ovn-nbctl(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | DAEMON MODE | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | ENVIRONMENT | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

ovn-nbctl(8)                   OVN Manual                   ovn-nbctl(8)

NAME         top

       ovn-nbctl - Open Virtual Network northbound db management utility

SYNOPSIS         top

       ovn-nbctl [options] command [arg...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The ovn-nbctl program configures the OVN_Northbound database by
       providing a high-level interface to its configuration database.
       See ovn-nb(5) for comprehensive documentation of the database
       schema.

       ovn-nbctl connects to an ovsdb-server process that maintains an
       OVN_Northbound configuration database. Using this connection, it
       queries and possibly applies changes to the database, depending
       on the supplied commands.

       ovn-nbctl can perform any number of commands in a single run,
       implemented as a single atomic transaction against the database.

       The ovn-nbctl command line begins with global options (see
       OPTIONS below for details). The global options are followed by
       one or more commands. Each command should begin with -- by itself
       as a command-line argument, to separate it from the following
       commands. (The -- before the first command is optional.) The
       command itself starts with command-specific options, if any,
       followed by the command name and any arguments.

DAEMON MODE         top

       When it is invoked in the most ordinary way, ovn-nbctl connects
       to an OVSDB server that hosts the northbound database, retrieves
       a partial copy of the database that is complete enough to do its
       work, sends a transaction request to the server, and receives and
       processes the server’s reply. In common interactive use, this is
       fine, but if the database is large, the step in which ovn-nbctl
       retrieves a partial copy of the database can take a long time,
       which yields poor performance overall.

       To improve performance in such a case, ovn-nbctl offers a "daemon
       mode," in which the user first starts ovn-nbctl running in the
       background and afterward uses the daemon to execute operations.
       Over several ovn-nbctl command invocations, this performs better
       overall because it retrieves a copy of the database only once at
       the beginning, not once per program run.

       Use the --detach option to start an ovn-nbctl daemon. With this
       option, ovn-nbctl prints the name of a control socket to stdout.
       The client should save this name in environment variable
       OVN_NB_DAEMON. Under the Bourne shell this might be done like
       this:

             export OVN_NB_DAEMON=$(ovn-nbctl --pidfile --detach)

       When OVN_NB_DAEMON is set, ovn-nbctl automatically and
       transparently uses the daemon to execute its commands.

       When the daemon is no longer needed, kill it and unset the
       environment variable, e.g.:

             kill $(cat $OVN_RUNDIR/ovn-nbctl.pid)
             unset OVN_NB_DAEMON

       When using daemon mode, an alternative to the OVN_NB_DAEMON
       environment variable is to specify a path for the Unix socket.
       When starting the ovn-nbctl daemon, specify the -u option with a
       full path to the location of the socket file. Here is an exmple:

             ovn-nbctl --detach -u /tmp/mysock.ctl

       Then to connect to the running daemon, use the -u option with the
       full path to the socket created when the daemon was started:

             ovn-nbctl -u /tmp/mysock.ctl show

     Daemon Commands

       Daemon mode is internally implemented using the same mechanism
       used by ovn-appctl. One may also use ovn-appctl directly with the
       following commands:

              run [options] command [arg...] [-- [options] command
              [arg...] ...]
                     Instructs the daemon process to run one or more
                     ovn-nbctl commands described above and reply with
                     the results of running these commands. Accepts the
                     --no-wait, --wait, --timeout, --dry-run, --oneline,
                     and the options described under Table Formatting
                     Options in addition to the the command-specific
                     options.

              exit   Causes ovn-nbctl to gracefully terminate.

OPTIONS         top

       The options listed below affect the behavior of ovn-nbctl 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 --.

       ovn-nbctl also accepts options from the OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS
       environment variable, in the same format as on the command line.
       Options from the command line override those in the environment.

              --no-wait | --wait=none
              --wait=sb
              --wait=hv
                   These options control whether and how ovn-nbctl waits
                   for the OVN system to become up-to-date with changes
                   made in an ovn-nbctl invocation.

                   By default, or if --no-wait or --wait=none, ovn-nbctl
                   exits immediately after confirming that changes have
                   been committed to the northbound database, without
                   waiting.

                   With --wait=sb, before ovn-nbctl exits, it waits for
                   ovn-northd to bring the southbound database up-to-
                   date with the northbound database updates.

                   With --wait=hv, before ovn-nbctl exits, it
                   additionally waits for all OVN chassis (hypervisors
                   and gateways) to become up-to-date with the
                   northbound database updates. (This can become an
                   indefinite wait if any chassis is malfunctioning.)

                   Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for
                   changes by the current ovn-nbctl invocation to take
                   effect. This means that, if none of the commands
                   supplied to ovn-nbctl change the database, then the
                   command does not wait at all. Use the sync command to
                   override this behavior.

              --db database
                   The OVSDB database remote to contact. If the
                   OVN_NB_DB environment variable is set, its value is
                   used as the default. Otherwise, the default is
                   unix:/ovnnb_db.sock, but this default is unlikely to
                   be useful outside of single-machine OVN test
                   environments.

