[ovs-discuss] Automating ovs using an API or similar

Justin Pettit jpettit at nicira.com
Tue Feb 22 02:47:42 UTC 2011


Hi, Kurt.  I assume the Citrix XenServer API you are mentioning is XAPI.  This is probably still your best route for configuring VLANs and networks, since Open vSwitch is tightly integrated with recent versions of XenServer.  I'd be worried about changing things from underneath it--especially since local network configuration isn't persistent across reboots.

To configure things not natively understood by XenServer (e.g., NetFlow, mirrors, OVS's concept of QoS), you have a few options:

	- You can use ovs-vsctl directly on the host or remotely by configuring ovsdb-server to listen on a TCP or SSL socket.

	- You can implement a configuration database manager, which ovsdb-server will sync up with through its JSON-RPC protocol (documented in ovsdb/SPECS).

	- You can talk to Citrix about whether there is an API provided through the DVS (distributed virtual switch), which is available in some 5.6.0 FP1 configurations.

If you want to configure flows/policies in the switch your best bet is through OpenFlow or DVS.

--Justin


On Feb 21, 2011, at 4:34 AM, Semba, Kurt wrote:

> Hi all,
>  
> we have been automating certain network functionality on XenServer using an API provided by Citrix. Since openvswitch is now also supported on XenServer and it offers a much richer set of functionalities in comparison to the standard features from Citrix we would like to explore the options to automatize certain configurations of the openvswitch. I’m talking about creating internal/external/bonded networks, configuring VLAN ID’s, reading/setting Qos parameters, NetFlow destinations, port mirrors, etc.
>  
> I couldn’t find anything on an API or SDK to remote access and manage the ovs settings of a particular Host – does this exist at all?
>  
> If not, what other options would we have to automatically manage Hosts remotely?
>  
> Thanks
> Kurt
>  
> Kurt Semba
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