[ovs-discuss] How to run ovs-vswitchd as non-root

[Ben Pfaff]

Every bridge always has a local interface of the same name.

Have you read *ANY* of the documentation?  It mentions this all over.

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 08:20:04PM -0700, Aishwarya wrote:
> Hi Ben,
> 
> It seems like vsctl is also creating a local interface called br0. I
> confirmed this by doing an ifconfig br0 before this command and after.
> Before the vsctl add-br br0 command, ifconfig br0 says "no device found",
> but after the command it allows me to assign an ipaddress to br0, and does
> not give the error anymore.
> 
> Also, as you said, not running vswitchd as root is what was causing issues
> when vsctl was trying to create a bridge. the br0.msgmt and snoop files were
> not getting created.
> 
> Thanks,
> Aish
> 
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Ben Pfaff <blp at nicira.com> wrote:
> 
> > ovs-vsctl only changes the database.  The database update completes
> > successfully.
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 06:15:46PM -0700, Aishwarya wrote:
> > > Ok.. Apart from this, I also notice if I use ovs-vsctl add br0 without
> > sudo,
> > > it does not give me any error immediately, but when I try to set an ip
> > > address for the br0 interface with sudo ifconfig, it says "no such device
> > > exists". Is this because when run without sudo, vsctl add-br is not doing
> > > this correctly? It may be helpful to see an error message in such a case.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > AIsh
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Ben Pfaff <blp at nicira.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Yes.
> > > >
> > > > Only root is allowed to change the kernel flow tables, for example.
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 04:00:34PM -0700, Aishwarya wrote:
> > > > > Hi Ben,
> > > > >
> > > > > Using OVS_RUNDIR works for me. But are you saying running vswitchd as
> > non
> > > > > root will cause other issues in the functionality?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > Aish
> > > > >
> > > > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Ben Pfaff <blp at nicira.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 03:05:57PM -0700, Aishwarya wrote:
> > > > > > > ovsdb-server gives an option to specify the ctl socket path with
> > > > > > --unixctl
> > > > > > > option. So, this and specifying the pid file path make it
> > possible to
> > > > run
> > > > > > > this from a non-root account or without sudo. Is there a way that
> > > > > > > ovs-vswiitchd can also be run without sudo? Right now, I get this
> > > > error:
> > > > > > > ovs-vswitchd: could not initialize control socket
> > > > > > > /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/ovs-vswitchd.20342.ctl (Permission
> > > > > > denied).
> > > > > >
> > > > > > You can specify the OVS_RUNDIR environment variable.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There are other reasons that ovs-vswitchd normally requires root,
> > so
> > > > > > it might not help.
> > > > > >
> > > >
> >