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. If you want
175 to install into, e.g., /usr and /var instead of /usr/local and
176 /usr/local/var, add options as shown here:
178 `% ./configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var`
180 By default, static libraries are built and linked against. If you
181 want to use shared libraries instead:
183 `% ./configure --enable-shared`
185 To use a specific C compiler for compiling Open vSwitch user
186 programs, also specify it on the configure command line, like so:
188 `% ./configure CC=gcc-4.2`
190 To use 'clang' compiler:
192 `% ./configure CC=clang`
194 To supply special flags to the C compiler, specify them as CFLAGS on
195 the configure command line. If you want the default CFLAGS, which
196 include "-g" to build debug symbols and "-O2" to enable optimizations,
197 you must include them yourself. For example, to build with the
198 default CFLAGS plus "-mssse3", you might run configure as follows:
200 `% ./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2 -mssse3"`
202 Note that these CFLAGS are not applied when building the Linux
203 kernel module. Custom CFLAGS for the kernel module are supplied
204 using the EXTRA_CFLAGS variable when running make. So, for example:
206 `% make EXTRA_CFLAGS="-Wno-error=date-time"`
208 To build the Linux kernel module, so that you can run the
209 kernel-based switch, pass the location of the kernel build
210 directory on --with-linux. For example, to build for a running
213 `% ./configure --with-linux=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build`
215 If --with-linux requests building for an unsupported version of
216 Linux, then "configure" will fail with an error message. Please
217 refer to the [FAQ.md] for advice in that case.
219 If you wish to build the kernel module for an architecture other
220 than the architecture of the machine used for the build, you may
221 specify the kernel architecture string using the KARCH variable
222 when invoking the configure script. For example, to build for MIPS
225 `% ./configure --with-linux=/path/to/linux KARCH=mips`
227 If you plan to do much Open vSwitch development, you might want to
228 add --enable-Werror, which adds the -Werror option to the compiler
229 command line, turning warnings into errors. That makes it
230 impossible to miss warnings generated by the build.
232 To build with gcov code coverage support, add --enable-coverage,
235 `% ./configure --enable-coverage`
237 The configure script accepts a number of other options and honors
238 additional environment variables. For a full list, invoke
239 configure with the --help option.
241 You can also run configure from a separate build directory. This
242 is helpful if you want to build Open vSwitch in more than one way
243 from a single source directory, e.g. to try out both GCC and Clang
244 builds, or to build kernel modules for more than one Linux version.
247 `% mkdir _gcc && (cd _gcc && ../configure CC=gcc)`
248 `% mkdir _clang && (cd _clang && ../configure CC=clang)`
250 Under certains loads the ovsdb-server and other components perform
251 better when using the jemalloc memory allocator, instead of the glibc
254 If you wish to link with jemalloc add it to LIBS:
256 `% ./configure LIBS=-ljemalloc`
261 1. Run GNU make in the build directory, e.g.:
265 or if GNU make is installed as "gmake":
269 If you used a separate build directory, run make or gmake from that
275 For improved warnings if you installed "sparse" (see "Prerequisites"),
276 add C=1 to the command line.
278 Some versions of Clang and ccache are not completely compatible.
279 If you see unusual warnings when you use both together, consider
280 disabling ccache for use with Clang.
282 2. Consider running the testsuite. Refer to "Running the Testsuite"
283 below, for instructions.
285 3. Become root by running "su" or another program.
287 4. Run "make install" to install the executables and manpages into the
288 running system, by default under /usr/local.
290 5. If you built kernel modules, you may install and load them, e.g.:
292 `% make modules_install`
293 `% /sbin/modprobe openvswitch`
295 To verify that the modules have been loaded, run "/sbin/lsmod" and
296 check that openvswitch is listed.
298 If the `modprobe` operation fails, look at the last few kernel log
299 messages (e.g. with `dmesg | tail`):
301 - Otherwise, the most likely problem is that Open vSwitch was
302 built for a kernel different from the one into which you are
303 trying to load it. Run `modinfo` on openvswitch.ko and on
304 a module built for the running kernel, e.g.:
307 % /sbin/modinfo openvswitch.ko
308 % /sbin/modinfo /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/net/bridge/bridge.ko
311 Compare the "vermagic" lines output by the two commands. If
312 they differ, then Open vSwitch was built for the wrong kernel.
314 - If you decide to report a bug or ask a question related to
315 module loading, please include the output from the `dmesg` and
316 `modinfo` commands mentioned above.
318 6. Initialize the configuration database using ovsdb-tool, e.g.:
320 `% mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/openvswitch`
321 `% ovsdb-tool create /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db vswitchd/vswitch.ovsschema`
326 Before starting ovs-vswitchd itself, you need to start its
327 configuration database, ovsdb-server. Each machine on which Open
328 vSwitch is installed should run its own copy of ovsdb-server.
