctl running in the background and after‐
ward uses the daemon to execute operations. Over several ovn-nbctl command
invocations, this performs better overall because it retrieves a copy of
the database only once at the beginning, not once per program run.
Use the --detach option to start an ovn-nbctl daemon. With this option,
ovn-nbctl prints the name of a control socket to stdout. The client should
save this name in environment variable OVN_NB_DAEMON. Under the Bourne
shell this might be done like this:
export OVN_NB_DAEMON=$(ovn-nbctl --pidfile --detach)
When OVN_NB_DAEMON is set, ovn-nbctl automatically and transparently uses
the daemon to execute its commands.
When the daemon is no longer needed, kill it and unset the environment
variable, e.g.:
kill $(cat $OVN_RUNDIR/ovn-nbctl.pid)
unset OVN_NB_DAEMON
When using daemon mode, an alternative to the OVN_NB_DAEMON environment
variable is to specify a path for the Unix socket. When starting the ovn-
nbctl daemon, specify the -u option with a full path to the location of the
socket file. Here is an exmple:
ovn-nbctl --detach -u /tmp/mysock.ctl
Then to connect to the running daemon, use the -u option with the full path
to the socket created when the daemon was started:
ovn-nbctl -u /tmp/mysock.ctl show
Daemon Commands
Daemon mode is internally implemented using the same mechanism used by
ovn-appctl. One may also use ovn-appctl directly with the following com‐
mands:
run [options] command [arg...] [-- [options] command [arg...] ...]
Instructs the daemon process to run one or more ovn-nbctl
commands described above and reply with the results of run‐
ning these commands. Accepts the --no-wait, --wait, --time‐‐
out, --dry-run, --oneline, and the options described under
Table Formatting Options in addition to the the command-spe‐
cific options.
exit Causes ovn-nbctl to gracefully terminate.
OPTIONS
The options listed below affect the behavior of ovn-nbctl as a whole. Some
individual commands also accept their own options, which are given just be‐
fore the command name. If the first command on the command line has op‐
tions, then those options must be separated from the global options by --.
ovn-nbctl also accepts options from the OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS environment vari‐
able, in the same format as on the command line. Options from the command
line override those in the environment.
--no-wait | --wait=none
--wait=sb
--wait=hv
These options control whether and how ovn-nbctl waits for the
OVN system to become up-to-date with changes made in an
ovn-nbctl invocation.
By default, or if --no-wait or --wait=none, ovn-nbctl exits im‐
mediately after confirming that changes have been committed to
the northbound database, without waiting.
With --wait=sb, before ovn-nbctl exits, it waits for ovn-northd
to bring the southbound database up-to-date with the northbound
database updates.
With --wait=hv, before ovn-nbctl exits, it additionally waits
for all OVN chassis (hypervisors and gateways) to become up-to-
date with the northbound database updates. (This can become an
indefinite wait if any chassis is malfunctioning.)
Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for changes by
the current ovn-nbctl invocation to take effect. This means
that, if none of the commands supplied to ovn-nbctl change the
database, then the command does not wait at all. Use the sync
command to override this behavior.
--db database
The OVSDB database remote to contact. If the OVN_NB_DB environ‐
ment variable is set, its value is used as the default. Other‐
wise, the default is unix:/ovnnb_db.sock, but this default is
unlikely to be useful outside of single-machine OVN test envi‐
ronments.
--leader-only
--no-leader-only
By default, or with --leader-only, when the database server is
a clustered database, ovn-nbctl will avoid servers other than
the cluster leader. This ensures that any data that ovn-nbctl
reads and reports is up-to-date. With --no-leader-only,
ovn-nbctl will use any server in the cluster, which means that
for read-only transactions it can report and act on stale data
(transactions that modify the database are always serialized
even with --no-leader-only). Refer to Understanding Cluster
Consistency in ovsdb(7) for more information.
--shuffle-remotes
--no-shuffle-remotes
By default, or with --shuffle-remotes, when there are multiple
remotes specified in the OVSDB connection string specified by
--db or the OVN_NB_DB environment variable, the order of the
remotes will be shuffled before the client tries to connect.
The remotes will be shuffled only once to a new order before
the first connection attempt. The following retries, if any,
will follow the same new order. The default behavior is to make
sure clients of a clustered database can distribute evenly to
all members of the cluster. With --no-shuffle-remotes,
ovn-nbctl will use the original order specified in the connec‐
tion string to connect. This allows user to specify the pre‐
ferred order, which is particularly useful for testing.
--no-syslog
By default, ovn-nbctl logs its arguments and the details of any
changes that it makes to the system log. This option disables
this logging.
This option is equivalent to --verbose=nbctl:syslog:warn.
--oneline
Modifies the output format so that the output for each command
is printed on a single line. New-line characters that would
otherwise separate lines are printed as \fB\\n\fR, and any in‐
stances of \fB\\\fR that would otherwise appear in the output
are doubled. Prints a blank line for each command that has no
output. This option does not affect the formatting of output
from the list or find commands; see Table Formatting Options
below.
--dry-run
Prevents ovn-nbctl from actually modifying the database.
-t secs
--timeout=secs
By default, or with a secs of 0, ovn-nbctl waits forever for a
response from the database. This option limits runtime to ap‐
proximately secs seconds. If the timeout expires, ovn-nbctl
will exit with a SIGALRM signal. (A timeout would normally hap‐
pen only if the database cannot be contacted, or if the system
is overloaded.)
--print-wait-time
When --wait is specified, the option --print-wait-time can be
used to print the time spent on waiting, depending on the value
specified in --wait option. If --wait=sb is specified, it
prints "ovn-northd delay before processing", which is the time
between the Northbound DB update by the command and the moment
when ovn-northd starts processing the update, and "ovn-northd
completion", which is the time between the Northbound DB update
and the moment when ovn-northd completes the Southbound DB up‐
dating successfully. If --wait=hv is specified, in addition to
the above information, it also prints "ovn-controller(s) com‐
pletion", which is the time between the Northbound DB update
and the moment when the slowest hypervisor finishes processing
the update.
Daemon Options
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, program.pid) to be created indicating the
PID of the running process. If the pidfile argument is not speci‐
fied, or if it does not begin with /, then it is created in .
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pidfile
already exists and is locked by a running process, the daemon re‐
fuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to instead
overwrite the pidfile.
When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.
--detach
Runs this program as a background process. The process forks, and in
the child it starts a new session, closes the standard file descrip‐
tors (which has the side effect of disabling logging to the con‐
sole), and changes its current directory to the root (unless
--no-chdir is specified). After the child completes its initializa‐
tion, the parent exits.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor this program. If it dies
due to a signal that indicates a programming error (SIGABRT,
SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU, or
SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the
daemon dies or exits for another reason, the monitor process exits.
This option is normally used with --detach, but it also functions
without it.
--no-chdir
By default, when --detach is specified, the daemon changes its cur‐
rent working directory to the root directory after it detaches. Oth‐
erwise, invoking the daemon from a carelessly chosen directory would
prevent the administrator from unmounting the file system that holds
that directory.
Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing the dae‐
mon from changing its current working directory. This may be useful
for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to write core
dumps into the current working directory and the root directory is
not a good directory to use.
This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.
--no-self-confinement
By default this daemon will try to self-confine itself to work with
files under well-known directories determined at build time. It is
better to stick with this default behavior and not to use this flag
unless some other Access Control is used to confine daemon. Note
that in contrast to other access control implementations that are
typically enforced from kernel-space (e.g. DAC or MAC), self-con‐
finement is imposed from the user-space daemon itself and hence
should not be considered as a full confinement strategy, but instead
should be viewed as an additional layer of security.
