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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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ovs-ofctl(8) Open vSwitch Manual ovs-ofctl(8)
ovs-ofctl - administer OpenFlow switches
ovs-ofctl [options] command [switch] [args...]
The ovs-ofctl program is a command line tool for monitoring and
administering OpenFlow switches. It can also show the current state
of an OpenFlow switch, including features, configuration, and table
entries. It should work with any OpenFlow switch, not just Open
vSwitch.
OpenFlow Switch Management Commands
These commands allow ovs-ofctl to monitor and administer an OpenFlow
switch. It is able to show the current state of a switch, including
features, configuration, and table entries.
Most of these commands take an argument that specifies the method for
connecting to an OpenFlow switch. The following connection methods
are supported:
ssl:ip[:port]
tcp:ip[:port]
The specified port on the host at the given ip, which
must be expressed as an IP address (not a DNS name) in
IPv4 or IPv6 address format. Wrap IPv6 addresses in
square brackets, e.g. tcp:[::1]:6653. On Linux, use
%device to designate a scope for IPv6 link-level
addresses, e.g. tcp:[fe80::1234%eth0]:6653. For ssl,
the --private-key, --certificate, and --ca-cert options
are mandatory.
If port is not specified, it defaults to 6653.
unix:file
On POSIX, a Unix domain server socket named file.
On Windows, connect to a local named pipe that is
represented by a file created in the path file to mimic
the behavior of a Unix domain socket.
file This is short for unix:file, as long as file does not
contain a colon.
bridge This is short for
unix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/bridge.mgmt, as
long as bridge does not contain a colon.
[type@]dp
Attempts to look up the bridge associated with dp and
open as above. If type is given, it specifies the
datapath provider of dp, otherwise the default provider
system is assumed.
show switch
Prints to the console information on switch, including
information on its flow tables and ports.
dump-tables switch
Prints to the console statistics for each of the flow tables
used by switch.
dump-table-features switch
Prints to the console features for each of the flow tables
used by switch.
dump-table-desc switch
Prints to the console configuration for each of the flow
tables used by switch for OpenFlow 1.4+.
mod-table switch table_id setting
This command configures flow table settings for OpenFlow table
table_id within switch. The available settings depend on the
OpenFlow version in use. In OpenFlow 1.1 and 1.2 (which must
be enabled with the -O option) only, mod-table configures
behavior when no flow is found when a packet is looked up in a
flow table. The following setting values are available:
drop Drop the packet.
continue
Continue to the next table in the pipeline. (This is
how an OpenFlow 1.0 switch always handles packets that
do not match any flow, in tables other than the last
one.)
controller
Send to controller. (This is how an OpenFlow 1.0
switch always handles packets that do not match any
flow in the last table.)
In OpenFlow 1.4 and later (which must be enabled with the -O
option) only, mod-table configures the behavior when a
controller attempts to add a flow to a flow table that is
full. The following setting values are available:
evict Delete some existing flow from the flow table,
according to the algorithm described for the Flow_Table
table in ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5).
noevict
Refuse to add the new flow. (Eviction might still be
enabled through the overflow_policy column in the
Flow_Table table documented in
ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5).)
vacancy:low,high
Enables sending vacancy events to controllers using
TABLE_STATUS messages, based on percentage thresholds
low and high.
novacancy
Disables vacancy events.
dump-ports switch [netdev]
Prints to the console statistics for network devices
associated with switch. If netdev is specified, only the
statistics associated with that device will be printed.
netdev can be an OpenFlow assigned port number or device name,
e.g. eth0.
dump-ports-desc switch [port]
Prints to the console detailed information about network
devices associated with switch. To dump only a specific port,
specify its number as port. Otherwise, if port is omitted, or
if it is specified as ANY, then all ports are printed. This
is a subset of the information provided by the show command.
If the connection to switch negotiates OpenFlow 1.0, 1.2, or
1.2, this command uses an OpenFlow extension only implemented
in Open vSwitch (version 1.7 and later).
Only OpenFlow 1.5 and later support dumping a specific port.
Earlier versions of OpenFlow always dump all ports.
mod-port switch port action
Modify characteristics of port port in switch. port may be an
OpenFlow port number or name (unless --no-names is specified)
or the keyword LOCAL (the preferred way to refer to the
OpenFlow local port). The action may be any one of the
following:
up
down Enable or disable the interface. This is equivalent to
ip link set up or ip link set down on a Unix system.
stp
no-stp Enable or disable 802.1D spanning tree protocol (STP)
on the interface. OpenFlow implementations that don't
support STP will refuse to enable it.
receive
no-receive
receive-stp
no-receive-stp
Enable or disable OpenFlow processing of packets
received on this interface. When packet processing is
disabled, packets will be dropped instead of being
processed through the OpenFlow table. The receive or
no-receive setting applies to all packets except 802.1D
spanning tree packets, which are separately controlled
by receive-stp or no-receive-stp.
forward
no-forward
Allow or disallow forwarding of traffic to this
interface. By default, forwarding is enabled.
flood
no-flood
Controls whether an OpenFlow flood action will send
traffic out this interface. By default, flooding is
enabled. Disabling flooding is primarily useful to
prevent loops when a spanning tree protocol is not in
use.
packet-in
no-packet-in
Controls whether packets received on this interface
that do not match a flow table entry generate a
``packet in'' message to the OpenFlow controller. By
default, ``packet in'' messages are enabled.
The show command displays (among other information) the
configuration that mod-port changes.
get-frags switch
Prints switch's fragment handling mode. See set-frags, below,
for a description of each fragment handling mode.
The show command also prints the fragment handling mode among
its other output.
set-frags switch frag_mode
Configures switch's treatment of IPv4 and IPv6 fragments. The
choices for frag_mode are:
normal Fragments pass through the flow table like non-
fragmented packets. The TCP ports, UDP ports, and ICMP
type and code fields are always set to 0, even for
fragments where that information would otherwise be
available (fragments with offset 0). This is the
default fragment handling mode for an OpenFlow switch.
drop Fragments are dropped without passing through the flow
table.
reassemble
The switch reassembles fragments into full IP packets
before passing them through the flow table. Open
vSwitch does not implement this fragment handling mode.
nx-match
Fragments pass through the flow table like non-
fragmented packets. The TCP ports, UDP ports, and ICMP
type and code fields are available for matching for
fragments with offset 0, and set to 0 in fragments with
nonzero offset. This mode is a Nicira extension.
See the description of ip_frag, below, for a way to match on
whether a packet is a fragment and on its fragment offset.
dump-flows switch [flows]
Prints to the console all flow entries in switch's tables that
match flows. If flows is omitted, all flows in the switch are
retrieved. See Flow Syntax, below, for the syntax of flows.
The output format is described in Table Entry Output.
By default, ovs-ofctl prints flow entries in the same order
that the switch sends them, which is unlikely to be intuitive
or consistent. Use --sort and --rsort to control display
order. The --names/--no-names and --stats/--no-stats options
also affect output formatting. See the descriptions of these
options, under OPTIONS below, for more information
dump-aggregate switch [flows]
Prints to the console aggregate statistics for flows in
switch's tables that match flows. If flows is omitted, the
statistics are aggregated across all flows in the switch's
flow tables. See Flow Syntax, below, for the syntax of flows.
The output format is described in Table Entry Output.
queue-stats switch [port [queue]]
Prints to the console statistics for the specified queue on
port within switch. port can be an OpenFlow port number or
name, the keyword LOCAL (the preferred way to refer to the
OpenFlow local port), or the keyword ALL. Either of port or
queue or both may be omitted (or equivalently the keyword
ALL). If both are omitted, statistics are printed for all
queues on all ports. If only queue is omitted, then
statistics are printed for all queues on port; if only port is
omitted, then statistics are printed for queue on every port
where it exists.
queue-get-config switch [port [queue]]
Prints to the console the configuration of queue on port in
switch. If port is omitted or ANY, reports queues for all
port. If queue is omitted or ANY, reports all queues. For
OpenFlow 1.3 and earlier, the output always includes all
queues, ignoring queue if specified.
This command has limited usefulness, because ports often have
no configured queues and because the OpenFlow protocol
provides only very limited information about the configuration
of a queue.
dump-ipfix-bridge switch
Prints to the console the statistics of bridge IPFIX for
switch. If bridge IPFIX is configured on the switch, IPFIX
statistics can be retrieved. Otherwise, error message will be
printed.
This command uses an Open vSwitch extension that is only in
Open vSwitch 2.6 and later.
dump-ipfix-flow switch
Prints to the console the statistics of flow-based IPFIX for
switch. If flow-based IPFIX is configured on the switch,
statistics of all the collector set ids on the switch will be
printed. Otherwise, print error message.
Refer to ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) for more details on
configuring flow based IPFIX and collector set ids.
This command uses an Open vSwitch extension that is only in
Open vSwitch 2.6 and later.
ct-flush-zone switch zone
Flushes the connection tracking entries in zone on switch.
This command uses an Open vSwitch extension that is only in
Open vSwitch 2.6 and later.
OpenFlow 1.1+ Group Table Commands
The following commands work only with switches that support OpenFlow
1.1 or later. Because support for OpenFlow 1.1 and later is still
experimental in Open vSwitch, it is necessary to explicitly enable
these protocol versions in ovs-ofctl (using -O) and in the switch
itself (with the protocols column in the Bridge table). For more
information, see ``Q: What versions of OpenFlow does Open vSwitch
support?'' in the Open vSwitch FAQ.
dump-groups switch [group]
Prints group entries in switch's tables to console. To dump
only a specific group, specify its number as group.
Otherwise, if group is omitted, or if it is specified as ALL,
then all groups are printed. Each line of output is a group
entry as described in Group Syntax below.
Only OpenFlow 1.5 and later support dumping a specific group.
Earlier versions of OpenFlow always dump all groups.
dump-group-features switch
Prints to the console the group features of the switch.
dump-group-stats switch [groups]
Prints to the console statistics for the specified groups in
the switch's tables. If groups is omitted then statistics for
all groups are printed. See Group Syntax, below, for the
syntax of groups.
OpenFlow 1.3+ Switch Meter Table Commands
These commands manage the meter table in an OpenFlow switch. In each
case, meter specifies a meter entry in the format described in Meter
Syntax, below.
OpenFlow 1.3 introduced support for meters, so these commands only
work with switches that support OpenFlow 1.3 or later. The caveats
described for groups in the previous section also apply to meters.
add-meter switch meter
Add a meter entry to switch's tables. The meter syntax is
described in section Meter Syntax, below.
mod-meter switch meter
Modify an existing meter.
del-meters switch
del-meter switch [meter]
Delete entries from switch's meter table. meter can specify a
single meter with syntax meter=id, or all meters with syntax
meter=all.
dump-meters switch
dump-meter switch [meter]
Print meter configuration. meter can specify a single meter
with syntax meter=id, or all meters with syntax meter=all.
meter-stats switch [meter]
Print meter statistics. meter can specify a single meter with
syntax meter=id, or all meters with syntax meter=all.
meter-features switch
Print meter features.
OpenFlow Switch Flow Table Commands
These commands manage the flow table in an OpenFlow switch. In each
case, flow specifies a flow entry in the format described in Flow
Syntax, below, file is a text file that contains zero or more flows
in the same syntax, one per line, and the optional --bundle option
operates the command as a single atomic transation, see option
--bundle, below.
