ovn-trace(8)                      OVN Manual                      ovn-trace(8)



NAME
       ovn-trace - Open Virtual Network logical network tracing utility

SYNOPSIS
       ovn-trace [options] [datapath] microflow

       ovn-trace [options] --detach

DESCRIPTION
       This utility simulates packet forwarding within an OVN logical network.
       It can be used to run through ``what-if’’ scenarios: if a packet origi‐
       nates at a logical port, what will happen to it and where will it ulti‐
       mately  end  up?  Users  already  familiar  with   the   Open   vSwitch
       ofproto/trace  command  described in ovs-vswitch(8) will find ovn-trace
       to be a similar tool for logical networks.

       ovn-trace works by reading the Logical_Flow and other tables  from  the
       OVN  southbound  database (see ovn-sb(5)). It simulates a packet’s path
       through logical networks by repeatedly looking it  up  in  the  logical
       flow table, following the entire tree of possibilities.

       ovn-trace  simulates only the OVN logical network. It does not simulate
       the physical elements on which the logical  network  is  layered.  This
       means  that,  for  example,  it  is unimportant how VMs are distributed
       among hypervisors, or whether their  hypervisors  are  functioning  and
       reachable,  so  ovn-trace will yield the same results regardless. There
       is one important exception: ovn-northd, the daemon that  generates  the
       logical  flows  that  ovn-trace simulates, treats logical ports differ‐
       ently based on whether they are up or down. Thus, if you see surprising
       results, ensure that the ports involved in a simulation are up.

       The  simplest  way  to  use  ovn-trace is to provide the microflow (and
       optional datapath) arguments on the command line. In this case, it sim‐
       ulates  the  behavior  of  a  single packet and exits. For an alternate
       usage model, see Daemon Mode below.

       The optional datapath argument specifies the name of  a  logical  data‐
       path.  Acceptable names are the name from the northbound Logical_Switch
       or Logical_Router table, the UUID of a record from one of those tables,
       or  the  UUID  of  a record from the southbound Datapath_Binding table.
       (The datapath is optional because ovn-trace can figure it out from  the
       inport that the microflow matches.)

       The  microflow  argument describes the packet whose forwarding is to be
       simulated, in the syntax of an OVN logical expression, as described  in
       ovn-sb(5),  to  express  constraints.  The parser understands prerequi‐
       sites; for example, if the expression refers to ip4.src,  there  is  no
       need to explicitly state ip4 or eth.type == 0x800.

       For  reasonable  L2  behavior,  the  microflow  should include at least
       inport and eth.dst, plus eth.src if port security is enabled. For exam‐
       ple:

           inport == "lp11" &&&& eth.src == 00:01:02:03:04:05 &&&& eth.dst == ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff


       For  reasonable  L3 behavior, microflow should also include ip4.src and
       ip4.dst (or ip6.src and ip6.dst) and ip.ttl. For example:

           inport == "lp111" &&&& eth.src == f0:00:00:00:01:11 &&&& eth.dst == 00:00:00:00:ff:11
           &&&& ip4.src == 192.168.11.1 &&&& ip4.dst == 192.168.22.2 &&&& ip.ttl == 64


       Here’s an ARP microflow example:

           inport == "lp123"
           &&&& eth.dst == ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff &&&& eth.src == f0:00:00:00:01:11
           &&&& arp.op == 1 &&&& arp.sha == f0:00:00:00:01:11 &&&& arp.spa == 192.168.1.11
           &&&& arp.tha == ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff &&&& arp.tpa == 192.168.2.22


       ovn-trace will reject erroneous  microflow  expressions,  which  beyond
       syntax  errors  fall into two categories. First, they can be ambiguous.
       For example, tcp.src == 80 is ambiguous because it does not state  IPv4
       or  IPv6  as the Ethernet type. ip4 &&&& tcp.src >gt;>gt; 1024 is also ambiguous
       because it does not constrain bits of  tcp.src  to  particular  values.
       Second, they can be contradictory, e.g. ip4 &&&& ip6.

OUTPUT
       ovn-trace  supports the three different forms of output, each described
       in a separate section below. Regardless of the selected output  format,
       ovn-trace  starts the output with a line that shows the microflow being
       traced in OpenFlow syntax.

   Detailed Output
       The detailed form of output is also the default form. This form  groups
       output  into sections headed up by the ingress or egress pipeline being
       traversed. Each pipeline lists each table that was visited  (by  number
       and  name), the ovn-northd source file and line number of the code that
       added the flow, the match expression and priority of the  logical  flow
       that was matched, and the actions that were executed.

