1 How to Install Open vSwitch on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 =======================================================
4 This document describes how to build and install Open vSwitch on a Red
5 Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) host. If you want to install Open vSwitch
6 on a generic Linux host, see [INSTALL.md] instead.
8 We have tested these instructions with RHEL 5.6 and RHEL 6.0.
10 Building Open vSwitch for RHEL
11 ------------------------------
13 You may build from an Open vSwitch distribution tarball or from an
14 Open vSwitch Git tree.
16 The default RPM build directory (_topdir) has five directories in
18 1. BUILD/ Where the software is unpacked and built.
19 2. RPMS/ Where the newly created binary package files are written.
20 3. SOURCES/ Contains the original sources, patches, and icon files.
21 4. SPECS/ Contains the spec files for each package to be built.
22 5. SRPMS/ Where the newly created source package files are written.
24 Before you begin, note the RPM sources directory on your version of
25 RHEL. The command "rpmbuild --showrc" will show the configuration
26 for each of those directories. Alternatively, the command "rpm --eval
27 '%{_topdir}'" shows the current configuration for the top level
28 directory and the command "rpm --eval '%{_sourcedir}'" does the same
29 for the sources directory. On RHEL 5, the default RPM _topdir is
30 /usr/src/redhat and the default RPM sources directory is
31 /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES. On RHEL 6, the default _topdir is
32 $HOME/rpmbuild and the default RPM sources directory is
33 $HOME/rpmbuild/SOURCES.
35 1. Install build prerequisites:
38 yum install gcc make python-devel openssl-devel kernel-devel graphviz \
39 kernel-debug-devel autoconf automake rpm-build redhat-rpm-config \
43 2. If you are building from a distribution tarball, skip to step 3.
44 Otherwise, you must be building from an Open vSwitch Git tree.
45 Determine what version of Autoconf is installed (e.g. run "autoconf
46 --version"). If it is not at least version 2.63, then you have two
49 a. Install Autoconf 2.63 or later, one way or another.
51 b. Create a distribution tarball on some other machine, by
52 running "./boot.sh; ./configure; make dist" in the Git tree.
53 You must run this on a machine that has the tools listed in
54 [INSTALL.md] as prerequisites for building from a Git tree.
55 Afterward, proceed with the rest of the instructions using
56 the distribution tarball.
58 3. Some versions of the RHEL 6 kernel-devel package contain a broken
59 "build" symlink. If you are using such a version, you must fix
60 the problem before continuing.
62 To find out whether you are affected, run:
65 cd /lib/modules/<version>
69 where `<version>` is the version number of the RHEL 6 kernel. (The
70 trailing slash in the final command is important. Be sure to include
71 it.) If the "ls" command produces a directory listing, your
72 kernel-devel package is OK. If it produces a "No such file or
73 directory" error, your kernel-devel package is buggy.
75 If your kernel-devel package is buggy, then you can fix it with:
78 cd /lib/modules/<version>
80 ln -s /usr/src/kernels/<target> build
83 where `<target>` is the name of an existing directory under
84 /usr/src/kernels, whose name should be similar to `<version>` but may
85 contain some extra parts. Once you have done this, verify the fix with
86 the same procedure you used above to check for the problem.
88 4. If you are building from a distribution tarball, skip to step 5.
89 Otherwise, create a distribution tarball from the root of the Git
98 5. Now you have a distribution tarball, named something like
99 openvswitch-x.y.z.tar.gz. Copy this file into the RPM sources
102 `cp openvswitch-x.y.z.tar.gz $HOME/rpmbuild/SOURCES`
104 6. Make another copy of the distribution tarball in a temporary
105 directory. Then unpack the tarball and "cd" into its root, e.g.:
108 tar xzf openvswitch-x.y.z.tar.gz
112 7. To build Open vSwitch userspace, run:
114 `rpmbuild -bb rhel/openvswitch.spec`
116 This produces two RPMs: "openvswitch" and "openvswitch-debuginfo".
118 The above command automatically runs the Open vSwitch unit tests.
119 To disable the unit tests, run:
121 `rpmbuild -bb --without check rhel/openvswitch.spec`
123 If the build fails with "configure: error: source dir
124 /lib/modules/2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64/build doesn't exist" or similar,
125 then the kernel-devel package is missing or buggy. Go back to step
126 1 or 2 and fix the problem.
128 8. On RHEL 6, to build the Open vSwitch kernel module, copy
129 rhel/openvswitch-kmod.files into the RPM sources directory and run:
131 `rpmbuild -bb rhel/openvswitch-kmod-rhel6.spec`
133 You might have to specify a kernel version and/or variants, e.g.:
137 -D "kversion 2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64" \
138 -D "kflavors default debug kdump" \
139 rhel/openvswitch-kmod-rhel6.spec
142 This produces an "kmod-openvswitch" RPM for each kernel variant, in
143 this example: "kmod-openvswitch", "kmod-openvswitch-debug", and
144 "kmod-openvswitch-kdump".
146 A RHEL host has default firewall rules that prevent any Open vSwitch tunnel
147 traffic from passing through. If a user configures Open vSwitch tunnels like
148 Geneve, GRE, VXLAN, LISP etc., they will either have to manually add iptables
149 firewall rules to allow the tunnel traffic or add it through a startup script
150 (Please refer to the "enable-protocol" command in the ovs-ctl(8) manpage).
152 Red Hat Network Scripts Integration
153 -----------------------------------
155 Simple integration with Red Hat network scripts has been implemented.
156 Please read [rhel/README.RHEL] in the source tree or
157 /usr/share/doc/openvswitch/README.RHEL in the installed openvswitch
163 Please report problems to bugs@openvswitch.org.
165 [INSTALL.md]:INSTALL.md
166 [rhel/README.RHEL]:rhel/README.RHEL