1 How to Install Open vSwitch on Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD
2 ========================================================
4 This document describes how to build and install Open vSwitch on a
5 generic Linux, FreeBSD, or NetBSD host. For specifics around installation
6 on a specific platform, please see one of these files:
11 - [INSTALL.XenServer.md]
13 - [INSTALL.Windows.md]
19 To compile the userspace programs in the Open vSwitch distribution,
20 you will need the following software:
24 - A C compiler, such as:
28 * Clang. Clang 3.4 and later provide useful static semantic
29 analysis and thread-safety checks. For Ubuntu, there are
30 nightly built packages available on clang's website.
32 * MSVC 2013. See [INSTALL.Windows] for additional Windows build
35 While OVS may be compatible with other compilers, optimal
36 support for atomic operations may be missing, making OVS very
37 slow (see lib/ovs-atomic.h).
39 - libssl, from OpenSSL, is optional but recommended if you plan to
40 connect the Open vSwitch to an OpenFlow controller. libssl is
41 required to establish confidentiality and authenticity in the
42 connections from an Open vSwitch to an OpenFlow controller. If
43 libssl is installed, then Open vSwitch will automatically build
46 - libcap-ng, written by Steve Grubb, is optional but recommended. It
47 is required to run OVS daemons as a non-root user with dropped root
48 privileges. If libcap-ng is installed, then Open vSwitch will
49 automatically build with support for it.
51 - Python 2.7. You must also have the Python six library.
53 On Linux, you may choose to compile the kernel module that comes with
54 the Open vSwitch distribution or to use the kernel module built into
55 the Linux kernel (version 3.3 or later). See the [FAQ.md] question
56 "What features are not available in the Open vSwitch kernel datapath that
57 ships as part of the upstream Linux kernel?" for more information on
58 this trade-off. You may also use the userspace-only implementation,
59 at some cost in features and performance (see [INSTALL.userspace.md]
60 for details). To compile the kernel module on Linux, you must also
61 install the following:
63 - A supported Linux kernel version. Please refer to [README.md] for a
64 list of supported versions.
66 For optional support of ingress policing, you must enable kernel
67 configuration options NET_CLS_BASIC, NET_SCH_INGRESS, and
68 NET_ACT_POLICE, either built-in or as modules. (NET_CLS_POLICE is
69 obsolete and not needed.)
71 On kernels before 3.11, the ip_gre module, for GRE tunnels over IP
72 (NET_IPGRE), must not be loaded or compiled in.
74 To configure HTB or HFSC quality of service with Open vSwitch,
75 you must enable the respective configuration options.
77 To use Open vSwitch support for TAP devices, you must enable
80 - To build a kernel module, you need the same version of GCC that
81 was used to build that kernel.
83 - A kernel build directory corresponding to the Linux kernel image
84 the module is to run on. Under Debian and Ubuntu, for example,
85 each linux-image package containing a kernel binary has a
86 corresponding linux-headers package with the required build
89 If you are working from a Git tree or snapshot (instead of from a
90 distribution tarball), or if you modify the Open vSwitch build system
91 or the database schema, you will also need the following software:
93 - Autoconf version 2.63 or later.
95 - Automake version 1.10 or later.
97 - libtool version 2.4 or later. (Older versions might work too.)
99 To run the unit tests, you also need:
101 - Perl. Version 5.10.1 is known to work. Earlier versions should
104 The ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) manpage will include an E-R diagram, in
105 formats other than plain text, only if you have the following:
107 - "dot" from graphviz (http://www.graphviz.org/).
109 - Perl. Version 5.10.1 is known to work. Earlier versions should
112 If you are going to extensively modify Open vSwitch, please consider
113 installing the following to obtain better warnings:
115 - "sparse" version 0.4.4 or later
116 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/devel/sparse/dist/).
120 - clang, version 3.4 or later
122 - flake8 (for Python code)
124 Also, you may find the ovs-dev script found in utilities/ovs-dev.py useful.
126 Installation Requirements
127 -------------------------
129 The machine on which Open vSwitch is to be installed must have the
132 - libc compatible with the libc used for build.