       The  execution  of  OVN  logical  actions  naturally  forms a ``control
       stack’’ that resembles that of a program  in  conventional  programming
       languages  such  as  C or Java. Because the next action that calls into
       another logical flow table for a lookup is a recursive  construct,  OVN
       ``programs’’  in  practice  tend to form deep control stacks that, dis‐
       played in the obvious way using additional indentation for each  level,
       quickly  use up the horizontal space on all but the widest displays. To
       make  detailed  output  more  readable,  without  loss  of  generality,
       ovn-trace  omits indentation for ``tail recursion,’’ that is, when next
       is the last action in a logical flow, it does not indent details of the
       next table lookup more deeply. Output still uses indentation when it is
       needed for clarity.

       OVN ``programs’’ traces also tend to encounter long strings of  logical
       flows with match expression 1 (which matches every packet) and the sin‐
       gle action next;. These are uninteresting and merely clutter output, so
       ovn-trace omits them entirely even from detailed output.

       The  following  excerpt  from detailed ovn-trace output shows a section
       for a packet traversing the ingress pipeline of  logical  datapath  ls1
       with  ingress  logical port lp111. The packet matches a logical flow in
       table 0 (aka ls_in_port_sec_l2) with priority 50 and executes  next(1);
       to pass to table 1. Tables 1 through 11 are trivial and omitted. In ta‐
       ble 19 (aka ls_in_l2_lkup), the packet matches a flow with priority  50
       based on its Ethernet destination address and the flow’s actions output
       the packet to the lrp11-attachement logical port.

           ingress(dp="ls1", inport="lp111")
           ---------------------------------
           0. ls_in_port_sec_l2: inport == "lp111", priority 50
           next(1);
           19. ls_in_l2_lkup: eth.dst == 00:00:00:00:ff:11, priority 50
           outport = "lrp11-attachment";
           output;


   Summary Output
       Summary output includes the logical pipelines visited by a  packet  and
       the  logical  actions  executed on it. Compared to the detailed output,
       however, it removes details of tables and logical flows traversed by  a
       packet.  It  uses a format closer to that of a programming language and
       does not attempt to avoid indentation. The summary output equivalent to
       the above detailed output fragment is:

           ingress(dp="ls1", inport="lp111") {
           outport = "lrp11-attachment";
           output;
           ...
           };


   Minimal Output
       Minimal  output  includes  only  actions  that  modify packet data (not
       including OVN registers or metadata such as outport) and output actions
       that  actually  deliver  a  packet  to  a logical port (excluding patch
       ports). The operands of actions that modify packet data  are  displayed
       reduced  to  constants, e.g. ip4.dst = reg0; might be show as ip4.dst =
       192.168.0.1; if that was the value actually loaded. This yields  output
       even simpler than the summary format. (Users familiar with Open vSwitch
       may recognize this as similar in spirit to the datapath actions  listed
       at the bottom of ofproto/trace output.)

       The  minimal output format reflects the externally seen behavior of the
       logical networks more than it does the implementation. This makes  this
       output format the most suitable for use in regression tests, because it
       is least likely to change when logical flow tables are rearranged with‐
       out semantic change.

STATEFUL ACTIONS
       Some  OVN  logical actions use or update state that is not available in
       the southbound database. ovn-trace handles these actions  as  described
       below:

              ct_next
                     By  default  ovn-trace  treats  flows  as ``tracked’’ and
                     ``established.’’ See the description of the  --ct  option
                     for a way to override this behavior.

              ct_dnat (without an argument)
                     Forks the pipeline. In one fork, advances to the next ta‐
                     ble as if next; were executed. The packet is not changed,
                     on the assumption that no NAT state was available. In the
                     other fork, the pipeline continues without  change  after
                     the ct_dnat action.

              ct_snat (without an argument)
                     This  action  distinguishes  between  gateway routers and
                     distributed routers. A gateway router  is  defined  as  a
                     logical  datapath  that  contains  an l3gateway port; any
                     other logical datapath is  a  distributed  router.  On  a
                     gateway router, ct_snat; is treated as a no-op. On a dis‐
                     tributed router, it is treated the same way as ct_dnat;.

              ct_dnat(ip)
              ct_snat(ip)
                   Forks the pipeline. In one fork, sets ip4.dst (or  ip4.src)
                   to  ip  and  ct.dnat  (or ct.snat) to 1 and advances to the
                   next table as if next; were executed. In  the  other  fork,
                   the pipeline continues without change after the ct_dnat (or
                   ct_snat) action.

