ovn-ic-nbctl(8)

📦
version 26.09.0 · 16 versions
, in fedora 44

✨ ovn-ic-nbctl — the Open Virtual Network interconnection northbound db management utility ✨

ok bestie, so this is ovn-ic-nbctl, and it lives in section 8 of the OVN Manual. It's the whole entire vibe for managing the OVN interconnection northbound database. Let's get into it 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ovn-ic-nbctl [options] command [arg...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

This utility can be used to manage the OVN interconnection northbound database. That's it, that's the whole job, and it ate 💖

⭐ GENERAL COMMANDS ⭐

  • init — Initializes the database, if it is empty. If the database has already been initialized, this command has no effect. It's giving "if you know you know, otherwise we're not touching it."
  • show — Prints a brief overview of the database contents. A little vibe check on the whole db, if you will.

🚌 TRANSIT SWITCH COMMANDS 🚌

  • [--may-exist] ts-add switch — Creates a new transit switch named switch.

Transit switch names must be unique. Adding a duplicated name results in error. With --may-exist, adding a duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new transit switch. So like, it's fine, nothing new happens, no drama, no new switch. 🫶

  • [--if-exists] ts-del switch — Deletes switch. It is an error if switch does not exist, unless --if-exists is specified. 😭
  • ts-list — Lists all existing switches on standard output, one per line. So satisfying to read ngl 🍓
  • [--may-exist] tsp-add switch port [column[:key] =value]... — Creates a new transit switch port named port on switch.

Transit switch port names must be unique. Adding a duplicated name results in error. With --may-exist, adding a duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new transit switch port.

  • [--if-exists] tsp-del port — Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist, unless --if-exists is specified.
  • tsp-set-addr port [address]... — Sets the addresses associated with port to address. Each address should be one of the following:
    • an Ethernet address, optionally followed by a space and one or more IP addresses
      • OVN delivers packets for the Ethernet address to this port.
    • router — Accepted only when the type of the transit switch port is router. This indicates that the Ethernet, IPv4, and IPv6 addresses for this transit switch port should be obtained from the connected logical router port, as specified by peer peer column.

Multiple addresses may be set. If no address argument is given, port will have no addresses associated with it. Clean slate, iconic behavior ✨

💾 DATABASE COMMANDS 💾

These commands query and modify the contents of ovsdb tables. They are a slight abstraction of the ovsdb interface and as such they operate at a lower level than other ovn-ic-nbctl commands. So like, we're going deep. Bring snacks. 🎀

🔍 Identifying Tables, Records, and Columns

Each of these commands has a table parameter to identify a table within the database. Many of them also take a record parameter that identifies a particular record within a table. The record parameter may be the UUID for a record, which may be abbreviated to its first 4 (or more) hex digits, as long as that is unique. Many tables offer additional ways to identify records. Some commands also take column parameters that identify a particular field within the records in a table.

For a list of tables and their columns, see ovn-ic-nb(5) or see the table listing from the --help option.

Record names must be specified in full and with correct capitalization, except that UUIDs may be abbreviated to their first 4 (or more) hex digits, as long as that is unique within the table. Names of tables and columns are not case-sensitive, and - and _ are treated interchangeably. Unique abbreviations of table and column names are acceptable, e.g. t or transit is sufficient to identify the Transit_Switch table. Short king behavior, we love to see it 👑

🧁 Database Values

Each column in the database accepts a fixed type of data. The currently defined basic types, and their representations, are:

  • integer — A decimal integer in the range -2**63 to 2**63-1, inclusive.
  • real — A floating-point number.
  • Boolean — True or false, written true or false, respectively.
  • string — An arbitrary Unicode string, except that null bytes are not allowed. Quotes are optional for most strings that begin with an English letter or underscore and consist only of letters, underscores, hyphens, and periods. However, true and false and strings that match the syntax of UUIDs (see below) must be enclosed in double quotes to distinguish them from other basic types. When double quotes are used, the syntax is that of strings in JSON, e.g. backslashes may be used to escape special characters. The empty string must be represented as a pair of double quotes ("").
  • UUID — Either a universally unique identifier in the style of RFC 4122, e.g. f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6, or an @name defined by a get or create command within the same ovs-vsctl invocation.

