ovsdb-server(1)

NAME
ovsdb-server - Open vSwitch database server

SYNOPSIS
ovsdb-server [database]... [--remote=remote]... [--run=command]

Daemon options:
    [--pidfile[=pidfile]] [--overwrite-pidfile] [--detach] [--no-chdir] [--no-self-confinement]

Service options:
    [--service] [--service-monitor]

Logging options:
    [-v[module[:destination[:level]]]]...
    [--verbose[=module[:destination[:level]]]]...
    [--log-file[=file]]

Syncing options:
    [--sync-from=server]

Public key infrastructure options:
    [--private-key=privkey.pem]
    [--certificate=cert.pem]
    [--ca-cert=cacert.pem]
    [--bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem]
    [--peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem]

SSL connection options:
    [--ssl-protocols=protocols]
    [--ssl-ciphers=ciphers]

Runtime management options:
    --unixctl=socket

Common options:
    [-h | --help] [-V | --version]

DESCRIPTION
The ovsdb-server program provides RPC interfaces to one or more Open vSwitch databases (OVSDBs). It supports JSON-RPC client connections over active or passive TCP/IP or Unix domain sockets.

Each OVSDB file may be specified on the command line as database. If none is specified, the default is /etc/openvswitch/conf.db. The database files must already have been created and initialized using, for example, ovsdb-tool create.

ACTIVE and BACKUP
ovsdb-server runs either as a backup server, or as an active server. When ovsdb-server is running as a backup server, all transactions that can modify the database content, including the lock commands are rejected. Active server, on the other hand, accepts all ovsdb server transactions. When ovsdb-server role changes, all existing client connection are reset, requiring clients to reconnect to the server.

By default, ovsdb-server runs as an active server, except when the --sync-from=server command line option is specified and without the --active option. During runtime, ovsdb-server role can be switch by using appctl commands.

ovsdb-server/connect-active-ovsdb-server switches ovsdb-server into a backup server, Conversely, ovsdb-server/disconnect-active-ovsdb-server switches server into an active one.

OPTIONS

--remote=remote
    Adds remote as a connection method used by ovsdb-server. remote must take one of the following forms:

    pssl:port[:ip]
        Listen on the given SSL or TCP port for a connection. By default, connections are not bound to a particular local IP address and it listens only on IPv4 (but not IPv6) addresses, but specifying ip limits connections to those from the given ip, either IPv4 or IPv6 address. If ip is an IPv6 address, then wrap ip with square brackets, e.g.: pssl:6640:[::1]. On Linux, use %device to designate a scope for IPv6 link-level addresses, e.g. pssl:6653:[fe80::1234%eth0]. For pssl, the --private-key, --certificate, and --ca-cert options are mandatory.

    punix:file
        On POSIX, listen on the Unix domain server socket named file for a connection.

        On Windows, listen on a local named pipe. A file is created in the path file to mimic the behavior of a Unix domain socket.

    ssl:ip:port
        The given SSL or plain TCP port on the host at the given ip, which must be expressed as an IP address (not a DNS name) in IPv4 or IPv6 address format. If ip is an IPv6 address, then wrap ip with square brackets, e.g.: ssl:[::1]:6640. On Linux, use %device to designate a scope for IPv6 link-level addresses, e.g. ssl:[fe80::1234%eth0]:6653. For ssl, the --private-key, --certificate, and --ca-cert options are mandatory.

    unix:file
        On POSIX, connect to the Unix domain server socket named file.

        On Windows, connect to a local named pipe that is represented by a file created in the path file to mimic the behavior of a Unix domain socket.

    db:db,table,column
        Reads additional connection methods from column in all of the rows in table within db. As the contents of column changes, ovsdb-server also adds and drops connection methods accordingly.

        If column's type is string or set of strings, then the connection methods are taken directly from the column. The connection methods in the column must have one of the forms described above.

        If column's type is UUID or set of UUIDs and references a table, then each UUID is looked up in the referenced table to obtain a row. The following columns in the row, if present and of the correct type, configure a connection method. Any additional columns are ignored.

        target (string)
            Connection method, in one of the forms described above. This column is mandatory: if it is missing or empty then no connection method can be configured.

        max_backoff (integer)
            Maximum number of milliseconds to wait between connection attempts.

        inactivity_probe (integer)
            Maximum number of milliseconds of idle time on connection to client before sending an inactivity probe message.

        read_only (boolean)
            If true, only read-only transactions are allowed on this connection.

