1 .TH ovs\-vswitchd 8 "June 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
5 ovs\-vswitchd \- Open vSwitch daemon
12 A daemon that manages and controls any number of Open vSwitch switches
15 The mandatory \fIconfig\fR argument specifies a configuration file.
16 For a description of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR configuration syntax, see
17 \fBovs\-vswitchd.conf\fR(5).
19 At startup or upon receipt of a \fBSIGHUP\fR signal, \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
20 reads the configuration file. It sets up Open vSwitch datapaths and then
21 operates switching across each bridge described in its configuration
22 files. If a logfile was specified on the command line it will also
23 be opened or reopened.
25 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR switches may be configured with any of the following
29 L2 switching with MAC learning.
32 NIC bonding with automatic fail-over and source MAC-based TX load
39 Port mirroring, with optional VLAN tagging.
42 NetFlow v5 flow logging.
45 Connectivity to an external OpenFlow controller, such as NOX.
48 Only a single instance of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is intended to run at a time.
49 A single \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR can manage any number of switch instances, up
50 to the maximum number of supported Open vSwitch datapaths.
52 \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR does all the necessary management of Open vSwitch datapaths
53 itself. Thus, external tools, such \fBovs\-dpctl\fR(8), are not needed for
54 managing datapaths in conjunction with \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR, and their use
55 to modify datapaths when \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is running can interfere with
56 its operation. (\fBovs\-dpctl\fR may still be useful for diagnostics.)
58 An Open vSwitch datapath kernel module must be loaded for \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
59 to be useful. Please refer to the \fBINSTALL\fR file included in the
60 Open vSwitch distribution for instructions on how to build and load
61 the Open vSwitch kernel module.
64 .IP "\fB--fake-proc-net\fR"
65 Causes \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR to simulate some files in \fB/proc/net/vlan\fR
66 and \fB/proc/net/bonding\fR that some legacy software expects to
67 exist. This option should only be used if such legacy software is
68 actually in use. It requires the \fBbrcompat_mod.ko\fR kernel module
74 .so lib/leak-checker.man
78 Only Open vSwitch kernel-based datapaths are currently supported. In the
79 future, this restriction may be lifted.
81 Only Linux 2.6.\fIx\fR is currently supported.
85 .BR ovs\-vswitchd.conf (5),
86 .BR ovs\-brcompatd (8),
87 \fBINSTALL\fR in the Open vSwitch distribution.