--user=user:group
Causes this program to run as a different user specified in
user:group, thus dropping most of the root privileges. Short forms
user and :group are also allowed, with current user or group as‐
sumed, respectively. Only daemons started by the root user accepts
this argument.
On Linux, daemons will be granted CAP_IPC_LOCK and CAP_NET_BIND_SER‐‐
VICES before dropping root privileges. Daemons that interact with a
datapath, such as ovs-vswitchd, will be granted three additional ca‐
pabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN, CAP_NET_BROADCAST and CAP_NET_RAW.
The capability change will apply even if the new user is root.
Logging options
-v[spec]
--verbose=[spec]
Sets logging levels. Without any spec, sets the log level for every
module and destination to dbg. Otherwise, spec is a list of words sep‐
arated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from each category be‐
low:
• A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list command on
ovs-appctl(8), limits the log level change to the specified
module.
• syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change to only
to the system log, to the console, or to a file, respectively.
(If --detach is specified, the daemon closes its standard file
descriptors, so logging to the console will have no effect.)
• off, emer, err, warn, info, or dbg, to control the log level.
Messages of the given severity or higher will be logged, and
messages of lower severity will be filtered out. off filters
out all messages. See ovs-appctl(8) for a definition of each
log level.
Case is not significant within spec.
Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file will not
take place unless --log-file is also specified (see below).
For compatibility with older versions of OVS, any is accepted as a
word but has no effect.
-v
--verbose
Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --verbose=dbg.
-vPATTERN:destination:pattern
--verbose=PATTERN:destination:pattern
Sets the log pattern for destination to pattern. Refer to ovs-ap‐‐
pctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern.
-vFACILITY:facility
--verbose=FACILITY:facility
Sets the RFC5424 facility of the log message. facility can be one of
kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, clock, ftp,
ntp, audit, alert, clock2, local0, local1, local2, local3, local4, lo‐‐
cal5, local6 or local7. If this option is not specified, daemon is
used as the default for the local system syslog and local0 is used
while sending a message to the target provided via the --syslog-target
option.
--log-file[=file]
Enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it is used as
the exact name for the log file. The default log file name used if
file is omitted is /usr/local/var/log/ovn/program.log.
--syslog-target=host:port
Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the system
syslog. The host must be a numerical IP address, not a hostname.
--syslog-method=method
Specify method as how syslog messages should be sent to syslog daemon.
The following forms are supported:
• libc, to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of using this
options is that libc adds fixed prefix to every message before
it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over /dev/log UNIX do‐
main socket.
• unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is possible
to specify arbitrary message format with this option. However,
rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use hard coded parser function
anyway that limits UNIX domain socket use. If you want to use
arbitrary message format with older rsyslogd versions, then use
UDP socket to localhost IP address instead.
• udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this method it is possi‐
ble to use arbitrary message format also with older rsyslogd.
When sending syslog messages over UDP socket extra precaution
needs to be taken into account, for example, syslog daemon
needs to be configured to listen on the specified UDP port, ac‐
cidental iptables rules could be interfering with local syslog
traffic and there are some security considerations that apply
to UDP sockets, but do not apply to UNIX domain sockets.
• null, to discard all messages logged to syslog.
The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment variable;
if it is unset, the default is libc.
Table Formatting Options
These options control the format of output from the list and find commands.
-f format
--format=format
Sets the type of table formatting. The following types of for
mat are available:
table 2-D text tables with aligned columns.
list (default)
A list with one column per line and rows separated by a
blank line.
html HTML tables.
csv Comma-separated values as defined in RFC 4180.
json JSON format as defined in RFC 4627. The output is a se‐
quence of JSON objects, each of which corresponds to one
table. Each JSON object has the following members with
the noted values:
caption
The table’s caption. This member is omitted if
the table has no caption.
headings
An array with one element per table column. Each
array element is a string giving the correspond‐
ing column’s heading.
data An array with one element per table row. Each el‐
ement is also an array with one element per table
column. The elements of this second-level array
are the cells that constitute the table. Cells
that represent OVSDB data or data types are ex‐
pressed in the format described in the OVSDB
specification; other cells are simply expressed
as text strings.
-d format
--data=format
Sets the formatting for cells within output tables unless the
table format is set to json, in which case json formatting is
always used when formatting cells. The following types of for
mat are available:
string (default)
The simple format described in the Database Values sec‐
tion of ovs-vsctl(8).
bare The simple format with punctuation stripped off: [] and
{} are omitted around sets, maps, and empty columns,
items within sets and maps are space-separated, and
strings are never quoted. This format may be easier for
scripts to parse.
json The RFC 4627 JSON format as described above.
--no-headings
This option suppresses the heading row that otherwise appears
in the first row of table output.
--pretty
By default, JSON in output is printed as compactly as possible.
This option causes JSON in output to be printed in a more read‐
able fashion. Members of objects and elements of arrays are
printed one per line, with indentation.
This option does not affect JSON in tables, which is always
printed compactly.
--bare
Equivalent to --format=list --data=bare --no-headings.
PKI Options
PKI configuration is required to use SSL/TLS for the connection to the
database.
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as iden‐
tity for outgoing SSL/TLS connections.
-c cert.pem
--certificate=cert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certifies
the private key specified on -p or --private-key to be trust‐
worthy. The certificate must be signed by the certificate au‐
thority (CA) that the peer in SSL/TLS connections will use to
verify it.
-C cacert.pem
--ca-cert=cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate for verify‐
ing certificates presented to this program by SSL/TLS peers.
(This may be the same certificate that SSL/TLS peers use to
verify the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or it
may be a different one, depending on the PKI design in use.)
-C none
--ca-cert=none
Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL/TLS
peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means that
certificates cannot be verified to be those of known trusted
hosts.
--ssl-server-name=servername
Specifies the server name to use for TLS Server Name Indication
(SNI). By default, the hostname from the connection string is
used for SNI. This option allows overriding the SNI hostname,
which is useful when connecting through proxies or service
meshes where the connection endpoint differs from the intended
server name.
--bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem
When cacert.pem exists, this option has the same effect as -C
or --ca-cert. If it does not exist, then the executable will
attempt to obtain the CA certificate from the SSL/TLS peer on
its first SSL/TLS connection and save it to the named PEM
file. If it is successful, it will immediately drop the con‐
nection and reconnect, and from then on all SSL/TLS connec‐
tions 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, but it
may be useful for bootstrapping.
This option is only useful if the SSL/TLS peer sends its CA
certificate as part of the SSL/TLS certificate chain. SSL/TLS
protocols do not require the server to send the CA certifi‐
cate.
This option is mutually exclusive with -C and --ca-cert.
Other Options
-h
--help
Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
COMMANDS
The following sections describe the commands that ovn-nbctl supports.
General Commands
init Initializes the database, if it is empty. If the database has al‐
ready been initialized, this command has no effect.
show [switch | router]
Prints a brief overview of the database contents. If switch is pro‐
vided, only records related to that logical switch are shown. If
router is provided, only records related to that logical router are
shown.
Logical Switch Commands
ls-add
Creates a new, unnamed logical switch, which initially has no ports.
The switch does not have a name, other commands must refer to this
switch by its UUID.
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate] ls-add switch
Creates a new logical switch named switch, which initially has no
ports.
The OVN northbound database schema does not require logical switch
names to be unique, but the whole point to the names is to provide
an easy way for humans to refer to the switches, making duplicate
names unhelpful. Thus, without any options, this command regards it
as an error if switch is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding
a duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new logical switch.
