[ovs-discuss] Database configuration question (Was Re: Open vSwitch 0.99.2 Available)

[Ben Pfaff]

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 11:18:32AM -0500, Todd Deshane wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Justin Pettit <jpettit at nicira.com> wrote:
> > Ben recently updated them in the "next" branch, and we're using them internally. ?The "next" branch is what all future "stable" releases will be based on. ?It uses a configuration database instead of a configuration file, so it's not really backwards-compatible from an end-user perspective. ?What time frame are you working on? ?The "next" branch isn't stable enough for production use yet, but basing a release on master may be confusing to users in the future.

There's a lot of text on the line above.  I think some of it might be
as-yet-unanswered questions, but it's too jumbled to tell.

> Will the database get rid of the need to kill -HUP the switch daemon?

Yes.

> I'm working on a network wrapper interface for another project and I
> just wanted to get a basic sense for what I functionality it will need
> and how it will make use of the vswitches. Are there other changes
> related to basic usage that come along with this new configuration
> database management?

You will need to start the database server daemon along with
ovs-vswitchd, and use the ovs-vsctl utility (which has been greatly
extended) for most configuration tasks.