        It is an error for column to have another type.

    To connect or listen on multiple connection methods, use multiple --remote options.

--run=command]
    Ordinarily ovsdb-server runs forever, or until it is told to exit (see RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS below). With this option, ovsdb-server instead starts a shell subprocess running command. When the subprocess terminates, ovsdb-server also exits gracefully. If the subprocess exits normally with exit code 0, then ovsdb-server exits with exit code 0 also; otherwise, it exits with exit code 1.

    This option can be useful where a database server is needed only to run a single command, e.g.: ovsdb-server --remote=punix:socket --run='ovsdb-client dump unix:socket Open_vSwitch'

    This option is not supported on Windows platform.

  Daemon Options

The following options are valid on POSIX based platforms.

--pidfile[=pidfile]
    Causes a file (by default, ovsdb-server.pid) to be created indicating the PID of the running process. If the pidfile argument is not specified, or if it does not begin with /, then it is created in /run/openvswitch.

    If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.

--overwrite-pidfile
    By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pidfile already exists and is locked by a running process, ovsdb-server refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to instead overwrite the pidfile.

    When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.

--detach
    Runs ovsdb-server as a background process. The process forks, and in the child it starts a new session, closes the standard file descriptors (which has the side effect of disabling logging to the console), and changes its current directory to the root (unless --no-chdir is specified). After the child completes its initialization, the parent exits. ovsdb-server detaches only after it starts listening on all configured remotes.

--monitor
    Creates an additional process to monitor the ovsdb-server daemon. If the daemon dies due to a signal that indicates a programming error (SIGABRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU, or SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon dies or exits for another reason, the monitor process exits.

    This option is normally used with --detach, but it also functions without it.

--no-chdir
    By default, when --detach is specified, ovsdb-server changes its current working directory to the root directory after it detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovsdb-server from a carelessly chosen directory would prevent the administrator from unmounting the file system that holds that directory.

    Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing ovsdb-server from changing its current working directory. This may be useful for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to write core dumps into the current working directory and the root directory is not a good directory to use.

    This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.

--no-self-confinement
    By default daemon will try to self-confine itself to work with files under well-know, at build-time whitelisted directories. It is better to stick with this default behavior and not to use this flag unless some other Access Control is used to confine daemon. Note that in contrast to other access control implementations that are typically enforced from kernel-space (e.g. DAC or MAC), self-confinement is imposed from the user-space daemon itself and hence should not be considered as a full confinement strategy, but instead should be viewed as an additional layer of security.

--user
    Causes ovsdb-server to run as a different user specified in "user:group", thus dropping most of the root privileges. Short forms "user" and ":group" are also allowed, with current user or group are assumed respectively. Only daemons started by the root user accepts this argument.

    On Linux, daemons will be granted CAP_IPC_LOCK and CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICES before dropping root privileges. Daemons that interact with a datapath, such as ovs-vswitchd, will be granted two additional capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN and CAP_NET_RAW. The capability change will apply even if new user is "root".

    On Windows, this option is not currently supported. For security reasons, specifying this option will cause the daemon process not to start.

  Service Options
The following options are valid only on Windows platform.

--service
    Causes ovsdb-server to run as a service in the background. The service should already have been created through external tools like SC.exe.

--service-monitor
    Causes the ovsdb-server service to be automatically restarted by the Windows services manager if the service dies or exits for unexpected reasons.

    When --service is not specified, this option has no effect.

  Logging Options

-v[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, ovsdb-server closes its standard file descriptors, so logging to the console will have no effect.)

        On Windows platform, syslog is accepted as a word and is only useful along with the --syslog-target option (the word has no effect otherwise).

    •   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  Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --verbose=dbg.

-vPATTERN: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
    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/openvswitch/ovsdb-server.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.

--syslog-method=method
    Specify method how syslog messages should be sent to syslog daemon. Following forms are supported:

    •   libc, use libc syslog() function. This is the default behavior. Downside of using this options is that libc adds fixed prefix to every message before it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over /dev/log UNIX domain socket.