Multiple values in a single column may be separated by spaces or a single comma. When multiple values are present, duplicates are not allowed, and order is not important. Conversely, some database columns can have an empty set of values, represented as [], and square brackets may optionally enclose other non-empty sets or single values as well.

A few database columns are ``maps'' of key-value pairs, where the key and the value are each some fixed database type. These are specified in the form key=value, where key and value follow the syntax for the column's key type and value type, respectively. When multiple pairs are present (separated by spaces or a comma), duplicate keys are not allowed, and again the order is not important. Duplicate values are allowed. An empty map is represented as {}. Curly braces may optionally enclose non-empty maps as well (but use quotes to prevent the shell from expanding other-config={0=x,1=y} into other-config=0=x other-config=1=y, which may not have the desired effect). Shell expansion is not your friend here bestie, wrap it in quotes 💀

⌨️ Database Command Syntax

  • [--if-exists] [--columns=column[,column]...] list table [record]... — Lists the data in each specified record. If no records are specified, lists all the records in table.

If --columns is specified, only the requested columns are listed, in the specified order. Otherwise, all columns are listed, in alphabetical order by column name.

Without --if-exists, it is an error if any specified record does not exist. With --if-exists, the command ignores any record that does not exist, without producing any output. Silence. Peace. 🧚

  • [--columns=column[,column]...] find table [column[:key]=value]... — Lists the data in each record in table whose column equals value or, if key is specified, whose column contains a key with the specified value. The following operators may be used where = is written in the syntax summary:
    • = != < > <= >= — Selects records in which column[:key] equals, does not equal, is less than, is greater than, is less than or equal to, or is greater than or equal to value, respectively.

Consider column[:key] and value as sets of elements. Identical sets are considered equal. Otherwise, if the sets have different numbers of elements, then the set with more elements is considered to be larger. Otherwise, consider a element from each set pairwise, in increasing order within each set. The first pair that differs determines the result. (For a column that contains key-value pairs, first all the keys are compared, and values are considered only if the two sets contain identical keys.)

  • {=} {!=} — Test for set equality or inequality, respectively.
  • {<=} — Selects records in which column[:key] is a subset of value. For example, flood-vlans{<=}1,2 selects records in which the flood-vlans column is the empty set or contains 1 or 2 or both.
  • {<} — Selects records in which column[:key] is a proper subset of value. For example, flood-vlans{<}1,2 selects records in which the flood-vlans column is the empty set or contains 1 or 2 but not both.
  • {>=} {>} — Same as {<=} and {<}, respectively, except that the relationship is reversed. For example, flood-vlans{>=}1,2 selects records in which the flood-vlans column contains both 1 and 2.

The following operators are available only in Open vSwitch 2.16 and later:

  • {in} — Selects records in which every element in column[:key] is also in value. (This is the same as {<=}.)
  • {not-in} — Selects records in which every element in column[:key] is not in value.

For arithmetic operators (= != < > <= >=), when key is specified but a particular record's column does not contain key, the record is always omitted from the results. Thus, the condition other-config:mtu!=1500 matches records that have a mtu key whose value is not 1500, but not those that lack an mtu key.

For the set operators, when key is specified but a particular record's column does not contain key, the comparison is done against an empty set. Thus, the condition other-config:mtu{!=}1500 matches records that have a mtu key whose value is not 1500 and those that lack an mtu key.

Don't forget to escape < or > from interpretation by the shell. Your shell will absolutely try something if you don't 🫠

If --columns is specified, only the requested columns are listed, in the specified order. Otherwise all columns are listed, in alphabetical order by column name.

