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
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
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
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.
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 : mac_prefix optional string
options : controller_event optional string, either true or false
options : northd_probe_interval
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 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-blacklist
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 : 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 : 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 correponding 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 : use_logical_dp_groups: optional string
If set to true, ovn-northd will combine logical flows that dif‐
fers only by logical datapath into a single logical flow with
logical datapath group attached.
While this should significantly reduce number of logical flows
stored in Southbound database this could also increase process‐
ing complexity on the ovn-controller side, e.g., ovn-controller
will re-consider logical flow for all logical datapaths in a
group. If the option set to false, there will be separate logi‐
cal flow per logical datapath and only this flow will be re-con‐
sidered.
The default value is false.
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 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 two 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.
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-blacklist: 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 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.
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
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.
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 : mac_only optional string, either true or false
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
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
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 : 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
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_snoop to true. If IP Multicast Querier is enabled other_con‐‐
fig: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.
other_config : mcast_querier: optional string, either true or false
Enables/disables IP Multicast Querier on the logical switch.
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.
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.
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 : arp_proxy optional string
Options for localnet ports:
options : network_name optional string
options : ethtype optional string
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 : 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
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
DHCP:
dhcpv4_options optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
dhcpv6_options optional weak reference to DHCP_Options
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.
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 master 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 : arp_proxy: optional string
Optional. A list of IPv4 addresses that this logical switch
router port will reply to ARP requests. Example: 169.254.239.254
169.254.239.2. The options:router-port’s logical router should
have a route to forward packets sent to configured proxy ARP IPs
to an appropriate destination.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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
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, for IPv4 load
balancers only. 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.
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. Health checks are
sent to this port with the specified source IP.
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.
selection_fields: set of strings, one of eth_dst, eth_src, ip_dst,
ip_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.
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.
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. Health checks are
supported for IPv4 load balancers only.
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, or reject
options:
options : apply-after-lb 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
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
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 Load balancer rules only work on the Gateway routers or
routers with one and only one distributed gateway port.
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.
Common Columns:
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
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 must be
dscp, value in range 0 to 63
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 must be dscp, value in range 0
to 63
When specified, matching flows will have DSCP marking applied.
• dscp: The value of this action should be in the range of
0 to 63 (inclusive).
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.
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 1 or more strings
mac string
enabled optional boolean
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 : gateway_mtu_bypass
optional string
Attachment:
peer optional string
Common Columns:
external_ids map of string-string pairs
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 1 or more 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.
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.
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. However, fea‐
tures such as NAT and load-balancer are not supported on logical
routers with more than one distributed 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
Advertisment 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. 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 Logical_Router_Static_Routes with specified
route_table value. Routes to directly connected networks from
same Logical Router and routes without route_table option set
have higher priority than routes with route_table option set.
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 : 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.
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.
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
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
route_table: string
Any string to place route to separate routing table. If Logical
Router Port has configured value in options:route_table other
than empty string, OVN performs route lookup for all packets en‐
tering Logical Router ingress pipeline from this port in the
following manner:
• 1. First lookup among "global" routes: routes without
route_table value set and routes to directly connected
networks.
• 2. Next lookup among routes with same route_table value
as specified in LRP’s options:route_table field.
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 traffic that arrives over this route will have
its reply traffic bypass ECMP route selection and will be sent
out this route instead. Note that this option overrides any
rules set in the Logical_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
match string
action string, one of allow, drop, or reroute
nexthop optional string
nexthops set of strings
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 and match string.
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, 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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 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 configuration must
be provided when this form is used, this configuration
can be specified via command-line options or the SSL ta‐
ble.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6640.
SSL support is an optional feature that is not always
built as part of 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 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 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 support is an optional feature that is not always
built as part of 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
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"
external_ids: map of string-string pairs
See External IDs at the beginning of this document.
SSL TABLE
SSL 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
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 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 connection and
save it to the named PEM file. If it is successful, it will im‐
mediately drop the connection and reconnect, and from then on
all SSL connections must be authenticated by a certificate
signed by the CA certificate thus obtained. This option exposes
the SSL connection to a man-in-the-middle attack obtaining the
initial CA certificate. It may still be useful for bootstrap‐
ping.
ssl_protocols: string
List of SSL protocols to be enabled for SSL connections. The de‐
fault when this option is omitted is TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2.
ssl_ciphers: string
List of ciphers (in OpenSSL cipher string format) to be sup‐
ported for SSL connections. The default when this option is
omitted is HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5.
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 master of
this group. If the master chassis failover is detected, the HA chassis
with the next higher priority takes over the responsibility of provid‐
ing the HA. If a distributed gateway router port references a row in
this table, then the master HA chassis in this group provides the gate‐
way 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 master.
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
Open vSwitch 22.03.8 DB Schema 6.1.0 ovn-nb(5)