              ct_lb;
              ct_lb(ip[:port]...);
                   Forks the pipeline. In one fork, sets ip4.dst (or  ip6.dst)
                   to  one  of the load-balancer addresses and the destination
                   port to its associated port, if any, and sets ct.dnat to 1.
                   With one or more arguments, gives preference to the address
                   specified on --lb-dst, if any; without arguments, uses  the
                   address  and port specified on --lb-dst. In the other fork,
                   the pipeline  continues  without  change  after  the  ct_lb
                   action.

              ct_commit
              put_arp
              put_nd
                   These actions are treated as no-ops.

DAEMON MODE
       If  ovn-trace  is invoked with the --detach option (see Daemon Options,
       below), it runs in the background as a daemon and accepts commands from
       ovs-appctl  (or  another  JSON-RPC  client) indefinitely. The currently
       supported commands are described below.

              trace [options] [datapath] microflow
                     Traces microflow through datapath and  replies  with  the
                     results of the trace. Accepts the options described under
                     Trace Options below.

              exit   Causes ovn-trace to gracefully terminate.

OPTIONS
   Trace Options
       --detailed
       --summary
       --minimal
            These options control the form and level of  detail  in  ovn-trace
            output. If more than one of these options is specified, all of the
            selected forms are output, in the order listed above, each  headed
            by a banner line. If none of these options is given, --detailed is
            the default. See Output, above, for a description of each kind  of
            output.

       --all
            Selects all three forms of output.

       --ovs[=remote]
            Makes  ovn-trace  attempt to obtain and display the OpenFlow flows
            that correspond to each OVN logical flow. To do so, ovn-trace con‐
            nects  to remote (by default, unix:/br-int.mgmt) over OpenFlow and
            retrieves the flows. If remote is specified, it must be an  active
            OpenFlow connection method described in ovsdb(7).

            To  make the best use of the output, it is important to understand
            the  relationship  between  logical  flows  and  OpenFlow   flows.
            ovn-architecture(7),  under Architectural Physical Life Cycle of a
            Packet, describes this relationship. Keep in  mind  the  following
            points:

            ·      ovn-trace currently shows all the OpenFlow flows to which a
                   logical flow corresponds,  even  though  an  actual  packet
                   ordinarily matches only one of these.

            ·      Some  logical  flows can map to the Open vSwitch ``conjunc‐
                   tive  match’’  extension  (see  ovs-fields(7)).   Currently
                   ovn-trace cannot display the flows with conjunction actions
                   that effectively produce the conj_id match.

            ·      Some logical flows may not be represented in  the  OpenFlow
                   tables  on a given hypervisor, if they could not be used on
                   that hypervisor.

            ·      Some OpenFlow flows do not  correspond  to  logical  flows,
                   such  as OpenFlow flows that map between physical and logi‐
                   cal ports. These flows will never show up in a trace.

            ·      When ovn-trace omits uninteresting logical flows from  out‐
                   put, it does not look up the corresponding OpenFlow flows.

       --ct=flags
            This  option sets the ct_state flags that a ct_next logical action
            will report. The flags must be a comma- or space-separated list of
            the following connection tracking flags:

            ·      trk:  Include  to  indicate  connection  tracking has taken
                   place. (This bit is set automatically even if not listed in
                   flags.

            ·      new: Include to indicate a new flow.

            ·      est: Include to indicate an established flow.

            ·      rel: Include to indicate a related flow.

            ·      rpl: Include to indicate a reply flow.

            ·      inv: Include to indicate a connection entry in a bad state.

            ·      dnat:  Include  to  indicate  a packet whose destination IP
                   address has been changed.

            ·      snat: Include to indicate a packet whose source IP  address
                   has been changed.

            The  ct_next action is used to implement the OVN distributed fire‐
            wall. For testing, useful flag combinations include:

            ·      trk,new: A packet in a flow in either direction  through  a
                   firewall that has not yet been committed (with ct_commit).

            ·      trk,est:  A packet in an established flow going out through
                   a firewall.

            ·      trk,rpl: A packet coming in through a firewall in reply  to
                   an established flow.

            ·      trk,inv: An invalid packet in either direction.

            A  packet  might  pass through the connection tracker twice in one
            trip through OVN: once following egress from a  VM  as  it  passes
            outward through a firewall, and once preceding ingress to a second
            VM as it passes inward  through  a  firewall.  Use  multiple  --ct
            options to specify the flags for multiple ct_next actions.