[--bundle] add-flow switch flow
[--bundle] add-flow switch - < file
[--bundle] add-flows switch file
Add each flow entry to switch's tables. Each flow
specification (e.g., each line in file) may start with add,
modify, delete, modify_strict, or delete_strict keyword to
specify whether a flow is to be added, modified, or deleted,
and whether the modify or delete is strict or not. For
backwards compatibility a flow specification without one of
these keywords is treated as a flow add. All flow mods are
executed in the order specified.
[--bundle] [--strict] mod-flows switch flow
[--bundle] [--strict] mod-flows switch - < file
Modify the actions in entries from switch's tables that match
the specified flows. With --strict, wildcards are not treated
as active for matching purposes.
[--bundle] del-flows switch
[--bundle] [--strict] del-flows switch [flow]
[--bundle] [--strict] del-flows switch - < file
Deletes entries from switch's flow table. With only a switch
argument, deletes all flows. Otherwise, deletes flow entries
that match the specified flows. With --strict, wildcards are
not treated as active for matching purposes.
[--bundle] [--readd] replace-flows switch file
Reads flow entries from file (or stdin if file is -) and
queries the flow table from switch. Then it fixes up any
differences, adding flows from flow that are missing on
switch, deleting flows from switch that are not in file, and
updating flows in switch whose actions, cookie, or timeouts
differ in file.
With --readd, ovs-ofctl adds all the flows from file, even
those that exist with the same actions, cookie, and timeout in
switch. In OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.1, re-adding a flow always
resets the flow's packet and byte counters to 0, and in
OpenFlow 1.2 and later, it does so only if the reset_counts
flag is set.
diff-flows source1 source2
Reads flow entries from source1 and source2 and prints the
differences. A flow that is in source1 but not in source2 is
printed preceded by a -, and a flow that is in source2 but not
in source1 is printed preceded by a +. If a flow exists in
both source1 and source2 with different actions, cookie, or
timeouts, then both versions are printed preceded by - and +,
respectively.
source1 and source2 may each name a file or a switch. If a
name begins with / or ., then it is considered to be a file
name. A name that contains : is considered to be a switch.
Otherwise, it is a file if a file by that name exists, a
switch if not.
For this command, an exit status of 0 means that no
differences were found, 1 means that an error occurred, and 2
means that some differences were found.
packet-out switch packet-out
Connects to switch and instructs it to execute the packet-out
OpenFlow message, specified as defined in Packet-Out Syntax
section.
OpenFlow Switch Group Table Commands
These commands manage the group table in an OpenFlow switch. In each
case, group specifies a group entry in the format described in Group
Syntax, below, and file is a text file that contains zero or more
groups in the same syntax, one per line, and the optional --bundle
option operates the command as a single atomic transation, see option
--bundle, below.
[--bundle] add-group switch group
[--bundle] add-group switch - < file
[--bundle] add-groups switch file
Add each group entry to switch's tables. Each group
specification (e.g., each line in file) may start with add,
modify, add_or_mod, delete, insert_bucket, or remove_bucket
keyword to specify whether a flow is to be added, modified, or
deleted, or whether a group bucket is to be added or removed.
For backwards compatibility a group specification without one
of these keywords is treated as a group add. All group mods
are executed in the order specified.
[--bundle] [--may-create] mod-group switch group
[--bundle] [--may-create] mod-group switch - < file
Modify the action buckets in entries from switch's tables for
each group entry. If a specified group does not already
exist, then without --may-create, this command has no effect;
with --may-create, it creates a new group. The --may-create
option uses an Open vSwitch extension to OpenFlow only
implemented in Open vSwitch 2.6 and later.
[--bundle] del-groups switch
[--bundle] del-groups switch [group]
[--bundle] del-groups switch - < file
Deletes entries from switch's group table. With only a switch
argument, deletes all groups. Otherwise, deletes the group
for each group entry.
[--bundle] insert-buckets switch group
[--bundle] insert-buckets switch - < file
Add buckets to an existing group present in the switch's group
table. If no command_bucket_id is present in the group
specification then all buckets of the group are removed.
[--bundle] remove-buckets switch group
[--bundle] remove-buckets switch - < file
Remove buckets to an existing group present in the switch's
group table. If no command_bucket_id is present in the group
specification then all buckets of the group are removed.
OpenFlow Switch Bundle Command
Transactional updates to both flow and group tables can be made with
the bundle command. file is a text file that contains zero or more
flow mods, group mods, or packet-outs in Flow Syntax, Group Syntax,
or Packet-Out Syntax, each line preceded by flow, group, or
packet-out keyword, correspondingly. The flow keyword may be
optionally followed by one of the keywords add, modify,
modify_strict, delete, or delete_strict, of which the add is assumed
if a bare flow is given. Similarly, the group keyword may be
optionally followed by one of the keywords add, modify, add_or_mod,
delete, insert_bucket, or remove_bucket, of which the add is assumed
if a bare group is given.
bundle switch file
Execute all flow and group mods in file as a single atomic
transaction against switch's tables. All bundled mods are
executed in the order specified.
OpenFlow Switch Tunnel TLV Table Commands
Open vSwitch maintains a mapping table between tunnel option TLVs
(defined by <class, type, length>) and NXM fields tun_metadatan,
where n ranges from 0 to 63, that can be operated on for the purposes
of matches, actions, etc. This TLV table can be used for Geneve
option TLVs or other protocols with options in same TLV format as
Geneve options. This mapping must be explicitly specified by the user
through the following commands.
A TLV mapping is specified with the syntax
{class=class,type=type,len=length}->tun_metadatan. When an option
mapping exists for a given tun_metadatan, matching on the defined
field becomes possible, e.g.:
ovs-ofctl add-tlv-map br0
"{class=0xffff,type=0,len=4}->tun_metadata0"
ovs-ofctl add-flow br0 tun_metadata0=1234,actions=controller
A mapping should not be changed while it is in active use by a flow.
The result of doing so is undefined.
These commands are Nicira extensions to OpenFlow and require Open
vSwitch 2.5 or later.
add-tlv-map switch option[,option]...
Add each option to switch's tables. Duplicate fields are
rejected.
del-tlv-map switch [option[,option]]...
Delete each option from switch's table, or all option TLV
mapping if no option is specified. Fields that aren't mapped
are ignored.
dump-tlv-map switch
Show the currently mapped fields in the switch's option table
as well as switch capabilities.
OpenFlow Switch Monitoring Commands
snoop switch
Connects to switch and prints to the console all OpenFlow
messages received. Unlike other ovs-ofctl commands, if switch
is the name of a bridge, then the snoop command connects to a
Unix domain socket named
/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/switch.snoop. ovs-vswitchd
listens on such a socket for each bridge and sends to it all
of the OpenFlow messages sent to or received from its
configured OpenFlow controller. Thus, this command can be
used to view OpenFlow protocol activity between a switch and
its controller.
When a switch has more than one controller configured, only
the traffic to and from a single controller is output. If
none of the controllers is configured as a master or a slave
(using a Nicira extension to OpenFlow 1.0 or 1.1, or a
standard request in OpenFlow 1.2 or later), then a controller
is chosen arbitrarily among them. If there is a master
controller, it is chosen; otherwise, if there are any
controllers that are not masters or slaves, one is chosen
arbitrarily; otherwise, a slave controller is chosen
arbitrarily. This choice is made once at connection time and
does not change as controllers reconfigure their roles.
If a switch has no controller configured, or if the configured
controller is disconnected, no traffic is sent, so monitoring
will not show any traffic.
monitor switch [miss-len] [invalid_ttl] [watch:[spec...]]
Connects to switch and prints to the console all OpenFlow
messages received. Usually, switch should specify the name of
a bridge in the ovs-vswitchd database.
If miss-len is provided, ovs-ofctl sends an OpenFlow ``set
configuration'' message at connection setup time that requests
miss-len bytes of each packet that misses the flow table.
Open vSwitch does not send these and other asynchronous
messages to an ovs-ofctl monitor client connection unless a
nonzero value is specified on this argument. (Thus, if
miss-len is not specified, very little traffic will ordinarily
be printed.)
If invalid_ttl is passed, ovs-ofctl sends an OpenFlow ``set
configuration'' message at connection setup time that requests
INVALID_TTL_TO_CONTROLLER, so that ovs-ofctl monitor can
receive ``packet-in'' messages when TTL reaches zero on
dec_ttl action. Only OpenFlow 1.1 and 1.2 support
invalid_ttl; Open vSwitch also implements it for OpenFlow 1.0
as an extension.
watch:[spec...] causes ovs-ofctl to send a ``monitor request''
Nicira extension message to the switch at connection setup
time. This message causes the switch to send information
about flow table changes as they occur. The following comma-
separated spec syntax is available:
!initial
Do not report the switch's initial flow table contents.
!add Do not report newly added flows.
!delete
Do not report deleted flows.
!modify
Do not report modifications to existing flows.
!own Abbreviate changes made to the flow table by
ovs-ofctl's own connection to the switch. (These could
only occur using the ofctl/send command described below
under RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS.)
!actions
Do not report actions as part of flow updates.
table=number
Limits the monitoring to the table with the given
number between 0 and 254. By default, all tables are
monitored.
out_port=port
If set, only flows that output to port are monitored.
The port may be an OpenFlow port number or keyword
(e.g. LOCAL).
field=value
Monitors only flows that have field specified as the
given value. Any syntax valid for matching on
dump-flows may be used.
This command may be useful for debugging switch or controller
implementations. With watch:, it is particularly useful for
observing how a controller updates flow tables.
OpenFlow Switch and Controller Commands
The following commands, like those in the previous section, may be
applied to OpenFlow switches, using any of the connection methods
described in that section. Unlike those commands, these may also be
applied to OpenFlow controllers.
probe target
Sends a single OpenFlow echo-request message to target and
waits for the response. With the -t or --timeout option, this
command can test whether an OpenFlow switch or controller is
up and running.
ping target [n]
Sends a series of 10 echo request packets to target and times
each reply. The echo request packets consist of an OpenFlow
header plus n bytes (default: 64) of randomly generated
payload. This measures the latency of individual requests.
benchmark target n count
Sends count echo request packets that each consist of an
OpenFlow header plus n bytes of payload and waits for each
response. Reports the total time required. This is a measure
of the maximum bandwidth to target for round-trips of n-byte
messages.
Other Commands
ofp-parse file
Reads file (or stdin if file is -) as a series of OpenFlow
messages in the binary format used on an OpenFlow connection,
and prints them to the console. This can be useful for
printing OpenFlow messages captured from a TCP stream.
ofp-parse-pcap file [port...]
Reads file, which must be in the PCAP format used by network
capture tools such as tcpdump or wireshark, extracts all the
TCP streams for OpenFlow connections, and prints the OpenFlow
messages in those connections in human-readable format on
stdout.
OpenFlow connections are distinguished by TCP port number.
Non-OpenFlow packets are ignored. By default, data on TCP
ports 6633 and 6653 are considered to be OpenFlow. Specify
one or more port arguments to override the default.
This command cannot usefully print SSL encrypted traffic. It
does not understand IPv6.
Flow Syntax
Some ovs-ofctl commands accept an argument that describes a flow or
flows. Such flow descriptions comprise a series of field=value
assignments, separated by commas or white space. (Embedding spaces
into a flow description normally requires quoting to prevent the
shell from breaking the description into multiple arguments.)
