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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
ovsdb-client(1) Open vSwitch Manual ovsdb-client(1)
ovsdb-client - command-line interface to ovsdb-server(1)
Server-Level Commands:
ovsdb-client [options] list-dbs [server]
Database Schema Commands:
ovsdb-client [options] get-schema [server] [database]
ovsdb-client [options] list-tables [server] [database]
ovsdb-client [options] list-columns [server] [database]
[table]
Database Version Management Commands:
ovsdb-client [options] convert [server] schema
ovsdb-client [options] needs-conversion [server] schema
ovsdb-client [options] get-schema-version [server] [database]
Data Management Commands:
ovsdb-client [options] transact [server] transaction
ovsdb-client [options] query [server] transaction
ovsdb-client [options] dump [server] [database] [table
[column...]]
ovsdb-client [options] backup [server] [database] > snapshot
ovsdb-client [options] [--force] restore [server] [database] <
snapshot
ovsdb-client [options] monitor [server] [database] table
[column[,column]...]...
ovsdb-client [options] monitor [server] [database] ALL
ovsdb-client [options] monitor-cond [server] [database]
conditions table [column[,column]...]...
ovsdb-client [options] monitor-cond-since [server] [database]
[last-id] conditions table [column[,column]...]...
ovsdb-client [options] wait [server] database state
Testing Commands:
ovsdb-client [options] lock [server] lock
ovsdb-client [options] steal [server] lock
ovsdb-client [options] unlock [server] lock
Other Commands:
ovsdb-client help
Cluster Options:
[--no-leader-only]
Output formatting options:
[--format=format] [--data=format] [--no-headings] [--pretty]
[--bare] [--timestamp]
Daemon options:
[--pidfile[=pidfile]] [--overwrite-pidfile] [--detach]
[--no-chdir] [--no-self-confinement]
Logging options:
[-v[module[:destination[:level]]]]...
[--verbose[=module[:destination[:level]]]]...
[--log-file[=file]]
Public key infrastructure options:
[--private-key=privkey.pem]
[--certificate=cert.pem]
[--ca-cert=cacert.pem]
[--bootstrap-ca-cert=cacert.pem]
SSL connection options:
[--ssl-protocols=protocols]
[--ssl-ciphers=ciphers]
Common options:
[-h | --help] [-V | --version]
The ovsdb-client program is a command-line client for interacting
with a running ovsdb-server process. Each command connects to the
specified OVSDB server, which may be an OVSDB active or passive
connection method, as described in ovsdb(7). The default server is
unix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock and the default database
is Open_vSwitch.
ovsdb-client supports the method1,method2,...,methodN syntax
described in ovsdb(7) for connecting to a cluster. When this syntax
is used, ovsdb-client tries the cluster members in random order until
it finds the cluster leader. Specify the --no-leader-only option to
instead accept any server that is connected to the cluster.
For an introduction to OVSDB and its implementation in Open vSwitch,
see ovsdb(7).
The following sections describe the commands that ovsdb-client
supports.
Server-Level Commands
Most ovsdb-client commands work with an individual database, but
these commands apply to an entire database server.
list-dbs [server]
Connects to server, retrieves the list of known databases, and
prints them one per line. These database names are the ones
that other commands may use for database.
Database Schema Commands
These commands obtain the schema from a database and print it or part
of it.
get-schema [server] [database]
Connects to server, retrieves the schema for database, and
prints it in JSON format.
list-tables [server] [database]
Connects to server, retrieves the schema for database, and
prints a table listing the name of each table within the
database.
list-columns [server] [database] table
Connects to server, retrieves the schema for database, and
prints a table listing the name and type of each column. If
table is specified, only columns in that table are listed;
otherwise, the tables include columns in all tables.
Database Version Management Commands
An OVSDB schema has a schema version number, and an OVSDB database
embeds a particular version of an OVSDB schema. These version
numbers take the form x.y.z, e.g. 1.2.3. The OVSDB implementation
does not enforce a particular version numbering scheme, but schemas
managed within the Open vSwitch project use the following approach.
Whenever the database schema is changed in a non-backward compatible
way (e.g. deleting a column or a table), x is incremented (and y and
z are reset to 0). When the database schema is changed in a backward
compatible way (e.g. adding a new column), y is incremented (and z is
reset to 0). When the database schema is changed cosmetically (e.g.
reindenting its syntax), z is incremented.
Some OVSDB databases and schemas, especially very old ones, do not
have a version number.
Schema version numbers and Open vSwitch version numbers are
independent.
These commands work with different versions of OVSDB schemas and
databases.
convert [server] schema
Reads an OVSDB schema in JSON format, as specified in the
OVSDB specification, from schema, then connects to server and
requests the server to convert the database whose name is
specified in schema to the schema also specified in schema.
The conversion is atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable.