            When  --ct  is  unspecified,  or when there are fewer --ct options
            than ct_next actions, the flags default to trk,est.

       --lb-dst=ip[:port]
            Sets the IP from VIP pool to use as  destination  of  the  packet.
            --lb-dst is not available in daemon mode.

       --select-id=id
            Specify the id to be selected by the select action. id must be one
            of the values listed in the select action. Otherwise, a random  id
            is  selected  from the list, as if --select-id were not specified.
            --select-id is not available in daemon mode.

       --friendly-names
       --no-friendly-names
            When cloud management systems such as OpenStack are layered on top
            of  OVN, they often use long, human-unfriendly names for ports and
            datapaths, for example, ones that include entire  UUIDs.  They  do
            usually include friendlier names, but the long, hard-to-read names
            are the ones that appear in matches and actions.  By  default,  or
            with  --friendly-names,  ovn-trace  substitutes  these  friendlier
            names for the long names in its output. Use --no-friendly-names to
            disable  this  behavior; this option might be useful, for example,
            if a program is going to parse ovn-trace output.

   Daemon Options
       --pidfile[=pidfile]
              Causes a file (by default, program.pid) to be created indicating
              the  PID  of the running process. If the pidfile argument is not
              specified, or if it does not begin with /, then it is created in
              .

              If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.

       --overwrite-pidfile
              By  default,  when --pidfile is specified and the specified pid‐
              file already exists and is locked by a running process, the dae‐
              mon refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to
              instead overwrite the pidfile.

              When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.

       --detach
              Runs this program as a background process.  The  process  forks,
              and  in  the  child it starts a new session, closes the standard
              file descriptors (which has the side effect of disabling logging
              to  the  console), and changes its current directory to the root
              (unless --no-chdir is specified). After the child completes  its
              initialization, the parent exits.

       --monitor
              Creates  an  additional  process  to monitor this program. If it
              dies due to a signal that indicates a programming  error  (SIGA
              BRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU,
              or SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If
              the daemon dies or exits for another reason, the monitor process
              exits.

              This option is normally used with --detach, but  it  also  func‐
              tions without it.

       --no-chdir
              By  default,  when --detach is specified, the daemon changes its
              current  working  directory  to  the  root  directory  after  it
              detaches.  Otherwise, invoking the daemon from a carelessly cho‐
              sen directory would prevent the  administrator  from  unmounting
              the file system that holds that directory.

              Specifying  --no-chdir  suppresses this behavior, preventing the
              daemon from changing its current working directory. This may  be
              useful for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to
              write core dumps into the current working directory and the root
              directory is not a good directory to use.

              This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.

       --no-self-confinement
              By  default  this daemon will try to self-confine itself to work
              with files under  well-known  directories  determined  at  build
              time.  It  is better to stick with this default behavior and not
              to use this flag unless some other Access  Control  is  used  to
              confine  daemon.  Note  that in contrast to other access control
              implementations that are typically  enforced  from  kernel-space
              (e.g.  DAC  or  MAC), self-confinement is imposed from the user-
              space daemon itself and hence should not be considered as a full
              confinement  strategy,  but instead should be viewed as an addi‐
              tional layer of security.

       --user=user:group
              Causes this program to run as  a  different  user  specified  in
              user:group,  thus  dropping  most  of the root privileges. Short
              forms user and :group are also allowed,  with  current  user  or
              group  assumed,  respectively.  Only daemons started by the root
              user accepts this argument.

              On   Linux,   daemons   will   be   granted   CAP_IPC_LOCK   and
              CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICES  before  dropping root privileges. Daemons
              that interact with a datapath, such  as  ovs-vswitchd,  will  be
              granted  three  additional  capabilities,  namely CAP_NET_ADMIN,
              CAP_NET_BROADCAST and CAP_NET_RAW. The  capability  change  will
              apply even if the new user is root.

              On Windows, this option is not currently supported. For security
              reasons, specifying this option will cause  the  daemon  process
              not to start.

   Logging Options
       -v[spec]
       --verbose=[spec]
            Sets  logging  levels.  Without  any  spec, sets the log level for
            every module and destination to dbg. Otherwise, spec is a list  of
            words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from each
            category below:

            ·      A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list  command
                   on ovs-appctl(8), limits the log level change to the speci‐
                   fied module.

            ·      syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change  to
                   only  to  the  system  log,  to  the console, or to a file,
                   respectively. (If --detach is specified, the daemon  closes
                   its  standard  file  descriptors, so logging to the console
                   will have no effect.)