Flow descriptions should be in normal form. This means that a flow
may only specify a value for an L3 field if it also specifies a
particular L2 protocol, and that a flow may only specify an L4 field
if it also specifies particular L2 and L3 protocol types. For
example, if the L2 protocol type dl_type is wildcarded, then L3
fields nw_src, nw_dst, and nw_proto must also be wildcarded.
Similarly, if dl_type or nw_proto (the L3 protocol type) is
wildcarded, so must be the L4 fields tcp_dst and tcp_src. ovs-ofctl
will warn about flows not in normal form.
ovs-fields(7) describes the supported fields and how to match them.
In addition to match fields, commands that operate on flows accept a
few additional key-value pairs:
table=number
For flow dump commands, limits the flows dumped to those in
the table with the given number between 0 and 254. If not
specified (or if 255 is specified as number), then flows in
all tables are dumped.
For flow table modification commands, behavior varies based on
the OpenFlow version used to connect to the switch:
OpenFlow 1.0
OpenFlow 1.0 does not support table for modifying
flows. ovs-ofctl will exit with an error if table
(other than table=255) is specified for a switch that
only supports OpenFlow 1.0.
In OpenFlow 1.0, the switch chooses the table into
which to insert a new flow. The Open vSwitch software
switch always chooses table 0. Other Open vSwitch
datapaths and other OpenFlow implementations may choose
different tables.
The OpenFlow 1.0 behavior in Open vSwitch for modifying
or removing flows depends on whether --strict is used.
Without --strict, the command applies to matching flows
in all tables. With --strict, the command will operate
on any single matching flow in any table; it will do
nothing if there are matches in more than one table.
(The distinction between these behaviors only matters
if non-OpenFlow 1.0 commands were also used, because
OpenFlow 1.0 alone cannot add flows with the same
matching criteria to multiple tables.)
OpenFlow 1.0 with table_id extension
Open vSwitch implements an OpenFlow extension that
allows the controller to specify the table on which to
operate. ovs-ofctl automatically enables the extension
when table is specified and OpenFlow 1.0 is used.
ovs-ofctl automatically detects whether the switch
supports the extension. As of this writing, this
extension is only known to be implemented by Open
vSwitch.
With this extension, ovs-ofctl operates on the
requested table when table is specified, and acts as
described for OpenFlow 1.0 above when no table is
specified (or for table=255).
OpenFlow 1.1
OpenFlow 1.1 requires flow table modification commands
to specify a table. When table is not specified (or
table=255 is specified), ovs-ofctl defaults to table 0.
OpenFlow 1.2 and later
OpenFlow 1.2 and later allow flow deletion commands,
but not other flow table modification commands, to
operate on all flow tables, with the behavior described
above for OpenFlow 1.0.
duration=...
n_packet=...
n_bytes=...
ovs-ofctl ignores assignments to these ``fields'' to allow
output from the dump-flows command to be used as input for
other commands that parse flows.
The add-flow, add-flows, and mod-flows commands require an additional
field, which must be the final field specified:
actions=[action][,action...]
Specifies a comma-separated list of actions to take on a
packet when the flow entry matches. If no action is
specified, then packets matching the flow are dropped. The
following forms of action are supported:
port
output:port
Outputs the packet to OpenFlow port number port. If
port is the packet's input port, the packet is not
output.
output:src[start..end]
Outputs the packet to the OpenFlow port number read
from src, which may be an NXM field name, as described
above, or a match field name. output:reg0[16..31]
outputs to the OpenFlow port number written in the
upper half of register 0. If the port number is the
packet's input port, the packet is not output.
This form of output was added in Open vSwitch 1.3.0.
This form of output uses an OpenFlow extension that is
not supported by standard OpenFlow switches.
output(port=port,max_len=nbytes)
Outputs the packet to the OpenFlow port number read
from port, with maximum packet size set to nbytes.
port may be OpenFlow port number, local, or in_port.
Patch port is not supported. Packets larger than
nbytes will be trimmed to nbytes while packets smaller
than nbytes remains the original size.
group:group_id
Outputs the packet to the OpenFlow group group_id.
OpenFlow 1.1 introduced support for groups; Open
vSwitch 2.6 and later also supports output to groups as
an extension to OpenFlow 1.0. See Group Syntax for
more details.
normal Subjects the packet to the device's normal L2/L3
processing. (This action is not implemented by all
OpenFlow switches.)
flood Outputs the packet on all switch physical ports other
than the port on which it was received and any ports on
which flooding is disabled (typically, these would be
ports disabled by the IEEE 802.1D spanning tree
protocol).
all Outputs the packet on all switch physical ports other
than the port on which it was received.
local Outputs the packet on the ``local port,'' which
corresponds to the network device that has the same
name as the bridge.
in_port
Outputs the packet on the port from which it was
received.
controller(key=value...)
Sends the packet and its metadata to the OpenFlow
controller as a ``packet in'' message. The supported
key-value pairs are:
max_len=nbytes
Limit to nbytes the number of bytes of the
packet to send to the controller. By default
the entire packet is sent.
reason=reason
Specify reason as the reason for sending the
message in the ``packet in'' message. The
supported reasons are action (the default),
no_match, and invalid_ttl.
id=controller-id
Specify controller-id, a 16-bit integer, as the
connection ID of the OpenFlow controller or
controllers to which the ``packet in'' message
should be sent. The default is zero. Zero is
also the default connection ID for each
controller connection, and a given controller
connection will only have a nonzero connection
ID if its controller uses the
NXT_SET_CONTROLLER_ID Nicira extension to
OpenFlow.
userdata=hh...
Supplies the bytes represented as hex digits hh
as additional data to the controller in the
packet-in message. Pairs of hex digits may be
separated by periods for readability.
pause Causes the switch to freeze the packet's trip
through Open vSwitch flow tables and serializes
that state into the packet-in message as a
``continuation,'' an additional property in the
NXT_PACKET_IN2 message. The controller can
later send the continuation back to the switch
in an NXT_RESUME message, which will restart the
packet's traversal from the point where it was
interrupted. This permits an OpenFlow
controller to interpose on a packet midway
through processing in Open vSwitch.
If any reason other than action or any nonzero
controller-id is supplied, Open vSwitch extension
NXAST_CONTROLLER, supported by Open vSwitch 1.6 and
later, is used. If userdata is supplied, then
NXAST_CONTROLLER2, supported by Open vSwitch 2.6 and
later, is used.
controller
controller[:nbytes]
Shorthand for controller() or
controller(max_len=nbytes), respectively.
enqueue(port,queue)
Enqueues the packet on the specified queue within port
port, which must be an OpenFlow port number or keyword
(e.g. LOCAL). The number of supported queues depends
on the switch; some OpenFlow implementations do not
support queuing at all.
drop Discards the packet, so no further processing or
forwarding takes place. If a drop action is used, no
other actions may be specified.
mod_vlan_vid:vlan_vid
Modifies the VLAN id on a packet. The VLAN tag is
added or modified as necessary to match the value
specified. If the VLAN tag is added, a priority of
zero is used (see the mod_vlan_pcp action to set this).
mod_vlan_pcp:vlan_pcp
Modifies the VLAN priority on a packet. The VLAN tag
is added or modified as necessary to match the value
specified. Valid values are between 0 (lowest) and 7
(highest). If the VLAN tag is added, a vid of zero is
used (see the mod_vlan_vid action to set this).
strip_vlan
Strips the VLAN tag from a packet if it is present.
push_vlan:ethertype
Push a new VLAN tag onto the packet. Ethertype is used
as the Ethertype for the tag. Only ethertype 0x8100
should be used. (0x88a8 which the spec allows isn't
supported at the moment.) A priority of zero and the
tag of zero are used for the new tag.
push_mpls:ethertype
Changes the packet's Ethertype to ethertype, which must
be either 0x8847 or 0x8848, and pushes an MPLS LSE.
If the packet does not already contain any MPLS labels
then an initial label stack entry is pushed. The label
stack entry's label is 2 if the packet contains IPv6
and 0 otherwise, its default traffic control value is
the low 3 bits of the packet's DSCP value (0 if the
packet is not IP), and its TTL is copied from the IP
TTL (64 if the packet is not IP).
If the packet does already contain an MPLS label,
pushes a new outermost label as a copy of the existing
outermost label.
A limitation of the implementation is that processing
of actions will stop if push_mpls follows another
push_mpls unless there is a pop_mpls in between.
pop_mpls:ethertype
Strips the outermost MPLS label stack entry. Currently
the implementation restricts ethertype to a non-MPLS
Ethertype and thus pop_mpls should only be applied to
packets with an MPLS label stack depth of one. A
further limitation is that processing of actions will
stop if pop_mpls follows another pop_mpls unless there
is a push_mpls in between.
mod_dl_src:mac
Sets the source Ethernet address to mac.
mod_dl_dst:mac
Sets the destination Ethernet address to mac.
mod_nw_src:ip
Sets the IPv4 source address to ip.
mod_nw_dst:ip
Sets the IPv4 destination address to ip.
mod_tp_src:port
Sets the TCP or UDP or SCTP source port to port.
mod_tp_dst:port
Sets the TCP or UDP or SCTP destination port to port.
mod_nw_tos:tos
Sets the DSCP bits in the IPv4 ToS/DSCP or IPv6 traffic
class field to tos, which must be a multiple of 4
between 0 and 255. This action does not modify the two
least significant bits of the ToS field (the ECN bits).
mod_nw_ecn:ecn
Sets the ECN bits in the IPv4 ToS or IPv6 traffic class
field to ecn, which must be a value between 0 and 3,
inclusive. This action does not modify the six most
significant bits of the field (the DSCP bits).
Requires OpenFlow 1.1 or later.
mod_nw_ttl:ttl
Sets the IPv4 TTL or IPv6 hop limit field to ttl, which
is specified as a decimal number between 0 and 255,
inclusive. Switch behavior when setting ttl to zero is
not well specified, though.
Requires OpenFlow 1.1 or later.
The following actions are Nicira vendor extensions that, as of
this writing, are only known to be implemented by Open
vSwitch:
resubmit:port
resubmit([port],[table])
resubmit([port],[table],ct)
Re-searches this OpenFlow flow table (or the table
whose number is specified by table) with the in_port
field replaced by port (if port is specified) and the
packet 5-tuple fields swapped with the corresponding
conntrack original direction tuple fields (if ct is
specified, see ct_nw_src above), and executes the
actions found, if any, in addition to any other actions
in this flow entry. The in_port and swapped 5-tuple
fields are restored immediately after the search,
before any actions are executed.
The ct option requires a valid connection tracking
state as a match prerequisite in the flow where this
action is placed. Examples of valid connection
tracking state matches include ct_state=+new,
ct_state=+est, ct_state=+rel, and ct_state=+trk-inv.
Recursive resubmit actions are obeyed up to
implementation-defined limits:
· Open vSwitch 1.0.1 and earlier did not support
recursion.
· Open vSwitch 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 limited recursion
to 8 levels.
· Open vSwitch 1.1 and 1.2 limited recursion to 16
levels.
· Open vSwitch 1.2 through 1.8 limited recursion
to 32 levels.
· Open vSwitch 1.9 through 2.0 limited recursion
to 64 levels.
· Open vSwitch 2.1 through 2.5 limited recursion
to 64 levels and impose a total limit of 4,096
resubmits per flow translation (earlier versions
did not impose any total limit).