329 Configure it to use the database you created during installation (as
330 explained above), to listen on a Unix domain socket, to connect to any
331 managers specified in the database itself, and to use the SSL
332 configuration in the database:
335 % ovsdb-server --remote=punix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock \
336 --remote=db:Open_vSwitch,Open_vSwitch,manager_options \
337 --private-key=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,private_key \
338 --certificate=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,certificate \
339 --bootstrap-ca-cert=db:Open_vSwitch,SSL,ca_cert \
343 (If you built Open vSwitch without SSL support, then omit
344 --private-key, --certificate, and --bootstrap-ca-cert.)
346 Then initialize the database using ovs-vsctl. This is only
347 necessary the first time after you create the database with
348 ovsdb-tool (but running it at any time is harmless):
350 `% ovs-vsctl --no-wait init`
352 Then start the main Open vSwitch daemon, telling it to connect to the
353 same Unix domain socket:
355 `% ovs-vswitchd --pidfile --detach`
357 Now you may use ovs-vsctl to set up bridges and other Open vSwitch
358 features. For example, to create a bridge named br0 and add ports
359 eth0 and vif1.0 to it:
361 `% ovs-vsctl add-br br0`
362 `% ovs-vsctl add-port br0 eth0`
363 `% ovs-vsctl add-port br0 vif1.0`
365 Please refer to ovs-vsctl(8) for more details.
370 When you upgrade Open vSwitch from one version to another, you should
371 also upgrade the database schema:
373 1. Stop the Open vSwitch daemons, e.g.:
376 % kill `cd /usr/local/var/run/openvswitch && cat ovsdb-server.pid ovs-vswitchd.pid`
379 2. Install the new Open vSwitch release.
381 3. Upgrade the database, in one of the following two ways:
383 - If there is no important data in your database, then you may
384 delete the database file and recreate it with ovsdb-tool,
385 following the instructions under "Building and Installing Open
386 vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD".
388 - If you want to preserve the contents of your database, back it
389 up first, then use "ovsdb-tool convert" to upgrade it, e.g.:
391 `% ovsdb-tool convert /usr/local/etc/openvswitch/conf.db vswitchd/vswitch.ovsschema`
393 4. Start the Open vSwitch daemons as described under "Building and
394 Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD" above.
398 Upgrading Open vSwitch from one version to the next version with minimum
399 disruption of traffic going through the system that is using that Open vSwitch
400 needs some considerations:
402 1. If the upgrade only involves upgrading the userspace utilities and daemons
403 of Open vSwitch, make sure that the new userspace version is compatible with
404 the previously loaded kernel module.
406 2. An upgrade of userspace daemons means that they have to be restarted.
407 Restarting the daemons means that the OpenFlow flows in the ovs-vswitchd daemon
408 will be lost. One way to restore the flows is to let the controller
409 re-populate it. Another way is to save the previous flows using a utility
410 like ovs-ofctl and then re-add them after the restart. Restoring the old flows
411 is accurate only if the new Open vSwitch interfaces retain the old 'ofport'
414 3. When the new userspace daemons get restarted, they automatically flush
415 the old flows setup in the kernel. This can be expensive if there are hundreds
416 of new flows that are entering the kernel but userspace daemons are busy
417 setting up new userspace flows from either the controller or an utility like
418 ovs-ofctl. Open vSwitch database provides an option to solve this problem
419 through the other_config:flow-restore-wait column of the Open_vSwitch table.
420 Refer to the ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) manpage for details.
422 4. If the upgrade also involves upgrading the kernel module, the old kernel
423 module needs to be unloaded and the new kernel module should be loaded. This
424 means that the kernel network devices belonging to Open vSwitch is recreated
425 and the kernel flows are lost. The downtime of the traffic can be reduced
426 if the userspace daemons are restarted immediately and the userspace flows
427 are restored as soon as possible.
429 The ovs-ctl utility's "restart" function only restarts the userspace daemons,
430 makes sure that the 'ofport' values remain consistent across restarts, restores
431 userspace flows using the ovs-ofctl utility and also uses the
432 other_config:flow-restore-wait column to keep the traffic downtime to the
433 minimum. The ovs-ctl utility's "force-reload-kmod" function does all of the
434 above, but also replaces the old kernel module with the new one. Open vSwitch
435 startup scripts for Debian, XenServer and RHEL use ovs-ctl's functions and it
436 is recommended that these functions be used for other software platforms too.