134 - libssl compatible with the libssl used for build, if OpenSSL was
137 - On Linux, the same kernel version configured as part of the build.
139 - For optional support of ingress policing on Linux, the "tc" program
140 from iproute2 (part of all major distributions and available at
141 http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Net:Iproute2).
143 - Python 2.7. You must also have the Python six library.
145 On Linux you should ensure that /dev/urandom exists. To support TAP
146 devices, you must also ensure that /dev/net/tun exists.
148 Building and Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD
149 =================================================================
151 Once you have installed all the prerequisites listed above in the
152 Base Prerequisites section, follow the procedures below to bootstrap,
153 to configure and to build the code.
155 Bootstrapping the Sources
156 -------------------------
158 This step is not needed if you have downloaded a released tarball.
159 If you pulled the sources directly from an Open vSwitch Git tree or
160 got a Git tree snapshot, then run boot.sh in the top source directory
161 to build the "configure" script.
166 Configuring the Sources
167 -----------------------
169 Configure the package by running the configure script. You can
170 usually invoke configure without any arguments. For example:
174 By default all files are installed under /usr/local. Open vSwitch also
175 expects to find its database in /usr/local/etc/openvswitch by default.
176 If you want to install all files into, e.g., /usr and /var instead of
177 /usr/local and /usr/local/var and expect to use /etc/openvswitch as the default
178 database directory, add options as shown here:
180 `% ./configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var --sysconfdir=/etc`
182 Note that the Open vSwitch installed with packages like .rpm (e.g. via 'yum
183 install' or 'rpm -ivh') and .deb (e.g. via 'apt-get install' or 'dpkg -i') use
184 the above configure options.
186 By default, static libraries are built and linked against. If you
187 want to use shared libraries instead:
189 `% ./configure --enable-shared`
191 To use a specific C compiler for compiling Open vSwitch user
192 programs, also specify it on the configure command line, like so:
194 `% ./configure CC=gcc-4.2`
196 To use 'clang' compiler:
198 `% ./configure CC=clang`
200 To supply special flags to the C compiler, specify them as CFLAGS on
201 the configure command line. If you want the default CFLAGS, which
202 include "-g" to build debug symbols and "-O2" to enable optimizations,
203 you must include them yourself. For example, to build with the
204 default CFLAGS plus "-mssse3", you might run configure as follows:
206 `% ./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2 -mssse3"`
208 Note that these CFLAGS are not applied when building the Linux
209 kernel module. Custom CFLAGS for the kernel module are supplied
210 using the EXTRA_CFLAGS variable when running make. So, for example:
212 `% make EXTRA_CFLAGS="-Wno-error=date-time"`
214 To build the Linux kernel module, so that you can run the
215 kernel-based switch, pass the location of the kernel build
216 directory on --with-linux. For example, to build for a running
219 `% ./configure --with-linux=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build`
221 If --with-linux requests building for an unsupported version of
222 Linux, then "configure" will fail with an error message. Please
223 refer to the [FAQ.md] for advice in that case.
225 If you wish to build the kernel module for an architecture other
226 than the architecture of the machine used for the build, you may
227 specify the kernel architecture string using the KARCH variable
228 when invoking the configure script. For example, to build for MIPS
231 `% ./configure --with-linux=/path/to/linux KARCH=mips`
233 If you plan to do much Open vSwitch development, you might want to
234 add --enable-Werror, which adds the -Werror option to the compiler
235 command line, turning warnings into errors. That makes it
236 impossible to miss warnings generated by the build.
238 To build with gcov code coverage support, add --enable-coverage,
241 `% ./configure --enable-coverage`
243 The configure script accepts a number of other options and honors
244 additional environment variables. For a full list, invoke
245 configure with the --help option.
247 You can also run configure from a separate build directory. This
248 is helpful if you want to build Open vSwitch in more than one way
249 from a single source directory, e.g. to try out both GCC and Clang
250 builds, or to build kernel modules for more than one Linux version.