· Open vSwitch 2.6 and later imposes the same
limits as 2.5, with one exception: resubmit from
table x to any table y > x does not count
against the recursion limit.
Open vSwitch before 1.2.90 did not support table. Open
vSwitch before 2.7 did not support ct.
set_tunnel:id
set_tunnel64:id
If outputting to a port that encapsulates the packet in
a tunnel and supports an identifier (such as GRE), sets
the identifier to id. If the set_tunnel form is used
and id fits in 32 bits, then this uses an action
extension that is supported by Open vSwitch 1.0 and
later. Otherwise, if id is a 64-bit value, it requires
Open vSwitch 1.1 or later.
set_queue:queue
Sets the queue that should be used to queue when
packets are output. The number of supported queues
depends on the switch; some OpenFlow implementations do
not support queuing at all.
pop_queue
Restores the queue to the value it was before any
set_queue actions were applied.
ct
ct([argument][,argument...])
Send the packet through the connection tracker. Refer
to the ct_state documentation above for possible packet
and connection states. A ct action always sets the
packet to an untracked state and clears out the
ct_state fields for the current processing path. Those
fields are only available for the processing path
pointed to by the table argument. The following
arguments are supported:
commit
Commit the connection to the connection tracking
module. Information about the connection will be
stored beyond the lifetime of the packet in the
pipeline. Some ct_state flags are only
available for committed connections.
force
A committed connection always has the
directionality of the packet that caused the
connection to be committed in the first place.
This is the ``original direction'' of the
connection, and the opposite direction is the
``reply direction''. If a connection is already
committed, but it is in the wrong direction,
force flag may be used in addition to commit
flag to effectively terminate the existing
connection and start a new one in the current
direction. This flag has no effect if the
original direction of the connection is already
the same as that of the current packet.
table=number
Fork pipeline processing in two. The original
instance of the packet will continue processing
the current actions list as an untracked packet.
An additional instance of the packet will be
sent to the connection tracker, which will be
re-injected into the OpenFlow pipeline to resume
processing in table number, with the ct_state
and other ct match fields set. If the table is
not specified, then the packet which is
submitted to the connection tracker is not re-
injected into the OpenFlow pipeline. It is
strongly recommended to specify a table later
than the current table to prevent loops.
zone=value
zone=src[start..end]
A 16-bit context id that can be used to isolate
connections into separate domains, allowing
overlapping network addresses in different
zones. If a zone is not provided, then the
default is to use zone zero. The zone may be
specified either as an immediate 16-bit value,
or may be provided from an NXM field src. The
start and end pair are inclusive, and must
specify a 16-bit range within the field. This
value is copied to the ct_zone match field for
packets which are re-injected into the pipeline
using the table option.
exec([action][,action...])
Perform actions within the context of connection
tracking. This is a restricted set of actions
which are in the same format as their
specifications as part of a flow. Only actions
which modify the ct_mark or ct_label fields are
accepted within the exec action, and these
fields may only be modified with this option.
For example:
set_field:value[/mask]->ct_mark
Store a 32-bit metadata value with the
connection. Subsequent lookups for
packets in this connection will populate
the ct_mark flow field when the packet is
sent to the connection tracker with the
table specified.
set_field:value[/mask]->ct_label
Store a 128-bit metadata value with the
connection. Subsequent lookups for
packets in this connection will populate
the ct_label flow field when the packet
is sent to the connection tracker with
the table specified.
The commit parameter must be specified to use
exec(...).
alg=alg
Specify application layer gateway alg to track
specific connection types. If subsequent related
connections are sent through the ct action, then
the rel flag in the ct_state field will be set.
Supported types include:
ftp Look for negotiation of FTP data
connections. Specify this option for FTP
control connections to detect related
data connections and populate the rel
flag for the data connections.
tftp Look for negotiation of TFTP data
connections. Specify this option for TFTP
control connections to detect related
data connections and populate the rel
flag for the data connections.
The commit parameter must be specified to use
alg=alg.
When committing related connections, the ct_mark
for that connection is inherited from the
current ct_mark stored with the original
connection (ie, the connection created by
ct(alg=...)).
Note that with the Linux datapath, global sysctl
options affect the usage of the ct action. In
particular, if net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_helper
is enabled then application layer gateway
helpers may be executed even if the alg option
is not specified. This is the default setting
until Linux 4.7. For security reasons, the
netfilter team recommends users to disable this
option. See this blog post for further details:
http://www.netfilter.org/news.html#2012-04-03
nat[((src|dst)=addr1[-addr2][:port1[-port2]][,flags])]
Specify address and port translation for the
connection being tracked. For new connections
either src or dst argument must be provided to
set up either source address/port translation
(SNAT) or destination address/port translation
(DNAT), respectively. Setting up address
translation for a new connection takes effect
only if the commit flag is also provided for the
enclosing ct action. A bare nat action will
only translate the packet being processed in the
way the connection has been set up with an
earlier ct action. Also a nat action with src
or dst, when applied to a packet belonging to an
established (rather than new) connection, will
behave the same as a bare nat.
src and dst options take the following
arguments:
addr1[-addr2]
The address range from which the
translated address should be selected.
If only one address is given, then that
address will always be selected,
otherwise the address selection can be
informed by the optional persistent flag
as described below. Either IPv4 or IPv6
addresses can be provided, but both
addresses must be of the same type, and
the datapath behavior is undefined in
case of providing IPv4 address range for
an IPv6 packet, or IPv6 address range for
an IPv4 packet. IPv6 addresses must be
bracketed with '[' and ']' if a port
range is also given.
port1[-port2]
The port range from which the translated
port should be selected. If only one
port number is provided, then that should
be selected. In case of a mapping
conflict the datapath may choose any
other non-conflicting port number
instead, even when no port range is
specified. The port number selection can
be informed by the optional random and
hash flags as described below.
The optional flags are:
random The selection of the port from the given
range should be done using a fresh random
number. This flag is mutually exclusive
with hash.
hash The selection of the port from the given
range should be done using a datapath
specific hash of the packet's IP
addresses and the other, non-mapped port
number. This flag is mutually exclusive
with random.
persistent
The selection of the IP address from the
given range should be done so that the
same mapping can be provided after the
system restarts.
If an alg is specified for the committing ct
action that also includes nat with a src or dst
attribute, then the datapath tries to set up the
helper to be NAT aware. This functionality is
datapath specific and may not be supported by
all datapaths.
nat was introduced in Open vSwitch 2.6. The
first datapath that implements ct nat support is
the one that ships with Linux 4.6.
The ct action may be used as a primitive to construct
stateful firewalls by selectively committing some
traffic, then matching the ct_state to allow
established connections while denying new connections.
The following flows provide an example of how to
implement a simple firewall that allows new connections
from port 1 to port 2, and only allows established
connections to send traffic from port 2 to port 1:
table=0,priority=1,action=drop
table=0,priority=10,arp,action=normal
table=0,priority=100,ip,ct_state=-trk,action=ct(table=1)
table=1,in_port=1,ip,ct_state=+trk+new,action=ct(commit),2
table=1,in_port=1,ip,ct_state=+trk+est,action=2
table=1,in_port=2,ip,ct_state=+trk+new,action=drop
table=1,in_port=2,ip,ct_state=+trk+est,action=1
If ct is executed on IP (or IPv6) fragments, then the
message is implicitly reassembled before sending to the
connection tracker and refragmented upon output, to the
original maximum received fragment size. Reassembly
occurs within the context of the zone, meaning that IP
fragments in different zones are not assembled
together. Pipeline processing for the initial fragments
is halted; When the final fragment is received, the
message is assembled and pipeline processing will
continue for that flow. Because packet ordering is not
guaranteed by IP protocols, it is not possible to
determine which IP fragment will cause message
reassembly (and therefore continue pipeline
processing). As such, it is strongly recommended that
multiple flows should not execute ct to reassemble
fragments from the same IP message.
Currently, connection tracking is only available on
Linux kernels with the nf_conntrack module loaded. The
ct action was introduced in Open vSwitch 2.5.
ct_clear
Clears connection tracking state from the flow, zeroing
ct_state, ct_zone, ct_mark, and ct_label.
This action was introduced in Open vSwitch 2.6.90.
dec_ttl
dec_ttl(id1[,id2]...)
Decrement TTL of IPv4 packet or hop limit of IPv6
packet. If the TTL or hop limit is initially zero or
decrementing would make it so, no decrement occurs, as
packets reaching TTL zero must be rejected. Instead, a
``packet-in'' message with reason code OFPR_INVALID_TTL
is sent to each connected controller that has enabled
receiving them, if any. Processing the current set of
actions then stops. However, if the current set of
actions was reached through ``resubmit'' then remaining
actions in outer levels resume processing.
This action also optionally supports the ability to
specify a list of valid controller ids. Each of the
controllers in the list will receive the ``packet_in''
message only if they have registered to receive the
invalid ttl packets. If controller ids are not
specified, the ``packet_in'' message will be sent only
to the controllers having controller id zero which have
registered for the invalid ttl packets.
set_mpls_label:label
Set the label of the outer MPLS label stack entry of a
packet. label should be a 20-bit value that is decimal
by default; use a 0x prefix to specify them in
hexadecimal.
set_mpls_tc:tc
Set the traffic-class of the outer MPLS label stack
entry of a packet. tc should be a in the range 0 to 7
inclusive.
set_mpls_ttl:ttl
Set the TTL of the outer MPLS label stack entry of a
packet. ttl should be in the range 0 to 255 inclusive.
dec_mpls_ttl
Decrement TTL of the outer MPLS label stack entry of a
packet. If the TTL is initially zero or decrementing
would make it so, no decrement occurs. Instead, a
``packet-in'' message with reason code OFPR_INVALID_TTL
is sent to the main controller (id zero), if it has
enabled receiving them. Processing the current set of
actions then stops. However, if the current set of
actions was reached through ``resubmit'' then remaining
actions in outer levels resume processing.
note:[hh]...
Does nothing at all. Any number of bytes represented
as hex digits hh may be included. Pairs of hex digits
may be separated by periods for readability. The note
action's format doesn't include an exact length for its
payload, so the provided bytes will be padded on the
right by enough bytes with value 0 to make the total
number 6 more than a multiple of 8.
move:src[start..end]->dst[start..end]
Copies the named bits from field src to field dst. src
and dst may be NXM field names as defined in
nicira-ext.h, e.g. NXM_OF_UDP_SRC or NXM_NX_REG0, or a
match field name, e.g. reg0. Each start and end pair,
which are inclusive, must specify the same number of
bits and must fit within its respective field.
Shorthands for [start..end] exist: use [bit] to specify
a single bit or [] to specify an entire field (in the
latter case the brackets can also be left off).
Examples: move:NXM_NX_REG0[0..5]->NXM_NX_REG1[26..31]
copies the six bits numbered 0 through 5, inclusive, in
register 0 into bits 26 through 31, inclusive;
move:reg0[0..15]->vlan_tci copies the least significant
16 bits of register 0 into the VLAN TCI field.
In OpenFlow 1.0 through 1.4, move ordinarily uses an
Open vSwitch extension to OpenFlow. In OpenFlow 1.5,
move uses the OpenFlow 1.5 standard copy_field action.
