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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | DAEMON MODE | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | ENVIRONMENT | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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ovn-nbctl(8) OVN Manual ovn-nbctl(8)
ovn-nbctl - Open Virtual Network northbound db management utility
ovn-nbctl [options] command [arg...]
The ovn-nbctl program configures the OVN_Northbound database by
providing a high-level interface to its configuration database.
See ovn-nb(5) for comprehensive documentation of the database
schema.
ovn-nbctl connects to an ovsdb-server process that maintains an
OVN_Northbound configuration database. Using this connection, it
queries and possibly applies changes to the database, depending on
the supplied commands.
ovn-nbctl can perform any number of commands in a single run,
implemented as a single atomic transaction against the database.
The ovn-nbctl command line begins with global options (see OPTIONS
below for details). The global options are followed by one or more
commands. Each command should begin with -- by itself as a
command-line argument, to separate it from the following commands.
(The -- before the first command is optional.) The command itself
starts with command-specific options, if any, followed by the
command name and any arguments.
When it is invoked in the most ordinary way, ovn-nbctl connects to
an OVSDB server that hosts the northbound database, retrieves a
partial copy of the database that is complete enough to do its
work, sends a transaction request to the server, and receives and
processes the server’s reply. In common interactive use, this is
fine, but if the database is large, the step in which ovn-nbctl
retrieves a partial copy of the database can take a long time,
which yields poor performance overall.
To improve performance in such a case, ovn-nbctl offers a "daemon
mode," in which the user first starts ovn-nbctl running in the
background and afterward uses the daemon to execute operations.
Over several ovn-nbctl command invocations, this performs better
overall because it retrieves a copy of the database only once at
the beginning, not once per program run.
Use the --detach option to start an ovn-nbctl daemon. With this
option, ovn-nbctl prints the name of a control socket to stdout.
The client should save this name in environment variable
OVN_NB_DAEMON. Under the Bourne shell this might be done like
this:
export OVN_NB_DAEMON=$(ovn-nbctl --pidfile --detach)
When OVN_NB_DAEMON is set, ovn-nbctl automatically and
transparently uses the daemon to execute its commands.
When the daemon is no longer needed, kill it and unset the
environment variable, e.g.:
kill $(cat $OVN_RUNDIR/ovn-nbctl.pid)
unset OVN_NB_DAEMON
When using daemon mode, an alternative to the OVN_NB_DAEMON
environment variable is to specify a path for the Unix socket.
When starting the ovn-nbctl daemon, specify the -u option with a
full path to the location of the socket file. Here is an exmple:
ovn-nbctl --detach -u /tmp/mysock.ctl
Then to connect to the running daemon, use the -u option with the
full path to the socket created when the daemon was started:
ovn-nbctl -u /tmp/mysock.ctl show
Daemon Commands
Daemon mode is internally implemented using the same mechanism
used by ovn-appctl. One may also use ovn-appctl directly with the
following commands:
run [options] command [arg...] [-- [options] command
[arg...] ...]
Instructs the daemon process to run one or more
ovn-nbctl commands described above and reply with
the results of running these commands. Accepts the
--no-wait, --wait, --timeout, --dry-run, --oneline,
and the options described under Table Formatting
Options in addition to the the command-specific
options.
exit Causes ovn-nbctl to gracefully terminate.
The options listed below affect the behavior of ovn-nbctl as a
whole. Some individual commands also accept their own options,
which are given just before the command name. If the first command
on the command line has options, then those options must be
separated from the global options by --.
ovn-nbctl also accepts options from the OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS
environment variable, in the same format as on the command line.
Options from the command line override those in the environment.
--no-wait | --wait=none
--wait=sb
--wait=hv
These options control whether and how ovn-nbctl waits
for the OVN system to become up-to-date with changes
made in an ovn-nbctl invocation.
By default, or if --no-wait or --wait=none, ovn-nbctl
exits immediately after confirming that changes have
been committed to the northbound database, without
waiting.
With --wait=sb, before ovn-nbctl exits, it waits for
ovn-northd to bring the southbound database up-to-date
with the northbound database updates.
With --wait=hv, before ovn-nbctl exits, it
additionally waits for all OVN chassis (hypervisors
and gateways) to become up-to-date with the northbound
database updates. (This can become an indefinite wait
if any chassis is malfunctioning.)
Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for
changes by the current ovn-nbctl invocation to take
effect. This means that, if none of the commands
supplied to ovn-nbctl change the database, then the
command does not wait at all. Use the sync command to
override this behavior.
--db database
The OVSDB database remote to contact. If the OVN_NB_DB
environment variable is set, its value is used as the
default. Otherwise, the default is
unix:/ovnnb_db.sock, but this default is unlikely to
be useful outside of single-machine OVN test
environments.
--leader-only
--no-leader-only
By default, or with --leader-only, when the database
server is a clustered database, ovn-nbctl will avoid
servers other than the cluster leader. This ensures
that any data that ovn-nbctl reads and reports is up-
to-date. With --no-leader-only, ovn-nbctl will use any
server in the cluster, which means that for read-only
transactions it can report and act on stale data
(transactions that modify the database are always
serialized even with --no-leader-only). Refer to
Understanding Cluster Consistency in ovsdb(7) for more
information.
--shuffle-remotes
--no-shuffle-remotes
By default, or with --shuffle-remotes, when there are
multiple remotes specified in the OVSDB connection
string specified by --db or the OVN_NB_DB environment
variable, the order of the remotes will be shuffled
before the client tries to connect. The remotes will
be shuffled only once to a new order before the first
connection attempt. The following retries, if any,
will follow the same new order. The default behavior
is to make sure clients of a clustered database can
distribute evenly to all members of the cluster. With
--no-shuffle-remotes, ovn-nbctl will use the original
order specified in the connection string to connect.
This allows user to specify the preferred order, which
is particularly useful for testing.
--no-syslog
By default, ovn-nbctl logs its arguments and the
details of any changes that it makes to the system
log. This option disables this logging.
This option is equivalent to
--verbose=nbctl:syslog:warn.
--oneline
Modifies the output format so that the output for each
command is printed on a single line. New-line
characters that would otherwise separate lines are
printed as \fB\\n\fR, and any instances of \fB\\\fR
that would otherwise appear in the output are doubled.
Prints a blank line for each command that has no
output. This option does not affect the formatting of
output from the list or find commands; see Table
Formatting Options below.
--dry-run
Prevents ovn-nbctl from actually modifying the
database.
-t secs
--timeout=secs
By default, or with a secs of 0, ovn-nbctl waits
forever for a response from the database. This option
limits runtime to approximately secs seconds. If the
timeout expires, ovn-nbctl will exit with a SIGALRM
signal. (A timeout would normally happen only if the
database cannot be contacted, or if the system is
overloaded.)
