[ovs-discuss] Switch architecture of OVS userspace switch

Ben Pfaff blp at nicira.com
Wed Mar 7 16:00:06 UTC 2012


Since you are specifically interested in the userspace OVS switch, you
can just follow the process of the loop in dpif_run().  Each iteration
of the loop fully processes one packet.

On Wed, Mar 07, 2012 at 03:56:03PM +0800, HuJingfei wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Ben, I appreciate your help very much.Is there any
> documentation or schematic diagram that describes the process that a
> packet entering the switch's input ports, scheduling, and departing
> from the switch's output ports? Or there is no such stuff in OVS?
> Cheers,
> Jfhu> Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 21:37:32 -0800
> > From: blp at nicira.com
> > To: hujingfei914 at msn.com
> > CC: discuss at openvswitch.org
> > Subject: Re: [ovs-discuss] Switch architecture of OVS userspace switch
> > 
> > On Wed, Mar 07, 2012 at 11:35:57AM +0800, HuJingfei wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Thanks, Ben, All right. However, at least there is a mapping from the
> > > software implementation of a switch to its real component. Is that
> > > right? For example,The struct, dp_netdev, may be mapped to a switch,
> > > because of following mappings:1. member struct dp_netdev_queue
> > > queues[N_QUEUES] corresponds to actual buffer of a switch, every
> > > packet from input ports will enter this buffer first, then will be
> > > scheduled to go to its destined output port.
> > 
> > No, that's wrong, that's not at all how these queues are used.  These
> > queues are used to respond to dpif_recv().  Please read the
> > documentation for that function to obtain more insight.
> > 
> > > 2. member struct dp_netdev_port *ports[MAX_PORTS] corresponds to
> > > actual ports of a switch.
> > 
> > Yes, that is correct.
> > 
> > > Please correct me if I am wrong.  Cheers,Jfhu
> > > > Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 14:17:57 -0800
> > > > From: blp at nicira.com
> > > > To: hujingfei914 at msn.com
> > > > CC: discuss at openvswitch.org
> > > > Subject: Re: [ovs-discuss] Switch architecture of OVS userspace switch
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Mar 06, 2012 at 11:35:42AM +0800, HuJingfei wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Hi, all,I'm newbie to OVS. I know there are quite a lot of switch
> > > > > architectures such as Shared Memory, Shared Medium, Crossbar, Banyan
> > > > > and so on. Could anyone tell me the userspace OVS switch's
> > > > > architecture please?  Forgive me for my stupid question.  Cheers, Jfhu
> > > > 
> > > > It's a piece of software, not a piece of hardware, so it's not
> > > > meaningful to try to classify it in terms of hardware designs.
> > >  		 	   		  
>  		 	   		  



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