The ONF has also made copy_field available as an
extension to OpenFlow 1.3. Open vSwitch 2.4 and later
understands this extension and uses it if a controller
uses it, but for backward compatibility with older
versions of Open vSwitch, ovs-ofctl does not use it.
set_field:value[/mask]->dst
load:value->dst[start..end]
Loads a literal value into a field or part of a field.
With set_field, value and the optional mask are given
in the customary syntax for field dst, which is
expressed as a field name. For example,
set_field:00:11:22:33:44:55->eth_src sets the Ethernet
source address to 00:11:22:33:44:55. With load, value
must be an integer value (in decimal or prefixed by 0x
for hexadecimal) and dst can also be the NXM or OXM
name for the field. For example,
load:0x001122334455->OXM_OF_ETH_SRC[] has the same
effect as the prior set_field example.
The two forms exist for historical reasons. Open
vSwitch 1.1 introduced NXAST_REG_LOAD as a Nicira
extension to OpenFlow 1.0 and used load to express it.
Later, OpenFlow 1.2 introduced a standard
OFPAT_SET_FIELD action that was restricted to loading
entire fields, so Open vSwitch added the form set_field
with this restriction. OpenFlow 1.5 extended
OFPAT_SET_FIELD to the point that it became a superset
of NXAST_REG_LOAD. Open vSwitch translates either
syntax as necessary for the OpenFlow version in use: in
OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.1, NXAST_REG_LOAD; in OpenFlow 1.2,
1.3, and 1.4, NXAST_REG_LOAD for load or for loading a
subfield, OFPAT_SET_FIELD otherwise; and OpenFlow 1.5
and later, OFPAT_SET_FIELD.
push:src[start..end]
Pushes start to end bits inclusive, in fields on top of
the stack.
Example: push:NXM_NX_REG2[0..5] or push:reg2[0..5] push
the value stored in register 2 bits 0 through 5,
inclusive, on to the internal stack.
pop:dst[start..end]
Pops from the top of the stack, retrieves the start to
end bits inclusive, from the value popped and store
them into the corresponding bits in dst.
Example: pop:NXM_NX_REG2[0..5] or pop:reg2[0..5] pops
the value from top of the stack. Set register 2 bits 0
through 5, inclusive, based on bits 0 through 5 from
the value just popped.
multipath(fields, basis, algorithm, n_links, arg,
dst[start..end])
Hashes fields using basis as a universal hash
parameter, then the applies multipath link selection
algorithm (with parameter arg) to choose one of n_links
output links numbered 0 through n_links minus 1, and
stores the link into dst[start..end], which must be an
NXM field as described above.
fields must be one of the following:
eth_src
Hashes Ethernet source address only.
symmetric_l4
Hashes Ethernet source, destination, and type,
VLAN ID, IPv4/IPv6 source, destination, and
protocol, and TCP or SCTP (but not UDP) ports.
The hash is computed so that pairs of
corresponding flows in each direction hash to
the same value, in environments where L2 paths
are the same in each direction. UDP ports are
not included in the hash to support protocols
such as VXLAN that use asymmetric ports in each
direction.
symmetric_l3l4
Hashes IPv4/IPv6 source, destination, and
protocol, and TCP or SCTP (but not UDP) ports.
Like symmetric_l4, this is a symmetric hash, but
by excluding L2 headers it is more effective in
environments with asymmetric L2 paths (e.g.
paths involving VRRP IP addresses on a router).
Not an effective hash function for protocols
other than IPv4 and IPv6, which hash to a
constant zero.
symmetric_l3l4+udp
Like symmetric_l3l4+udp, but UDP ports are
included in the hash. This is a more effective
hash when asymmetric UDP protocols such as VXLAN
are not a consideration.
nw_src Hashes Network source address only.
nw_dst Hashes Network destination address only.
algorithm must be one of modulo_n, hash_threshold, hrw,
and iter_hash. Only the iter_hash algorithm uses arg.
Refer to nicira-ext.h for more details.
bundle(fields, basis, algorithm, slave_type, slaves:[s1, s2,
...])
Hashes fields using basis as a universal hash
parameter, then applies the bundle link selection
algorithm to choose one of the listed slaves
represented as slave_type. Currently the only
supported slave_type is ofport. Thus, each s1 through
sN should be an OpenFlow port number. Outputs to the
selected slave.
Currently, fields must be either eth_src, symmetric_l4,
symmetric_l3l4, symmetric_l3l4+udp, nw_src, or nw_dst,
and algorithm must be one of hrw and active_backup.
Example: bundle(eth_src,0,hrw,ofport,slaves:4,8) uses
an Ethernet source hash with basis 0, to select between
OpenFlow ports 4 and 8 using the Highest Random Weight
algorithm.
Refer to nicira-ext.h for more details.
bundle_load(fields, basis, algorithm, slave_type,
dst[start..end], slaves:[s1, s2, ...])
Has the same behavior as the bundle action, with one
exception. Instead of outputting to the selected
slave, it writes its selection to dst[start..end],
which must be an NXM field as described above.
Example: bundle_load(eth_src, 0, hrw, ofport,
NXM_NX_REG0[], slaves:4, 8) uses an Ethernet source
hash with basis 0, to select between OpenFlow ports 4
and 8 using the Highest Random Weight algorithm, and
writes the selection to NXM_NX_REG0[]. Also the match
field name can be used, for example, instead of
'NXM_NX_REG0' the name 'reg0' can be used. When the
while field is indicated the empty brackets can also be
left off.
Refer to nicira-ext.h for more details.
learn(argument[,argument]...)
This action adds or modifies a flow in an OpenFlow
table, similar to ovs-ofctl --strict mod-flows. The
arguments specify the flow's match fields, actions, and
other properties, as follows. At least one match
criterion and one action argument should ordinarily be
specified.
idle_timeout=seconds
hard_timeout=seconds
priority=value
cookie=value
send_flow_rem
These arguments have the same meaning as in the
usual ovs-ofctl flow syntax.
fin_idle_timeout=seconds
fin_hard_timeout=seconds
Adds a fin_timeout action with the specified
arguments to the new flow. This feature was
added in Open vSwitch 1.5.90.
table=number
The table in which the new flow should be
inserted. Specify a decimal number between 0
and 254. The default, if table is unspecified,
is table 1.
delete_learned
This flag enables deletion of the learned flows
when the flow with the learn action is removed.
Specifically, when the last learn action with
this flag and particular table and cookie values
is removed, the switch deletes all of the flows
in the specified table with the specified
cookie.
This flag was added in Open vSwitch 2.4.
limit=number
If the number of flows in table table with
cookie id cookie exceeds number, a new flow will
not be learned by this action. By default
there's no limit. limit=0 is a long-hand for no
limit.
This flag was added in Open vSwitch 2.8.
result_dst=field[bit]
If learning failed (because the number of flows
exceeds limit), the action sets field[bit] to 0,
otherwise it will be set to 1. field[bit] must
be a single bit.
This flag was added in Open vSwitch 2.8.
field=value
field[start..end]=src[start..end]
field[start..end]
Adds a match criterion to the new flow.
The first form specifies that field must match
the literal value, e.g. dl_type=0x0800. All of
the fields and values for ovs-ofctl flow syntax
are available with their usual meanings.
Shorthand notation matchers (e.g. ip in place of
dl_type=0x0800) are not currently implemented.
The second form specifies that field[start..end]
in the new flow must match src[start..end] taken
from the flow currently being processed. For
example, NXM_OF_UDP_DST[]=NXM_OF_UDP_SRC[] on a
TCP packet for which the UDP src port is 53,
creates a flow which matches
NXM_OF_UDP_DST[]=53.
The third form is a shorthand for the second
form. It specifies that field[start..end] in
the new flow must match the same
field[start..end] taken from the flow currently
being processed. For example, NXM_OF_TCP_DST[]
on a TCP packet for which the TCP dst port is
80, creates a flow which matches
NXM_OF_TCP_DST[]=80.
load:value->dst[start..end]
load:src[start..end]->dst[start..end]
Adds a load action to the new flow.
The first form loads the literal value into bits
start through end, inclusive, in field dst. Its
syntax is the same as the load action described
earlier in this section.
The second form loads src[start..end], a value
from the flow currently being processed, into
bits start through end, inclusive, in field dst.
output:field[start..end]
Add an output action to the new flow's actions,
that outputs to the OpenFlow port taken from
field[start..end], which must be an NXM field as
described above.
For best performance, segregate learned flows into a
table (using table=number) that is not used for any
other flows except possibly for a lowest-priority
``catch-all'' flow, that is, a flow with no match
criteria. (This is why the default table is 1, to keep
the learned flows separate from the primary flow table
0.)
clear_actions
Clears all the actions in the action set immediately.
write_actions([action][,action...])
Add the specific actions to the action set. The syntax
of actions is the same as in the actions= field. The
action set is carried between flow tables and then
executed at the end of the pipeline.
The actions in the action set are applied in the
following order, as required by the OpenFlow
specification, regardless of the order in which they
were added to the action set. Except as specified
otherwise below, the action set only holds at most a
single action of each type. When more than one action
of a single type is written to the action set, the one
written later replaces the earlier action:
1. strip_vlan
pop_mpls
2. decap
3. encap
4. push_mpls
5. push_vlan
6. dec_ttl
dec_mpls_ttl
7. load
move
mod_dl_dst
mod_dl_src
mod_nw_dst
mod_nw_src
mod_nw_tos
mod_nw_ecn
mod_nw_ttl
mod_tp_dst
mod_tp_src
mod_vlan_pcp
mod_vlan_vid
set_field
set_tunnel
set_tunnel64
The action set can contain any number of these
actions, with cumulative effect. They will be
applied in the order as added. That is, when
multiple actions modify the same part of a
field, the later modification takes effect, and
when they modify different parts of a field (or
different fields), then both modifications are
applied.
8. set_queue
9. group
output
resubmit
If more than one of these actions is present,
then the one listed earliest above is executed
and the others are ignored, regardless of the
order in which they were added to the action
set. (If none of these actions is present, the
action set has no real effect, because the
modified packet is not sent anywhere and thus
the modifications are not visible.)
Only the actions listed above may be written to the
action set. encap and decap actions are nonstandard.
write_metadata:value[/mask]
Updates the metadata field for the flow. If mask is
omitted, the metadata field is set exactly to value; if
mask is specified, then a 1-bit in mask indicates that
the corresponding bit in the metadata field will be
replaced with the corresponding bit from value. Both
value and mask are 64-bit values that are decimal by
default; use a 0x prefix to specify them in
hexadecimal.
meter:meter_id
Apply the meter_id before any other actions. If a meter
band rate is exceeded, the packet may be dropped, or
modified, depending on the meter band type. See the
description of the Meter Table Commands, above, for
more details.
goto_table:table
Indicates the next table in the process pipeline.
fin_timeout(argument[,argument])
This action changes the idle timeout or hard timeout,
or both, of this OpenFlow rule when the rule matches a
TCP packet with the FIN or RST flag. When such a
packet is observed, the action reduces the rule's
timeouts to those specified on the action. If the
rule's existing timeout is already shorter than the one
that the action specifies, then that timeout is
unaffected.
argument takes the following forms:
idle_timeout=seconds
Causes the flow to expire after the given number
of seconds of inactivity.
hard_timeout=seconds
Causes the flow to expire after the given number
of seconds, regardless of activity. (seconds
specifies time since the flow's creation, not
since the receipt of the FIN or RST.)