--print-wait-time
When --wait is specified, the option --print-wait-time
can be used to print the time spent on waiting,
depending on the value specified in --wait option. If
--wait=sb is specified, it prints "ovn-northd delay
before processing", which is the time between the
Northbound DB update by the command and the moment
when ovn-northd starts processing the update, and
"ovn-northd completion", which is the time between the
Northbound DB update and the moment when ovn-northd
completes the Southbound DB updating successfully. If
--wait=hv is specified, in addition to the above
information, it also prints "ovn-controller(s)
completion", which is the time between the Northbound
DB update and the moment when the slowest hypervisor
finishes processing the update.
Daemon Options
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, program.pid) to be created
indicating the PID of the running process. If the pidfile
argument is not specified, or if it does not begin with /,
then it is created in .
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified
pidfile already exists and is locked by a running process,
the daemon refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to
cause it to instead overwrite the pidfile.
When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.
--detach
Runs this program as a background process. The process
forks, and in the child it starts a new session, closes the
standard file descriptors (which has the side effect of
disabling logging to the console), and changes its current
directory to the root (unless --no-chdir is specified).
After the child completes its initialization, the parent
exits.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor this program. If
it dies due to a signal that indicates a programming error
(SIGABRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE,
SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU, or SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process
starts a new copy of it. If the daemon dies or exits for
another reason, the monitor process exits.
This option is normally used with --detach, but it also
functions without it.
--no-chdir
By default, when --detach is specified, the daemon changes
its current working directory to the root directory after
it detaches. Otherwise, invoking the daemon from a
carelessly chosen directory would prevent the administrator
from unmounting the file system that holds that directory.
Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing
the daemon from changing its current working directory.
This may be useful for collecting core files, since it is
common behavior to write core dumps into the current
working directory and the root directory is not a good
directory to use.
This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.
--no-self-confinement
By default this daemon will try to self-confine itself to
work with files under well-known directories determined at
build time. It is better to stick with this default
behavior and not to use this flag unless some other Access
Control is used to confine daemon. Note that in contrast to
other access control implementations that are typically
enforced from kernel-space (e.g. DAC or MAC), self-
confinement is imposed from the user-space daemon itself
and hence should not be considered as a full confinement
strategy, but instead should be viewed as an additional
layer of security.
--user=user:group
Causes this program to run as a different user specified in
user:group, thus dropping most of the root privileges.
Short forms user and :group are also allowed, with current
user or group assumed, respectively. Only daemons started
by the root user accepts this argument.
On Linux, daemons will be granted CAP_IPC_LOCK and
CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICES before dropping root privileges.
Daemons that interact with a datapath, such as
ovs-vswitchd, will be granted three additional
capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN, CAP_NET_BROADCAST and
CAP_NET_RAW. The capability change will apply even if the
new user is root.
On Windows, this option is not currently supported. For
security reasons, specifying this option will cause the
daemon process not to start.
Logging options
-v[spec]
--verbose=[spec]
Sets logging levels. Without any spec, sets the log level for
every module and destination to dbg. Otherwise, spec is a
list of words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to
one from each category below:
• A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list
command on ovs-appctl(8), limits the log level change
to the specified module.
• syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level
change to only to the system log, to the console, or
to a file, respectively. (If --detach is specified,
the daemon closes its standard file descriptors, so
logging to the console will have no effect.)
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/ovn/program.log.
--syslog-target=host:port
Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the
system syslog. The host must be a numerical IP address, not a
hostname.
--syslog-method=method
Specify method as how syslog messages should be sent to
syslog daemon. The following forms are supported:
• libc, to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of
using this options is that libc adds fixed prefix to
every message before it is actually sent to the syslog
daemon over /dev/log UNIX domain socket.
• unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is
possible to specify arbitrary message format with this
option. However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use
hard coded parser function anyway that limits UNIX
domain socket use. If you want to use arbitrary
message format with older rsyslogd versions, then use
UDP socket to localhost IP address instead.
• udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this method it
is 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.
• null, to discard all messages logged to syslog.
The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment
variable; if it is unset, the default is libc.
Table Formatting Options
These options control the format of output from the list and find
commands.
-f format
--format=format
Sets the type of table formatting. The following types
of format are available:
table 2-D text tables with aligned columns.
list (default)
A list with one column per line and rows
separated by a blank line.
html HTML tables.
csv Comma-separated values as defined in RFC 4180.
json JSON format as defined in RFC 4627. The output
is a sequence of JSON objects, each of which
corresponds to one table. Each JSON object has
the following members with the noted values:
caption
The table’s caption. This member is
omitted if the table has no caption.
headings
An array with one element per table
column. Each array element is a string
giving the corresponding column’s
heading.
data An array with one element per table row.
Each element is also an array with one
element per table column. The elements
of this second-level array are the cells
that constitute the table. Cells that
represent OVSDB data or data types are
expressed in the format described in the
OVSDB specification; other cells are
simply expressed as text strings.
-d format
--data=format
Sets the formatting for cells within output tables
unless the table format is set to json, in which case
json formatting is always used when formatting cells.
The following types of format are available:
string (default)
The simple format described in the Database
Values section of ovs-vsctl(8).
bare The simple format with punctuation stripped
off: [] and {} are omitted around sets, maps,
and empty columns, items within sets and maps
are space-separated, and strings are never
quoted. This format may be easier for scripts
to parse.
json The RFC 4627 JSON format as described above.
--no-headings
This option suppresses the heading row that otherwise
appears in the first row of table output.
--pretty
By default, JSON in output is printed as compactly as
possible. This option causes JSON in output to be
printed in a more readable fashion. Members of objects
and elements of arrays are printed one per line, with
indentation.
This option does not affect JSON in tables, which is
always printed compactly.
--bare
Equivalent to --format=list --data=bare --no-headings.
PKI Options
PKI configuration is required to use SSL/TLS for the connection to
the database.
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used
as 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 for
verifying certificates presented to this program by
SSL peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL
peers use to verify the certificate specified on -c or
--certificate, or it may be a different one, depending
on the PKI design in use.)
-C none
--ca-cert=none
Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL
peers. This introduces a security risk, because it
means that certificates cannot be verified to be those
of known trusted hosts.
--bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem
When cacert.pem exists, this option has the same
effect as -C or --ca-cert. If it does not exist,
then the executable will attempt to obtain the CA
certificate from the SSL peer on its first SSL
connection and save it to the named PEM file. If it
is successful, it will immediately drop the
connection and reconnect, and from then on all SSL
connections must be authenticated by a certificate
signed by the CA certificate thus obtained.
This option exposes the SSL connection to a man-in-
the-middle attack obtaining the initial CA
certificate, but it may be useful for bootstrapping.