With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a new logical
switch with a duplicate name. It is an error to specify both op‐
tions. If there are multiple logical switches with a duplicate name,
configure the logical switches using the UUID instead of the switch
name.
[--if-exists] ls-del switch
Deletes switch. It is an error if switch does not exist, unless
--if-exists is specified.
ls-list
Lists all existing switches on standard output, one per line.
ACL Commands
These commands operates on ACL objects for a given entity. The entity can
be either a logical switch or a port group. The entity can be specified as
uuid or name. The --type option can be used to specify the type of the en
tity, in case both a logical switch and a port groups exist with the same
name specified for entity. type must be either switch or port-group.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--log] [--meter=meter] [--sever‐‐
ity=severity] [--name=name] [--label=label] [--sample-new=sample]
[--sample-est=sample] [--may-exist] [--apply-after-lb] [--tier]
acl-add entity direction priority match verdict [network-function-
group]
Adds the specified ACL to entity. direction must be either
from-lport or to-lport. priority must be between 0 and 32767,
inclusive. A full description of the fields are in ovn-nb(5).
If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated ACL succeeds
but the ACL is not really created. Without --may-exist,
adding a duplicated ACL results in error.
The --log option enables packet logging for the ACL. The op‐
tions --severity and --name specify a severity and name, re‐
spectively, for log entries (and also enable logging). The
severity must be one of alert, warning, notice, info, or de‐‐
bug. If a severity is not specified, the default is info. The
--meter=meter option is used to rate-limit packet logging.
The meter argument names a meter configured by meter-add.
The --sample-new (and optionally --sample-est) enable ACL
sampling. A valid uuid of a row of the Sample table must be
provided.
The --apply-after-lb option sets apply-after-lb=true in the
options column of the ACL table. As the option name suggests,
the ACL will be applied after the logical switch load bal‐
ancer stage.
The --tier option sets the ACL’s tier to the specified value.
For more information about ACL tiers, see the documentation
for the ovn-nb(5) database.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--tier] acl-del entity [direction
[priority match]]
Deletes ACLs from entity. If only entity is supplied, all the
ACLs from the entity are deleted. If direction is also speci‐
fied, then all the flows in that direction will be deleted
from the entity. If all the fields are given, then a single
flow that matches all the fields will be deleted.
If the --tier option is provided, then only ACLs of the given
tier value will be deleted, in addition to whatever other
criteria have been provided.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--all] acl-list entity
Lists the ACLs on entity.
The --all option will also list the port group ACLs associ‐
ated with each logical switch port, when a logical switch is
provided as an argument.
Network Function Commands
[--may-exist] nf-add nf id inport [outport]
Creates a new network function named nf with the specified id (an
integer between 1 and 255) and logical switch ports inport and (op‐
tionally) outport. The ports must be on the same logical switch and
must be already created.
When the network function is used in an inline-mode network function
group, both inport and outport must be specified. Traffic matching
the ACL is redirected to the inport for from-lport ACLs and to the
outport for to-lport ACLs. The response packets are sent through the
same ports in reverse order.
When the network function is used in a vtap-mode network function
group, only inport is used; traffic matching the ACL is mirrored
(cloned) to inport in both directions while the original packet con‐
tinues to its destination. outport must not be specified for vtap
network functions.
Without any options, this command regards it as an error if nf is a
duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding network function with du‐
plicate name overwrites the existing config.
[--if-exists] nf-del nf
Deletes nf specified as name or uuid. It is an error if nf does not
exist, unless --if-exists is specified.
nf-list
Lists all network functions.
[--may-exist] nfg-add nfg id mode [nf]...
Creates a new network function group named nfg with optionally one
of more nf added to the group. The nfs must be already created.
Traffic redirection/mirroring is performed towards one of the active
network functions, based on health monitoring (inline) or port bind‐
ing status (vtap). If all are down, the configured fallback behavior
applies.
Each network function group must have a unique id between 1 and 255.
The supported values for mode are:
• inline: traffic matching the ACL is redirected through the
active network function. Both inport and outport must be set
on every member network function.
• vtap: traffic matching the ACL is mirrored (cloned) to the
active network function while the original packet continues
to its destination. Only inport is used on member network
functions.
Without any options, this command regards it as an error if nfg is a
duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding network function group with
duplicate name overwrites the existing config.
[--if-exists] nfg-del nfg
Deletes nfg specified as name or uuid. It is an error if nfg does
not exist, unless --if-exists is specified.
nfg-list [nfg]
Lists all network function groups. If a specific network function
group nfg is given, only that group is listed.
[--may-exist] nfg-add-nf nfg nf
Add a network function named nf to a network function group named
nfg. It is an error if nfg or nf does not exist. Unless --may-exist
is specified, it is an error if the nf being added is already a part
of the nfg.
nfg-del-nf nfg nf
Delete a network function named nf from a network function group
named nfg. It is an error if nfg or nf does not exist. It is an er‐
ror if nf is not a part of the nfg, unless --if-exists is specified.
Logical Switch QoS Rule Commands
[--may-exist] qos-add switch direction priority match [mark=mark]
[dscp=dscp] [rate=rate [burst=burst]]
Adds QoS marking and metering rules to switch. direction must be ei‐
ther from-lport or to-lport. priority must be between 0 and 32767,
inclusive.
If dscp=dscp is specified, then matching packets will have DSCP
marking applied. dscp must be between 0 and 63, inclusive. If
rate=rate is specified then matching packets will have metering ap‐
plied at rate kbps. If metering is configured, then burst=burst
specifies the burst rate limit in kilobits. dscp and/or rate are re‐
quired arguments. If mark=mark is specified, then matching packets
will be marked (through pkt.mark). mark must be a positive integer.
If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated QoS rule succeeds
but the QoS rule is not really created. Without --may-exist, adding
a duplicated QoS rule results in error.
qos-del switch [direction [priority match]]
Deletes QoS rules from switch. If only switch is supplied, all the
QoS rules from the logical switch are deleted. If direction is also
specified, then all the flows in that direction will be deleted from
the logical switch. If all the fields are supplied, then a single
flow that matches the given fields will be deleted.
If switch and uuid are supplied, then the QoS rule with specified
uuid is deleted.
qos-list switch
Lists the QoS rules on switch.
Meter Commands
[--fair] [--may-exist] meter-add name action rate unit [burst]
Adds the specified meter. name must be a unique name to identify
this meter. The action argument specifies what should happen when
this meter is exceeded. The only supported action is drop.
The unit specifies the unit for the rate argument; valid values are
kbps and pktps for kilobits per second and packets per second, re‐
spectively. The burst option configures the maximum burst allowed
for the band in kilobits or packets depending on whether the unit
chosen was kbps or pktps, respectively. If a burst is not supplied,
the switch is free to select some reasonable value depending on its
configuration.
ovn-nbctl only supports adding a meter with a single band, but the
other commands support meters with multiple bands.
Names that start with "__" (two underscores) are reserved for inter‐
nal use by OVN, so ovn-nbctl does not allow adding them.
If --fair is specified, the meter’s fair column is set to true, en‐
abling fair bandwidth sharing among rows that reference this meter.
If --may-exist is specified, adding a meter with a name that already
exists will update the existing meter instead of reporting an error.
meter-del [name]
Deletes meters. By default, all meters are deleted. If name is sup‐
plied, only the meter with that name will be deleted.
meter-list
Lists all meters.
Logical Switch Port Commands
[--may-exist] lsp-add switch port
Creates on lswitch a new logical switch port named port.