441 This section describe Open vSwitch's built-in support for various test
442 suites. You must bootstrap, configure and build Open vSwitch (steps are
443 in "Building and Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD"
444 above) before you run the tests described here. You do not need to
445 install Open vSwitch or to build or load the kernel module to run
446 these test suites. You do not need supervisor privilege to run these
452 Open vSwitch includes a suite of self-tests. Before you submit patches
453 upstream, we advise that you run the tests and ensure that they pass.
454 If you add new features to Open vSwitch, then adding tests for those
455 features will ensure your features don't break as developers modify
456 other areas of Open vSwitch.
458 Refer to "Testsuites" above for prerequisites.
460 To run all the unit tests in Open vSwitch, one at a time:
462 This takes under 5 minutes on a modern desktop system.
464 To run all the unit tests in Open vSwitch, up to 8 in parallel:
465 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8`
466 This takes under a minute on a modern 4-core desktop system.
468 To see a list of all the available tests, run:
469 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=--list`
471 To run only a subset of tests, e.g. test 123 and tests 477 through 484:
472 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS='123 477-484'`
473 (Tests do not have inter-dependencies, so you may run any subset.)
475 To run tests matching a keyword, e.g. "ovsdb":
476 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS='-k ovsdb'`
478 To see a complete list of test options:
479 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=--help`
481 The results of a testing run are reported in tests/testsuite.log.
482 Please report test failures as bugs and include the testsuite.log in
485 If the build was configured with "--enable-coverage" and the "lcov"
486 utility is installed, you can run the testsuite and generate a code
487 coverage report by using "make check-lcov". All of the options for
488 TESTSUITEFLAGS are available, so you can e.g.:
489 `make check-lcov TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8 -k ovn`
491 If you have "valgrind" installed, then you can also run the testsuite
492 under valgrind by using "make check-valgrind" in place of "make
493 check". All the same options are available via TESTSUITEFLAGS. When
494 you do this, the "valgrind" results for test `<N>` are reported in files
495 named `tests/testsuite.dir/<N>/valgrind.*`. You may find that the
496 valgrind results are easier to interpret if you put "-q" in
497 ~/.valgrindrc, since that reduces the amount of output.
499 Sometimes a few tests may fail on some runs but not others. This is
500 usually a bug in the testsuite, not a bug in Open vSwitch itself. If
501 you find that a test fails intermittently, please report it, since the
502 developers may not have noticed. You can make the testsuite
503 automatically rerun tests that fail, by adding RECHECK=yes to the
504 "make" command line, e.g.:
505 `make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=-j8 RECHECK=yes`
510 OFTest is an OpenFlow protocol testing suite. Open vSwitch includes a
511 Makefile target to run OFTest with Open vSwitch in "dummy mode". In
512 this mode of testing, no packets travel across physical or virtual
513 networks. Instead, Unix domain sockets stand in as simulated
514 networks. This simulation is imperfect, but it is much easier to set
515 up, does not require extra physical or virtual hardware, and does not
516 require supervisor privileges.
518 To run OFTest with Open vSwitch, first read and follow the
519 instructions under "Testsuites" above. Second, obtain a copy of
520 OFTest and install its prerequisites. You need a copy of OFTest that
521 includes commit 406614846c5 (make ovs-dummy platform work again).
522 This commit was merged into the OFTest repository on Feb 1, 2013, so
523 any copy of OFTest more recent than that should work. Testing OVS in
524 dummy mode does not require root privilege, so you may ignore that
527 Optionally, add the top-level OFTest directory (containing the "oft"
528 program) to your $PATH. This slightly simplifies running OFTest later.
530 To run OFTest in dummy mode, run the following command from your Open
531 vSwitch build directory:
532 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary>`
533 where `<oft-binary>` is the absolute path to the "oft" program in
536 If you added "oft" to your $PATH, you may omit the OFT variable
539 By default, "check-oftest" passes "oft" just enough options to enable
540 dummy mode. You can use OFTFLAGS to pass additional options. For
541 example, to run just the basic.Echo test instead of all tests (the
542 default) and enable verbose logging:
543 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary> OFTFLAGS='--verbose -T basic.Echo'`
545 If you use OFTest that does not include commit 4d1f3eb2c792 (oft:
546 change default port to 6653), merged into the OFTest repository in
547 October 2013, then you need to add an option to use the IETF-assigned
549 `make check-oftest OFT=<oft-binary> OFTFLAGS='--port=6653'`
551 Please interpret OFTest results cautiously. Open vSwitch can fail a
552 given test in OFTest for many reasons, including bugs in Open vSwitch,
553 bugs in OFTest, bugs in the "dummy mode" integration, and differing
554 interpretations of the OpenFlow standard and other standards.