Following the schema change, the server notifies clients that
use the set_db_change_aware RPC introduced in Open vSwitch 2.9
and cancels their outstanding transactions and monitors. The
server disconnects other clients, enabling them to notice the
change when they reconnect.
This command can do simple ``upgrades'' and ``downgrades'' on
a database's schema. The data in the database must be valid
when interpreted under schema, with only one exception: data
for tables and columns that do not exist in schema are
ignored. Columns that exist in schema but not in the database
are set to their default values. All of schema's constraints
apply in full.
Some uses of this command can cause unrecoverable data loss.
For example, converting a database from a schema that has a
given column or table to one that does not will delete all
data in that column or table. Back up critical databases
before converting them.
This command works with clustered and standalone databases.
Standalone databases may also be converted (offline) with
ovsdb-tool's convert command.
needs-conversion [server] schema
Reads the schema from schema, then connects to server and
requests the schema from the database whose name is specified
in schema. If the two schemas are the same, prints no on
stdout; if they differ, prints yes.
get-schema-version [server] [database]
Connects to server, retrieves the schema for database, and
prints its version number on stdout. If database was created
before schema versioning was introduced, then it will not have
a version number and this command will print a blank line.
get-schema-cksum [server] [database]
Connects to server, retrieves the schema for database, and
prints its checksum on stdout. If database does not include a
checksum, prints a blank line.
Data Management Commands
These commands read or modify the data in a database.
transact [server] transaction
Connects to server, sends it the specified transaction, which
must be a JSON array appropriate for use as the params to a
JSON-RPC transact request, and prints the received reply on
stdout.
query [server] transaction
This commands acts like a read-only version of transact. It
connects to server, sends it the specified transaction, which
must be a JSON array appropriate for use as the params to a
JSON-RPC transact request, and prints the received reply on
stdout. To ensure that the transaction does not modify the
database, this command appends an abort operation to the set
of operations included in transaction before sending it to the
database, and then removes the abort result from the reply (if
it is present).
dump [server] [database] [table [column...]]
Connects to server, retrieves all of the data in database, and
prints it on stdout as a series of tables. If table is
specified, only that table is retrieved. If at least one
column is specified, only those columns are retrieved.
backup [server] [database] > snapshot
Connects to server, retrieves a snapshot of the schema and
data in database, and prints it on stdout in the format used
for OVSDB standalone and active-backup databases. This is an
appropriate way to back up any remote database. The database
snapshot that it outputs is suitable to be served up directly
by ovsdb-server or used as the input to ovsdb-client restore.
Another way to back up a standalone or active-backup database
is to copy its database file, e.g. with cp. This is safe even
if the database is in use.
The output does not include ephemeral columns, which by design
do not survive across restarts of ovsdb-server.
[--force] restore [server] [database] < snapshot
Reads snapshot, which must be a OVSDB standalone or active-
backup database (possibly but not necessarily created by
ovsdb-client backup). Then, connects to server, verifies that
database and snapshot have the same schema, then deletes all
of the data in database and replaces it by snapshot. The
replacement happens atomically, in a single transaction.
UUIDs for rows in the restored database will differ from those
in snapshot, because the OVSDB protocol does not allow clients
to specify row UUIDs. Another way to restore a standalone or
active-backup database, which does also restore row UUIDs, is
to stop the server or servers, replace the database file by
the snapshot, then restart the database. Either way,
ephemeral columns are not restored, since by design they do
not survive across restarts of ovsdb-server.
Normally restore exits with a failure if snapshot and the
server's database have different schemas. In such a case, it
is a good idea to convert the database to the new schema
before restoring, e.g. with ovsdb-client convert. Use --force
to proceed regardless of schema differences even though the
restore might fail with an error or succeed with surprising
results.
monitor [server] [database] table [column[,column]...]...
monitor-cond [server] [database] conditions table
[column[,column]...]...
monitor-cond-since [server] [database] [last-id] conditions table
[column[,column]...]...
Connects to server and monitors the contents of rows that
match conditions in table in database. By default, the initial
contents of table are printed, followed by each change as it
occurs. If conditions empty, all rows will be monitored. If
at least one column is specified, only those columns are
monitored. The following column names have special meanings:
!initial
Do not print the initial contents of the specified
columns.
!insert
Do not print newly inserted rows.
!delete
Do not print deleted rows.
!modify
Do not print modifications to existing rows.
Multiple [column[,column]...] groups may be specified as
separate arguments, e.g. to apply different reporting
parameters to each group. Whether multiple groups or only a
single group is specified, any given column may only be
mentioned once on the command line.
conditions is a JSON array of <condition> as defined in RFC
7047 5.1 with the following change: A condition can be either
a 3-element JSON array as described in the RFC or a boolean
value.
If --detach is used with monitor, monitor-cond or
monitor-cond-since, then ovsdb-client detaches after it has
successfully received and printed the initial contents of
table.