It is an error if a logical port named port already exists, unless
--may-exist is specified. Regardless of --may-exist, it is an error
if the existing port is in some logical switch other than switch or
if it has a parent port.
[--may-exist] lsp-add switch port parent tag_request
Creates on switch a logical switch port named port that is a child
of parent that is identified with VLAN ID tag_request, which must be
between 0 and 4095, inclusive. If tag_request is 0, ovn-northd gen‐
erates a tag that is unique in the scope of parent. This is useful
in cases such as virtualized container environments where Open
vSwitch does not have a direct connection to the container’s port
and it must be shared with the virtual machine’s port.
It is an error if a logical port named port already exists, unless
--may-exist is specified. Regardless of --may-exist, it is an error
if the existing port is not in switch or if it does not have the
specified parent and tag_request.
[--if-exists] lsp-del port
Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist, unless --if-ex‐‐
ists is specified.
lsp-list switch
Lists all the logical switch ports within switch on standard output,
one per line.
lsp-get-parent port
If set, get the parent port of port. If not set, print nothing.
lsp-get-tag port
If set, get the tag for port traffic. If not set, print nothing.
lsp-set-addresses port [address]...
Sets the addresses associated with port to address. Each address
should be one of the following:
an Ethernet address, optionally followed by a space and one or more
IP addresses
OVN delivers packets for the Ethernet address to this port.
unknown
OVN delivers unicast Ethernet packets whose destination MAC
address is not in any logical port’s addresses column to
ports with address unknown.
dynamic
Use this keyword to make ovn-northd generate a globally
unique MAC address and choose an unused IPv4 address with the
logical port’s subnet and store them in the port’s dy‐‐
namic_addresses column.
router
Accepted only when the type of the logical switch port is
router. This indicates that the Ethernet, IPv4, and IPv6 ad‐
dresses for this logical switch port should be obtained from
the connected logical router port, as specified by
router-port in lsp-set-options.
Multiple addresses may be set. If no address argument is given, port
will have no addresses associated with it.
lsp-get-addresses port
Lists all the addresses associated with port on standard output, one
per line.
lsp-set-port-security port [addrs]...
Sets the port security addresses associated with port to addrs. Mul‐
tiple sets of addresses may be set by using multiple addrs argu‐
ments. If no addrs argument is given, port will not have port secu‐
rity enabled.
Port security limits the addresses from which a logical port may
send packets and to which it may receive packets. See the ovn-nb(5)
documentation for the port_security column in the Logi‐‐
cal_Switch_Port table for details.
lsp-get-port-security port
Lists all the port security addresses associated with port on stan‐
dard output, one per line.
lsp-get-up port
Prints the state of port, either up or down.
lsp-set-enabled port state
Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or disabled.
When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed into or out of the
port.
lsp-get-enabled port
Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or disabled.
lsp-set-type port type [peer=peer]
Set the type for the logical port. The type must be one of the fol‐
lowing:
(empty string)
A VM (or VIF) interface.
router
A connection to a logical router.
switch
A connection to another logical switch. The optional argument
peer identifies a logical switch port that connects to this
one.
All logical switch ports of that type have implicit ’unknown’
addresses and FDB learning enabled. This comes with all the
positive and negative sides of the ’unknown’ address. Static
addresses-to-port mappings don’t need to be maintained on
each node and only the actually used mappings are learned,
but at a cost of broadcasting packets for which the destina‐
tion address is not learned yet.
FDB learning will also cause not learned yet packets to be
sent to controller from each switch-switch connection they
traverse. This should be taken into consideration while plan‐
ning to have many directly connected switches within a single
availability zone.
localnet
A connection to a locally accessible network from each ovn-
controller instance. A logical switch can only have a single
localnet port attached. This is used to model direct connec‐
tivity to an existing network.
localport
A connection to a local VIF. Traffic that arrives on a local‐
port 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.
lsp-get-type port
Get the type for the logical port.
lsp-set-options port [key=value]...
Set type-specific key-value options for the logical port.
lsp-get-options port
Get the type-specific options for the logical port.
lsp-set-dhcpv4-options port dhcp_options
Set the DHCPv4 options for the logical port. The dhcp_options is a
UUID referring to a set of DHCP options in the DHCP_Options table.
lsp-get-dhcpv4-options port
Get the configured DHCPv4 options for the logical port.
lsp-set-dhcpv6-options port dhcp_options
Set the DHCPv6 options for the logical port. The dhcp_options is a
UUID referring to a set of DHCP options in the DHCP_Options table.
lsp-get-dhcpv6-options port
Get the configured DHCPv6 options for the logical port.
lsp-get-ls port
Get the logical switch which the port belongs to.
lsp-attach-mirror port m
Attaches the mirror m to the logical port port.
lsp-detach-mirror port m
Detaches the mirror m from the logical port port.
[--may-exist] lsp-add-router-port switch port lrp_peer
Creates a new logical switch port named port on switch with type
router, sets the router-port option to lrp_peer, and sets addresses
to router.
With --may-exist, it is not an error if the port already exists, as
long as it is in the same switch, has the same type, and has the
same router-port option.
[--may-exist] lsp-add-localnet-port switch port network
Creates a new logical switch port named port on switch with type lo‐‐
calnet, sets the network_name option to network, and sets addresses
to unknown.
With --may-exist, it is not an error if the port already exists, as
long as it is in the same switch, has the same type, and has the
same network_name option.
Forwarding Group Commands
[--liveness]fwd-group-add group switch vip vmac ports
Creates a new forwarding group named group as the name with the pro‐
vided vip and vmac. vip should be a virtual IP address and vmac
should be a virtual MAC address to access the forwarding group.
ports are the logical switch port names that are put in the forward‐
ing group. Example for ports is lsp1 lsp2 ... Traffic destined to
virtual IP of the forwarding group will be load balanced to all the
child ports.
When --liveness is specified then child ports are expected to be
bound to external devices like routers. BFD should be configured be‐
tween hypervisors and the external devices. The child port selection
will become dependent on BFD status with its external device.
[--if-exists] fwd-group-del group
Deletes group. It is an error if group does not exist, unless
--if-exists is specified.
fwd-group-list [switch]
Lists all existing forwarding groups, If switch is specified then
only the forwarding groups configured for switch will be listed.
Logical Router Commands
lr-add
Creates a new, unnamed logical router, which initially has no ports.
The router does not have a name, other commands must refer to this
router by its UUID.
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate] lr-add router
Creates a new logical router named router, which initially has no
ports.
The OVN northbound database schema does not require logical router
names to be unique, but the whole point to the names is to provide
an easy way for humans to refer to the routers, making duplicate
names unhelpful. Thus, without any options, this command regards it
as an error if router is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding
a duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new logical router.
With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a new logical
router with a duplicate name. It is an error to specify both op‐
tions. If there are multiple logical routers with a duplicate name,
configure the logical routers using the UUID instead of the router
name.
[--if-exists] lr-del router
Deletes router. It is an error if router does not exist, unless
--if-exists is specified.
lr-list
Lists all existing routers on standard output, one per line.
Logical Router Port Commands
[--may-exist] lrp-add router port mac [network]... [peer=peer]
Creates on router a new logical router port named port with Ethernet
address mac and IP address/netmask for each network.
The optional argument peer identifies a logical router port that
connects to this one. The following example adds a router port with
an IPv4 and IPv6 address with peer lr1:
lrp-add lr0 lrp0 00:11:22:33:44:55 192.168.0.1/24 2001:db8::1/64
peer=lr1
It is an error if a logical router port named port already exists,
unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of --may-exist, it is an
error if the existing router port is in some logical router other
than router.