253 `% mkdir _gcc && (cd _gcc && ../configure CC=gcc)`
254 `% mkdir _clang && (cd _clang && ../configure CC=clang)`
256 Under certains loads the ovsdb-server and other components perform
257 better when using the jemalloc memory allocator, instead of the glibc
260 If you wish to link with jemalloc add it to LIBS:
262 `% ./configure LIBS=-ljemalloc`
267 1. Run GNU make in the build directory, e.g.:
271 or if GNU make is installed as "gmake":
275 If you used a separate build directory, run make or gmake from that
281 For improved warnings if you installed "sparse" (see "Prerequisites"),
282 add C=1 to the command line.
284 Some versions of Clang and ccache are not completely compatible.
285 If you see unusual warnings when you use both together, consider
286 disabling ccache for use with Clang.
288 2. Consider running the testsuite. Refer to "Running the Testsuite"
289 below, for instructions.
291 3. Become root by running "su" or another program.
293 4. Run "make install" to install the executables and manpages into the
294 running system, by default under /usr/local.
296 5. If you built kernel modules, you may install and load them, e.g.:
298 `% make modules_install`
299 `% /sbin/modprobe openvswitch`
301 To verify that the modules have been loaded, run "/sbin/lsmod" and
302 check that openvswitch is listed.
304 If the `modprobe` operation fails, look at the last few kernel log
305 messages (e.g. with `dmesg | tail`):
307 - Otherwise, the most likely problem is that Open vSwitch was
308 built for a kernel different from the one into which you are
309 trying to load it. Run `modinfo` on openvswitch.ko and on
310 a module built for the running kernel, e.g.:
313 % /sbin/modinfo openvswitch.ko
314 % /sbin/modinfo /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/net/bridge/bridge.ko
317 Compare the "vermagic" lines output by the two commands. If
318 they differ, then Open vSwitch was built for the wrong kernel.
320 - If you decide to report a bug or ask a question related to
321 module loading, please include the output from the `dmesg` and
322 `modinfo` commands mentioned above.
324 6. Initialize the configuration database using ovsdb-tool, e.g.:
326 `% mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/openvswitch`
327 `% ovsdb-tool create /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db vswitchd/vswitch.ovsschema`
332 Before starting ovs-vswitchd itself, you need to start its
333 configuration database, ovsdb-server. Each machine on which Open
334 vSwitch is installed should run its own copy of ovsdb-server.
335 Configure it to use the database you created during installation (as
336 explained above), to listen on a Unix domain socket, to connect to any
337 managers specified in the database itself, and to use the SSL
338 configuration in the database:
341 % ovsdb-server --remote=punix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock \
342 --remote=db:Open_vSwitch,Open_vSwitch,manager_options \
343 --private-key=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,private_key \
344 --certificate=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,certificate \
345 --bootstrap-ca-cert=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,ca_cert \
349 (If you built Open vSwitch without SSL support, then omit
350 --private-key, --certificate, and --bootstrap-ca-cert.)
352 Then initialize the database using ovs-vsctl. This is only
353 necessary the first time after you create the database with
354 ovsdb-tool (but running it at any time is harmless):
356 `% ovs-vsctl --no-wait init`
358 Then start the main Open vSwitch daemon, telling it to connect to the
359 same Unix domain socket:
361 `% ovs-vswitchd --pidfile --detach`
363 Now you may use ovs-vsctl to set up bridges and other Open vSwitch
364 features. For example, to create a bridge named br0 and add ports
365 eth0 and vif1.0 to it:
367 `% ovs-vsctl add-br br0`
368 `% ovs-vsctl add-port br0 eth0`
369 `% ovs-vsctl add-port br0 vif1.0`
371 Please refer to ovs-vsctl(8) for more details.
376 When you upgrade Open vSwitch from one version to another, you should
377 also upgrade the database schema:
379 1. Stop the Open vSwitch daemons, e.g.:
382 % kill `cd /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch && cat ovsdb-server.pid ovs-vswitchd.pid`
385 2. Install the new Open vSwitch release by using the same configure options as
386 was used for installing the previous version. If you do not use the same
387 configure options, you can end up with two different versions of Open vSwitch
388 executables installed in different locations.