The UUIDs shown for rows created in the same ovs-vsctl invocation will be wrong. Not a drill, bestie, don't trust those UUIDs 💀

  • [--if-exists] [--id=@name] get table record [column[:key]]... — bestie, this one reads stuff. It prints the value of every column you list, in the record you picked, inside table. And if a column is a map? You can drop a key after it with : and it'll print just the value sitting at that key instead of the whole entire map. 💅

So like, no --if-exists? Then it's an error if record doesn't exist, or if you named a key and that key isn't in record. With --if-exists, a missing record gives you literally nothing back (no output, no drama) and a missing key just prints a blank line. 😌

Oh and if you pass @name, then that name becomes a whole nickname for the record's UUID, and you can refer to it later in the same ovs-vsctl invocation anywhere a UUID is expected. Iconic behavior honestly. ✨

Both --id and the column arguments are optional — but fr, usually you want at least one of them. If you omit both, get does absolutely nothing except verify that record exists in table. It's giving "I'm just here to vibe check." 🫶

Heads up: --id and --if-exists can NOT be used together. Periodt.
  • [--if-exists] set table record column[:key]=value... — the glow-up command 🎀. It sets the value of each column you name in that record in table to value. For map columns you can name a key and it'll change (or add, if there's nothing there yet) just the value at that key, instead of replacing the whole map.

No --if-exists? It's an error if record doesn't exist. With --if-exists, the command just does nothing when record doesn't exist. No fuss, no mess. 🌸

  • [--if-exists] add table record column [key=]value... — this one appends the value or key-value pair you give it to column in record in table. If column is a map, then key is required — and if column isn't a map, then key is straight up prohibited. 🚫

Big important thing: if key already exists in a map column, the current value is not replaced. That's what set is for, bestie. add is not a replacement girlie, it's an addition girlie. 💖

No --if-exists → error if record doesn't exist. With --if-exists → does nothing if record doesn't exist.

  • [--if-exists] remove table record column value...
  • [--if-exists] remove table record column key...
  • [--if-exists] remove table record column key=value... — the three flavors of removal 🦋. They remove the values or key-value pairs you specify from column in record in table.
    • The first form is for columns that are not maps: each value you list gets removed from the column.
    • The second and third forms are for map columns: if you only give a key, then any key-value pair with that key gets removed, no matter what its value is. If you give a value too, then a pair only gets removed if both the key and the value match. No cap. 🧚

And listen: it is not an error if the column doesn't contain the key, value, or pair you asked to remove. It's just like, okay, nothing to do, moving on. 😌

No --if-exists → error if record doesn't exist. With --if-exists → does nothing if record doesn't exist.

  • [--if-exists] clear table record column... — clears each column in record in table to the empty set or empty map, whichever is appropriate. ⭐
Important: this command applies only to columns that are allowed to be empty. Don't try it on the ones that aren't.

No --if-exists → error if record doesn't exist. With --if-exists → does nothing if record doesn't exist.

  • [--id=(@name|uuid)] create table column[:key]=value... — creating a whole new record, main character energy 👑. It makes a new record in table and sets the initial values of each column. Any column you don't explicitly set just receives its default value. And then it outputs the UUID of the brand new row. 💫

If you specify @name, then the new row's UUID can be referred to by that name anywhere else in the same ovn-ic-nbctl invocation where a UUID is expected. And plot twist: those references can come before or after the create command. Time is fake. ⏳

If you hand it a valid uuid, then that uuid is used as the UUID of the new row.