[--if-exists] lrp-del port
Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist, unless --if-ex‐‐
ists is specified.
lrp-list router
Lists all the logical router ports within router on standard output,
one per line.
lrp-set-enabled port state
Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or disabled.
When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed into or out of the
port.
lrp-get-enabled port
Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or disabled.
lrp-set-gateway-chassis port chassis [priority]
Set gateway chassis for port. chassis is the name of the chassis.
This creates a gateway chassis entry in Gateway_Chassis table. It
won’t check if chassis really exists in OVN_Southbound database.
Priority will be set to 0 if priority is not provided by user. pri
ority must be between 0 and 32767, inclusive.
lrp-del-gateway-chassis port chassis
Deletes gateway chassis from port. It is an error if gateway chassis
with chassis for port does not exist.
lrp-get-gateway-chassis port
Lists all the gateway chassis with priority within port on standard
output, one per line, ordered based on priority.
Logical Router Static Route Commands
[--may-exist] [--policy=POLICY] [--route-table=ROUTE_TABLE] [--ecmp]
[--ecmp-symmetric-reply] [--override-connected] [--bfd[=UUID]] lr-route-add
router prefix nexthop [port]
Adds the specified route to router. prefix describes an IPv4 or IPv6
prefix for this route, such as 192.168.100.0/24. nexthop specifies
the gateway to use for this route, which should be the IP address of
one of router logical router ports or the IP address of a logical
port. If port is specified, packets that match this route will be
sent out that port. When port is omitted, OVN infers the output port
based on nexthop. Nexthop can be set to discard for dropping packets
which match the given route.
The --route-table option can be used to assign the given route to a
separate routing table ROUTE_TABLE instead of the default main>gt;>gt; ta‐
ble. For a detailed explanation of the route lookup behavior, see
the description of the field Logical_Router_Static_Route:route_table
in the ovn-nb(5) manpage.
--policy describes the policy used to make routing decisions. This
should be one of "dst-ip" or "src-ip". If not specified, the default
is "dst-ip".
The --ecmp option allows for multiple routes with the same prefix
POLICY but different nexthop and port to be added.
The --ecmp-symmetric-reply option makes it so that traffic that ar‐
rives over an ECMP route will have its reply traffic sent out over
that same route. Setting --ecmp-symmetric-reply implies --ecmp so it
is not necessary to set both.
The --override-connected option makes it so that route’s priority to
be highest among routes with same prefix.
--bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN route. If the
BFD session UUID is provided, it will be used for the OVN route oth‐
erwise the next-hop will be used to perform a lookup in the OVN BFD
table. If the lookup fails and port is specified, a new entry in the
BFD table will be created using the nexthop as dst_ip and port as
logical_port.
It is an error if a route with prefix and POLICY already exists, un‐
less --may-exist, --ecmp, or --ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified. If
--may-exist is specified but not --ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply,
the existed route will be updated with the new nexthop and port. If
--ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified, a new route will be
added, regardless of the existed route., which is useful when adding
ECMP routes, i.e. routes with same POLICY and prefix but different
nexthop and port.
[--if-exists] [--policy=POLICY] [--route-table=ROUTE_TABLE] lr-route-del
router [prefix [nexthop [port]]]
Deletes routes from router. If only router is supplied, all the
routes from the logical router are deleted. If POLICY, prefix, nex
thop and/or port are also specified, then all the routes that match
the conditions will be deleted from the logical router.
The --route-table option can be used to delete the given route from
the route table ROUTE_TABLE instead of the default main>gt;>gt; table.
It is an error if there is no matching route entry, unless --if-ex‐‐
ists is specified.
lr-route-list router
Lists the routes on router.
Logical Router Policy Commands
[--may-exist] [--bfd] [--chain=CHAIN] [--output-port=OUTPUT_PORT] lr-pol‐‐
icy-add router priority match action [nexthop[,nexthop,...]] [options
key=value]]
Add Policy to router which provides a way to configure allow, drop,
jump, and reroute policies on the router. Allow and drop policies
are similar to OVN ACLs, but exist on the logical-router. Reroute
policies are needed for service-insertion and service-chaining. The
action must be one of allow, drop, jump, or reroute. nexthop is an
optional parameter. It needs to be provided only when action is
reroute. Multiple nexthops can be specified for ECMP routing. A pol‐
icy is uniquely identified by priority and match. Multiple policies
can have the same priority. options sets the router policy options
as key-value pair. The supported option is : pkt_mark.
If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated routing policy with
the same priority and match string is not really created. Without
--may-exist, adding a duplicated routing policy results in error.
The --chain option specifies the policy chain name. This is used
when the action is jump.
The --output-port option specifies the output logical router port.
This is only valid when the action is reroute.
--bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN reroute pol‐
icy. OVN will look for an already running BFD session using next-hop
as lookup key in the BFD table. If the lookup fails, a new entry in
the BFD table will be created using the nexthop as dst_ip.
The following example shows a policy to lr1, which will drop packets
from192.168.100.0/24.
lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 drop.
lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 allow
pkt_mark=100 .
[--if-exists] [--chain=CHAIN] lr-policy-del router [{priority | uuid}
[match]]
Deletes polices from router. If only router is supplied, all the po‐
lices from the logical router are deleted. If priority and/or match
are also specified, then all the polices that match the conditions
will be deleted from the logical router.
If router and uuid are supplied, then the policy with specified uuid
is deleted. It is an error if uuid does not exist, unless --if-ex‐‐
ists is specified.
If --chain is specified, only policies in the specified chain are
considered for deletion.
lr-policy-list router
Lists the polices on router.
NAT Commands
[--may-exist] [--stateless] [--gateway-port=GATEWAY_PORT] [-portrange]
[--match=MATCH] [--priority=PRIORITY] lr-nat-add router type external_ip
logical_ip [logical_port external_mac] [external_port_range]
Adds the specified NAT to router. The type must be one of snat,
dnat, or dnat_and_snat. The external_ip is an IPv4 address. The log
ical_ip is an IPv4 network (e.g 192.168.1.0/24) or an IPv4 address.
The logical_port and external_mac are only accepted when router is a
distributed router (rather than a gateway router) and type is
dnat_and_snat. The logical_port is the name of an existing logical
switch port where the logical_ip resides. The external_mac is an
Ethernet address.
When --stateless is specified then it implies that we will be not
use connection tracker, i.e internal ip and external ip are 1:1
mapped. This implies that --stateless is applicable only to
dnat_and_snat type NAT rules. An external ip with --stateless NAT
cannot be shared with any other NAT rule.
--gateway-port option allows specifying the distributed gateway port
of router where the NAT rule needs to be applied. GATEWAY_PORT
should reference a Logical_Router_Port row that is a distributed
gateway port of router. When router has multiple distributed gateway
ports and the gateway port for this NAT can’t be inferred from the
external_ip, it is an error to not specify the GATEWAY_PORT.
If the --portrange option is specified, then a range of ports may be
specified in the external_port_range part of the lr-nat-add command.
If this option is omitted, then an external port range may not be
specified. The format of the port range is port_low-port_high, where
port_low is a lower number than port_high. When the packet is NAT‐
ted, a random port from the range will be selected as the source
port. The range for the external_port_range is 1-65535.
The --match allows to specify the extra match condition. The extra
match is for more fine-grained control over the NAT rule.
The --priority option allows to specify order of NAT rule evalua‐
tion. Priority must be between 0 and 32767, inclusive and can be
only specified together with --match.