556 Open vSwitch has not been validated against OFTest. Please do report
557 test failures that you believe to represent bugs in Open vSwitch.
558 Include the precise versions of Open vSwitch and OFTest in your bug
559 report, plus any other information needed to reproduce the problem.
564 Ryu is an OpenFlow controller written in Python that includes an
565 extensive OpenFlow testsuite. Open vSwitch includes a Makefile target
566 to run Ryu in "dummy mode". See "OFTest" above for an explanation of
569 To run Ryu tests with Open vSwitch, first read and follow the
570 instructions under "Testsuites" above. Second, obtain a copy of Ryu,
571 install its prerequisites, and build it. You do not need to install
572 Ryu (some of the tests do not get installed, so it does not help).
574 To run Ryu tests, run the following command from your Open vSwitch
576 `make check-ryu RYUDIR=<ryu-source-dir>`
577 where `<ryu-source-dir>` is the absolute path to the root of the Ryu
578 source distribution. The default `<ryu-source-dir>` is `$srcdir/../ryu`
579 where $srcdir is your Open vSwitch source directory, so if this
580 default is correct then you make simply run `make check-ryu`.
582 Open vSwitch has not been validated against Ryu. Please do report
583 test failures that you believe to represent bugs in Open vSwitch.
584 Include the precise versions of Open vSwitch and Ryu in your bug
585 report, plus any other information needed to reproduce the problem.
590 Requires: Vagrant (version 1.7.0 or later) and a compatible hypervisor
592 You must bootstrap and configure the sources (steps are in "Building
593 and Installing Open vSwitch for Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD" above) before
594 you run the steps described here.
596 A Vagrantfile is provided allowing to compile and provision the source
597 tree as found locally in a virtual machine using the following commands:
602 This will bring up w Fedora 20 VM by default, alternatively the
603 `Vagrantfile` can be modified to use a different distribution box as
604 base. Also, the VM can be reprovisioned at any time:
608 OVS out-of-tree compilation environment can be set up with:
611 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,build_ovs
613 This will set up an out-of-tree build environment in /home/vagrant/build.
614 The source code can be found in /vagrant. Out-of-tree build is preferred
615 to work around limitations of the sync file systems.
617 To recompile and reinstall OVS using RPM:
620 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,install_rpm
622 Two provisioners are included to run system tests with the OVS kernel
623 module or with a userspace datapath. This tests are different from
624 the self-tests mentioned above. To run them:
627 vagrant provision --provision-with configure_ovs,test_ovs_kmod,test_ovs_system_userspace
629 Continuous Integration with Travis-CI
630 -------------------------------------
632 A .travis.yml file is provided to automatically build Open vSwitch with
633 various build configurations and run the testsuite using travis-ci.
634 Builds will be performed with gcc, sparse and clang with the -Werror
635 compiler flag included, therefore the build will fail if a new warning
638 The CI build is triggered via git push (regardless of the specific
639 branch) or pull request against any Open vSwitch GitHub repository that
640 is linked to travis-ci.
642 Instructions to setup travis-ci for your GitHub repository:
644 1. Go to http://travis-ci.org/ and sign in using your GitHub ID.
645 2. Go to the "Repositories" tab and enable the ovs repository. You
646 may disable builds for pushes or pull requests.
647 3. In order to avoid forks sending build failures to the upstream
648 mailing list, the notification email recipient is encrypted. If you
649 want to receive email notification for build failures, replace the
650 the encrypted string:
651 3.1) Install the travis-ci CLI (Requires ruby >=2.0):
653 3.2) In your Open vSwitch repository:
654 travis encrypt mylist@mydomain.org
655 3.3) Add/replace the notifications section in .travis.yml and fill
656 in the secure string as returned by travis encrypt:
663 (You may remove/omit the notifications section to fall back to
664 default notification behaviour which is to send an email directly
665 to the author and committer of the failing commit. Note that the
666 email is only sent if the author/committer have commit rights for
667 the particular GitHub repository).
669 4. Pushing a commit to the repository which breaks the build or the
670 testsuite will now trigger a email sent to mylist@mydomain.org
675 Please report problems to bugs@openvswitch.org.
677 [README.md]:README.md
678 [INSTALL.Debian.md]:INSTALL.Debian.md
679 [INSTALL.Fedora.md]:INSTALL.Fedora.md
680 [INSTALL.RHEL.md]:INSTALL.RHEL.md
681 [INSTALL.XenServer.md]:INSTALL.XenServer.md
682 [INSTALL.NetBSD.md]:INSTALL.NetBSD.md
683 [INSTALL.DPDK.md]:INSTALL.DPDK.md
684 [INSTALL.userspace.md]:INSTALL.userspace.md