    •   unix:file, use UNIX domain socket directly. It is possible to specify arbitrary message format with this option. However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use 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 UDP socket to localhost IP address instead.

    •   udp:ip:port, use 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.

  Syncing Options
The following options allow ovsdb-server to synchronize its databases with another running ovsdb-server.

--sync-from=server
    Sets up ovsdb-server to synchronize its databases with the databases in server, which must be an active connection method in one of the forms documented in ovsdb-client(1). Every transaction committed by server will be replicated to ovsdb-server. This option makes ovsdb-server start as a backup server; add --active to make it start as an active server.

--sync-exclude-tables=db:table[,db:table]...
    Causes the specified tables to be excluded from replication.

--active
    By default, --sync-from makes ovsdb-server start up as a backup for server. With --active, however, ovsdb-server starts as an active server. Use this option to allow the syncing options to be specified using command line options, yet start the server, as the default, active server. To switch the running server to backup mode, use ovs-appctl(1) to execute the ovsdb-server/connect-active-ovsdb-server command.

  Public Key Infrastructure Options
The options described below for configuring the SSL public key infrastructure accept a special syntax for obtaining their configuration from the database. If any of these options is given db:db,table,column as its argument, then the actual file name is read from the specified column in table within the db database. The column must have type string or set of strings. The first nonempty string in the table is taken as the file name. (This means that ordinarily there should be at most one row in table.)

-p privkey.pem
    Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as ovsdb-server's identity for outgoing SSL connections.

-c 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 connections will use to verify it.

-C cacert.pem
    Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate that ovsdb-server should use to verify certificates presented to it by SSL peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL 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
    Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means that certificates cannot be verified to be those of known trusted hosts.

--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 ovsdb-server will attempt to obtain the CA certificate from the SSL peer on its first SSL 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 connections must be authenticated by a certificate signed by the CA certificate thus obtained.

    This option exposes the SSL 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 peer sends its CA certificate as part of the SSL certificate chain. The SSL protocol does not require the server to send the CA certificate.

    This option is mutually exclusive with -C and --ca-cert.

--peer-ca-cert=peer-cacert.pem
    Specifies a PEM file that contains one or more additional certificates to send to SSL peers. peer-cacert.pem should be the CA certificate used to sign ovsdb-server's own certificate, that is, the certificate specified on -c or --certificate. If ovsdb-server's certificate is self-signed, then --certificate and --peer-ca-cert should specify the same file.

    This option is not useful in normal operation, because the SSL peer must already have the CA certificate for the peer to have any confidence in ovsdb-server's identity. However, this offers a way for a new installation to bootstrap the CA certificate on its first SSL connection.

  SSL Connection Options

--ssl-protocols=protocols
    Specifies, in a comma- or space-delimited list, the SSL protocols ovsdb-server will enable for SSL connections. Supported protocols include TLSv1, TLSv1.1, and TLSv1.2. Regardless of order, the highest protocol supported by both sides will be chosen when making the connection. The default when this option is omitted is TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2.

--ssl-ciphers=ciphers
    Specifies, in OpenSSL cipher string format, the ciphers ovsdb-server will support for SSL connections. The default when this option is omitted is HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5.

  Other Options

--unixctl=socket
    Sets the name of the control socket on which ovsdb-server listens for runtime management commands (see RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS, below). If socket does not begin with /, it is interpreted as relative to /run/openvswitch. If --unixctl is not used at all, the default socket is /run/openvswitch/ovsdb-server.pid.ctl, where pid is ovsdb-server's process ID.

    On Windows a local named pipe is used to listen for runtime management commands. A file is created in the absolute path as pointed by socket or if --unixctl is not used at all, a file is created as ovsdb-server.ctl in the configured OVS_RUNDIR directory. The file exists just to mimic the behavior of a Unix domain socket.

    Specifying none for socket disables the control socket feature.

-h  Prints a brief help message to the console.

-V  Prints version information to the console.

RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS
ovs-appctl(8) can send commands to a running ovsdb-server process. The currently supported commands are described below.