390 3. Upgrade the database, in one of the following two ways:
392 - If there is no important data in your database, then you may
393 delete the database file and recreate it with ovsdb-tool,
394 following the instructions under "Building and Installing Open
395 vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD".
397 - If you want to preserve the contents of your database, back it
398 up first, then use "ovsdb-tool convert" to upgrade it, e.g.:
400 `% ovsdb-tool convert /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db vswitchd/vswitch.ovsschema`
402 4. Start the Open vSwitch daemons as described under "Building and
403 Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD" above.
407 Upgrading Open vSwitch from one version to the next version with minimum
408 disruption of traffic going through the system that is using that Open vSwitch
409 needs some considerations:
411 1. If the upgrade only involves upgrading the userspace utilities and daemons
412 of Open vSwitch, make sure that the new userspace version is compatible with
413 the previously loaded kernel module.
415 2. An upgrade of userspace daemons means that they have to be restarted.
416 Restarting the daemons means that the OpenFlow flows in the ovs-vswitchd daemon
417 will be lost. One way to restore the flows is to let the controller
418 re-populate it. Another way is to save the previous flows using a utility
419 like ovs-ofctl and then re-add them after the restart. Restoring the old flows
420 is accurate only if the new Open vSwitch interfaces retain the old 'ofport'
423 3. When the new userspace daemons get restarted, they automatically flush
424 the old flows setup in the kernel. This can be expensive if there are hundreds
425 of new flows that are entering the kernel but userspace daemons are busy
426 setting up new userspace flows from either the controller or an utility like
427 ovs-ofctl. Open vSwitch database provides an option to solve this problem
428 through the other_config:flow-restore-wait column of the Open_vSwitch table.
429 Refer to the ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) manpage for details.
431 4. If the upgrade also involves upgrading the kernel module, the old kernel
432 module needs to be unloaded and the new kernel module should be loaded. This
433 means that the kernel network devices belonging to Open vSwitch is recreated
434 and the kernel flows are lost. The downtime of the traffic can be reduced
435 if the userspace daemons are restarted immediately and the userspace flows
436 are restored as soon as possible.
438 The ovs-ctl utility's "restart" function only restarts the userspace daemons,
439 makes sure that the 'ofport' values remain consistent across restarts, restores
440 userspace flows using the ovs-ofctl utility and also uses the
441 other_config:flow-restore-wait column to keep the traffic downtime to the
442 minimum. The ovs-ctl utility's "force-reload-kmod" function does all of the
443 above, but also replaces the old kernel module with the new one. Open vSwitch
444 startup scripts for Debian, XenServer and RHEL use ovs-ctl's functions and it
445 is recommended that these functions be used for other software platforms too.
450 This section describe Open vSwitch's built-in support for various test
451 suites. You must bootstrap, configure and build Open vSwitch (steps are
452 in "Building and Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD"
453 above) before you run the tests described here. You do not need to
454 install Open vSwitch or to build or load the kernel module to run
455 these test suites. You do not need supervisor privilege to run these
461 Open vSwitch includes a suite of self-tests. Before you submit patches
462 upstream, we advise that you run the tests and ensure that they pass.
463 If you add new features to Open vSwitch, then adding tests for those
464 features will ensure your features don't break as developers modify
465 other areas of Open vSwitch.
467 Refer to "Testsuites" above for prerequisites.
469 To run all the unit tests in Open vSwitch, one at a time:
471 This takes under 5 minutes on a modern desktop system.
473 To run all the unit tests in Open vSwitch, up to 8 in parallel:
474 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8`
475 This takes under a minute on a modern 4-core desktop system.
477 To see a list of all the available tests, run:
478 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=--list`
480 To run only a subset of tests, e.g. test 123 and tests 477 through 484:
481 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS='123 477-484'`
482 (Tests do not have inter-dependencies, so you may run any subset.)
