[ovs-discuss] OVN Docker howto desperately needs improvement

[Bayard Bell]

The biggest initial headache is the gap between packaging requirements and
this document:

http://docs.openvswitch.org/en/latest/howto/docker/

According to this page:

http://docs.openvswitch.org/en/latest/intro/install/debian/#installing-deb-
packages

"Open vSwitch .deb packages not mentioned above are rarely useful. Refer to
their individual package descriptions to find out whether any of them are
useful to you."

Well, that's not true if I need docker integration, so which packages do I
actually need. as the description don't cover it? The only package I could
find identified on the page is that for the python dependencies to use with
the drivers. ovn-docker isn't sufficien--when I install it, it doesn't pull
in essential ingredients, particularly ovn-central, which isn't in its
dependency chain. ovn-central contains ovn-[sn]b.ovsschema, which are
required to run ovn-ctl with start-northd or start-southd options, so I
need that but wouldn't know it without looking at metadata.

It's not clear from the Docker howto whether the only option is to install
as central or if host is an option, either. These aspects of the deployment
should be documented upfront, explained as either decisions or constraints.

It would be a great deal simpler if the docker howto named required
packages up front.

There are a few other ridiculous errors: most commands need to be run as
root, but the usage shows "$" as the prompt without sudo being used,
either. Some commands like running the Docker driver need to happen as root
to write out the spec file, but it looks like the output is produced after
forking and closing of file descriptors, resulting in swallowing errors, as
failure to write the spec file or create the plugins directory isn't logged.

The inability to interoperate with swarm mode for lack of v2 API support
should also be documented up front. I went through a whole lot of work
getting the deployment to a point where I decided I couldn't use the
existing OVN Docker integration.
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