  OVSDB-SERVER COMMANDS
These commands are specific to ovsdb-server.

exit
    Causes ovsdb-server to gracefully terminate.

ovsdb-server/compact [db]...
    Compacts each database db in-place. If no db is specified, compacts every database in-place. A database is also compacted automatically when a transaction is logged if it is over 4 times as large as its previous compacted size (and at least 10 MB), but not before 100 commits have been added or 10 minutes have elapsed since the last compaction.

ovsdb-server/reconnect
    Makes ovsdb-server drop all of the JSON-RPC connections to database clients and reconnect.

    This command might be useful for debugging issues with database clients.

ovsdb-server/add-remote remote
    Adds a remote, as if --remote=remote had been specified on the ovsdb-server command line. (If remote is already a remote, this command succeeds without changing the configuration.)

ovsdb-server/remove-remote remote
    Removes the specified remote from the configuration, failing with an error if remote is not configured as a remote. This command only works with remotes that were named on --remote or ovsdb-server/add-remote, that is, it will not remove remotes added indirectly because they were read from the database by configuring a db:db,table,column remote. (You can remove a database source with ovsdb-server/remove-remote db:db,table,column, but not individual remotes found indirectly through the database.)

ovsdb-server/list-remotes
    Outputs a list of the currently configured remotes named on --remote or ovsdb-server/add-remote, that is, it does not list remotes added indirectly because they were read from the database by configuring a db:db,table,column remote.

ovsdb-server/add-db database
    Adds the database to the running ovsdb-server. The database file must already have been created and initialized using, for example, ovsdb-tool create.

ovsdb-server/remove-db database
    Removes database from the running ovsdb-server. database must be a database name as listed by ovsdb-server/list-dbs.

    If a remote has been configured that points to the specified database (e.g. --remote=db:database,... on the command line), then it will be disabled until another database with the same name is added again (with ovsdb-server/add-db).

    Any public key infrastructure options specified through this database (e.g. --private-key=db:database,... on the command line) will be disabled until another database with the same name is added again (with ovsdb-server/add-db).

ovsdb-server/list-dbs
    Outputs a list of the currently configured databases added either through the command line or through the ovsdb-server/add-db command.

ovsdb-server/set-active-ovsdb-server server
    Sets the active server from which ovsdb-server connects through ovsdb-server/connect-active-ovsdb-server.

ovsdb-server/get-active-ovsdb-server
    Gets the active server from which ovsdb-server is currently synchronizing its databases.

ovsdb-server/connect-active-ovsdb-server
    Causes ovsdb-server to synchronize its databases with the server specified by ovsdb-server/set-active-ovsdb-server.

ovsdb-server/disconnect-active-ovsdb-server
    Causes ovsdb-server to stop synchronizing its databases with a active server.

ovsdb-server/set-sync-exclude-tables db:table[,db:table]...
    Sets the table whitin db that will be excluded from synchronization.

ovsdb-server/get-sync-exclude-tables
    Gets the tables that are currently excluded from synchronization.

ovsdb-server/sync-status
    Prints a summary of replication run time information. The state information is always provided, indicating whether the server is running in the active or the backup mode. When running in backup mode, replication connection status, which can be either connecting, replicating or error, are shown. When the connection is in replicating state, further output shows the list of databases currently replicating, and the tables that are excluded.

  VLOG COMMANDS
These commands manage ovsdb-server's logging settings.

vlog/set [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.

        On Windows platform, syslog is accepted as a word and is only useful along with the --syslog-target option (the word has no effect otherwise).

    •   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 ovsdb-server was invoked with the --log-file option.

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

vlog/set 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.

vlog/list
    Lists the supported logging modules and their current levels.

vlog/list-pattern
    Lists logging patterns used for each destination.

vlog/close
    Causes ovsdb-server to close its log file, if it is open. (Use vlog/reopen to reopen it later.)

vlog/reopen
    Causes ovsdb-server to close its log file, if it is open, and then reopen it. (This is useful after rotating log files, to cause a new log file to be used.)

    This has no effect unless ovsdb-server was invoked with the --log-file option.

vlog/disable-rate-limit [module]...
    By default, ovsdb-server limits the rate at which certain messages can be logged. When a message would appear more frequently than the limit, it is suppressed. This saves disk space, makes logs easier to read, and speeds up execution, but occasionally troubleshooting requires more detail. Therefore, vlog/disable-rate-limit allows rate limits to be disabled at the level of an individual log module. Specify one or more module names, as displayed by the vlog/list command. Specifying either no module names at all or the keyword any disables rate limits for every log module.

