The following options affect the behavior ovs-vsctl as a whole.
Some individual commands also accept their own options, which are
given just before the command name. If the first command on the
command line has options, then those options must be separated
from the global options by --.
--db=server
Sets server as the database server that ovs-vsctl contacts
to query or modify configuration. server may be an OVSDB
active or passive connection method, as described in
ovsdb(7). The default is
unix:/usr/local/var/run/openvswitch/db.sock.
--no-wait
Prevents ovs-vsctl from waiting for ovs-vswitchd to
reconfigure itself according to the modified database.
This option should be used if ovs-vswitchd is not running;
otherwise, ovs-vsctl will not exit until ovs-vswitchd
starts.
This option has no effect if the commands specified do not
change the database.
--no-syslog
By default, ovs-vsctl logs its arguments and the details
of any changes that it makes to the system log. This
option disables this logging.
This option is equivalent to --verbose=vsctl:syslog:warn.
--oneline
Modifies the output format so that the output for each
command is printed on a single line. New-line characters
that would otherwise separate lines are printed as \n, and
any instances of \ that would otherwise appear in the
output are doubled. Prints a blank line for each command
that has no output. This option does not affect the
formatting of output from the list or find commands; see
Table Formatting Options below.
--dry-run
Prevents ovs-vsctl from actually modifying the database.
-t secs
--timeout=secs
By default, or with a secs of 0, ovs-vsctl waits forever
for a response from the database. This option limits
runtime to approximately secs seconds. If the timeout
expires, ovs-vsctl will exit with a SIGALRM signal. (A
timeout would normally happen only if the database cannot
be contacted, or if the system is overloaded.)
--retry
Without this option, if ovs-vsctl connects outward to the
database server (the default) then ovs-vsctl will try to
connect once and exit with an error if the connection
fails (which usually means that ovsdb-server is not
running).
With this option, or if --db specifies that ovs-vsctl
should listen for an incoming connection from the database
server, then ovs-vsctl will wait for a connection to the
database forever.
Regardless of this setting, --timeout always limits how
long ovs-vsctl will wait.
Table Formatting Options
These options control the format of output from the list and find
commands.
-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 below.
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.
Public Key Infrastructure Options
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as
ovs-vsctl'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
ovs-vsctl 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 ovs-vsctl
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 ovs-vsctl's own
certificate, that is, the certificate specified on -c or
--certificate. If ovs-vsctl'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 ovs-vsctl's identity. However,
this offers a way for a new installation to bootstrap the
CA certificate on its first SSL connection.
-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, ovs-vsctl 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/ovs-vsctl.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.
-h
--help Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