                   On Windows platform, syslog is accepted as a  word  and  is
                   only useful along with the --syslog-target option (the word
                   has no effect otherwise).

            ·      off, emer, err, warn, info, or  dbg,  to  control  the  log
                   level.  Messages  of  the  given severity or higher will be
                   logged, and messages of lower  severity  will  be  filtered
                   out.  off filters out all messages. See ovs-appctl(8) for a
                   definition of each log level.

            Case is not significant within spec.

            Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file  will
            not take place unless --log-file is also specified (see below).

            For compatibility with older versions of OVS, any is accepted as a
            word but has no effect.

       -v
       --verbose
            Sets the maximum logging verbosity  level,  equivalent  to  --ver
            bose=dbg.

       -vPATTERN:destination:pattern
       --verbose=PATTERN:destination:pattern
            Sets  the  log  pattern  for  destination  to  pattern.  Refer  to
            ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern.

       -vFACILITY:facility
       --verbose=FACILITY:facility
            Sets the RFC5424 facility of the log message. facility can be  one
            of kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, clock,
            ftp, ntp, audit, alert, clock2, local0,  local1,  local2,  local3,
            local4, local5, local6 or local7. If this option is not specified,
            daemon is used as the default for  the  local  system  syslog  and
            local0  is used while sending a message to the target provided via
            the --syslog-target option.

       --log-file[=file]
            Enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it  is  used
            as the exact name for the log file. The default log file name used
            if file is omitted is /usr/local/var/log/ovn/program.log.

       --syslog-target=host:port
            Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the  sys‐
            tem  syslog.  The host must be a numerical IP address, not a host‐
            name.

       --syslog-method=method
            Specify method as how syslog messages should  be  sent  to  syslog
            daemon. The following forms are supported:

            ·      libc,  to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of using
                   this options is that libc adds fixed prefix to  every  mes‐
                   sage  before  it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over
                   /dev/log UNIX domain socket.

            ·      unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is pos‐
                   sible to specify arbitrary message format with this option.
                   However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older  versions  use  hard  coded
                   parser  function anyway that limits UNIX domain socket use.
                   If you want to use  arbitrary  message  format  with  older
                   rsyslogd  versions,  then  use  UDP  socket to localhost IP
                   address instead.

            ·      udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this  method  it  is
                   possible  to  use  arbitrary message format also with older
                   rsyslogd. When sending  syslog  messages  over  UDP  socket
                   extra  precaution needs to be taken into account, for exam‐
                   ple, syslog daemon needs to be configured to listen on  the
                   specified  UDP  port,  accidental  iptables  rules could be
                   interfering with local syslog traffic and  there  are  some
                   security  considerations  that apply to UDP sockets, but do
                   not apply to UNIX domain sockets.

            ·      null, to discard all messages logged to syslog.

            The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment  vari‐
            able; if it is unset, the default is libc.

   PKI Options
       PKI  configuration  is  required  to  use SSL for the connection to the
       database (and the switch, if --ovs is specified).

              -p privkey.pem
              --private-key=privkey.pem
                   Specifies a PEM file containing the  private  key  used  as
                   identity for outgoing SSL connections.

              -c cert.pem
              --certificate=cert.pem
                   Specifies  a  PEM file containing a certificate that certi‐
                   fies the private key specified on -p or --private-key to be
                   trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certifi‐
                   cate authority (CA) that the peer in SSL  connections  will
                   use to verify it.

              -C cacert.pem
              --ca-cert=cacert.pem
                   Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate for ver‐
                   ifying certificates presented to this program by SSL peers.
                   (This  may  be  the  same certificate that SSL peers use to
                   verify the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or
                   it  may  be a different one, depending on the PKI design in
                   use.)

              -C none
              --ca-cert=none
                   Disables verification  of  certificates  presented  by  SSL
                   peers.  This  introduces  a security risk, because it means
                   that certificates cannot be verified to be those  of  known
                   trusted hosts.

   Other Options
       --db database
              The  OVSDB database remote to contact. If the OVN_SB_DB environ‐
              ment variable is set, its value is used as the  default.  Other‐
              wise, the default is unix:/db.sock, but this default is unlikely
              to be useful outside of single-machine OVN test environments.

              -h
              --help
                   Prints a brief help message to the console.

              -V
              --version
                   Prints version information to the console.



OVN 22.09.2                        ovn-trace                      ovn-trace(8)