    The vlog/enable-rate-limit command, whose syntax is the same as vlog/disable-rate-limit, can be used to re-enable a rate limit that was previously disabled.

  MEMORY COMMANDS
These commands report memory usage.

memory/show
    Displays some basic statistics about ovsdb-server's memory usage. ovsdb-server also logs this information soon after startup and periodically as its memory consumption grows.

  COVERAGE COMMANDS
These commands manage ovsdb-server's ``coverage counters,'' which count the number of times particular events occur during a daemon's runtime. In addition to these commands, ovsdb-server automatically logs coverage counter values, at INFO level, when it detects that the daemon's main loop takes unusually long to run.

Coverage counters are useful mainly for performance analysis and debugging.

coverage/show
    Displays the averaged per-second rates for the last few seconds, the last minute and the last hour, and the total counts of all of the coverage counters.

SPECIFICATIONS

ovsdb-server implements the Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB) protocol specified in RFC 7047, with the following clarifications:

3.1. JSON Usage
    RFC 4627 says that names within a JSON object should be unique. The Open vSwitch JSON parser discards all but the last value for a name that is specified more than once.

    The definition of <error> allows for implementation extensions. Currently ovsdb-server uses the following additional "error" strings which might change in later releases):

    syntax error or unknown column
        The request could not be parsed as an OVSDB request. An additional "syntax" member, whose value is a string that contains JSON, may narrow down the particular syntax that could not be parsed.

    internal error
        The request triggered a bug in ovsdb-server.

    ovsdb error
        A map or set contains a duplicate key.

    permission error
        The request was denied by the role-based access control extension, introduced in version 2.8.

3.2. Schema Format
    RFC 7047 requires the "version" field in <database-schema>. Current versions of ovsdb-server allow it to be omitted (future versions are likely to require it).

    RFC 7047 allows columns that contain weak references to be immutable. This raises the issue of the behavior of the weak reference when the rows that it references are deleted. Since version 2.6, ovsdb-server forces columns that contain weak references to be mutable.

    Since version 2.8, the table name RBAC_Role is used internally by the role-based access control extension to ovsdb-server and should not be used for purposes other than defining mappings of role names to table access permissions. This table has one row per role name and the following columns:

    name
        The role name.

    permissions
        A map of table name to a reference to a row in a separate permission table.

    The separate RBAC permission table has one row per access control configuration and the following columns:

    name
        The name of the table to which the row applies.

    authorization
        The set of column names and column:key pairs to be compared with the client ID in order to determine the authorization status of the requested operation.

    insert_delete
        A boolean value, true if authorized insertions and authorized are allowed, false if no insertions or deletions are allowed.

    update
        The set of columns and column:key pairs for which authorized update and mutate operations should be permitted.

4. Wire Protocol
    The original OVSDB specifications included the following reason, omitted from RFC 7047, to operate JSON-RPC directly over a stream instead of over HTTP:

    •   JSON-RPC is a peer-to-peer protocol, but HTTP is a client-server protocol, which is a poor match. Thus, JSON-RPC over HTTP requires the client to periodically poll the server to receive server requests.

    •   HTTP is more complicated than stream connections and doesn't provide any corresponding advantage.

    •   The JSON-RPC specification for HTTP transport is incomplete.

4.1.3. Transact
    Since version 2.8, role-based access controls can be applied to operations within a transaction that would modify the contents of the database (these operations include row insert, row delete, column update, and column mutate). Role-based access controls are applied when the database schema contains a table with the name "RBAC_Role" and the connection on which the transaction request was received has an associated role name (from the "role" column in the remote connection table). When role-based access controls are enabled, transactions that are otherwise well-formed may be rejected depending on the client's role, ID, and the contents of the RBAC_Role table and associated permissions table.

4.1.5. Monitor
    For backward compatibility, ovsdb-server currently permits a single <monitor-request> to be used instead of an array; it is treated as a single-element array. Future versions of ovsdb-server might remove this compatibility feature.