This action was added in Open vSwitch 1.5.90.
sample(argument[,argument]...)
Samples packets and sends one sample for every sampled
packet.
argument takes the following forms:
probability=packets
The number of sampled packets out of 65535.
Must be greater or equal to 1.
collector_set_id=id
The unsigned 32-bit integer identifier of the
set of sample collectors to send sampled packets
to. Defaults to 0.
obs_domain_id=id
When sending samples to IPFIX collectors, the
unsigned 32-bit integer Observation Domain ID
sent in every IPFIX flow record. Defaults to 0.
obs_point_id=id
When sending samples to IPFIX collectors, the
unsigned 32-bit integer Observation Point ID
sent in every IPFIX flow record. Defaults to 0.
sampling_port=port
Sample packets on port, which should be the
ingress or egress port. This option, which was
added in Open vSwitch 2.5.90, allows the IPFIX
implementation to export egress tunnel
information.
ingress
egress Specifies explicitly that the packet is being
sampled on ingress to or egress from the switch.
IPFIX reports sent by Open vSwitch before
version 2.5.90 did not include a direction.
From 2.5.90 until 2.6.90, IPFIX reports inferred
a direction from sampling_port: if it was the
packet's output port, then the direction was
reported as egress, otherwise as ingress. Open
vSwitch 2.6.90 introduced these options, which
allow the inferred direction to be overridden.
This is particularly useful when the ingress (or
egress) port is not a tunnel.
Refer to ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) for more details on
configuring sample collector sets.
This action was added in Open vSwitch 1.10.90.
exit This action causes Open vSwitch to immediately halt
execution of further actions. Those actions which have
already been executed are unaffected. Any further
actions, including those which may be in other tables,
or different levels of the resubmit call stack, are
ignored. Actions in the action set is still executed
(specify clear_actions before exit to discard them).
conjunction(id, k/n)
This action allows for sophisticated ``conjunctive
match'' flows. Refer to CONJUNCTIVE MATCH FIELDS in
ovs-fields(7) for details.
The conjunction action and conj_id field were
introduced in Open vSwitch 2.4.
clone([action][,action...])
Executes each nested action, saving much of the packet
and pipeline state beforehand and then restoring it
afterward. The state that is saved and restored
includes all flow data and metadata (including, for
example, ct_state), the stack accessed by push and pop
actions, and the OpenFlow action set.
This action was added in Open vSwitch 2.6.90.
encap(header[(prop=value,tlv(class,type,value),...)])
Encapsulates the packet with a new packet header, e.g.,
ethernet or nsh.
header Used to specify encapsulation header type.
prop=value
Used to specify the initial value for the
property in the encapsulation header.
tlv(class,type,value)
Used to specify the initial value for the TLV
(Type Length Value) in the encapsulation header.
For example, encap(ethernet) will encapsulate the L3
packet with Ethernet header.
encap(nsh(md_type=1)) will encapsulate the packet with
nsh header and nsh metadata type 1.
encap(nsh(md_type=2,tlv(0x1000,10,0x12345678))) will
encapsulate the packet with nsh header and nsh metadata
type 2, and the nsh TLV with class 0x1000 and type 10
is set to 0x12345678.
prop=value is just used to set some necessary fields
for encapsulation header initialization. Other fields
in the encapsulation header must be set by set_field
action. New encapsulation header implementation must
add new match fields and corresponding set action in
order that set_field action can change the fields in
the encapsulation header on demand.
encap(nsh(md_type=1)),
set_field:0x1234->nsh_spi,set_field:0x11223344->nsh_c1
is an example to encapsulate nsh header and set nsh spi
and c1.
This action was added in Open vSwitch 2.8.
decap([packet_type(ns=namespace,type=type)])
Decapsulates the outer packet header.
packet_type(ns=namespace,type=type)
It is optional and used to specify the outer
header type of the decapsulated packet.
namespace is 0 for Ethernet packet, 1 for L3
packet, type is L3 protocol type, e.g., 0x894f
for nsh, 0x0 for Ethernet.
By default, decap() will decapsulate the outer packet
header according to the packet header type, if
packet_type(ns=namespace,type=type) is given, it will
decapsulate the given packet header, it will fail if
the actual outer packet header type is not of
packet_type(ns=namespace,type=type).
This action was added in Open vSwitch 2.8.
An opaque identifier called a cookie can be used as a handle to
identify a set of flows:
cookie=value
A cookie can be associated with a flow using the add-flow,
add-flows, and mod-flows commands. value can be any 64-bit
number and need not be unique among flows. If this field is
omitted, a default cookie value of 0 is used.
cookie=value/mask
When using NXM, the cookie can be used as a handle for
querying, modifying, and deleting flows. value and mask may
be supplied for the del-flows, mod-flows, dump-flows, and
dump-aggregate commands to limit matching cookies. A 1-bit in
mask indicates that the corresponding bit in cookie must match
exactly, and a 0-bit wildcards that bit. A mask of -1 may be
used to exactly match a cookie.
The mod-flows command can update the cookies of flows that
match a cookie by specifying the cookie field twice (once with
a mask for matching and once without to indicate the new
value):
ovs-ofctl mod-flows br0 cookie=1,actions=normal
Change all flows' cookies to 1 and change their actions
to normal.
ovs-ofctl mod-flows br0 cookie=1/-1,cookie=2,actions=normal
Update cookies with a value of 1 to 2 and change their
actions to normal.
The ability to match on cookies was added in Open vSwitch
1.5.0.
The following additional field sets the priority for flows added by
the add-flow and add-flows commands. For mod-flows and del-flows
when --strict is specified, priority must match along with the rest
of the flow specification. For mod-flows without --strict, priority
is only significant if the command creates a new flow, that is, non-
strict mod-flows does not match on priority and will not change the
priority of existing flows. Other commands do not allow priority to
be specified.
priority=value
The priority at which a wildcarded entry will match in
comparison to others. value is a number between 0 and 65535,
inclusive. A higher value will match before a lower one. An
exact-match entry will always have priority over an entry
containing wildcards, so it has an implicit priority value of
65535. When adding a flow, if the field is not specified, the
flow's priority will default to 32768.
OpenFlow leaves behavior undefined when two or more flows with
the same priority can match a single packet. Some users
expect ``sensible'' behavior, such as more specific flows
taking precedence over less specific flows, but OpenFlow does
not specify this and Open vSwitch does not implement it.
Users should therefore take care to use priorities to ensure
the behavior that they expect.
The add-flow, add-flows, and mod-flows commands support the following
additional options. These options affect only new flows. Thus, for
add-flow and add-flows, these options are always significant, but for
mod-flows they are significant only if the command creates a new
flow, that is, their values do not update or affect existing flows.
idle_timeout=seconds
Causes the flow to expire after the given number of seconds of
inactivity. A value of 0 (the default) prevents a flow from
expiring due to inactivity.
hard_timeout=seconds
Causes the flow to expire after the given number of seconds,
regardless of activity. A value of 0 (the default) gives the
flow no hard expiration deadline.
importance=value
Sets the importance of a flow. The flow entry eviction
mechanism can use importance as a factor in deciding which
flow to evict. A value of 0 (the default) makes the flow non-
evictable on the basis of importance. Specify a value between
0 and 65535.
Only OpenFlow 1.4 and later support importance.
send_flow_rem
Marks the flow with a flag that causes the switch to generate
a ``flow removed'' message and send it to interested
controllers when the flow later expires or is removed.
check_overlap
Forces the switch to check that the flow match does not
overlap that of any different flow with the same priority in
the same table. (This check is expensive so it is best to
avoid it.)
reset_counts
When this flag is specified on a flow being added to a switch,
and the switch already has a flow with an identical match, an
OpenFlow 1.2 (or later) switch resets the flow's packet and
byte counters to 0. Without the flag, the packet and byte
counters are preserved.
OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.1 switches always reset counters in this
situation, as if reset_counts were always specified.
Open vSwitch 1.10 added support for reset_counts.
no_packet_counts
no_byte_counts
Adding these flags to a flow advises an OpenFlow 1.3 (or
later) switch that the controller does not need packet or byte
counters, respectively, for the flow. Some switch
implementations might achieve higher performance or reduce
resource consumption when these flags are used. These flags
provide no benefit to the Open vSwitch software switch
implementation.
OpenFlow 1.2 and earlier do not support these flags.
Open vSwitch 1.10 added support for no_packet_counts and
no_byte_counts.
The dump-flows, dump-aggregate, del-flow and del-flows commands
support these additional optional fields:
out_port=port
If set, a matching flow must include an output action to port,
which must be an OpenFlow port number or name (e.g. local).
out_group=port
If set, a matching flow must include an group action naming
group, which must be an OpenFlow group number. This field is
supported in Open vSwitch 2.5 and later and requires OpenFlow
1.1 or later.
Table Entry Output
The dump-tables and dump-aggregate commands print information about
the entries in a datapath's tables. Each line of output is a flow
entry as described in Flow Syntax, above, plus some additional
fields:
duration=secs
The time, in seconds, that the entry has been in the table.
secs includes as much precision as the switch provides,
possibly to nanosecond resolution.
n_packets
The number of packets that have matched the entry.
n_bytes
The total number of bytes from packets that have matched the
entry.
The following additional fields are included only if the switch is
Open vSwitch 1.6 or later and the NXM flow format is used to dump the
flow (see the description of the --flow-format option below). The
values of these additional fields are approximations only and in
particular idle_age will sometimes become nonzero even for busy
flows.
hard_age=secs
The integer number of seconds since the flow was added or
modified. hard_age is displayed only if it differs from the
integer part of duration. (This is separate from duration
because mod-flows restarts the hard_timeout timer without
zeroing duration.)
idle_age=secs
The integer number of seconds that have passed without any
packets passing through the flow.
Packet-Out Syntax
ovs-ofctl bundle command accepts packet-outs to be specified in the
bundle file. Each packet-out comprises of a series of field=value
assignments, separated by commas or white space. (Embedding spaces
into a packet-out description normally requires quoting to prevent
the shell from breaking the description into multiple arguments.).
Unless noted otherwise only the last instance of each field is
honoured. This same syntax is also supported by the ovs-ofctl
packet-out command.
in_port=port
The port number to be considered the in_port when processing
actions. This can be any valid OpenFlow port number, or any
of the LOCAL, CONTROLLER, or NONE. This field is required.
pipeline_field=value
Optionally, user can specify a list of pipeline fields for a
packet-out message. The supported pipeline fields includes
tunnel fields and register fields as defined in ovs-fields(7).
packet=hex-string
The actual packet to send, expressed as a string of
hexadecimal bytes. This field is required.
actions=[action][,action...]
The syntax of actions are identical to the actions= field
described in Flow Syntax above. Specifying actions= is
optional, but omitting actions is interpreted as a drop, so
the packet will not be sent anywhere from the switch. actions
must be specified at the end of each line, like for flow mods.