Caution (ovs-vsctl as example): Records in the Open vSwitch database are significant only when they can be reached directly or indirectly from the Open_vSwitch table. Except for records in the QoS or Queue tables, records that are not reachable from the Open_vSwitch table are automatically deleted from the database. 😭 This deletion happens immediately, without waiting for additional ovs-vsctl commands or other database activity. So a create command must generally be accompanied by additional commands within the same ovs-vsctl invocation to add a chain of references to the newly created record from the top-level Open_vSwitch record. The EXAMPLES section gives some examples that show how to do this.
  • [--if-exists] destroy table record... — deletes each specified record from table. Unless --if-exists is specified, each record must exist. 💀
  • --all destroy table — nukes all records from the table. Everything. Gone. 🌈
Caution (ovs-vsctl as example): The destroy command is only useful for records in the QoS or Queue tables. Records in other tables are automatically deleted from the database when they become unreachable from the Open_vSwitch table. This means that deleting the last reference to a record is sufficient for deleting the record itself. For records in these tables, destroy is silently ignored. See the EXAMPLES section below for more information.
  • wait-until table record [column[:key]=value]... — the "bestie I'll wait, you go ahead" command 🫶. It waits until table contains a record named record whose column equals value, or — if you specified key — whose column contains a key with that specified value. This command supports the same operators and semantics described for the find command above. So like, same rules, different day. ✨

If you give it zero column[:key]=value arguments, it just waits until record exists, that's it. If you give it more than one, it waits until all of them are satisfied. It's an all-or-nothing girlie. 💅

Caution (ovs-vsctl as example): Usually wait-until should be placed at the beginning of a set of ovs-vsctl commands. For example, wait-until bridge br0 -- get bridge br0 datapath_id waits until a bridge named br0 is created, then prints its datapath_id column — whereas get bridge br0 datapath_id -- wait-until bridge br0 will abort if no bridge named br0 exists when ovs-vsctl initially connects to the database. Order matters, bestie. 😭

Also consider specifying --timeout=0 along with --wait-until, to prevent ovs-vsctl from terminating after waiting only at most 5 seconds. Clock's ticking. ⏰

  • comment [arg]... — this command has no effect on behavior whatsoever, but any database log record created by the command will include the command and its arguments. It's basically a little note-to-self in the logs. 🎀

🔌 REMOTE CONNECTIVITY COMMANDS

  • get-connection — prints the configured connection(s). Simple as that. 💖
  • del-connection — deletes the configured connection(s). Bye bye. 👋
  • [--inactivity-probe=msecs] set-connection target... — sets the configured manager target or targets. Use --inactivity-probe=msecs to override the default idle connection inactivity probe time. And use 0 to disable inactivity probes entirely. 🦋

🔐 SSL/TLS CONFIGURATION COMMANDS

  • get-ssl — prints the SSL/TLS configuration. ✨
  • del-ssl — deletes the current SSL/TLS configuration. 🌸
  • [--bootstrap] set-ssl private-key certificate ca-cert [ssl-protocol-list [ssl-cipher-list [ssl-ciphersuites]]] — sets the SSL/TLS configuration. All those nested optional bits are exactly as written, bestie — nest responsibly. 💅

🔄 SYNCHRONIZATION COMMANDS

  • sync — okay so ordinarily, --wait=sb only waits for changes made by the current ovn-ic-nbctl invocation to take effect. Which means if none of the commands you handed to ovn-ic-nbctl actually change the database, then the command doesn't wait at all. Zero patience. 😴

With the sync command, though? ovn-ic-nbctl waits even for earlier changes to the database to propagate down to the southbound database, according to the argument of --wait. So it's giving "I'll wait for the whole timeline to catch up." ⏳✨

✨ OPTIONS ✨

Okay bestie, this is the part where you get to tell ovn-ic-nbctl how to behave. Buckle up. 🎀

  • --no-wait, --wait=none, --wait=sb — these three control whether and how ovn-ic-nbctl waits for the OVN system to become up-to-date with the changes you just made in an ovn-ic-nbctl invocation. 💅

By default, or if you pass --no-wait or --wait=none, ovn-ic-nbctl dips immediately after confirming that changes have been committed to the Interconnect northbound database — no waiting, no lingering, she's got places to be. ✨

With --wait=sb, before ovn-ic-nbctl exits, it waits for ovn-ics to bring the Interconnect southbound database up-to-date with the Interconnect northbound database updates. patient queen behavior.

