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 vtep-ctl commands.
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, and 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.
The following tables are currently defined:
- Global
- Top-level configuration for a hardware VTEP. This table contains exactly
one record, identified by specifying . as the record name.
- Manager
- Configuration for an OVSDB connection. Records may be identified by target
(e.g. tcp:1.2.3.4).
- Physical_Switch
- A physical switch that implements a VTEP. Records may be identified by
physical switch name.
- Physical_Port
- A port within a physical switch.
- Logical_Binding_Stats
- Reports statistics for the logical switch with which a VLAN on a physical
port is associated.
- Logical_Switch
- A logical Ethernet switch. Records may be identified by logical switch
name.
- Ucast_Macs_Local
- Mapping of locally discovered unicast MAC addresses to tunnels.
- Ucast_Macs_Remote
- Mapping of remotely programmed unicast MAC addresses to tunnels.
- Mcast_Macs_Local
- Mapping of locally discovered multicast MAC addresses to tunnels.
- Mcast_Macs_Remote
- Mapping of remotely programmed multicast MAC addresses to tunnels.
- Physical_Locator_Set
- A set of one or more physical locators.
- Physical_Locator
- Identifies an endpoint to which logical switch traffic may be encapsulated
and forwarded. Records may be identified by physical locator name.
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. man or m is sufficient to identify the
Manager table.
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
vtep-ctl 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. For a
column accepting a set of integers, database commands accept a range. A
range is represented by two integers separated by -. A range is
inclusive. A range has a maximum size of 4096 elements. If more elements are
needed, they can be specified in seperate ranges.
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).
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.
- [--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.
- 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.
- 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 vtep-ctl invocation
will be wrong.
- [--if-exists] [--id=@name] get table record
[column[:key]]...
- Prints the value of each specified column in the given
record in table. For map columns, a key may
optionally be specified, in which case the value associated with
key in the column is printed, instead of the entire map.
- Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not exist
or key is specified, if key does not exist in record.
With --if-exists, a missing record yields no output and a
missing key prints a blank line.
- If @name is specified, then the UUID for record may
be referred to by that name later in the same vtep-ctl invocation
in contexts where a UUID is expected.
- Both --id and the column arguments are optional, but usually
at least one or the other should be specified. If both are omitted, then
get has no effect except to verify that record exists in
table.
- --id and --if-exists cannot be used together.
- [--if-exists] set table record
column[:key]=value...
- Sets the value of each specified column in the given record
in table to value. For map columns, a key may
optionally be specified, in which case the value associated with
key in that column is changed (or added, if none exists), instead
of the entire map.
- Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not
exist. With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record
does not exist.
- [--if-exists] add table record column
[key=]value...
- Adds the specified value or key-value pair to column in
record in table. If column is a map, then key
is required, otherwise it is prohibited. If key already exists in a
map column, then the current value is not replaced (use the
set command to replace an existing value).
- Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not
exist. With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record
does not exist.
- [--if-exists] remove table record column
value...
-
- [--if-exists] remove table record column
key...
-
- [--if-exists] remove table record column
key=value...
- Removes the specified values or key-value pairs from column in
record in table. The first form applies to columns that are
not maps: each specified value is removed from the column. The
second and third forms apply to map columns: if only a key is
specified, then any key-value pair with the given key is removed,
regardless of its value; if a value is given then a pair is removed
only if both key and value match.
- It is not an error if the column does not contain the specified key or
value or pair.
- Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not
exist. With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record
does not exist.
- [--if-exists] clear table record column...
- Sets each column in record in table to the empty set
or empty map, as appropriate. This command applies only to columns that
are allowed to be empty.
- Without --if-exists, it is an error if record does not
exist. With --if-exists, this command does nothing if record
does not exist.
- [--id=@name] create table
column[:key]=value...
- Creates a new record in table and sets the initial values of each
column. Columns not explicitly set will receive their default
values. Outputs the UUID of the new row.
- If @name is specified, then the UUID for the new row may be
referred to by that name elsewhere in the same vtep-ctl invocation
in contexts where a UUID is expected. Such references may precede or
follow the create command.
- 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. Thus, 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 records must exist.
- --all destroy
table
- Deletes all records from the table.
- 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]...
- Waits until table contains a record named record whose
column equals value or, if key is specified, whose
column contains a key with the specified value. Any
of the operators !=, <, >, <=, or
>= may be substituted for = to test for inequality, less
than, greater than, less than or equal to, or greater than or equal to,
respectively. (Don't forget to escape < or > from
interpretation by the shell.)
- If no column[:key]=value arguments are
given, this command waits only until record exists. If more than
one such argument is given, the command waits until all of them are
satisfied.
- 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.
- Consider specifying --timeout=0 along with --wait-until, to
prevent vtep-ctl from terminating after waiting only at most 5
seconds.
- This command has no effect on behavior, but any database log record
created by the command will include the command and its arguments.