Provided by: openvswitch-testcontroller_2.9.8-0ubuntu0.18.04.5_amd64 
NAME
ovs-testcontroller - simple OpenFlow controller for testing
SYNOPSIS
ovs-testcontroller [options] method [method]...
DESCRIPTION
ovs-testcontroller is a simple OpenFlow controller that manages any number of switches over the OpenFlow
protocol, causing them to function as L2 MAC-learning switches or hubs. It is suitable for initial
testing of OpenFlow networks. It is not a necessary or desirable part of a production OpenFlow
deployment.
ovs-testcontroller controls one or more OpenFlow switches, specified as one or more of the following
OpenFlow connection methods:
pssl:[port][:ip]
ptcp:[port][:ip]
Listens for OpenFlow connections on port. The default port is 6653. By default,
connections are allowed from any IPv4 address. Specify ip as an IPv4 address or a
bracketed IPv6 address (e.g. ptcp:6653:[::1]). On Linux, use %device to designate a scope
for IPv6 link-level addresses, e.g. ptcp:6653:[fe80::1234%eth0]. DNS names may not be
used. For pssl, the --private-key,--certificate, and --ca-cert options are mandatory.
punix:file
Listens for OpenFlow connections on the Unix domain server socket named file.
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.
OPTIONS
-n
--noflow
By default, ovs-testcontroller sets up a flow in each OpenFlow switch whenever it receives a
packet whose destination is known due through MAC learning. This option disables flow setup, so
that every packet in the network passes through the controller.
This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces switching performance, so it should not be
used in production.
--max-idle=secs|permanent
Sets secs as the number of seconds that a flow set up by the controller will remain in the
switch's flow table without any matching packets being seen. If permanent is specified, which is
not recommended, flows will never expire. The default is 60 seconds.
This option has no effect when -n (or --noflow) is in use (because the controller does not set up
flows in that case).
-H
--hub By default, the controller acts as an L2 MAC-learning switch. This option changes its behavior to
that of a hub that floods packets on all but the incoming port.
If -H (or --hub) and -n (or --noflow) are used together, then the cumulative effect is that every
packet passes through the controller and every packet is flooded.
This option is most useful for debugging. It reduces switching performance, so it should not be
used in production.
-w[wildcard_mask]
--wildcards[=wildcard_mask]
By default, ovs-testcontroller sets up exact-match flows. This option allows it to set up
wildcarded flows, which may reduce flow setup latency by causing less traffic to be sent up to the
controller.
The optional wildcard_mask is an OpenFlow wildcard bitmask in hexadecimal that specifies the
fields to wildcard. If no wildcard_mask is specified, the default value 0x2820F0 is used which
specifies L2-only switching and wildcards L3 and L4 fields. Another interesting value is
0x2000EC, which specifies L3-only switching and wildcards L2 and L4 fields.
This option has no effect when -n (or --noflow) is in use (because the controller does not set up
flows in that case).
-N
--normal
By default, ovs-testcontroller directs packets to a particular port or floods them. This option
causes it to direct non-flooded packets to the OpenFlow OFPP_NORMAL port. This allows the switch
itself to make decisions about packet destinations. Support for OFPP_NORMAL is optional in
OpenFlow, so this option may not well with some non-Open vSwitch switches.
--mute Prevents ovs-testcontroller from replying to any OpenFlow messages sent to it by switches.
This option is only for debugging the Open vSwitch implementation of ``fail open'' mode. It must
not be used in production.
-q id
--queue=id
By default, ovs-testcontroller uses the default OpenFlow queue for sending packets and setting up
flows. Use one of these options, supplying id as an OpenFlow queue ID as a decimal number, to
instead use that specific queue.
This option is incompatible with -N or --normal and with -H or --hub. If more than one is
specified then this option takes precedence.
This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality of service setups.
-Q port-name:queue-id
--port-queue port-name:queue-id
Configures packets received on the port named port-name (e.g. eth0) to be output on OpenFlow queue
ID queue-id (specified as a decimal number). For the specified port, this option overrides the
default specified on -q or --queue.
This option may be specified any number of times with different port-name arguments.
This option is incompatible with -N or --normal and with -H or --hub. If more than one is
specified then this option takes precedence.
This option may be useful for testing or debugging quality of service setups.
--with-flows file
When a switch connects, push the flow entries as described in file. Each line in file is a flow
entry in the format described for the add-flows command in the Flow Syntax section of the
ovs-ofctl(8) man page.
Use this option more than once to add flows from multiple files.
Public Key Infrastructure Options
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as ovs-testcontroller'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-testcontroller 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.
--peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file that contains one or more additional certificates to send to SSL peers.
peer-cacert.pem should be the CA certificate used to sign ovs-testcontroller's own certificate,
that is, the certificate specified on -c or --certificate. If ovs-testcontroller's certificate is
self-signed, then --certificate and --peer-ca-cert should specify the same file.
This option is not useful in normal operation, because the SSL peer must already have the CA
certificate for the peer to have any confidence in ovs-testcontroller's identity. However, this
offers a way for a new installation to bootstrap the CA certificate on its first SSL connection.
Daemon Options
The following options are valid on POSIX based platforms.
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, ovs-testcontroller.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 /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-testcontroller 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-testcontroller 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 the ovs-testcontroller 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-testcontroller changes its current working directory
to the root directory after it detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovs-testcontroller 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-testcontroller 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-testcontroller 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.
-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-testcontroller 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
/var/log/openvswitch/ovs-testcontroller.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.
--unixctl=socket
Sets the name of the control socket on which ovs-testcontroller listens for runtime management
commands (see RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS, below). If socket does not begin with /, it is
interpreted as relative to /var/run/openvswitch. If --unixctl is not used at all, the default
socket is /var/run/openvswitch/ovs-testcontroller.pid.ctl, where pid is ovs-testcontroller'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-testcontroller.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.
-h
--help Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
-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.
EXAMPLES
To bind locally to port 6653 (the default) and wait for incoming connections from OpenFlow switches:
% ovs-testcontroller ptcp:
BUGS
Configuring a Citrix XenServer to connect to a particular controller only points the remote OVSDB
management connection to that controller. It does not also configure OpenFlow connections, because the
manager is expected to do that over the management protocol. ovs-testcontroller is not an Open vSwitch
manager and does not know how to do that.
As a stopgap workaround, ovs-vsctl can wait for an OVSDB connection and set the controller, e.g.:
% ovs-vsctl -t0 --db=pssl: --certificate=cert.pem --ca-cert=none --private-key=privkey.pem
--peer-ca-cert=cacert.pem set-controller ssl:ip
SEE ALSO
ovs-appctl(8), ovs-ofctl(8), ovs-dpctl(8)