cloud networking

Dynamic IP address management in Open Virtual Network (OVN): Part Two

Dynamic IP address management in Open Virtual Network (OVN): Part Two

mmichels
By Mark Michelson

In part one of this series, we explored the dynamic IP address management (IPAM) capabilities of Open Virtual Network. We covered the subnet, ipv6_prefix, and exclude_ips options on logical switches. We then saw how these options get applied to logical switch ports whose addresses have been set to the special “dynamic” value.  OVN, a subproject of Open vSwitch, is used for virtual networking in a number of Red Hat products like Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Virtualization, and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform in a future release.

In this part, we’re going to explore some of the oversights and downsides in the feature, how those have been corrected, and what’s in store for OVN in future versions.

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Troubleshooting FDB table wrapping in Open vSwitch

Troubleshooting FDB table wrapping in Open vSwitch

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By Eelco Chaudron

When most people deploy an Open vSwitch configuration for virtual networking using the NORMAL rule, that is, using L2 learning, they do not think about configuring the size of the Forwarding DataBase (FDB).

When hardware-based switches are used, the FDB size is generally rather large and the large FDB size is a key selling point. However for Open vSwitch, the default FDB value is rather small, for example, in version 2.9 and earlier it is only 2K entries. Starting with version 2.10 the FDB size was increased to 8K entries. Note that for Open vSwitch, each bridge has its own FDB table for which the size is individually configurable.

This blog explains the effects of configuring too small an FDB table, how to identify which bridge is suffering from too small an FDB table, and how to configure the FDB table size appropriately.

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Dynamic IP Address Management in Open Virtual Network (OVN): Part One

Dynamic IP Address Management in Open Virtual Network (OVN): Part One

mmichels
By Mark Michelson

Some background

For those unfamiliar, Open Virtual Network (OVN) is a subproject of OpenVswitch (OVS), a performant programmable multi-platform virtual switch. OVN provides the ability to express an overlay network as a series of virtual routers and switches. OVN also provides native methods for setting up Access Control Lists (ACLs), and it functions as an OpenFlow switch, providing services such as DHCP. The components of OVN program OVS on each of the hypervisors in the network. Many of Red Hat’s products, such as Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Virtualization, are now using OVN. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform will be using OVN soon.

Looking around the internet, it’s pretty easy to find high-quality tutorials on the basics of OVN. However, when it comes to more-advanced topics, it sometimes feels like the amount of information is lacking. In this tutorial, we’ll examine dynamic addressing in OVN. You will learn about IP address management (IPAM) options in OVN and how to apply them.

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Non-root Open vSwitch in RHEL

Non-root Open vSwitch in RHEL

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By Aaron Conole

In a few weeks, the Fast Datapath Production channel will update the Open vSwitch version from the 2.7 series to the 2.9 series. This is an important change in more ways than one. A wealth of new features and fixes all related to packet movement will come into play. One that will surely be blamed for all your troubles will be the integration of the `–ovs-user` flag to allow for an unprivileged user to interact with Open vSwitch.

Running as root can solve a lot of pesky problems. Want to write to an arbitrary file? No problem. Want to load kernel modules? Go for it! Want to sniff packets on the wire? Have a packet dump. All of these are great when the person commanding the computer is the rightful owner. But the moment the person in front of the keyboard isn’t the rightful owner, problems occur.

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