[ovs-discuss] about the first packet

[Jesse Gross]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 1:48 AM, Yaxuan <yaxuan at tsinghua.edu.cn> wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> How does an OvS send the first packet out?
> 1) the packet P1 gets into an OvS
> 2) OvS sends a message with (part of) P1 to controller (with buffer_id)
> 3) the controller sets a flow F1 in OvS
> 4) then how does the OvS forward P1 in the next step?
> 5.1) OvS directly broadcasts the packet?
> 5.2) OvS matches P1 against the new flow table, and forwards P1 according to
> the action of the matched flow F1?

The controller can specify what to do with the packet either directly
or by applying the flow that was just inserted; OVS doesn't
automatically do anything with the packet.  The OpenFlow spec has more
information on the possible behaviors.