This option is only useful if the SSL peer sends its
CA certificate as part of the SSL certificate chain.
The SSL protocol does not require the server to send
the CA certificate.
This option is mutually exclusive with -C and
--ca-cert.
Other Options
-h
--help
Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
The following sections describe the commands that ovn-nbctl
supports.
General Commands
init Initializes the database, if it is empty. If the database
has already been initialized, this command has no effect.
show [switch | router]
Prints a brief overview of the database contents. If switch
is provided, only records related to that logical switch
are shown. If router is provided, only records related to
that logical router are shown.
Logical Switch Commands
ls-add Creates a new, unnamed logical switch, which initially has
no ports. The switch does not have a name, other commands
must refer to this switch by its UUID.
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate] ls-add switch
Creates a new logical switch named switch, which initially
has no ports.
The OVN northbound database schema does not require logical
switch names to be unique, but the whole point to the names
is to provide an easy way for humans to refer to the
switches, making duplicate names unhelpful. Thus, without
any options, this command regards it as an error if switch
is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding a duplicate
name succeeds but does not create a new logical switch.
With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a new
logical switch with a duplicate name. It is an error to
specify both options. If there are multiple logical
switches with a duplicate name, configure the logical
switches using the UUID instead of the switch name.
[--if-exists] ls-del switch
Deletes switch. It is an error if switch does not exist,
unless --if-exists is specified.
ls-list
Lists all existing switches on standard output, one per
line.
ACL Commands
These commands operates on ACL objects for a given entity. The
entity can be either a logical switch or a port group. The entity
can be specified as uuid or name. The --type option can be used to
specify the type of the entity, in case both a logical switch and
a port groups exist with the same name specified for entity. type
must be either switch or port-group.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--log] [--meter=meter]
[--severity=severity] [--name=name] [--label=label]
[--sample-new=sample] [--sample-est=sample] [--may-exist]
[--apply-after-lb] [--tier] acl-add entity direction
priority match verdict
Adds the specified ACL to entity. direction must be
either from-lport or to-lport. priority must be
between 0 and 32767, inclusive. A full description
of the fields are in ovn-nb(5). If --may-exist is
specified, adding a duplicated ACL succeeds but the
ACL is not really created. Without --may-exist,
adding a duplicated ACL results in error.
The --log option enables packet logging for the ACL.
The options --severity and --name specify a severity
and name, respectively, for log entries (and also
enable logging). The severity must be one of alert,
warning, notice, info, or debug. If a severity is
not specified, the default is info. The
--meter=meter option is used to rate-limit packet
logging. The meter argument names a meter configured
by meter-add.
The --sample-new (and optionally --sample-est)
enable ACL sampling. A valid uuid of a row of the
Sample table must be provided.
The --apply-after-lb option sets apply-after-lb=true
in the options column of the ACL table. As the
option name suggests, the ACL will be applied after
the logical switch load balancer stage.
The --tier option sets the ACL’s tier to the
specified value. For more information about ACL
tiers, see the documentation for the ovn-nb(5)
database.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--tier] acl-del entity
[direction [priority match]]
Deletes ACLs from entity. If only entity is
supplied, all the ACLs from the entity are deleted.
If direction is also specified, then all the flows
in that direction will be deleted from the entity.
If all the fields are given, then a single flow that
matches all the fields will be deleted.
If the --tier option is provided, then only ACLs of
the given tier value will be deleted, in addition to
whatever other criteria have been provided.
[--type={switch | port-group}] [--all] acl-list entity
Lists the ACLs on entity.
The --all option will also list the port group ACLs
associated with each logical switch port, when a
logical switch is provided as an argument.
Logical Switch QoS Rule Commands
[--may-exist] qos-add switch direction priority match [mark=mark]
[dscp=dscp] [rate=rate [burst=burst]]
Adds QoS marking and metering rules to switch. direction
must be either from-lport or to-lport. priority must be
between 0 and 32767, inclusive.
If dscp=dscp is specified, then matching packets will have
DSCP marking applied. dscp must be between 0 and 63,
inclusive. If rate=rate is specified then matching packets
will have metering applied at rate kbps. If metering is
configured, then burst=burst specifies the burst rate limit
in kilobits. dscp and/or rate are required arguments. If
mark=mark is specified, then matching packets will be
marked (through pkt.mark). mark must be a positive integer.
If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated QoS rule
succeeds but the QoS rule is not really created. Without
--may-exist, adding a duplicated QoS rule results in error.
qos-del switch [direction [priority match]]
Deletes QoS rules from switch. If only switch is supplied,
all the QoS rules from the logical switch are deleted. If
direction is also specified, then all the flows in that
direction will be deleted from the logical switch. If all
the fields are supplied, then a single flow that matches
the given fields will be deleted.
If switch and uuid are supplied, then the QoS rule with
specified uuid is deleted.
qos-list switch
Lists the QoS rules on switch.
Meter Commands
meter-add name action rate unit [burst]
Adds the specified meter. name must be a unique name to
identify this meter. The action argument specifies what
should happen when this meter is exceeded. The only
supported action is drop.
The unit specifies the unit for the rate argument; valid
values are kbps and pktps for kilobits per second and
packets per second, respectively. The burst option
configures the maximum burst allowed for the band in
kilobits or packets depending on whether the unit chosen
was kbps or pktps, respectively. If a burst is not
supplied, the switch is free to select some reasonable
value depending on its configuration.
ovn-nbctl only supports adding a meter with a single band,
but the other commands support meters with multiple bands.
Names that start with "__" (two underscores) are reserved
for internal use by OVN, so ovn-nbctl does not allow adding
them.
meter-del [name]
Deletes meters. By default, all meters are deleted. If name
is supplied, only the meter with that name will be deleted.
meter-list
Lists all meters.
Logical Switch Port Commands
[--may-exist] lsp-add switch port
Creates on lswitch a new logical switch port named port.
It is an error if a logical port named port already exists,
unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of --may-exist,
it is an error if the existing port is in some logical
switch other than switch or if it has a parent port.
[--may-exist] lsp-add switch port parent tag_request
Creates on switch a logical switch port named port that is
a child of parent that is identified with VLAN ID
tag_request, which must be between 0 and 4095, inclusive.
If tag_request is 0, ovn-northd generates a tag that is
unique in the scope of parent. This is useful in cases such
as virtualized container environments where Open vSwitch
does not have a direct connection to the container’s port
and it must be shared with the virtual machine’s port.
It is an error if a logical port named port already exists,
unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of --may-exist,
it is an error if the existing port is not in switch or if
it does not have the specified parent and tag_request.
