[ovs-dev] Problem adding flows openvswitch

[Ben Pfaff]

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 06:39:54PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> On 09/19/2012 06:14 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 03:35:56PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>On 09/18/2012 11:38 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >>>On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:40:24PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>>>On 09/18/2012 11:29 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >>>>>On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:33:33PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>>>>>On 09/18/2012 11:26 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >>>>>>>On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:29:55PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>>>>>>>On 09/18/2012 11:23 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:24:52PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>Hi Ben,
> >>>>>>>>>>thank you for your advices.
> >>>>>>>>>>Please find comments inline.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>Regards
> >>>>>>>>>>Andi
> >>>>>>>>>>On 09/18/2012 07:07 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 06:11:56PM +0200, Andi wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>I am having some trouble in adding flow table entries with
> >>>>>>>>>>>>openvswitch. I am using nox with some modifications on it and when I
> >>>>>>>>>>>>submit flow mod message the switches appear to accept the packet
> >>>>>>>>>>>>(all the methods to add the flow entry return 0), but when I use
> >>>>>>>>>>>>ovs-dpctl dump-flows br0 it has no flows installed.
> >>>>>>>>>>>ovs-dpctl doesn't display OpenFlow flows.  You can't use it this way.
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>ovs-ofctl displays OpenFlow flows.  Use "ovs-ofctl dump-flows" to show
> >>>>>>>>>>>the flow table.
> >>>>>>>>>>In the dpctl help one finds
> >>>>>>>>>>/dump-flows DP            display flows in DP/
> >>>>>>>>>>Using this command with off-the shelf Nox it displays all flows.
> >>>>>>>>>Is the program named dpctl or ovs-dpctl?  If it's dpctl then you're
> >>>>>>>>>not using Open vSwitch but something else.
> >>>>>>>>ovs-dpctl sorry
> >>>>>>>OK, then what you're saying doesn't make sense and you will have to
> >>>>>>>provide an example.
> >>>>>>switch2:/hosthome/OF/openvswitch/build/bin# ./ovs-ofctl dump-flows br0
> >>>>>>ovs-ofctl: br0 is not a bridge or a socket
> >>>>>OK, so what's in the rundir (typically /var/run/openvswitch)?
> >>>>switch2:/hosthome/OF/openvswitch/build/bin# cd /var/run/openvswitch/
> >>>>switch2:/var/run/openvswitch# ls
> >>>>br0.mgmt   db.sock               ovsdb-server.pid ovs-vswitchd.pid
> >>>>br0.snoop  ovsdb-server.495.ctl  ovs-vswitchd.517.ctl
> >>>This looks OK.
> >>>
> >>>I think you must just have misinstalled somehow.  No one else is
> >>>reporting this problem.  Did you consider installing from distribution
> >>>packaging rather than by hand?
> >>Thank you again for your advices. I realized that the OVS_RUNDIR
> >>environment variable was empty. The internal ovs_rundir() c function
> >>in ovs-ofctl returned another location so it could not find the
> >>socket.
> >That explains the problem.
> >
> >Do you know how that happened?  I don't think anything in OVS
> >recommends setting this variable; definitely you should not set it to
> >the empty string.
> Hi Ben,
> We have installed openvswitch in netkit(a user-mode linux front-end
> let's say) after cross-compiling it for UML. During the startup of
> the virtual machines we use a script to install openvswitch using
> the commands reported in section 7 of INSTALL.Linux. The various
> environment variables are exported in the script but as it turns out
> they are not permanent after booting. After chroot-ing in the file
> system of the virtual machines I have added the export of this
> variables values in .bashrc.

Is the script something that might be useful to others?  If so, please
consider posting it.  If it's general-purpose enough, then perhaps it
might be useful to include it in the Open vSwitch repository.

Thanks,

Ben.