Group Syntax
Some ovs-ofctl commands accept an argument that describes a group or
groups. Such flow descriptions comprise a series field=value
assignments, separated by commas or white space. (Embedding spaces
into a group description normally requires quoting to prevent the
shell from breaking the description into multiple arguments.). Unless
noted otherwise only the last instance of each field is honoured.
group_id=id
The integer group id of group. When this field is specified
in del-groups or dump-groups, the keyword "all" may be used to
designate all groups. This field is required.
type=type
The type of the group. The add-group, add-groups and mod-
groups commands require this field. It is prohibited for
other commands. The following keywords designated the allowed
types:
all Execute all buckets in the group.
select Execute one bucket in the group, balancing across the
buckets according to their weights. To select a
bucket, for each live bucket, Open vSwitch hashes flow
data with the bucket ID and multiplies by the bucket
weight to obtain a ``score,'' and then selects the
bucket with the highest score. Use selection_method to
control the flow data used for selection.
indirect
Executes the one bucket in the group.
ff
fast_failover
Executes the first live bucket in the group which is
associated with a live port or group.
command_bucket_id=id
The bucket to operate on. The insert-buckets and remove-
buckets commands require this field. It is prohibited for
other commands. id may be an integer or one of the following
keywords:
all Operate on all buckets in the group. Only valid when
used with the remove-buckets command in which case the
effect is to remove all buckets from the group.
first Operate on the first bucket present in the group. In
the case of the insert-buckets command the effect is to
insert new bucets just before the first bucket already
present in the group; or to replace the buckets of the
group if there are no buckets already present in the
group. In the case of the remove-buckets command the
effect is to remove the first bucket of the group; or
do nothing if there are no buckets present in the
group.
last Operate on the last bucket present in the group. In
the case of the insert-buckets command the effect is to
insert new bucets just after the last bucket already
present in the group; or to replace the buckets of the
group if there are no buckets already present in the
group. In the case of the remove-buckets command the
effect is to remove the last bucket of the group; or do
nothing if there are no buckets present in the group.
If id is an integer then it should correspond to the bucket_id
of a bucket present in the group. In case of the insert-
buckets command the effect is to insert buckets just before
the bucket in the group whose bucket_id is id. In case of the
iremove-buckets command the effect is to remove the in the
group whose bucket_id is id. It is an error if there is no
bucket persent group in whose bucket_id is id.
selection_method=method
The selection method used to select a bucket for a select
group. This is a string of 1 to 15 bytes in length known to
lower layers. This field is optional for add-group,
add-groups and mod-group commands on groups of type select.
Prohibited otherwise. The default value is the empty string.
hash Use a hash computed over the fields specified with the
fields option, see below. hash uses the
selection_method_param as the hash basis.
Note that the hashed fields become exact matched by the
datapath flows. For example, if the TCP source port is
hashed, the created datapath flows will match the
specific TCP source port value present in the packet
received. Since each TCP connection generally has a
different source port value, a separate datapath flow
will be need to be inserted for each TCP connection
thus hashed to a select group bucket.
dp_hash
Use a datapath computed hash value. The hash algorithm
varies accross different datapath implementations.
dp_hash uses the upper 32 bits of the
selection_method_param as the datapath hash algorithm
selector, which currently must always be 0,
corresponding to hash computation over the IP 5-tuple
(selecting specific fields with the fields option is
not allowed with dp_hash). The lower 32 bits are used
as the hash basis.
Using dp_hash has the advantage that it does not
require the generated datapath flows to exact match any
additional packet header fields. For example, even if
multiple TCP connections thus hashed to different
select group buckets have different source port
numbers, generally all of them would be handled with a
small set of already established datapath flows,
resulting in less latency for TCP SYN packets. The
downside is that the shared datapath flows must match
each packet twice, as the datapath hash value
calculation happens only when needed, and a second
match is required to match some bits of its value.
This double-matching incurs a small additional latency
cost for each packet, but this latency is orders of
magnitude less than the latency of creating new
datapath flows for new TCP connections.
This option will use a Netronome OpenFlow extension which is
only supported when using Open vSwitch 2.4 and later with
OpenFlow 1.5 and later.
selection_method_param=param
64-bit integer parameter to the selection method selected by
the selection_method field. The parameter's use is defined by
the lower-layer that implements the selection_method. It is
optional if the selection_method field is specified as a non-
empty string. Prohibited otherwise. The default value is
zero.
This option will use a Netronome OpenFlow extension which is
only supported when using Open vSwitch 2.4 and later with
OpenFlow 1.5 and later.
fields=field
fields(field[=mask]...)
The field parameters to selection method selected by the
selection_method field. The syntax is described in Flow
Syntax with the additional restrictions that if a value is
provided it is treated as a wildcard mask and wildcard masks
following a slash are prohibited. The pre-requisites of fields
must be provided by any flows that output to the group. The
use of the fields is defined by the lower-layer that
implements the selection_method. They are optional if the
selection_method field is specified as ``hash', prohibited
otherwise. The default is no fields.
This option will use a Netronome OpenFlow extension which is
only supported when using Open vSwitch 2.4 and later with
OpenFlow 1.5 and later.
bucket=bucket_parameters
The add-group, add-groups and mod-group commands require at
least one bucket field. Bucket fields must appear after all
other fields. Multiple bucket fields to specify multiple
buckets. The order in which buckets are specified corresponds
to their order in the group. If the type of the group is
"indirect" then only one group may be specified.
bucket_parameters consists of a list of field=value
assignments, separated by commas or white space followed by a
comma-separated list of actions. The fields for
bucket_parameters are:
bucket_id=id
The 32-bit integer group id of the bucket. Values
greater than 0xffffff00 are reserved. This field was
added in Open vSwitch 2.4 to conform with the OpenFlow
1.5 specification. It is not supported when earlier
versions of OpenFlow are used. Open vSwitch will
automatically allocate bucket ids when they are not
specified.
actions=[action][,action...]
The syntax of actions are identical to the actions=
field described in Flow Syntax above. Specifying
actions= is optional, any unknown bucket parameter will
be interpreted as an action.
weight=value
The relative weight of the bucket as an integer. This
may be used by the switch during bucket select for
groups whose type is select.
watch_port=port
Port used to determine liveness of group. This or the
watch_group field is required for groups whose type is
ff or fast_failover.
watch_group=group_id
Group identifier of group used to determine liveness of
group. This or the watch_port field is required for
groups whose type is ff or fast_failover.
Meter Syntax
The meter table commands accept an argument that describes a meter.
Such meter descriptions comprise a series field=value assignments,
separated by commas or white space. (Embedding spaces into a group
description normally requires quoting to prevent the shell from
breaking the description into multiple arguments.). Unless noted
otherwise only the last instance of each field is honoured.
meter=id
The integer meter id of the meter. When this field is
specified in del-meter, dump-meter, or meter-stats, the
keyword "all" may be used to designate all meters. This field
is required, exept for meter-stats, which dumps all stats when
this field is not specified.
kbps
pktps The unit for the meter band rate parameters, either kilobits
per second, or packets per second, respectively. One of these
must be specified. The burst size unit corresponds to the
rate unit by dropping the "per second", i.e., burst is in
units of kilobits or packets, respectively.
burst Specify burst size for all bands, or none of them, if this
flag is not given.
stats Collect meter and band statistics.
bands=band_parameters
The add-meter and mod-meter commands require at least one band
specification. Bands must appear after all other fields.
type=type
The type of the meter band. This keyword starts a new
band specification. Each band specifies a rate above
which the band is to take some action. The action
depends on the band type. If multiple bands' rate is
exceeded, then the band with the highest rate among the
exceeded bands is selected. The following keywords
designate the allowed meter band types:
drop Drop packets exceeding the band's rate limit.
The other band_parameters are:
rate=value
The relative rate limit for this band, in kilobits per
second or packets per second, depending on the meter
flags defined above.
burst_size=size
The maximum burst allowed for the band. If pktps is
specified, then size is a packet count, otherwise it is
in kilobits. If unspecified, the switch is free to
select some reasonable value depending on its
configuration.
--strict
Uses strict matching when running flow modification commands.
--names
--no-names
Every OpenFlow port has a name and a number. By default,
ovs-ofctl commands accept both port names and numbers, and
they display port names if ovs-ofctl is running on an
interactive console, port numbers otherwise. With --names,
ovs-ofctl commands both accept and display port names; with
--no-names, commands neither accept nor display port names.
If a port name contains special characters or might be
confused with a keyword within a flow, it may be enclosed in
double quotes (escaped from the shell). If necessary, JSON-
style escape sequences may be used inside quotes, as specified
in RFC 7159. When it displays port names, ovs-ofctl quotes
any name that does not start with a letter followed by letters
or digits.
These options are new in Open vSwitch 2.8. Earlier versions
always behaved as if --no-names were specified.
Open vSwitch does not place its own limit on the length of
port names, but OpenFlow 1.0 to 1.5 limit port names to 15
bytes and OpenFlow 1.6 limits them to 63 bytes. Because
ovs-ofctl uses OpenFlow to retrieve the mapping between port
names and numbers, names longer than this limit will be
truncated for both display and acceptance. Truncation can
also cause long names that are different to appear to be the
same; when a switch has two ports with the same (truncated)
name, ovs-ofctl refuses to display or accept the name, using
the number instead.
--stats
--no-stats
The dump-flows command by default, or with --stats, includes
flow duration, packet and byte counts, and idle and hard age
in its output. With --no-stats, it omits all of these, as
well as cookie values and table IDs if they are zero.
--read-only
Do not execute read/write commands.
--bundle
Execute flow mods as an OpenFlow 1.4 atomic bundle
transaction.
· Within a bundle, all flow mods are processed in the
order they appear and as a single atomic transaction,
meaning that if one of them fails, the whole
transaction fails and none of the changes are made to
the switch's flow table, and that each given datapath
packet traversing the OpenFlow tables sees the flow
tables either as before the transaction, or after all
the flow mods in the bundle have been successfully
applied.
· The beginning and the end of the flow table
modification commands in a bundle are delimited with
OpenFlow 1.4 bundle control messages, which makes it
possible to stream the included commands without
explicit OpenFlow barriers, which are otherwise used
after each flow table modification command. This may
make large modifications execute faster as a bundle.
· Bundles require OpenFlow 1.4 or higher. An explicit -O
OpenFlow14 option is not needed, but you may need to
enable OpenFlow 1.4 support for OVS by setting the
OVSDB protocols column in the bridge table.
-O [version[,version]...]
--protocols=[version[,version]...]
Sets the OpenFlow protocol versions that are allowed when
establishing an OpenFlow session.
These protocol versions are enabled by default:
· OpenFlow10, for OpenFlow 1.0.
The following protocol versions are generally supported, but for
compatibility with older versions of Open vSwitch they are not
enabled by default:
· OpenFlow11, for OpenFlow 1.1.
· OpenFlow12, for OpenFlow 1.2.
· OpenFlow13, for OpenFlow 1.3.
· OpenFlow14, for OpenFlow 1.4.
Support for the following protocol versions is provided for
testing and development purposes. They are not enabled by
default:
· OpenFlow15, for OpenFlow 1.5.
· OpenFlow16, for OpenFlow 1.6.
-F format[,format...]
--flow-format=format[,format...]
ovs-ofctl supports the following individual flow formats, any
number of which may be listed as format:
OpenFlow10-table_id
This is the standard OpenFlow 1.0 flow format. All
OpenFlow switches and all versions of Open vSwitch
support this flow format.
OpenFlow10+table_id
This is the standard OpenFlow 1.0 flow format plus a
Nicira extension that allows ovs-ofctl to specify the
flow table in which a particular flow should be placed.
Open vSwitch 1.2 and later supports this flow format.
