[ovs-dev] windows support

[Xin Wang]

Hi Alin,

I am trying to understand if openvswitch could work in windows similar as
linux. As it described in the openvswitch Hyper-V design document,
Quote
"

The datapath for the OVS on Linux is a kernel module, and cannot be
directly ported since there are significant differences in architecture
even though the end functionality provided would be similar. Some examples
of the differences are:

   - Interfacing with the NDIS stack to hook into the NDIS callbacks for
   functionality such as receiving and sending packets, packet completions,
   OIDs used for events such as a new port appearing on the virtual switch.
   - Interface between the userspace and the kernel module.
   - Event notifications are significantly different.
   - The communication interface between DPIF and the kernel module need
   not be implemented in the way OVS on Linux does. That said, it would be
   advantageous to have a similar interface to the kernel module for reasons
   of readability and maintainability.
   - Any licensing issues of using Linux kernel code directly.
   -

"
End of Quote

Is it possible to let WinPcap to take care of interfacing with Windows NDIS
stack, and let ovs deal with winpcap similar as it could integrate with
libpcap in Linux?

Regards,
Xin


On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 2:13 PM, Alin Gabriel Serdean <aserdean at ovn.org>
wrote:

> >
> > On 15 May 2018, at 23:56, Xin Wang <xwang at aelladata.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> > I went through the document on openvswitch for Windows. Looks like the
> > target it supports now is either Windows8 or Windows10, how can I build
> > OVSExt for  Windows server 2012 and Windows server 2016?
> >
> > Looks like the current Windows solution is based on Hyper-V, is there any
> > plan in the future to integrate with Winpcap?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Xin
> > _______________________________________________
> > dev mailing list
> > dev at openvswitch.org
> > https://mail.openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/ovs-dev
>
> Hi Xin,
>
> http://docs.openvswitch.org/en/latest/intro/install/windows/#configuring
> "Possible values for <target type> are: Debug and Release Possible values
> for <target versions> is a comma separated list of target versions to
> compile among: Win8,Win8.1,Win10”
> 8, 8.1, 10 are the family versions. The server version correspondent to it
> would be 2012, 2012 R2 and 2016.
>
> As you pointed OVS is at the moment a Hyper-V vSwitch forwarding
> extension. As an extra information, it can also be used for containers
> (windows and hyper-v containers).
>
> Could you please expand on the idea “integrate with Winpcap”?
>
> —
> Alin