[--if-exists] lsp-del port
Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist, unless
--if-exists is specified.
lsp-list switch
Lists all the logical switch ports within switch on
standard output, one per line.
lsp-get-parent port
If set, get the parent port of port. If not set, print
nothing.
lsp-get-tag port
If set, get the tag for port traffic. If not set, print
nothing.
lsp-set-addresses port [address]...
Sets the addresses associated with port to address. Each
address should be one of the following:
an Ethernet address, optionally followed by a space and one
or more IP addresses
OVN delivers packets for the Ethernet address to
this port.
unknown
OVN delivers unicast Ethernet packets whose
destination MAC address is not in any logical port’s
addresses column to ports with address unknown.
dynamic
Use this keyword to make ovn-northd generate a
globally unique MAC address and choose an unused
IPv4 address with the logical port’s subnet and
store them in the port’s dynamic_addresses column.
router Accepted only when the type of the logical switch
port is router. This indicates that the Ethernet,
IPv4, and IPv6 addresses for this logical switch
port should be obtained from the connected logical
router port, as specified by router-port in
lsp-set-options.
Multiple addresses may be set. If no address argument is
given, port will have no addresses associated with it.
lsp-get-addresses port
Lists all the addresses associated with port on standard
output, one per line.
lsp-set-port-security port [addrs]...
Sets the port security addresses associated with port to
addrs. Multiple sets of addresses may be set by using
multiple addrs arguments. If no addrs argument is given,
port will not have port security enabled.
Port security limits the addresses from which a logical
port may send packets and to which it may receive packets.
See the ovn-nb(5) documentation for the port_security
column in the Logical_Switch_Port table for details.
lsp-get-port-security port
Lists all the port security addresses associated with port
on standard output, one per line.
lsp-get-up port
Prints the state of port, either up or down.
lsp-set-enabled port state
Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or
disabled. When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed
into or out of the port.
lsp-get-enabled port
Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or
disabled.
lsp-set-type port type [peer=peer]
Set the type for the logical port. The type must be one of
the following:
(empty string)
A VM (or VIF) interface.
router A connection to a logical router.
switch A connection to another logical switch. The optional
argument peer identifies a logical switch port that
connects to this one.
All logical switch ports of that type have implicit
’unknown’ addresses and FDB learning enabled (unless
port security is set). This comes with all the
positive and negative sides of the ’unknown’
address. Static addresses-to-port mappings don’t
need to be maintained on each node and only the
actually used mappings are learned, but at a cost of
broadcasting packets for which the destination
address is not learned yet.
FDB learning will also cause not learned yet packets
to be sent to controller from each switch-switch
connection they traverse. This should be taken into
consideration while planning to have many directly
connected switches within a single availability
zone.
localnet
A connection to a locally accessible network from
each ovn-controller instance. A logical switch can
only have a single localnet port attached. This is
used to model direct connectivity to an existing
network.
localport
A connection to a local VIF. Traffic that arrives on
a localport is never forwarded over a tunnel to
another chassis. These ports are present on every
chassis and have the same address in all of them.
This is used to model connectivity to local services
that run on every hypervisor.
l2gateway
A connection to a physical network.
vtep A port to a logical switch on a VTEP gateway.
lsp-get-type port
Get the type for the logical port.
lsp-set-options port [key=value]...
Set type-specific key-value options for the logical port.
lsp-get-options port
Get the type-specific options for the logical port.
lsp-set-dhcpv4-options port dhcp_options
Set the DHCPv4 options for the logical port. The
dhcp_options is a UUID referring to a set of DHCP options
in the DHCP_Options table.
lsp-get-dhcpv4-options port
Get the configured DHCPv4 options for the logical port.
lsp-set-dhcpv6-options port dhcp_options
Set the DHCPv6 options for the logical port. The
dhcp_options is a UUID referring to a set of DHCP options
in the DHCP_Options table.
lsp-get-dhcpv6-options port
Get the configured DHCPv6 options for the logical port.
lsp-get-ls port
Get the logical switch which the port belongs to.
lsp-attach-mirror port m
Attaches the mirror m to the logical port port.
lsp-detach-mirror port m
Detaches the mirror m from the logical port port.
Forwarding Group Commands
[--liveness]fwd-group-add group switch vip vmac ports
Creates a new forwarding group named group as the name with
the provided vip and vmac. vip should be a virtual IP
address and vmac should be a virtual MAC address to access
the forwarding group. ports are the logical switch port
names that are put in the forwarding group. Example for
ports is lsp1 lsp2 ... Traffic destined to virtual IP of
the forwarding group will be load balanced to all the child
ports.
When --liveness is specified then child ports are expected
to be bound to external devices like routers. BFD should be
configured between hypervisors and the external devices.
The child port selection will become dependent on BFD
status with its external device.
[--if-exists] fwd-group-del group
Deletes group. It is an error if group does not exist,
unless --if-exists is specified.
fwd-group-list [switch]
Lists all existing forwarding groups, If switch is
specified then only the forwarding groups configured for
switch will be listed.
Logical Router Commands
lr-add Creates a new, unnamed logical router, which initially has
no ports. The router does not have a name, other commands
must refer to this router by its UUID.
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate] lr-add router
Creates a new logical router named router, which initially
has no ports.
The OVN northbound database schema does not require logical
router names to be unique, but the whole point to the names
is to provide an easy way for humans to refer to the
routers, making duplicate names unhelpful. Thus, without
any options, this command regards it as an error if router
is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding a duplicate
name succeeds but does not create a new logical router.
With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a new
logical router with a duplicate name. It is an error to
specify both options. If there are multiple logical routers
with a duplicate name, configure the logical routers using
the UUID instead of the router name.
[--if-exists] lr-del router
Deletes router. It is an error if router does not exist,
unless --if-exists is specified.
lr-list
Lists all existing routers on standard output, one per
line.
Logical Router Port Commands
[--may-exist] lrp-add router port mac [network]... [peer=peer]
Creates on router a new logical router port named port with
Ethernet address mac and IP address/netmask for each
network.
The optional argument peer identifies a logical router port
that connects to this one. The following example adds a
router port with an IPv4 and IPv6 address with peer lr1:
lrp-add lr0 lrp0 00:11:22:33:44:55 192.168.0.1/24
2001:db8::1/64 peer=lr1
It is an error if a logical router port named port already
exists, unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of
--may-exist, it is an error if the existing router port is
in some logical router other than router.
[--if-exists] lrp-del port
Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist, unless
--if-exists is specified.
lrp-list router
Lists all the logical router ports within router on
standard output, one per line.
lrp-set-enabled port state
Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or
disabled. When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed
into or out of the port.
lrp-get-enabled port
Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or
disabled.
lrp-set-gateway-chassis port chassis [priority]
Set gateway chassis for port. chassis is the name of the
chassis. This creates a gateway chassis entry in
Gateway_Chassis table. It won’t check if chassis really
exists in OVN_Southbound database. Priority will be set to
0 if priority is not provided by user. priority must be
between 0 and 32767, inclusive.
lrp-del-gateway-chassis port chassis
Deletes gateway chassis from port. It is an error if
gateway chassis with chassis for port does not exist.
lrp-get-gateway-chassis port
Lists all the gateway chassis with priority within port on
standard output, one per line, ordered based on priority.