484 To run tests matching a keyword, e.g. "ovsdb":
485 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS='-k ovsdb'`
487 To see a complete list of test options:
488 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=--help`
490 The results of a testing run are reported in tests/testsuite.log.
491 Please report test failures as bugs and include the testsuite.log in
494 If the build was configured with "--enable-coverage" and the "lcov"
495 utility is installed, you can run the testsuite and generate a code
496 coverage report by using "make check-lcov". All of the options for
497 TESTSUITEFLAGS are available, so you can e.g.:
498 `make check-lcov TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8 -k ovn`
500 If you have "valgrind" installed, then you can also run the testsuite
501 under valgrind by using "make check-valgrind" in place of "make
502 check". All the same options are available via TESTSUITEFLAGS. When
503 you do this, the "valgrind" results for test `<N>` are reported in files
504 named `tests/testsuite.dir/<N>/valgrind.*`. You may find that the
505 valgrind results are easier to interpret if you put "-q" in
506 ~/.valgrindrc, since that reduces the amount of output.
508 Sometimes a few tests may fail on some runs but not others. This is
509 usually a bug in the testsuite, not a bug in Open vSwitch itself. If
510 you find that a test fails intermittently, please report it, since the
511 developers may not have noticed. You can make the testsuite
512 automatically rerun tests that fail, by adding RECHECK=yes to the
513 "make" command line, e.g.:
514 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8 RECHECK=yes`
519 OFTest is an OpenFlow protocol testing suite. Open vSwitch includes a
520 Makefile target to run OFTest with Open vSwitch in "dummy mode". In
521 this mode of testing, no packets travel across physical or virtual
522 networks. Instead, Unix domain sockets stand in as simulated
523 networks. This simulation is imperfect, but it is much easier to set
524 up, does not require extra physical or virtual hardware, and does not
525 require supervisor privileges.
527 To run OFTest with Open vSwitch, first read and follow the
528 instructions under "Testsuites" above. Second, obtain a copy of
529 OFTest and install its prerequisites. You need a copy of OFTest that
530 includes commit 406614846c5 (make ovs-dummy platform work again).
531 This commit was merged into the OFTest repository on Feb 1, 2013, so
532 any copy of OFTest more recent than that should work. Testing OVS in
533 dummy mode does not require root privilege, so you may ignore that
536 Optionally, add the top-level OFTest directory (containing the "oft"
537 program) to your $PATH. This slightly simplifies running OFTest later.
539 To run OFTest in dummy mode, run the following command from your Open
540 vSwitch build directory:
541 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary>`
542 where `<oft-binary>` is the absolute path to the "oft" program in
545 If you added "oft" to your $PATH, you may omit the OFT variable
548 By default, "check-oftest" passes "oft" just enough options to enable
549 dummy mode. You can use OFTFLAGS to pass additional options. For
550 example, to run just the basic.Echo test instead of all tests (the
551 default) and enable verbose logging:
552 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary> OFTFLAGS='--verbose -T basic.Echo'`
554 If you use OFTest that does not include commit 4d1f3eb2c792 (oft:
555 change default port to 6653), merged into the OFTest repository in
556 October 2013, then you need to add an option to use the IETF-assigned
558 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary> OFTFLAGS='--port=6653'`
560 Please interpret OFTest results cautiously. Open vSwitch can fail a
561 given test in OFTest for many reasons, including bugs in Open vSwitch,
562 bugs in OFTest, bugs in the "dummy mode" integration, and differing
563 interpretations of the OpenFlow standard and other standards.
565 Open vSwitch has not been validated against OFTest. Please do report
566 test failures that you believe to represent bugs in Open vSwitch.
567 Include the precise versions of Open vSwitch and OFTest in your bug
568 report, plus any other information needed to reproduce the problem.
