.TH ovs\-vswitchd 8 "June 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
.ds PN ovs\-vswitchd
.
.SH NAME
ovs\-vswitchd \- Open vSwitch daemon
.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ovs\-vswitchd
\fIconfig\fR
.
.SH DESCRIPTION
A daemon that manages and controls any number of Open vSwitch switches 
on the local machine.
.PP
The mandatory \fIconfig\fR argument specifies a configuration file.
For a description of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR configuration syntax, see
\fBovs\-vswitchd.conf\fR(5).
.PP
At startup or upon receipt of a \fBSIGHUP\fR signal, \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
reads the configuration file.  It sets up Open vSwitch datapaths and then 
operates switching across each bridge described in its configuration 
files.  If a logfile was specified on the command line it will also 
be opened or reopened.
.PP
\fBovs\-vswitchd\fR switches may be configured with any of the following 
features:
.
.IP \(bu
L2 switching with MAC learning.
.
.IP \(bu
NIC bonding with automatic fail-over and source MAC-based TX load
balancing ("SLB").
.
.IP \(bu
802.1Q VLAN support.
.
.IP \(bu
Port mirroring, with optional VLAN tagging.
.
.IP \(bu
NetFlow v5 flow logging.
.
.IP \(bu
Connectivity to an external OpenFlow controller, such as NOX.
.
.PP
Only a single instance of \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is intended to run at a time.
A single \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR can manage any number of switch instances, up
to the maximum number of supported Open vSwitch datapaths.
.PP
\fBovs\-vswitchd\fR does all the necessary management of Open vSwitch datapaths
itself.  Thus, external tools, such \fBovs\-dpctl\fR(8), are not needed for
managing datapaths in conjunction with \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR, and their use
to modify datapaths when \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR is running can interfere with
its operation.  (\fBovs\-dpctl\fR may still be useful for diagnostics.)
.PP
An Open vSwitch datapath kernel module must be loaded for \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR
to be useful.  Please refer to the \fBINSTALL\fR file included in the
Open vSwitch distribution for instructions on how to build and load
the Open vSwitch kernel module.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.IP "\fB--fake-proc-net\fR"
Causes \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR to simulate some files in \fB/proc/net/vlan\fR
and \fB/proc/net/bonding\fR that some legacy software expects to
exist.  This option should only be used if such legacy software is
actually in use.  It requires the \fBbrcompat_mod.ko\fR kernel module
to be loaded.
.
.so lib/daemon.man
.so lib/vlog.man
.so lib/common.man
.so lib/leak-checker.man
.
.SH "BUGS"
.
Only Open vSwitch kernel-based datapaths are currently supported.  In the
future, this restriction may be lifted.
.PP
Only Linux 2.6.\fIx\fR is currently supported.
.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR ovs\-appctl (8),
.BR ovs\-vswitchd.conf (5),
.BR ovs\-brcompatd (8),
\fBINSTALL\fR in the Open vSwitch distribution.