Logical Router Static Route Commands
[--may-exist] [--policy=POLICY] [--route-table=ROUTE_TABLE]
[--ecmp] [--ecmp-symmetric-reply] [--bfd[=UUID]] lr-route-add
router prefix nexthop [port]
Adds the specified route to router. prefix describes an
IPv4 or IPv6 prefix for this route, such as
192.168.100.0/24. nexthop specifies the gateway to use for
this route, which should be the IP address of one of router
logical router ports or the IP address of a logical port.
If port is specified, packets that match this route will be
sent out that port. When port is omitted, OVN infers the
output port based on nexthop. Nexthop can be set to discard
for dropping packets which match the given route.
The --route-table option can be used to assign the given
route to a separate routing table ROUTE_TABLE instead of
the default <main> table. For a detailed explanation of the
route lookup behavior, see the description of the field
Logical_Router_Static_Route:route_table in the ovn-nb(5)
manpage.
--policy describes the policy used to make routing
decisions. This should be one of "dst-ip" or "src-ip". If
not specified, the default is "dst-ip".
The --ecmp option allows for multiple routes with the same
prefix POLICY but different nexthop and port to be added.
The --ecmp-symmetric-reply option makes it so that traffic
that arrives over an ECMP route will have its reply traffic
sent out over that same route. Setting
--ecmp-symmetric-reply implies --ecmp so it is not
necessary to set both.
--bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN
route. If the BFD session UUID is provided, it will be used
for the OVN route otherwise the next-hop will be used to
perform a lookup in the OVN BFD table. If the lookup fails
and port is specified, a new entry in the BFD table will be
created using the nexthop as dst_ip and port as
logical_port.
It is an error if a route with prefix and POLICY already
exists, unless --may-exist, --ecmp, or
--ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified. If --may-exist is
specified but not --ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply, the
existed route will be updated with the new nexthop and
port. If --ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified, a
new route will be added, regardless of the existed route.,
which is useful when adding ECMP routes, i.e. routes with
same POLICY and prefix but different nexthop and port.
[--if-exists] [--policy=POLICY] [--route-table=ROUTE_TABLE]
lr-route-del router [prefix [nexthop [port]]]
Deletes routes from router. If only router is supplied, all
the routes from the logical router are deleted. If POLICY,
prefix, nexthop and/or port are also specified, then all
the routes that match the conditions will be deleted from
the logical router.
The --route-table option can be used to delete the given
route from the route table ROUTE_TABLE instead of the
default <main> table.
It is an error if there is no matching route entry, unless
--if-exists is specified.
lr-route-list router
Lists the routes on router.
Logical Router Policy Commands
[--may-exist] [--bfd] [--route-table=ROUTE_TABLE] lr-policy-add
router priority match action [nexthop[,nexthop,...]] [options
key=value]]
Add Policy to router which provides a way to configure
permit/deny and reroute policies on the router. Permit/deny
policies are similar to OVN ACLs, but exist on the logical-
router. Reroute policies are needed for service-insertion
and service-chaining. nexthop is an optional parameter. It
needs to be provided only when action is reroute. Multiple
nexthops can be specified for ECMP routing. A policy is
uniquely identified by priority and match. Multiple
policies can have the same priority. options sets the
router policy options as key-value pair. The supported
option is : pkt_mark.
If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated routing
policy with the same priority and match string is not
really created. Without --may-exist, adding a duplicated
routing policy results in error.
The --route-table option can be used to list the routes
assigned to route table ROUTE_TABLE instead of the default
<main> table.
--bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN
reroute policy. OVN will look for an already running BFD
session using next-hop as lookup key in the BFD table. If
the lookup fails, a new entry in the BFD table will be
created using the nexthop as dst_ip.
The following example shows a policy to lr1, which will
drop packets from192.168.100.0/24.
lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 drop.
lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 allow
pkt_mark=100 .
[--if-exists] lr-policy-del router [{priority | uuid} [match]]
Deletes polices from router. If only router is supplied,
all the polices from the logical router are deleted. If
priority and/or match are also specified, then all the
polices that match the conditions will be deleted from the
logical router.
If router and uuid are supplied, then the policy with
specified uuid is deleted. It is an error if uuid does not
exist, unless --if-exists is specified.
lr-policy-list router
Lists the polices on router.
NAT Commands
[--may-exist] [--stateless] [--gateway-port=GATEWAY_PORT]
[-portrange] [--match=MATCH] [--priority=PRIORITY] lr-nat-add
router type external_ip logical_ip [logical_port external_mac]
[external_port_range]
Adds the specified NAT to router. The type must be one of
snat, dnat, or dnat_and_snat. The external_ip is an IPv4
address. The logical_ip is an IPv4 network (e.g
192.168.1.0/24) or an IPv4 address. The logical_port and
external_mac are only accepted when router is a distributed
router (rather than a gateway router) and type is
dnat_and_snat. The logical_port is the name of an existing
logical switch port where the logical_ip resides. The
external_mac is an Ethernet address.
When --stateless is specified then it implies that we will
be not use connection tracker, i.e internal ip and external
ip are 1:1 mapped. This implies that --stateless is
applicable only to dnat_and_snat type NAT rules. An
external ip with --stateless NAT cannot be shared with any
other NAT rule.
--gateway-port option allows specifying the distributed
gateway port of router where the NAT rule needs to be
applied. GATEWAY_PORT should reference a
Logical_Router_Port row that is a distributed gateway port
of router. When router has multiple distributed gateway
ports and the gateway port for this NAT can’t be inferred
from the external_ip, it is an error to not specify the
GATEWAY_PORT.
If the --portrange option is specified, then a range of
ports may be specified in the external_port_range part of
the lr-nat-add command. If this option is omitted, then an
external port range may not be specified. The format of the
port range is port_low-port_high, where port_low is a lower
number than port_high. When the packet is NATted, a random
port from the range will be selected as the source port.
The range for the external_port_range is 1-65535.
The --match allows to specify the extra match condition.
The extra match is for more fine-grained control over the
NAT rule.
The --priority option allows to specify order of NAT rule
evaluation. Priority must be between 0 and 32767, inclusive
and can be only specified together with --match.
When type is dnat, the externally visible IP address
external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the
logical space.
When type is snat, IP packets with their source IP address
that either matches the IP address in logical_ip or is in
the network provided by logical_ip is SNATed into the IP
address in external_ip.
