[ovs-dev] Bug#823532: openvswitch-switch loses switch config when restarted via systemd

[Kenneth Sanislo]

Package: openvswitch-switch
Version: 2.3.0+git20140819

When systemd restarts the openvswitch-switch service, the running
configuration (created via ganeti/xen, in my case) is wiped out, and all
VMs lose their network connectivity.

This behavior only occurs when systemd restarts the service using the
init.d script through the auto-generated unit file.

If I add "_SYSTEMCTL_SKIP_REDIRECT=yes" to the top of the
/etc/init.d/openvswitch-switch script and then call the init script
manually, this behavior stops and everything is normal (i.e. All my VMs no
longer lose network when restarted)

This can also be avoided alternately by manually creating a proper
/lib/systemd/system/openvswitch-switch.service unit file, which calls the
following instead of the init script:

ExecStart=/usr/share/openvswitch/scripts/ovs-ctl --system-id=random start
ExecStop=/usr/share/openvswitch/scripts/ovs-ctl stop

Either way, IMHO this is a rather severe bug, since the last openvswitch
package upgrade called a restart which wiped out networking on my ganeti
cluster due to this flaw.