When type is dnat, the externally visible IP address external_ip is
DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the logical space.
When type is snat, IP packets with their source IP address that ei‐
ther matches the IP address in logical_ip or is in the network pro‐
vided by logical_ip is SNATed into the IP address in external_ip.
When type is dnat_and_snat, the externally visible IP address exter
nal_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the logical space.
In addition, IP packets with the source IP address that matches log
ical_ip is SNATed into the IP address in external_ip.
When the logical_port and external_mac are specified, the NAT rule
will be programmed on the chassis where the logical_port resides.
This includes ARP replies for the external_ip, which return the
value of external_mac. All packets transmitted with source IP ad‐
dress equal to external_ip will be sent using the external_mac.
It is an error if a NAT already exists with the same values of
router, type, external_ip, logical_ip and GATEWAY_PORT (in case of
multiple distributed gateway ports), unless --may-exist is speci‐
fied. When --may-exist, logical_port, and external_mac are all spec‐
ified, the existing values of logical_port and external_mac are
overwritten.
[--if-exists] lr-nat-del router [type [ip] [gateway_port]]
Deletes NATs from router. If only router is supplied, all the NATs
from the logical router are deleted. If type is also specified, then
all the NATs that match the type will be deleted from the logical
router. If ip is also specified without specifying gateway_port,
then all the NATs that match the type and ip will be deleted from
the logical router. If gateway_port is specified without specifying
ip, then all the NATs that match the type and gateway_port will be
deleted from the logical router. If all the fields are given, then a
single NAT rule that matches all the fields will be deleted. When
type is snat, the ip should be logical_ip. When type is dnat or
dnat_and_snat, the ip should be external_ip.
It is an error if both ip and gateway_port are specified and there
is no matching NAT entry, unless --if-exists is specified.
lr-nat-list router
Lists the NATs on router.
[--is-exempted] lr-nat-update-ext-ip router type ip address_set
Updates the external IP address set for an existing NAT rule on
router. type must be one of dnat, snat, or dnat_and_snat. The com‐
mand finds the matching NAT rule by type and ip, then sets the al‐‐
lowed_ext_ips column of the NAT rule to address_set.
If --is-exempted is specified, sets exempted_ext_ips instead of al‐‐
lowed_ext_ips.
It is an error if no matching NAT rule is found.
Load Balancer Commands
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate | --reject | --event | --template |
--add-route] lb-add lb vip ips [protocol] [address_family]
Creates a new load balancer named lb with the provided vip and ips
or adds the vip to an existing lb. vip should be a virtual IP ad‐
dress (or an IP address and a port number with : as a separator).
Examples for vip are 192.168.1.4, fd0f::1, and 192.168.1.5:8080. ips
should be comma separated IP endpoints (or comma separated IP ad‐
dresses and port numbers with : as a separator). ips must be the
same address family as vip. Examples for ips are 10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2or
[fdef::1]:8800,[fdef::2]:8800.
The optional argument protocol must be either tcp, udp or sctp. This
argument is useful when a port number is provided as part of the
vip. If the protocol is unspecified and a port number is provided as
part of the vip, OVN assumes the protocol to be tcp.
It is an error if the vip already exists in the load balancer named
lb, unless --may-exist is specified. With --add-duplicate, the com‐
mand really creates a new load balancer with a duplicate name.
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 un‐
reachable packet (for all other kind of traffic) will be sent when‐
ever an incoming packet is received for this load-balancer. Please
note using --reject option will disable empty_lb SB controller event
for this load balancer.
If the load balancer is created with --event option and it has no
active backends, whenever the lb receives traffic, the event is re‐
ported in the Controller_Event table in the SB db. Please note
--event option can’t be specified with --reject one.
If the load balancer is created with --template option, local tem‐
plate variables may be used as arguments. These variables are stored
in Chassis_Template_Var. To see the supported variable formats, see
ovn-nb(5). The following example adds a templated load balancer:
ovn-nbctl --template lb-add lb1 ^vip:^vport ^backend udp ipv4.
If --add-route is specified, a route is automatically added for the
load balancer’s VIP subnet.
The optional address_family argument specifies the address family
(ipv4 or ipv6). This is primarily used with template load balancers.
The following example adds a load balancer.
lb-add lb0 30.0.0.10:80
192.168.10.10:80,192.168.10.20:80,192.168.10.30:80 udp
[--if-exists] lb-del lb [vip]
Deletes lb or the vip from lb. If vip is supplied, only the vip will
be deleted from the lb. If only the lb is supplied, the lb will be
deleted. It is an error if vip does not already exist in lb, unless
--if-exists is specified.
lb-list [lb]
Lists the LBs. If lb is also specified, then only the specified lb
will be listed.
[--may-exist] ls-lb-add switch lb
Adds the specified lb to switch. It is an error if a load balancer
named lb already exists in the switch, unless --may-exist is speci‐
fied.
[--if-exists] ls-lb-del switch [lb]
Removes lb from switch. If only switch is supplied, all the LBs from
the logical switch are removed. If lb is also specified, then only
the lb will be removed from the logical switch. It is an error if lb
does not exist in the switch, unless --if-exists is specified.
ls-lb-list switch
Lists the LBs for the given switch.
[--may-exist] lr-lb-add router lb
Adds the specified lb to router. It is an error if a load balancer
named lb already exists in the router, unless --may-exist is speci‐
fied.
[--if-exists] lr-lb-del router [lb]
Removes lb from router. If only router is supplied, all the LBs from
the logical router are removed. If lb is also specified, then only
the lb will be removed from the logical router. It is an error if lb
does not exist in the router, unless --if-exists is specified.
lr-lb-list router
Lists the LBs for the given router.
DHCP Options commands
dhcp-options-create cidr [key=value]
Creates a new DHCP Options entry in the DHCP_Options table with the
specified cidr and optional external-ids.
dhcp-options-list
Lists the DHCP Options entries.
dhcp-options-del dhcp-option
Deletes the DHCP Options entry referred by dhcp-option UUID.
dhcp-options-set-options dhcp-option [key=value]...
Set the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.
dhcp-options-get-options dhcp-option
Lists the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.
Port Group commands
pg-add group [port]...
Creates a new port group in the Port_Group table named group with
optional ports added to the group.
pg-set-ports group port...
Sets ports on the port group named group. It is an error if group
does not exist.
pg-get-ports group
Gets ports on the port group named group. It is an error if group
does not exist.
pg-del group
Deletes port group group. It is an error if group does not exist.
HA Chassis Group commands
ha-chassis-group-add group
Creates a new HA chassis group in the HA_Chassis_Group table named
group.
ha-chassis-group-del group
Deletes the HA chassis group group. It is an error if group does not
exist.
ha-chassis-group-list [ha-chassis-group]
Lists all HA chassis groups along with the HA chassis if any associ‐
ated with it. If ha-chassis-group is also specified, then only the
specified ha-chassis-group will be listed.
ha-chassis-group-add-chassis group chassis priority
Adds a new HA chassis chassis to the HA Chassis group group with the
specified priority. If the chassis already exists, then the priority
is updated. The chassis should be the name of the chassis in the
OVN_Southbound.
ha-chassis-group-remove-chassis group chassis
Removes the HA chassis chassis from the HA chassis group group. It
is an error if chassis does not exist.
ha-chassis-group-set-chassis-prio group chassis priority
Sets the priority of an existing HA chassis chassis within the HA
chassis group group. priority must be between 0 and 32767, inclu‐
sive. It is an error if chassis does not exist in group.