When type is dnat_and_snat, the externally visible IP
address external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip
in the logical space. In addition, IP packets with the
source IP address that matches logical_ip is SNATed into
the IP address in external_ip.
When the logical_port and external_mac are specified, the
NAT rule will be programmed on the chassis where the
logical_port resides. This includes ARP replies for the
external_ip, which return the value of external_mac. All
packets transmitted with source IP address equal to
external_ip will be sent using the external_mac.
It is an error if a NAT already exists with the same values
of router, type, external_ip, logical_ip and GATEWAY_PORT
(in case of multiple distributed gateway ports), unless
--may-exist is specified. When --may-exist, logical_port,
and external_mac are all specified, the existing values of
logical_port and external_mac are overwritten.
[--if-exists] lr-nat-del router [type [ip] [gateway_port]]
Deletes NATs from router. If only router is supplied, all
the NATs from the logical router are deleted. If type is
also specified, then all the NATs that match the type will
be deleted from the logical router. If ip is also specified
without specifying gateway_port, then all the NATs that
match the type and ip will be deleted from the logical
router. If gateway_port is specified without specifying ip,
then all the NATs that match the type and gateway_port will
be deleted from the logical router. If all the fields are
given, then a single NAT rule that matches all the fields
will be deleted. When type is snat, the ip should be
logical_ip. When type is dnat or dnat_and_snat, the ip
should be external_ip.
It is an error if both ip and gateway_port are specified
and there is no matching NAT entry, unless --if-exists is
specified.
lr-nat-list router
Lists the NATs on router.
Load Balancer Commands
[--may-exist | --add-duplicate | --reject | --event | --template]
lb-add lb vip ips [protocol]
Creates a new load balancer named lb with the provided vip
and ips or adds the vip to an existing lb. vip should be a
virtual IP address (or an IP address and a port number with
: as a separator). Examples for vip are 192.168.1.4,
fd0f::1, and 192.168.1.5:8080. ips should be comma
separated IP endpoints (or comma separated IP addresses and
port numbers with : as a separator). ips must be the same
address family as vip. Examples for ips are
10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2or [fdef::1]:8800,[fdef::2]:8800.
The optional argument protocol must be either tcp, udp or
sctp. This argument is useful when a port number is
provided as part of the vip. If the protocol is unspecified
and a port number is provided as part of the vip, OVN
assumes the protocol to be tcp.
It is an error if the vip already exists in the load
balancer named lb, unless --may-exist is specified. With
--add-duplicate, the command really creates a new load
balancer with a duplicate name.
If the load balancer is created with --reject option and it
has no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp) or an
ICMP port unreachable packet (for all other kind of
traffic) will be sent whenever an incoming packet is
received for this load-balancer. Please note using --reject
option will disable empty_lb SB controller event for this
load balancer.
If the load balancer is created with --event option and it
has no active backends, whenever the lb receives traffic,
the event is reported in the Controller_Event table in the
SB db. Please note --event option can’t be specified with
--reject one.
If the load balancer is created with --template option,
local template variables may be used as arguments. These
variables are stored in Chassis_Template_Var. To see the
supported variable formats, see ovn-nb(5). The following
example adds a templated load balancer: ovn-nbctl
--template lb-add lb1 ^vip:^vport ^backend udp ipv4.
The following example adds a load balancer.
lb-add lb0 30.0.0.10:80
192.168.10.10:80,192.168.10.20:80,192.168.10.30:80 udp
[--if-exists] lb-del lb [vip]
Deletes lb or the vip from lb. If vip is supplied, only the
vip will be deleted from the lb. If only the lb is
supplied, the lb will be deleted. It is an error if vip
does not already exist in lb, unless --if-exists is
specified.
lb-list [lb]
Lists the LBs. If lb is also specified, then only the
specified lb will be listed.
[--may-exist] ls-lb-add switch lb
Adds the specified lb to switch. It is an error if a load
balancer named lb already exists in the switch, unless
--may-exist is specified.
[--if-exists] ls-lb-del switch [lb]
Removes lb from switch. If only switch is supplied, all the
LBs from the logical switch are removed. If lb is also
specified, then only the lb will be removed from the
logical switch. It is an error if lb does not exist in the
switch, unless --if-exists is specified.
ls-lb-list switch
Lists the LBs for the given switch.
[--may-exist] lr-lb-add router lb
Adds the specified lb to router. It is an error if a load
balancer named lb already exists in the router, unless
--may-exist is specified.
[--if-exists] lr-lb-del router [lb]
Removes lb from router. If only router is supplied, all the
LBs from the logical router are removed. If lb is also
specified, then only the lb will be removed from the
logical router. It is an error if lb does not exist in the
router, unless --if-exists is specified.
lr-lb-list router
Lists the LBs for the given router.
DHCP Options commands
dhcp-options-create cidr [key=value]
Creates a new DHCP Options entry in the DHCP_Options table
with the specified cidr and optional external-ids.
dhcp-options-list
Lists the DHCP Options entries.
dhcp-options-del dhcp-option
Deletes the DHCP Options entry referred by dhcp-option
UUID.
dhcp-options-set-options dhcp-option [key=value]...
Set the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.
dhcp-options-get-options dhcp-option
Lists the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.
Port Group commands
pg-add group [port]...
Creates a new port group in the Port_Group table named
group with optional ports added to the group.
pg-set-ports group port...
Sets ports on the port group named group. It is an error if
group does not exist.
pg-get-ports group
Gets ports on the port group named group. It is an error if
group does not exist.
pg-del group
Deletes port group group. It is an error if group does not
exist.
HA Chassis Group commands
ha-chassis-group-add group
Creates a new HA chassis group in the HA_Chassis_Group
table named group.
ha-chassis-group-del group
Deletes the HA chassis group group. It is an error if group
does not exist.
ha-chassis-group-list [ha-chassis-group]
Lists all HA chassis groups along with the HA chassis if
any associated with it. If ha-chassis-group is also
specified, then only the specified ha-chassis-group will be
listed.
ha-chassis-group-add-chassis group chassis priority
Adds a new HA chassis chassis to the HA Chassis group group
with the specified priority. If the chassis already exists,
then the priority is updated. The chassis should be the
name of the chassis in the OVN_Southbound.
ha-chassis-group-remove-chassis group chassis
Removes the HA chassis chassis from the HA chassis group
group. It is an error if chassis does not exist.