573 Ryu is an OpenFlow controller written in Python that includes an
574 extensive OpenFlow testsuite. Open vSwitch includes a Makefile target
575 to run Ryu in "dummy mode". See "OFTest" above for an explanation of
578 To run Ryu tests with Open vSwitch, first read and follow the
579 instructions under "Testsuites" above. Second, obtain a copy of Ryu,
580 install its prerequisites, and build it. You do not need to install
581 Ryu (some of the tests do not get installed, so it does not help).
583 To run Ryu tests, run the following command from your Open vSwitch
585 `make check-ryu RYUDIR=<ryu-source-dir>`
586 where `<ryu-source-dir>` is the absolute path to the root of the Ryu
587 source distribution. The default `<ryu-source-dir>` is `$srcdir/../ryu`
588 where $srcdir is your Open vSwitch source directory, so if this
589 default is correct then you make simply run `make check-ryu`.
591 Open vSwitch has not been validated against Ryu. Please do report
592 test failures that you believe to represent bugs in Open vSwitch.
593 Include the precise versions of Open vSwitch and Ryu in your bug
594 report, plus any other information needed to reproduce the problem.
599 Requires: Vagrant (version 1.7.0 or later) and a compatible hypervisor
601 You must bootstrap and configure the sources (steps are in "Building
602 and Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD" above) before
603 you run the steps described here.
605 A Vagrantfile is provided allowing to compile and provision the source
606 tree as found locally in a virtual machine using the following commands:
611 This will bring up w Fedora 20 VM by default, alternatively the
612 `Vagrantfile` can be modified to use a different distribution box as
613 base. Also, the VM can be reprovisioned at any time:
617 OVS out-of-tree compilation environment can be set up with:
620 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,build_ovs
622 This will set up an out-of-tree build environment in /home/vagrant/build.
623 The source code can be found in /vagrant. Out-of-tree build is preferred
624 to work around limitations of the sync file systems.
626 To recompile and reinstall OVS using RPM:
629 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,install_rpm
631 Two provisioners are included to run system tests with the OVS kernel
632 module or with a userspace datapath. This tests are different from
633 the self-tests mentioned above. To run them:
636 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,test_ovs_kmod,test_ovs_system_userspace
638 Continuous Integration with Travis-CI
639 -------------------------------------
641 A .travis.yml file is provided to automatically build Open vSwitch with
642 various build configurations and run the testsuite using travis-ci.
643 Builds will be performed with gcc, sparse and clang with the -Werror
644 compiler flag included, therefore the build will fail if a new warning
647 The CI build is triggered via git push (regardless of the specific
648 branch) or pull request against any Open vSwitch GitHub repository that
649 is linked to travis-ci.
651 Instructions to setup travis-ci for your GitHub repository:
653 1. Go to http://travis-ci.org/ and sign in using your GitHub ID.
654 2. Go to the "Repositories" tab and enable the ovs repository. You
655 may disable builds for pushes or pull requests.
656 3. In order to avoid forks sending build failures to the upstream
657 mailing list, the notification email recipient is encrypted. If you
658 want to receive email notification for build failures, replace the
659 the encrypted string:
660 3.1) Install the travis-ci CLI (Requires ruby >=2.0):
662 3.2) In your Open vSwitch repository:
663 travis encrypt mylist@mydomain.org
664 3.3) Add/replace the notifications section in .travis.yml and fill
665 in the secure string as returned by travis encrypt:
672 (You may remove/omit the notifications section to fall back to
673 default notification behaviour which is to send an email directly
674 to the author and committer of the failing commit. Note that the
675 email is only sent if the author/committer have commit rights for
676 the particular GitHub repository).
678 4. Pushing a commit to the repository which breaks the build or the
679 testsuite will now trigger a email sent to mylist@mydomain.org
684 Please report problems to bugs@openvswitch.org.
686 [README.md]:README.md
687 [INSTALL.Debian.md]:INSTALL.Debian.md
688 [INSTALL.Fedora.md]:INSTALL.Fedora.md
689 [INSTALL.RHEL.md]:INSTALL.RHEL.md
690 [INSTALL.XenServer.md]:INSTALL.XenServer.md
691 [INSTALL.NetBSD.md]:INSTALL.NetBSD.md
692 [INSTALL.DPDK.md]:INSTALL.DPDK.md
693 [INSTALL.userspace.md]:INSTALL.userspace.md