Control Plane Protection Policy commands
These commands manage meters configured in Copp table linking them to logi‐
cal datapaths through copp column in Logical_Switch or Logical_Router ta‐
bles. Protocol packets for which CoPP is enforced when sending packets to
ovn-controller (if configured):
• ARP
• ND_NS
• ND_NA
• ND_RA
• ND
• DNS
• IGMP
• packets that require ARP resolution before forwarding
• packets that require ND_NS before forwarding
• packets that need to be replied to with ICMP Errors
• packets that need to be replied to with TCP RST
• packets that need to be replied to with DHCP_OPTS
• packets that trigger a reject action
• packets that trigger a SCTP abort action
• controller_events
• BFD
copp-add name proto meter
Adds the control proto to meter mapping to the control plane
protection policy name. If no policy exists yet, it creates
one. If a mapping already existed for proto, this will over‐
write it.
copp-del name [proto]
Removes the control proto mapping for the name control plane
protection policy. If proto is not specified, the whole con‐
trol plane protection policy is destroyed.
copp-list name
Display the current control plane protection policy for name.
ls-copp-add name switch
Adds the control plane protection policy name to the logical
switch switch.
lr-copp-add name router
Adds the control plane protection policy name to the logical
router router.
Mirror commands
mirror-add m type [index] filter dest
Creates a new mirror in the Mirror table with the name m with the
below mandatory arguments.
type specifies the mirror type - gre , erspan or local.
index specifies the tunnel index value (which is an integer) if the
type is gre or erspan.
filter specifies the mirror source selection. Can be from-lport,
to-lport or both.
dest specifies the mirror destination IP (v4 or v6) if the type is
gre or erspan. For a type of local, this field defines a local in‐
terface on the OVS integration bridge to be used as the mirror des‐
tination. The interface must possess external-ids:mirror-id that
matches this string.
mirror-del m
Deletes the mirror m.
mirror-list
Lists the mirrors.
mirror-rule-add mirror_name priority match action
Adds a mirror rule to the mirror named mirror_name. priority is an
integer between 0 and 32767, inclusive. match is a match expression
for selecting traffic. action must be mirror or skip. It is an error
if a duplicate rule already exists on the mirror.
mirror-rule-del mirror_name [priority match]
Deletes mirror rules from the mirror named mirror_name. If only mir
ror_name is given, all mirror rules are deleted from that mirror. If
priority and match are also given, only the rule matching both is
deleted.
Health Check commands
lsp-hc-add PORT PROTOCOL SOURCE_IP [DST_PORT] ADDRESS
Creates a new health check configuration for the logical switch port
PORT with the below mandatory arguments.
PROTOCOL specifies the health check protocol - tcp, udp, or icmp.
SOURCE_IP specifies the source IP address used when sending health
check probes.
DST_PORT specifies the destination port number for tcp and udp
health checks. This parameter is ignored for icmp protocol.
ADDRESS specifies the IP address to monitor.
Additional health check options such as interval, timeout, success
count, and failure count can be configured separately.
lsp-hc-del PORT [HC_UUID]
Deletes health check configuration for the logical switch port PORT.
lsp-hc-list PORT
Lists all health check configurations for the logical switch port
PORT, including protocol, source IP, destination port, monitored ad‐
dresses, and current status.
Synchronization Commands
sync Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for changes by the
current ovn-nbctl invocation to take effect. This means that, if
none of the commands supplied to ovn-nbctl change the database, then
the command does not wait at all. With the sync command, however,
ovn-nbctl waits even for earlier changes to the database to propa‐
gate down to the southbound database or all of the OVN chassis, ac‐
cording to the argument to --wait.
Remote Connectivity Commands
These commands manipulate the connections column in the NB_Global table and
rows in the Connection table. When ovsdb-server is configured to use the
connections column for OVSDB connections, this allows the administrator to
use ovn-nbctl to configure database connections.
get-connection
Prints the configured connection(s).
del-connection
Deletes the configured connection(s).
[--inactivity-probe=msecs] set-connection target...
Sets the configured manager target or targets. Use --inactiv‐‐
ity-probe=msecs to override the default idle connection inac‐
tivity probe time. Use 0 to disable inactivity probes.
SSL/TLS Configuration Commands
get-ssl
Prints the SSL/TLS configuration.
del-ssl
Deletes the current SSL/TLS configuration.
[--bootstrap] set-ssl private-key certificate ca-cert [ssl-protocol-list
[ssl-cipher-list [ssl-ciphersuites]]]
Sets the SSL/TLS configuration.
Database Commands
These commands query and modify the contents of ovsdb tables. They are a
slight abstraction of the ovsdb interface and as such they operate at a
lower level than other ovn-nbctl commands.
Identifying Tables, Records, and Columns
Each of these commands has a table parameter to identify a table within the
database. Many of them also take a record parameter that identifies a par‐
ticular record within a table. The record parameter may be the UUID for a
record, which may be abbreviated to its first 4 (or more) hex digits, as
long as that is unique. Many tables offer additional ways to identify
records. Some commands also take column parameters that identify a particu‐
lar field within the records in a table.
For a list of tables and their columns, see ovn-nb(5) or see the table
listing from the --help option.
Record names must be specified in full and with correct capitalization, ex‐
cept that UUIDs may be abbreviated to their first 4 (or more) hex digits,
as long as that is unique within the table. Names of tables and columns are
not case-sensitive, and - and _ are treated interchangeably. Unique abbre‐
viations of table and column names are acceptable, e.g. d or dhcp is suffi‐
cient to identify the DHCP_Options table.
Database Values
Each column in the database accepts a fixed type of data. The currently de‐
fined basic types, and their representations, are:
integer
A decimal integer in the range -2**63 to 2**63-1, inclusive.
real A floating-point number.
Boolean
True or false, written true or false, respectively.
string
An arbitrary Unicode string, except that null bytes are not
allowed. Quotes are optional for most strings that begin with
an English letter or underscore and consist only of letters,
underscores, hyphens, and periods. However, true and false
and strings that match the syntax of UUIDs (see below) must
be enclosed in double quotes to distinguish them from other
basic types. When double quotes are used, the syntax is that
of strings in JSON, e.g. backslashes may be used to escape
special characters. The empty string must be represented as a
pair of double quotes ("").
UUID Either a universally unique identifier in the style of RFC
4122, e.g. f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6, or an @name
defined by a get or create command within the same ovs-vsctl
invocation.
Multiple values in a single column may be separated by spaces or a single
comma. When multiple values are present, duplicates are not allowed, and
order is not important. Conversely, some database columns can have an empty
set of values, represented as [], and square brackets may optionally en‐
close other non-empty sets or single values as well.
A few database columns are ``maps’’ of key-value pairs, where the key and
the value are each some fixed database type. These are specified in the
form key=value, where key and value follow the syntax for the column’s key
type and value type, respectively. When multiple pairs are present (sepa‐
rated by spaces or a comma), duplicate keys are not allowed, and again the
order is not important. Duplicate values are allowed. An empty map is rep‐
resented as {}. Curly braces may optionally enclose non-empty maps as well
(but use quotes to prevent the shell from expanding other-config={0=x,1=y}
into other-config=0=x other-config=1=y, which may not have the desired ef‐
fect).
Database Command Syntax
[--if-exists] [--columns=column[,column]...] list table [record]...
Lists the data in each specified record. If no records are
specified, lists all the records in table.
If --columns is specified, only the requested columns are
listed, in the specified order. Otherwise, all columns are
listed, in alphabetical order by column name.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if any specified record
does not exist. With --if-exists, the command ignores any
record that does not exist, without producing any output.