NXM-table_id (Nicira Extended Match)
This Nicira extension to OpenFlow is flexible and
extensible. It supports all of the Nicira flow
extensions, such as tun_id and registers. Open vSwitch
1.1 and later supports this flow format.
NXM+table_id (Nicira Extended Match)
This combines Nicira Extended match with the ability to
place a flow in a specific table. Open vSwitch 1.2 and
later supports this flow format.
OXM-OpenFlow12
OXM-OpenFlow13
OXM-OpenFlow14
OXM-OpenFlow15
OXM-OpenFlow16
These are the standard OXM (OpenFlow Extensible Match)
flow format in OpenFlow 1.2 and later.
ovs-ofctl also supports the following abbreviations for
collections of flow formats:
any Any supported flow format.
OpenFlow10
OpenFlow10-table_id or OpenFlow10+table_id.
NXM NXM-table_id or NXM+table_id.
OXM OXM-OpenFlow12, OXM-OpenFlow13, or OXM-OpenFlow14.
For commands that modify the flow table, ovs-ofctl by default
negotiates the most widely supported flow format that supports
the flows being added. For commands that query the flow
table, ovs-ofctl by default uses the most advanced format
supported by the switch.
This option, where format is a comma-separated list of one or
more of the formats listed above, limits ovs-ofctl's choice of
flow format. If a command cannot work as requested using one
of the specified flow formats, ovs-ofctl will report a fatal
error.
-P format
--packet-in-format=format
ovs-ofctl supports the following ``packet-in'' formats, in
order of increasing capability:
standard
This uses the OFPT_PACKET_IN message, the standard
``packet-in'' message for any given OpenFlow version.
Every OpenFlow switch that supports a given OpenFlow
version supports this format.
nxt_packet_in
This uses the NXT_PACKET_IN message, which adds many of
the capabilities of the OpenFlow 1.1 and later
``packet-in'' messages before those OpenFlow versions
were available in Open vSwitch. Open vSwitch 1.1 and
later support this format. Only Open vSwitch 2.6 and
later, however, support it for OpenFlow 1.1 and later
(but there is little reason to use it with those
versions of OpenFlow).
nxt_packet_in2
This uses the NXT_PACKET_IN2 message, which is
extensible and should avoid the need to define new
formats later. In particular, this format supports
passing arbitrary user-provided data to a controller
using the userdata option on the controller action.
Open vSwitch 2.6 and later support this format.
Without this option, ovs-ofctl prefers nxt_packet_in2 if the
switch supports it. Otherwise, if OpenFlow 1.0 is in use,
ovs-ofctl prefers nxt_packet_in if the switch supports it.
Otherwise, ovs-ofctl falls back to the standard packet-in
format. When this option is specified, ovs-ofctl insists on
the selected format. If the switch does not support the
requested format, ovs-ofctl will report a fatal error.
Before version 2.6, Open vSwitch called standard format
openflow10 and nxt_packet_in format nxm, and ovs-ofctl still
accepts these names as synonyms. (The name openflow10 was a
misnomer because this format actually varies from one OpenFlow
version to another; it is not consistently OpenFlow 1.0
format. Similarly, when nxt_packet_in2 was introduced, the
name nxm became confusing because it also uses OXM/NXM.)
This option affects only the monitor command.
--timestamp
Print a timestamp before each received packet. This option
only affects the monitor, snoop, and ofp-parse-pcap commands.
-m
--more Increases the verbosity of OpenFlow messages printed and
logged by ovs-ofctl commands. Specify this option more than
once to increase verbosity further.
--sort[=field]
--rsort[=field]
Display output sorted by flow field in ascending (--sort) or
descending (--rsort) order, where field is any of the fields
that are allowed for matching or priority to sort by priority.
When field is omitted, the output is sorted by priority.
Specify these options multiple times to sort by multiple
fields.
Any given flow will not necessarily specify a value for a
given field. This requires special treatement:
· A flow that does not specify any part of a field that
is used for sorting is sorted after all the flows that
do specify the field. For example, --sort=tcp_src will
sort all the flows that specify a TCP source port in
ascending order, followed by the flows that do not
specify a TCP source port at all.
· A flow that only specifies some bits in a field is
sorted as if the wildcarded bits were zero. For
example, --sort=nw_src would sort a flow that specifies
nw_src=192.168.0.0/24 the same as nw_src=192.168.0.0.
These options currently affect only dump-flows output.
Daemon Options
The following options are valid on POSIX based platforms.
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, ovs-ofctl.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 /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch.
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified
pidfile already exists and is locked by a running process,
ovs-ofctl 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 ovs-ofctl 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. ovs-ofctl
detaches only when executing the monitor or snoop commands.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor the ovs-ofctl daemon.
If the daemon dies due to a signal that indicates a
programming error (SIGABRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL,
SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU, or SIGXFSZ) then the monitor
process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon dies or exits
for another reason, the monitor process exits.
This option is normally used with --detach, but it also
functions without it.
--no-chdir
By default, when --detach is specified, ovs-ofctl changes its
current working directory to the root directory after it
detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovs-ofctl from a carelessly
chosen directory would prevent the administrator from
unmounting the file system that holds that directory.
Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing
ovs-ofctl 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 daemon will try to self-confine itself to work with
files under well-know, at build-time whitelisted directories.
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
additional layer of security.
--user Causes ovs-ofctl 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 are 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 two additional capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN and
CAP_NET_RAW. The capability change will apply even if 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.
--unixctl=socket
Sets the name of the control socket on which ovs-ofctl listens
for runtime management commands (see RUNTIME MANAGEMENT
COMMANDS, below). If socket does not begin with /, it is
interpreted as relative to /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch. If
--unixctl is not used at all, the default socket is
/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/ovs-ofctl.pid.ctl, where pid is
ovs-ofctl's process ID.
On Windows a local named pipe is used to listen for runtime
management commands. A file is created in the absolute path
as pointed by socket or if --unixctl is not used at all, a
file is created as ovs-ofctl.ctl in the configured OVS_RUNDIR
directory. The file exists just to mimic the behavior of a
Unix domain socket.
Specifying none for socket disables the control socket
feature.
Public Key Infrastructure Options
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as
ovs-ofctl's identity for outgoing SSL connections.
-c cert.pem
--certificate=cert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certifies
the private key specified on -p or --private-key to be
trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the
certificate 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 that
ovs-ofctl should use to verify certificates presented to it 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.
-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 specified module.
· syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change
to only to the system log, to the console, or to a
file, respectively. (If --detach is specified,
ovs-ofctl 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
--verbose=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/openvswitch/ovs-ofctl.log.
--syslog-target=host:port
Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the
system syslog. The host must be a numerical IP address, not a
hostname.
--syslog-method=method
Specify method how syslog messages should be sent to syslog
daemon. Following forms are supported:
· libc, use libc syslog() function. This is the default
behavior. Downside of using this options is that libc
adds fixed prefix to every message before it is
actually sent to the syslog daemon over /dev/log UNIX
domain socket.
· unix:file, use UNIX domain socket directly. It is
possible to specify arbitrary message format with this
option. However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use
hard coded parser function anyway that limits UNIX
domain socket use. If you want to use arbitrary
message format with older rsyslogd versions, then use
UDP socket to localhost IP address instead.
· udp:ip:port, use 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 example, 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.
--color[=when]
Colorize the output (for some commands); when can be never,
always, or auto (the default).
Only some commands support output coloring. Color names and
default colors may change in future releases.
The environment variable OVS_COLORS can be used to specify
user-defined colors and other attributes used to highlight
various parts of the output. If set, its value is a colon-
separated list of capabilities that defaults to
ac:01;31:dr=34:le=31:pm=36:pr=35:sp=33:vl=32. Supported
capabilities were initially designed for coloring flows from
ovs-ofctl dump-flows switch command, and they are as follows.
ac=01;31
SGR substring for actions= keyword in a flow.
The default is a bold red text foreground.
dr=34 SGR substring for drop keyword. The default is
a dark blue text foreground.
le=31 SGR substring for learn= keyword in a flow. The
default is a red text foreground.
pm=36 SGR substring for flow match attribute names.
The default is a cyan text foreground.
pr=35 SGR substring for keywords in a flow that are
followed by arguments inside parenthesis. The
default is a magenta text foreground.
sp=33 SGR substring for some special keywords in a
flow, notably: table=, priority=, load:,
output:, move:, group:, CONTROLLER:, set_field:,
resubmit:, exit. The default is a yellow text
foreground.
vl=32 SGR substring for a lone flow match attribute
with no field name. The default is a green text
foreground.
See the Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) section in the
documentation of the text terminal that is used for permitted
values and their meaning as character attributes.
-h
--help Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
ovs-appctl(8) can send commands to a running ovs-ofctl process. The
supported commands are listed below.
exit Causes ovs-ofctl to gracefully terminate. This command
applies only when executing the monitor or snoop commands.
ofctl/set-output-file file
Causes all subsequent output to go to file instead of stderr.
This command applies only when executing the monitor or snoop
commands.
ofctl/send ofmsg...
Sends each ofmsg, specified as a sequence of hex digits that
express an OpenFlow message, on the OpenFlow connection. This
command is useful only when executing the monitor command.
ofctl/packet-out packet-out
Sends an OpenFlow PACKET_OUT message specified in Packet-Out
Syntax, on the OpenFlow connection. See Packet-Out Syntax
section for more information. This command is useful only
when executing the monitor command.
ofctl/barrier
Sends an OpenFlow barrier request on the OpenFlow connection
and waits for a reply. This command is useful only for the
monitor command.
The following examples assume that ovs-vswitchd has a bridge named
br0 configured.
ovs-ofctl dump-tables br0
Prints out the switch's table stats. (This is more
interesting after some traffic has passed through.)
ovs-ofctl dump-flows br0
Prints the flow entries in the switch.
ovs-ofctl add-flow table=0 actions=learn(table=1,hard_timeout=10,
NXM_OF_VLAN_TCI[0..11],output:NXM_OF_IN_PORT[]), resubmit(,1)
ovs-ofctl add-flow table=1 priority=0 actions=flood
Implements a level 2 MAC learning switch using the learn.
ovs-ofctl add-flow br0 'table=0,priority=0
actions=load:3->NXM_NX_REG0[0..15],learn(table=0,priority=1,idle_timeout=10,NXM_OF_ETH_SRC[],NXM_OF_VLAN_TCI[0..11],output:NXM_NX_REG0[0..15]),output:2
In this use of a learn action, the first packet from each
source MAC will be sent to port 2. Subsequent packets will be
output to port 3, with an idle timeout of 10 seconds. NXM
field names and match field names are both accepted, e.g.
NXM_NX_REG0 or reg0 for the first register, and empty brackets
may be omitted.
Additional examples may be found documented as part of related
sections.
ovs-fields(7), ovs-appctl(8), ovs-vswitchd(8),
ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(8)
This page is part of the Open vSwitch (a distributed virtual
multilayer switch) project. Information about the project can be
found at ⟨http://openvswitch.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, send it to bugs@openvswitch.org. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs.git⟩ on 2018-02-02. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repos‐
itory was 2018-02-01.) If you discover any rendering problems in
this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or
more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not part
of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Open vSwitch 2.8.90 ovs-ofctl(8)
Pages that refer to this page: ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5), ovs-fields(7), ovn-sbctl(8), ovn-trace(8), ovs-dpctl(8), ovs-l3ping(8), ovs-testcontroller(8), ovs-vswitchd(8)
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