Control Plane Protection Policy commands
These commands manage meters configured in Copp table linking them
to logical datapaths through copp column in Logical_Switch or
Logical_Router tables. Protocol packets for which CoPP is enforced
when sending packets to ovn-controller (if configured):
• ARP
• ND_NS
• ND_NA
• ND_RA
• ND
• DNS
• IGMP
• packets that require ARP resolution before
forwarding
• packets that require ND_NS before forwarding
• packets that need to be replied to with ICMP Errors
• packets that need to be replied to with TCP RST
• packets that need to be replied to with DHCP_OPTS
• packets that trigger a reject action
• packets that trigger a SCTP abort action
• controller_events
• BFD
copp-add name proto meter
Adds the control proto to meter mapping to the
control plane protection policy name. If no policy
exists yet, it creates one. If a mapping already
existed for proto, this will overwrite it.
copp-del name [proto]
Removes the control proto mapping for the name
control plane protection policy. If proto is not
specified, the whole control plane protection policy
is destroyed.
copp-list name
Display the current control plane protection policy
for name.
ls-copp-add name switch
Adds the control plane protection policy name to the
logical switch switch.
lr-copp-add name router
Adds the control plane protection policy name to the
logical router router.
Mirror commands
mirror-add m type [index] filter dest
Creates a new mirror in the Mirror table with the name m
with the below mandatory arguments.
type specifies the mirror type - gre , erspan or local.
index specifies the tunnel index value (which is an
integer) if the type is gre or erspan.
filter specifies the mirror source selection. Can be
from-lport, to-lport or both.
dest specifies the mirror destination IP (v4 or v6) if the
type is gre or erspan. For a type of local, this field
defines a local interface on the OVS integration bridge to
be used as the mirror destination. The interface must
possess external-ids:mirror-id that matches this string.
mirror-del m
Deletes the mirror m.
mirror-list
Lists the mirrors.
Synchronization Commands
sync Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for changes
by the current ovn-nbctl invocation to take effect. This
means that, if none of the commands supplied to ovn-nbctl
change the database, then the command does not wait at all.
With the sync command, however, ovn-nbctl waits even for
earlier changes to the database to propagate down to the
southbound database or all of the OVN chassis, according to
the argument to --wait.
Remote Connectivity Commands
These commands manipulate the connections column in the NB_Global
table and rows in the Connection table. When ovsdb-server is
configured to use the connections column for OVSDB connections,
this allows the administrator to use ovn-nbctl to configure
database connections.
get-connection
Prints the configured connection(s).
del-connection
Deletes the configured connection(s).
[--inactivity-probe=msecs] set-connection target...
Sets the configured manager target or targets. Use
--inactivity-probe=msecs to override the default
idle connection inactivity probe time. Use 0 to
disable inactivity probes.
SSL/TLS Configuration Commands
get-ssl
Prints the SSL/TLS configuration.
del-ssl
Deletes the current SSL/TLS configuration.
[--bootstrap] set-ssl private-key certificate ca-cert [ssl-
protocol-list [ssl-cipher-list [ssl-ciphersuites]]]
Sets the SSL/TLS configuration.
Database Commands
These commands query and modify the contents of ovsdb tables. They
are a slight abstraction of the ovsdb interface and as such they
operate at a lower level than other ovn-nbctl commands.
Identifying Tables, Records, and Columns
Each of these commands has a table parameter to identify a table
within the database. Many of them also take a record parameter
that identifies a particular record within a table. The record
parameter may be the UUID for a record, which may be abbreviated
to its first 4 (or more) hex digits, as long as that is unique.
Many tables offer additional ways to identify records. Some
commands also take column parameters that identify a particular
field within the records in a table.
For a list of tables and their columns, see ovn-nb(5) or see the
table listing from the --help option.
Record names must be specified in full and with correct
capitalization, except that UUIDs may be abbreviated to their
first 4 (or more) hex digits, as long as that is unique within the
table. Names of tables and columns are not case-sensitive, and -
and _ are treated interchangeably. Unique abbreviations of table
and column names are acceptable, e.g. d or dhcp is sufficient to
identify the DHCP_Options table.
Database Values
Each column in the database accepts a fixed type of data. The
currently defined basic types, and their representations, are:
integer
A decimal integer in the range -2**63 to 2**63-1,
inclusive.
real A floating-point number.
Boolean
True or false, written true or false, respectively.
string An arbitrary Unicode string, except that null bytes
are not allowed. Quotes are optional for most
strings that begin with an English letter or
underscore and consist only of letters, underscores,
hyphens, and periods. However, true and false and
strings that match the syntax of UUIDs (see below)
must be enclosed in double quotes to distinguish
them from other basic types. When double quotes are
used, the syntax is that of strings in JSON, e.g.
backslashes may be used to escape special
characters. The empty string must be represented as
a pair of double quotes ("").
UUID Either a universally unique identifier in the style
of RFC 4122, e.g.
f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6, or an @name
defined by a get or create command within the same
ovs-vsctl invocation.
Multiple values in a single column may be separated by spaces or a
single comma. When multiple values are present, duplicates are not
allowed, and order is not important. Conversely, some database
columns can have an empty set of values, represented as [], and
square brackets may optionally enclose other non-empty sets or
single values as well.
A few database columns are ``maps’’ of key-value pairs, where the
key and the value are each some fixed database type. These are
specified in the form key=value, where key and value follow the
syntax for the column’s key type and value type, respectively.
When multiple pairs are present (separated by spaces or a comma),
duplicate keys are not allowed, and again the order is not
important. Duplicate values are allowed. An empty map is
represented as {}. Curly braces may optionally enclose non-empty
maps as well (but use quotes to prevent the shell from expanding
other-config={0=x,1=y} into other-config=0=x other-config=1=y,
which may not have the desired effect).
Database Command Syntax
[--if-exists] [--columns=column[,column]...] list table
[record]...
Lists the data in each specified record. If no
records are specified, lists all the records in
table.
If --columns is specified, only the requested
columns are listed, in the specified order.
Otherwise, all columns are listed, in alphabetical
order by column name.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if any specified
record does not exist. With --if-exists, the command
ignores any record that does not exist, without
producing any output.
[--columns=column[,column]...] find table
[column[:key]=value]...
Lists the data in each record in table whose column
equals value or, if key is specified, whose column
contains a key with the specified value. The
following operators may be used where = is written
in the syntax summary:
= != < > <= >=
Selects records in which column[:key] equals,
does not equal, is less than, is greater
than, is less than or equal to, or is greater
than or equal to value, respectively.
Consider column[:key] and value as sets of
elements. Identical sets are considered
equal. Otherwise, if the sets have different
numbers of elements, then the set with more
elements is considered to be larger.
Otherwise, consider a element from each set
pairwise, in increasing order within each
set. The first pair that differs determines
the result. (For a column that contains key-
value pairs, first all the keys are compared,
and values are considered only if the two
sets contain identical keys.)
{=} {!=}
Test for set equality or inequality,
respectively.