The monitor command uses RFC 7047 "monitor" method to open a
monitor session with the server. The monitor-cond and
monitor-cond-since commandls uses RFC 7047 extension
"monitor_cond" and "monitor_cond_since" methods. See
ovsdb-server(1) for details.
monitor [server] [database] ALL
Connects to server and monitors the contents of all tables in
database. Prints initial values and all kinds of changes to
all columns in the database. The --detach option causes
ovsdb-client to detach after it successfully receives and
prints the initial database contents.
The monitor command uses RFC 7047 "monitor" method to open a
monitor session with the server.
wait [server] database state
Waits for database on server to enter a desired state, which
may be one of:
added Waits until a database with the given name has been
added to server.
connected
Waits until a database with the given name has been
added to server. Then, if database is clustered,
additionally waits until it has joined and connected to
its cluster.
removed
Waits until database has been removed from the database
server. This can also be used to wait for a database
to complete leaving its cluster, because ovsdb-server
removes a database at that point.
database is mandatory for this command because it is often
used to check for databases that have not yet been added to
the server, so that the ovsdb-client semantics of acting on a
default database do not work.
This command acts on a particular database server, not on a
cluster, so server must name a single server, not a comma-
delimited list of servers.
Testing commands
These commands are mostly of interest for testing the correctness of
the OVSDB server.
lock [server] lock
steal [server] lock
unlock [server] lock
Connects to server and issues corresponding RFC 7047 lock
operations on lock. Prints json reply or subsequent update
messages. The --detach option causes ovsdb-client to detach
after it successfully receives and prints the initial reply.
When running with the --detach option, lock, steal, unlock and
exit commands can be issued by using ovs-appctl. exit command
causes the ovsdb-client to close its ovsdb-server connection
before exit. The lock, steal and unlock commands can be used
to issue additional lock operations over the same ovsdb-server
connection. All above commands take a single lock argument,
which does not have to be the same as the lock that
ovsdb-client started with.
Output Formatting Options
Much of the output from ovsdb-client is in the form of tables. The
following options controlling output formatting:
-f format
--format=format
Sets the type of table formatting. The following types of
format are available:
table (default)
2-D text tables with aligned columns.
list 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.
--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.
This option does not affect JSON in tables, which is always
printed compactly.
--bare Equivalent to --format=list --data=bare --no-headings.
--max-column-width=n
For table output only, limits the width of any column in the
output to n columns. Longer cell data is truncated to fit, as
necessary. Columns are always wide enough to display the
column names, if the heading row is printed.
--timestamp
For the monitor, monitor-cond and monitor-cond-since commands,
add a timestamp to each table update. Most output formats add
the timestamp on a line of its own just above the table. The
JSON output format puts the timestamp in a member of the top-
level JSON object named time.
-t
--timeout=secs
Limits ovsdb-client runtime to approximately secs seconds. If
the timeout expires, ovsdb-client will exit with a SIGALRM
signal.
Daemon Options
The daemon options apply only to the monitor, monitor-cond and
monitor-cond-since commands. With any other command, they have no
effect.
The following options are valid on POSIX based platforms.
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, ovsdb-client.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 /usr/local/var/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-client 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-client 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.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor the ovsdb-client
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-client changes
its current working directory to the root directory after it
detaches. Otherwise, invoking ovsdb-client 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-client 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-client 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 three additional capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN,
CAP_NET_BROADCAST and CAP_NET_RAW. The capability change will
apply even if the 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.
Logging Options
-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,
ovsdb-client 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
--verbose
Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to
--verbose=dbg.
-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
/usr/local/var/log/openvswitch/ovsdb-client.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. 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.
· null, discards all messages logged to syslog.
The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment
variable; if it is unset, the default is libc.
Public Key Infrastructure Options
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as
ovsdb-client's identity for outgoing SSL 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 connections
will use to verify it.
-C cacert.pem
--ca-cert=cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate that
ovsdb-client 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
--ca-cert=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-client 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.
SSL Connection Options
--ssl-protocols=protocols
Specifies, in a comma- or space-delimited list, the SSL
protocols ovsdb-client 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-client will support for SSL connections. The default
when this option is omitted is HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5.
Other Options
-h
--help Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
ovsdb(7), ovsdb-server(1), ovsdb-client(1).
This page is part of the Open vSwitch (a distributed virtual
multilayer switch) project. Information about the project can be
found at ⟨http://openvswitch.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, send it to bugs@openvswitch.org. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs.git⟩ on 2020-08-13. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repos‐
itory was 2020-08-12.) If you discover any rendering problems in
this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or
more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
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of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Open vSwitch 2.13.90 ovsdb-client(1)
Pages that refer to this page: ovsdb-client(1) , ovsdb-server(1) , ovsdb-tool(1)