Ordinarily, --wait=sb only waits for changes by the current ovn-ic-nbctl invocation to take effect. Which means — plot twist 😭 — if none of the commands you handed to ovn-ic-nbctl actually change the database, then the command doesn't wait at all. Zero. Nada. Use the sync command to override this behavior. 🫶

  • --db database — the OVSDB database remote to contact. If the OVN_IC_NB_DB environment variable is set, its value is used as the default. Otherwise, the default is unix:/ovn_ic_nb_db.sock — but lowkey, that default is unlikely to be useful outside of single-machine OVN test environments. 🧚
  • --leader-only, --no-leader-only — by default, or with --leader-only, when the database server is a clustered database, ovn-ic-nbctl will avoid servers other than the cluster leader. This ensures that any data that ovn-ic-nbctl reads and reports is up-to-date. fresh data only, no cap. With --no-leader-only, ovn-ic-nbctl will use any server in the cluster, which means that for read-only transactions it can report and act on stale data (transactions that modify the database are always serialized even with --no-leader-only). Refer to Understanding Cluster Consistency in ovsdb(7) for more information. 👑

🌸 LOGGING OPTIONS 🌸

This is where you decide how chatty she gets. vibe check your verbosity.

  • -v[spec], --verbose=[spec] — sets logging levels. Without any spec, sets the log level for every module and destination to dbg. Otherwise, spec is a list of words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from each category below:
    • A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list command on ovs-appctl(8), limits the log level change to the specified module.
    • syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change to only to the system log, to the console, or to a file, respectively. (If --detach is specified, the daemon closes its standard file descriptors, so logging to the console will have no effect. 💀)
    • off, emer, err, warn, info, or dbg, to control the log level. Messages of the given severity or higher will be logged, and messages of lower severity will be filtered out. off filters out all messages. See ovs-appctl(8) for a definition of each log level.

Case is not significant within spec.

Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file will not take place unless --log-file is also specified (see below). 🎀

For compatibility with older versions of OVS, any is accepted as a word but has no effect.

  • -v, --verbose — sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --verbose=dbg. maximum chaos, slay.
  • -vPATTERN:destination:pattern, --verbose=PATTERN:destination:pattern — sets the log pattern for destination to pattern. Refer to ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern. ✨
  • -vFACILITY:facility, --verbose=FACILITY:facility — sets the RFC5424 facility of the log message. facility can be one of kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, clock, ftp, ntp, audit, alert, clock2, local0, local1, local2, local3, local4, local5, local6 or local7. If this option is not specified, daemon is used as the default for the local system syslog and local0 is used while sending a message to the target provided via the --syslog-target option. 💖
  • --log-file[=file] — enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it is used as the exact name for the log file. The default log file name used if file is omitted is /var/log/ovn/program.log. 📝
  • --syslog-target=host:port — send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the system syslog. The host must be a numerical IP address, not a hostname. 🚫 no hostnames bestie, numbers only.
  • --syslog-method=method — specify method as how syslog messages should be sent to syslog daemon. The following forms are supported:
    • libc, to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of using this options is that libc adds a fixed prefix to every message before it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over /dev/log UNIX domain socket. 🙈
    • unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is possible to specify arbitrary message format with this option. However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use a hard coded parser function anyway that limits UNIX domain socket use. If you want to use arbitrary message format with older rsyslogd versions, then use a UDP socket to localhost IP address instead. 🔥
    • udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this method it is possible to use arbitrary message format also with older rsyslogd. When sending syslog messages over UDP socket, extra precaution needs to be taken into account — for example, syslog daemon needs to be configured to listen on the specified UDP port, accidental iptables rules could be interfering with local syslog traffic, and there are some security considerations that apply to UDP sockets, but do not apply to UNIX domain sockets. ⚠️
    • null, to discard all messages logged to syslog. 🗑️

The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment variable; if it is unset, the default is libc. 🌈

🎀 TABLE FORMATTING OPTIONS 🎀

These options control the format of output from the list and find commands. Yes bestie, your tables can be cute or machine-readable, you choose 💅