{<=} Selects records in which column[:key] is a
subset of value. For example,
flood-vlans{<=}1,2 selects records in which
the flood-vlans column is the empty set or
contains 1 or 2 or both.
{<} Selects records in which column[:key] is a
proper subset of value. For example,
flood-vlans{<}1,2 selects records in which
the flood-vlans column is the empty set or
contains 1 or 2 but not both.
{>=} {>}
Same as {<=} and {<}, respectively, except
that the relationship is reversed. For
example, flood-vlans{>=}1,2 selects records
in which the flood-vlans column contains both
1 and 2.
The following operators are available only in Open
vSwitch 2.16 and later:
{in} Selects records in which every element in
column[:key] is also in value. (This is the
same as {<=}.)
{not-in}
Selects records in which every element in
column[:key] is not in value.
For arithmetic operators (= != < > <= >=), when key
is specified but a particular record’s column does
not contain key, the record is always omitted from
the results. Thus, the condition
other-config:mtu!=1500 matches records that have a
mtu key whose value is not 1500, but not those that
lack an mtu key.
For the set operators, when key is specified but a
particular record’s column does not contain key, the
comparison is done against an empty set. Thus, the
condition other-config:mtu{!=}1500 matches records
that have a mtu key whose value is not 1500 and
those that lack an mtu key.
Don’t forget to escape < or > from interpretation by
the shell.
If --columns is specified, only the requested
columns are listed, in the specified order.
Otherwise all columns are listed, in alphabetical
order by column name.
The UUIDs shown for rows created in the same
ovs-vsctl invocation will be wrong.
[--if-exists] [--id=@name] get table record
[column[:key]]...
Prints the value of each specified column in the
given record in table. For map columns, a key may
optionally be specified, in which case the value
associated with key in the column is printed,
instead of the entire map.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does
not exist or key is specified, if key does not exist
in record. With --if-exists, a missing record yields
no output and a missing key prints a blank line.
If @name is specified, then the UUID for record may
be referred to by that name later in the same
ovs-vsctl invocation in contexts where a UUID is
expected.
Both --id and the column arguments are optional, but
usually at least one or the other should be
specified. If both are omitted, then get has no
effect except to verify that record exists in table.
--id and --if-exists cannot be used together.
[--if-exists] set table record column[:key]=value...
Sets the value of each specified column in the given
record in table to value. For map columns, a key may
optionally be specified, in which case the value
associated with key in that column is changed (or
added, if none exists), instead of the entire map.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does
not exist. With --if-exists, this command does
nothing if record does not exist.
[--if-exists] add table record column [key=]value...
Adds the specified value or key-value pair to column
in record in table. If column is a map, then key is
required, otherwise it is prohibited. If key already
exists in a map column, then the current value is
not replaced (use the set command to replace an
existing value).
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does
not exist. With --if-exists, this command does
nothing if record does not exist.
[--if-exists] remove table record column value...
[--if-exists] remove table record column key...
[--if-exists] remove table record column
key=value... Removes the specified values or key-
value pairs from column in record in table. The
first form applies to columns that are not maps:
each specified value is removed from the column. The
second and third forms apply to map columns: if only
a key is specified, then any key-value pair with the
given key is removed, regardless of its value; if a
value is given then a pair is removed only if both
key and value match.
It is not an error if the column does not contain
the specified key or value or pair.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does
not exist. With --if-exists, this command does
nothing if record does not exist.
[--if-exists] clear table record column...
Sets each column in record in table to the empty set
or empty map, as appropriate. This command applies
only to columns that are allowed to be empty.
Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does
not exist. With --if-exists, this command does
nothing if record does not exist.
[--id=(@name|uuid)] create table column[:key]=value...
Creates a new record in table and sets the initial
values of each column. Columns not explicitly set
will receive their default values. Outputs the UUID
of the new row.
If @name is specified, then the UUID for the new row
may be referred to by that name elsewhere in the
same \*(PN invocation in contexts where a UUID is
expected. Such references may precede or follow the
create command.
If a valid uuid is specified, then it is used as the
UUID of the new row.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
Records in the Open vSwitch database are
significant only when they can be reached
directly or indirectly from the Open_vSwitch
table. Except for records in the QoS or Queue
tables, records that are not reachable from
the Open_vSwitch table are automatically
deleted from the database. This deletion
happens immediately, without waiting for
additional ovs-vsctl commands or other
database activity. Thus, a create command
must generally be accompanied by additional
commands within the same ovs-vsctl invocation
to add a chain of references to the newly
created record from the top-level
Open_vSwitch record. The EXAMPLES section
gives some examples that show how to do this.
[--if-exists] destroy table record...
Deletes each specified record from table. Unless
--if-exists is specified, each records must exist.
--all destroy table
Deletes all records from the table.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
The destroy command is only useful for
records in the QoS or Queue tables. Records
in other tables are automatically deleted
from the database when they become
unreachable from the Open_vSwitch table. This
means that deleting the last reference to a
record is sufficient for deleting the record
itself. For records in these tables, destroy
is silently ignored. See the EXAMPLES section
below for more information.
wait-until table record [column[:key]=value]...
Waits until table contains a record named record
whose column equals value or, if key is specified,
whose column contains a key with the specified
value. This command supports the same operators and
semantics described for the find command above.
If no column[:key]=value arguments are given, this
command waits only until record exists. If more than
one such argument is given, the command waits until
all of them are satisfied.
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example)
Usually wait-until should be placed at the
beginning of a set of ovs-vsctl commands. For
example, wait-until bridge br0 -- get bridge
br0 datapath_id waits until a bridge named
br0 is created, then prints its datapath_id
column, whereas get bridge br0 datapath_id --
wait-until bridge br0 will abort if no bridge
named br0 exists when ovs-vsctl initially
connects to the database.
Consider specifying --timeout=0 along with
--wait-until, to prevent ovs-vsctl from terminating
after waiting only at most 5 seconds.
comment [arg]...
This command has no effect on behavior, but any
database log record created by the command will
include the command and its arguments.
OVN_NB_DAEMON
If set, this should name the Unix domain socket for an
ovn-nbctl server process. See Daemon Mode, above, for more
information.
OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS
If set, a set of options for ovn-nbctl to apply
automatically, in the same form as on the command line.
OVN_NB_DB
If set, the default database to contact when the --db
option is not used.
0 Successful program execution.
1 Usage, syntax, or network error.
ovn-nb(5), ovn-appctl(8).
This page is part of the Open Virtual Network (Daemons for Open
vSwitch that translate virtual network configurations into
OpenFlow) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://www.ovn.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, send it to [email protected]. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/ovn-org/ovn⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-08.) 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
[email protected]
OVN 25.03.90 ovn-nbctl ovn-nbctl(8)
Pages that refer to this page: ovn-detrace(1), ovsdb(7), ovn-controller(8)
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