[ovs-discuss] find the goto table instruction in the code

Justin Pettit jpettit at ovn.org
Thu Nov 12 17:13:01 UTC 2015


> On Nov 12, 2015, at 4:52 AM, dsainz at CS.technion.ac.il wrote:
> 
> Hi to all,
> 
> I want to locate the code (I imagine it is inside of the Kernel module
> datapath) where when a flow is found, the instructions are executed, it
> finds the "goto table" instruction and redirects the packet to another
> table.

"goto table" is an entirely userspace concept.  The kernel flows are a cache of recently seen flows and their associated actions with all the table jumps removed.  Here's an entry from the FAQ that help explain it:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Q: I hear OVS has a couple of kinds of flows. Can you tell me about them?

A: Open vSwitch uses different kinds of flows for different purposes:

	• OpenFlow flows are the most important kind of flow. OpenFlow controllers use these flows to define a switch's policy. OpenFlow flows support wildcards, priorities, and multiple tables.

When in-band control is in use, Open vSwitch sets up a few "hidden" flows, with priority higher than a controller or the user can configure, that are not visible via OpenFlow. (See the "Controller" section of the FAQ for more information about hidden flows.)

	• The Open vSwitch software switch implementation uses a second kind of flow internally. These flows, called "datapath" or "kernel" flows, do not support priorities and comprise only a single table, which makes them suitable for caching. (Like OpenFlow flows, datapath flows do support wildcarding, in Open vSwitch 1.11 and later.) OpenFlow flows and datapath flows also support different actions and number ports differently.

Datapath flows are an implementation detail that is subject to change in future versions of Open vSwitch. Even with the current version of Open vSwitch, hardware switch implementations do not necessarily use this architecture.

Users and controllers directly control only the OpenFlow flow table. Open vSwitch manages the datapath flow table itself, so users should not normally be concerned with it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

--Justin





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