    Because the <json-value> parameter is used to match subsequent update notifications (see below) to the request, it must be unique among all active monitors. ovsdb-server rejects attempt to create two monitors with the same identifier.

4.1.12. Monitor_cond
    A new monitor method added in Open vSwitch version 2.6. The monitor_cond request enables a client to replicate subsets of tables within an OVSDB database by requesting notifications of changes to rows matching one of the conditions specified in "where" by receiving the specified contents of these rows when table updates occur. Monitor_cond also allows a more efficient update notifications by receiving table-updates2 notifications (described below).

    The monitor method described in Section 4.1.5 also applies to monitor_cond, with the following exceptions:

    •   RPC request method becomes "monitor_cond".

    •   Reply result follows <table-updates2>, described in Section 4.1.14.

    •   Subsequent changes are sent to the client using the "update2" monitor notification, described in Section 4.1.14

    •   Update notifications are being sent only for rows matching [<condition>*].

    The request object has the following members:

    "method": "monitor_cond"
    "params": [<db-name>, <json-value>, <monitor-cond-requests>]
    "id": <nonnull-json-value>

    The <json-value> parameter is used to match subsequent update notifications (see below) to this request. The <monitor-cond-requests> object maps the name of the table to an array of <monitor-cond-request>.

    Each <monitor-cond-request> is an object with the following members:

    "columns": [<column>*]            optional
    "where": [<condition>*]           optional
    "select": <monitor-select>        optional

    The "columns", if present, define the columns within the table to be monitored that match conditions. If not present all columns are being monitored.

    The "where" if present is a JSON array of <condition> and boolean values. If not present or condition is an empty array, implicit True will be considered and updates on all rows will be sent.

    <monitor-select> is an object with the following members:

    "initial": <boolean>              optional
    "insert": <boolean>               optional
    "delete": <boolean>               optional
    "modify": <boolean>               optional

    The contents of this object specify how the columns or table are to be monitored as explained in more detail below.

    The response object has the following members:

    "result": <table-updates2>
    "error": null
    "id": same "id" as request

    The <table-updates2> object is described in detail in Section 4.1.14. It contains the contents of the tables for which "initial" rows are selected. If no tables initial contents are requested, then "result" is an empty object.

    Subsequently, when changes to a specified table that match one of the conditions in monitor-cond-request are committed, the changes are automatically sent to the client using the "update2" monitor notification (see Section 4.1.14). This monitoring persists until the JSON-RPC session terminates or until the client sends a "monitor_cancel" JSON-RPC request.

    Each <monitor-cond-request> specifies one or more conditions and the manner in which the rows that match the conditions are to be monitored. The circumstances in which an "update" notification is sent for a row within the table are determined by <monitor-select>:

    •   If "initial" is omitted or true, every row in the original table that matches one of the conditions is sent as part of the response to the "monitor_cond" request.

    •   If "insert" is omitted or true, "update" notifications are sent for rows newly inserted into the table that match conditions or for rows modified in the table so that their old version does not match the condition and new version does.

    •   If "delete" is omitted or true, "update" notifications are sent for rows deleted from the table that match conditions or for rows modified in the table so that their old version does match the conditions and new version does not.

    •   If "modify" is omitted or true, "update" notifications are sent whenever a row in the table that matches conditions in both old and new version is modified.

    Both monitor and monitor_cond sessions can exist concurrently. However, monitor and monitor_cond shares the same <json-value> parameter space; it must be unique among all monitor and monitor_cond sessions.

4.1.13. Monitor_cond_change
    The "monitor_cond_change" request enables a client to change an existing "monitor_cond" replication of the database by specifying a new condition and columns for each replicated table. Currently changing the columns set is not supported.

    The request object has the following members:

    "method": "monitor_cond_change"
    "params": [<json-value>, <json-value>, <monitor-cond-update-requests>]
    "id": <nonnull-json-value>

    The <json-value> parameter should have a value of an existing conditional monitoring session from this client. The second <json-value> in params array is the requested value for this session. This value is valid only after "monitor_cond_change" is committed. A user can use these values to distinguish between update messages before conditions update and after. The <monitor-cond-update-requests> object maps the name of the table to an array of <monitor-cond-update-request>.

