[ovs-dev] [PATCH 0/2] ovs-appctl Changes

[Ben Pfaff]

Justin Pettit <jpettit at nicira.com> writes:

> On Sep 16, 2009, at 7:59 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
>
>> Justin Pettit <jpettit at nicira.com> writes:
>>
>>> This is an attempt to make ovs-appctl a bit easier to use.  Requiring
>>> the user to type in the full path can be a bit cumbersome.  In most
>>> installs, this commit will allow the user to just specify the daemon
>>> name.  I'm not sure if "-d" and "--daemon" are the correct ways to
>>> specify this, since I tend to think of "-d" as meaning enable
>>> debugging.
>>> I don't suppose it matters that much.
>>
>> Great idea, I've been meaning to do this for some time.
>>
>> I was thinking about making the semantics exactly match those of
>> the --target option to ovs-vsctl, though.  Does that make sense
>> to you?
>
> My understanding is that ovs-vsctl is aimed only at ovs-vswitchd,
> whereas ovs-appctl can be pointed at any daemon (currently ovs- 
> vswitchd and ovs-brcompatd).  Thus, an argument isn't required for
> ovs-
> vsctl.  We could make ovs-appctl default to point to ovs-vswitchd
> (this is likely the common case), and then it could be overridden
> manually if the user wish to point to a different daemon.  What are
> your thoughts?

That's part of what I had in mind: if no target is specified, use
ovs-vswitchd as the default target (just as ovs-vsctl does).

>>> I think the existing "-t" and "--target" options would be
>>> better renamed "-s" and "--socket" or something similar, but I
>>> didn't want to break any existing scripts.  However, if there
>>> are no complaints, I'd be happy to make the change.
>>
>> I like "target".  Can you explain why "socket" is better?
>
> My thinking was that the documentation refers to the daemon as a
> "target", so a more specific term may be useful to distinguish between
> the different ways to identify the daemon.  For example, this excerpt
> from the man page:
>
>        The available target options are:
>        [-t socket | --target=socket] [-d daemon | --daemon=daemon]
>
> Perhaps we should just use a different term for that first use of
> "target" on the first line.  I really don't feel passionately about
> it, though.

I think that we can make ovs-appctl even easier to use, and don't
really think that we need separate --target and --daemon
options.  I've sent out a proposed commit for review.