[--columns=column[,column]...] find table [column[:key]=value]...
Lists the data in each record in table whose column equals
value or, if key is specified, whose column contains a key
with the specified value. The following operators may be used
where = is written in the syntax summary:
= != gt;>gt; = >gt;>gt;=
Selects records in which column[:key] equals, does not
equal, is less than, is greater than, is less than or
equal to, or is greater than or equal to value, re‐
spectively.
Consider column[:key] and value as sets of elements.
Identical sets are considered equal. Otherwise, if the
sets have different numbers of elements, then the set
with more elements is considered to be larger. Other‐
wise, consider a element from each set pairwise, in
increasing order within each set. The first pair that
differs determines the result. (For a column that con‐
tains key-value pairs, first all the keys are com‐
pared, and values are considered only if the two sets
contain identical keys.)
{=} {!=}
Test for set equality or inequality, respectively.
{=} Selects records in which column[:key] is a subset of
value. For example, flood-vlans{=}1,2 selects records
in which the flood-vlans column is the empty set or
contains 1 or 2 or both.
{} Selects records in which column[:key] is a proper sub‐
set of value. For example, flood-vlans{}1,2 selects
records in which the flood-vlans column is the empty
set or contains 1 or 2 but not both.
{>gt;>gt;=} {>gt;>gt;}
Same as {=} and {}, respectively, except that the
relationship is reversed. For example,
flood-vlans{>gt;>gt;=}1,2 selects records in which the
flood-vlans column contains both 1 and 2.
The following operators are available only in Open vSwitch
2.16 and later:
{in} Selects records in which every element in column[:key]
is also in value. (This is the same as {=}.)
{not-in}
Selects records in which every element in column[:key]
is not in value.
For arithmetic operators (= != gt;>gt; = >gt;>gt;=), when key is speci‐
fied but a particular record’s column does not contain key,
the record is always omitted from the results. Thus, the con‐
dition other-config:mtu!=1500 matches records that have a mtu
key whose value is not 1500, but not those that lack an mtu
key.
For the set operators, when key is specified but a particular
record’s column does not contain key, the comparison is done
against an empty set. Thus, the condition other-con‐‐
fig:mtu{!=}1500 matches records that have a mtu key whose
value is not 1500 and those that lack an mtu key.
Don’t forget to escape gt;>gt; from interpretation by the
shell.
If --columns is specified, only the requested columns are
listed, in the specified order. Otherwise all columns are
listed, in alphabetical order by column name.
The UUIDs shown for rows created in the same ovs-vsctl invo‐
cation will be wrong.
[--if-exists] [--id=@name] get table record [column[:key]]...
Prints the value of each specified column in the given record
in table. For map columns, a key may optionally be specified,
in which case the value associated with key in the column is
printed, instead of the entire map.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist
or key is specified, if key does not exist in record. With
--if-exists, a missing record yields no output and a missing
key prints a blank line.
If @name is specified, then the UUID for record may be re‐
ferred to by that name later in the same ovs-vsctl invocation
in contexts where a UUID is expected.
Both --id and the column arguments are optional, but usually
at least one or the other should be specified. If both are
omitted, then get has no effect except to verify that record
exists in table.
--id and --if-exists cannot be used together.
[--if-exists] set table record column[:key]=value...
Sets the value of each specified column in the given record
in table to value. For map columns, a key may optionally be
specified, in which case the value associated with key in
that column is changed (or added, if none exists), instead of
the entire map.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist.
With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record does
not exist.
[--if-exists] add table record column [key=]value...
Adds the specified value or key-value pair to column in
record in table. If column is a map, then key is required,
otherwise it is prohibited. If key already exists in a map
column, then the current value is not replaced (use the set
command to replace an existing value).
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist.
With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record does
not exist.
[--if-exists] remove table record column value...
[--if-exists] remove table record column key...
[--if-exists] remove table record column key=value... Re‐
moves the specified values or key-value pairs from column in
record in table. The first form applies to columns that are
not maps: each specified value is removed from the column.
The second and third forms apply to map columns: if only a
key is specified, then any key-value pair with the given key
is removed, regardless of its value; if a value is given then
a pair is removed only if both key and value match.
It is not an error if the column does not contain the speci‐
fied key or value or pair.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist.
With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record does
not exist.
[--if-exists] clear table record column...
Sets each column in record in table to the empty set or empty
map, as appropriate. This command applies only to columns
that are allowed to be empty.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist.
With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record does
not exist.
[--id=(@name|uuid)] create table column[:key]=value...
Creates a new record in table and sets the initial values of
each column. Columns not explicitly set will receive their
default values. Outputs the UUID of the new row.
If @name is specified, then the UUID for the new row may be
referred to by that name elsewhere in the same \*(PN invoca‐
tion in contexts where a UUID is expected. Such references
may precede or follow the create command.
If a valid uuid is specified, then it is used as the UUID of
the new row.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
Records in the Open vSwitch database are significant
only when they can be reached directly or indirectly
from the Open_vSwitch table. Except for records in the
QoS or Queue tables, records that are not reachable
from the Open_vSwitch table are automatically deleted
from the database. This deletion happens immediately,
without waiting for additional ovs-vsctl commands or
other database activity. Thus, a create command must
generally be accompanied by additional commands within
the same ovs-vsctl invocation to add a chain of refer‐
ences to the newly created record from the top-level
Open_vSwitch record. The EXAMPLES section gives some
examples that show how to do this.
[--if-exists] destroy table record...
Deletes each specified record from table. Unless --if-exists
is specified, each records must exist.
--all destroy table
Deletes all records from the table.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
The destroy command is only useful for records in the
QoS or Queue tables. Records in other tables are auto‐
matically deleted from the database when they become
unreachable from the Open_vSwitch table. This means
that deleting the last reference to a record is suffi‐
cient for deleting the record itself. For records in
these tables, destroy is silently ignored. See the EX‐‐
AMPLES section below for more information.
wait-until table record [column[:key]=value]...
Waits until table contains a record named record whose column
equals value or, if key is specified, whose column contains a
key with the specified value. This command supports the same
operators and semantics described for the find command above.
If no column[:key]=value arguments are given, this command
waits only until record exists. If more than one such argu‐
ment is given, the command waits until all of them are satis‐
fied.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
Usually wait-until should be placed at the beginning
of a set of ovs-vsctl commands. For example, wait-un‐‐
til bridge br0 -- get bridge br0 datapath_id waits un‐
til a bridge named br0 is created, then prints its
datapath_id column, whereas get bridge br0 datapath_id
-- wait-until bridge br0 will abort if no bridge named
br0 exists when ovs-vsctl initially connects to the
database.
Consider specifying --timeout=0 along with --wait-until, to
prevent ovs-vsctl from terminating after waiting only at most
5 seconds.
comment [arg]...
This command has no effect on behavior, but any database log
record created by the command will include the command and
its arguments.
ENVIRONMENT
OVN_NB_DAEMON
If set, this should name the Unix domain socket for an ovn-nbctl
server process. See Daemon Mode, above, for more information.
OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS
If set, a set of options for ovn-nbctl to apply automatically, in
the same form as on the command line.
OVN_NB_DB
If set, the default database to contact when the --db option is not
used.
EXIT STATUS
0 Successful program execution.
1 Usage, syntax, or network error.
SEE ALSO
ovn-nb(5), ovn-appctl(8).
OVN 26.09.90 ovn-nbctl ovn-nbctl(8)