    Each <monitor-cond-update-request> is an object with the following members:

    "columns": [<column>*]         optional
    "where": [<condition>*]        optional

    The "columns" specify a new array of columns to be monitored (Currently unsupported).

    The "where" specify a new array of conditions to be applied to this monitoring session.

    The response object has the following members:

    "result": null
    "error": null
    "id": same "id" as request

    Subsequent <table-updates2> notifications are described in detail in Section 4.1.14 in the RFC. If insert contents are requested by original monitor_cond request, <table-updates2> will contain rows that match the new condition and do not match the old condition. If deleted contents are requested by origin monitor request, <table-updates2> will contain any matched rows by old condition and not matched by the new condition.

    Changes according to the new conditions are automatically sent to the client using the "update2" monitor notification. An update, if any, as a result of a condition change, will be sent to the client before the reply to the "monitor_cond_change" request.

4.1.14. Update2 notification
    The "update2" notification is sent by the server to the client to report changes in tables that are being monitored following a "monitor_cond" request as described above. The notification has the following members:
    "method": "update2"
    "params": [<json-value>, <table-updates2>]
    "id": null

    The <json-value> in "params" is the same as the value passed as the <json-value> in "params" for the corresponding "monitor" request. <table-updates2> is an object that maps from a table name to a <table-update2>. A <table-update2> is an object that maps from row's UUID to a <row-update2> object. A <row-update2> is an object with one of the following members:

    "initial": <row>
        present for "initial" updates

    "insert": <row>
        present for "insert" updates

    "delete": <row>
        present for "delete" updates

    "modify": <row>
        present for "modify" updates

    The format of <row> is described in Section 5.1.

    <row> is always a null object for a "delete" update. In "initial" and "insert" updates, <row> omits columns whose values equal the default value of the column type.

    For a "modify" update, <row> contains only the columns that are modified. <row> stores the difference between the old and new value for those columns, as described below.

    For columns with single value, the difference is the value of the new column.

    The difference between two sets are all elements that only belong to one of the sets.

    The difference between two maps are all key-value pairs whose keys appears in only one of the maps, plus the key-value pairs whose keys appear in both maps but with different values. For the latter elements, <row> includes the value from the new column.

    Initial views of rows are not presented in update2 notifications, but in the response object to the monitor_cond request. The formatting of the <table-updates2> object, however, is the same in either case.

4.1.15. Get Server ID
    A new RPC method added in Open vSwitch version 2.7. The request contains the following members:

    "method": "get_server_id"
    "params": null
    "id": <nonnull-json-value>

    The response object contains the following members:

    "result": "<server_id>"
    "error": null
    "id": same "id" as request

    <server_id> is JSON string that contains a UUID that uniquely identifies the running OVSDB server process. A fresh UUID is generated when the process restarts.

5.1. Notation
    For <condition>, RFC 7047 only allows the use of !=, ==, includes, and excludes operators with set types. Open vSwitch 2.4 and later extend <condition> to allow the use of <, <=, >=, and > operators with columns with type ``set of 0 or 1 integer'' and ``set of 0 or 1 real''. These conditions evaluate to false when the column is empty, and otherwise as described in RFC 7047 for integer and real types.

    <condition> is specified in Section 5.1 in the RFC with the following change: A condition can be either a 3-element JSON array as described in the RFC or a boolean value. In case of an empty array an implicit true boolean value will be considered.

5.2.6. Wait
    RFC 7047 says that the wait, commit, and comment operations have no corresponding result object. This is not true. Instead, when such an operation is successful, it yields a result object with no members.

BUGS
In Open vSwitch before version 2.4, when ovsdb-server sent JSON-RPC error responses to some requests, it incorrectly formulated them with the result and error swapped, so that the response appeared to indicate success (with a nonsensical result) rather than an error. The requests that suffered from this problem were:

transact
    Only if the request names a nonexistent database.

monitor
    In all error cases.

Of these cases, the only error that a well-written application is likely to encounter in practice is monitor of tables or columns that do not exist, in an situation where the application has been upgraded but the old database schema is still temporarily in use. To handle this situation gracefully, we recommend that clients should treat a monitor response with a result that contains an error key-value pair as an error (assuming that the database being monitored does not contain a table named error).

SEE ALSO
ovsdb-tool(1).