  • -f format, --format=format — Sets the type of table formatting. The following types of format are available:
    • table — 2-D text tables with aligned columns.
    • list (default) — A list with one column per line and rows separated by a blank line.
    • html — HTML tables.
    • csv — Comma-separated values as defined in RFC 4180.
    • json — JSON format as defined in RFC 4627. The output is a sequence of JSON objects, each of which corresponds to one table. Each JSON object has the following members with the noted values:
      • caption — The table's caption. This member is omitted if the table has no caption.
      • headings — An array with one element per table column. Each array element is a string giving the corresponding column's heading.
      • data — An array with one element per table row. Each element is also an array with one element per table column. The elements of this second-level array are the cells that constitute the table. Cells that represent OVSDB data or data types are expressed in the format described in the OVSDB specification; other cells are simply expressed as text strings.
  • -d format, --data=format — Sets the formatting for cells within output tables unless the table format is set to json, in which case json formatting is always used when formatting cells. The following types of format are available:
    • string (default) — The simple format described in the Database Values section of ovs-vsctl(8).
    • bare — The simple format with punctuation stripped off: [] and {} are omitted around sets, maps, and empty columns, items within sets and maps are space-separated, and strings are never quoted. This format may be easier for scripts to parse.
    • json — The RFC 4627 JSON format as described above.
  • --no-headings — This option suppresses the heading row that otherwise appears in the first row of table output. bye bye header row 🫶
  • --pretty — By default, JSON in output is printed as compactly as possible. This option causes JSON in output to be printed in a more readable fashion. Members of objects and elements of arrays are printed one per line, with indentation.
Real talk: this option does not affect JSON in tables, which is always printed compactly. She's got her own rules, periodt ✨
  • --bare — Equivalent to --format=list --data=bare --no-headings.

🔐 PKI Options 🔐

PKI configuration is required to use SSL/TLS for the connection to the database. No certs, no secure vibes, bestie 😭

  • -p privkey.pem, --private-key=privkey.pem — Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as identity for outgoing SSL/TLS connections.
  • -c cert.pem, --certificate=cert.pem — Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certifies the private key specified on -p or --private-key to be trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certificate authority (CA) that the peer in SSL/TLS connections will use to verify it.
  • -C cacert.pem, --ca-cert=cacert.pem — Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate for verifying certificates presented to this program by SSL/TLS peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL/TLS peers use to verify the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or it may be a different one, depending on the PKI design in use.)
  • -C none, --ca-cert=none — Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL/TLS peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means that certificates cannot be verified to be those of known trusted hosts. Do not do this casually bestie, I'm begging 🙈
  • --ssl-server-name=servername — Specifies the server name to use for TLS Server Name Indication (SNI). By default, the hostname from the connection string is used for SNI. This option allows overriding the SNI hostname, which is useful when connecting through proxies or service meshes where the connection endpoint differs from the intended server name.
  • --bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem — When cacert.pem exists, this option has the same effect as -C or --ca-cert. If it does not exist, then the executable will attempt to obtain the CA certificate from the SSL/TLS peer on its first SSL/TLS connection and save it to the named PEM file. If it is successful, it will immediately drop the connection and reconnect, and from then on all SSL/TLS connections must be authenticated by a certificate signed by the CA certificate thus obtained.
Warning: this option exposes the SSL/TLS connection to a man-in-the-middle attack obtaining the initial CA certificate, but it may be useful for bootstrapping.

This option is only useful if the SSL/TLS peer sends its CA certificate as part of the SSL/TLS certificate chain. SSL/TLS protocols do not require the server to send the CA certificate.

This option is mutually exclusive with -C and --ca-cert. Pick one, you cannot have both 🚫

✨ Other Options ✨

  • -h, --help — Prints a brief help message to the console.
  • -V, --version — Prints version information to the console.

And that's the whole page, bestie!! 🦋 You just read an entire manual page and honestly? main character energy 👑 Go forth and configure OVN with confidence, iykyk 💖

This icon of a page comes to you from OVN 26.09.1, filed under ovn-ic-nbctl in section ovn-ic-nbctl(8). Slay 💅🌸

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