              --leader-only
              --no-leader-only
                   By default, or with --leader-only, when the database
                   server is a clustered database, ovn-nbctl will avoid
                   servers other than the cluster leader. This ensures
                   that any data that ovn-nbctl reads and reports is up-
                   to-date. With --no-leader-only, ovn-nbctl will use
                   any server in the cluster, which means that for read-
                   only transactions it can report and act on stale data
                   (transactions that modify the database are always
                   serialized even with --no-leader-only). Refer to
                   Understanding Cluster Consistency in ovsdb(7) for
                   more information.

              --shuffle-remotes
              --no-shuffle-remotes
                   By default, or with --shuffle-remotes, when there are
                   multiple remotes specified in the OVSDB connection
                   string specified by --db or the OVN_NB_DB environment
                   variable, the order of the remotes will be shuffled
                   before the client tries to connect. The remotes will
                   be shuffled only once to a new order before the first
                   connection attempt. The following retries, if any,
                   will follow the same new order. The default behavior
                   is to make sure clients of a clustered database can
                   distribute evenly to all members of the cluster. With
                   --no-shuffle-remotes, ovn-nbctl will use the original
                   order specified in the connection string to connect.
                   This allows user to specify the preferred order,
                   which is particularly useful for testing.

              --no-syslog
                   By default, ovn-nbctl 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=nbctl: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 \fB\\n\fR, and any instances of \fB\\\fR
                   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 ovn-nbctl from actually modifying the
                   database.

              -t secs
              --timeout=secs
                   By default, or with a secs of 0, ovn-nbctl waits
                   forever for a response from the database. This option
                   limits runtime to approximately secs seconds. If the
                   timeout expires, ovn-nbctl will exit with a SIGALRM
                   signal. (A timeout would normally happen only if the
                   database cannot be contacted, or if the system is
                   overloaded.)

              --print-wait-time
                   When --wait is specified, the option
                   --print-wait-time can be used to print the time spent
                   on waiting, depending on the value specified in
                   --wait option. If --wait=sb is specified, it prints
                   "ovn-northd delay before processing", which is the
                   time between the Northbound DB update by the command
                   and the moment when  ovn-northd starts processing the
                   update, and "ovn-northd completion", which is the
                   time between the Northbound DB update and the moment
                   when ovn-northd completes the Southbound DB updating
                   successfully. If --wait=hv is specified, in addition
                   to the above information, it also prints "ovn-
                   controller(s) completion", which is the time between
                   the Northbound DB update and the moment when the
                   slowest hypervisor finishes processing the update.

   Daemon Options
       --pidfile[=pidfile]
              Causes a file (by default, program.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 .

              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,
              the daemon 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 this program 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 this program. If
              it 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, the daemon changes
              its current working directory to the root directory after
              it detaches. Otherwise, invoking the daemon 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
              the daemon 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 this daemon will try to self-confine itself to
              work with files under well-known directories determined at
              build time. 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=user:group
              Causes this program 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 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,
                   the daemon 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/ovn/program.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 as how syslog messages should be sent to
            syslog daemon. The following forms are supported:

            •      libc, to use the 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, to use a 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, to use a 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, to discard all messages logged to syslog.

            The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment
            variable; if it is unset, the default is libc.

   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 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.

   PKI Options
       PKI configuration is required to use SSL for the connection to
       the database.

              -p privkey.pem
              --private-key=privkey.pem
                   Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used
                   as 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
                   for verifying certificates presented to this program
                   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 the executable 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.

   Other Options
       -h
       --help
            Prints a brief help message to the console.

       -V
       --version
            Prints version information to the console.

COMMANDS         top

       The following sections describe the commands that ovn-nbctl
       supports.

   General Commands
       init   Initializes the database, if it is empty. If the database
              has already been initialized, this command has no effect.

       show [switch | router]
              Prints a brief overview of the database contents. If
              switch is provided, only records related to that logical
              switch are shown. If router is provided, only records
              related to that logical router are shown.

   Logical Switch Commands
       ls-add Creates a new, unnamed logical switch, which initially has
              no ports. The switch does not have a name, other commands
              must refer to this switch by its UUID.

       [--may-exist | --add-duplicate] ls-add switch
              Creates a new logical switch named switch, which initially
              has no ports.

              The OVN northbound database schema does not require
              logical switch names to be unique, but the whole point to
              the names is to provide an easy way for humans to refer to
              the switches, making duplicate names unhelpful. Thus,
              without any options, this command regards it as an error
              if switch is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding a
              duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new logical
              switch. With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a
              new logical switch with a duplicate name. It is an error
              to specify both options. If there are multiple logical
              switches with a duplicate name, configure the logical
              switches using the UUID instead of the switch name.

       [--if-exists] ls-del switch
              Deletes switch. It is an error if switch does not exist,
              unless --if-exists is specified.

       ls-list
              Lists all existing switches on standard output, one per
              line.

   ACL Commands
       These commands operates on ACL objects for a given entity. The
       entity can be either a logical switch or a port group. The entity
       can be specified as uuid or name. The --type option can be used
       to specify the type of the entity, in case both a logical switch
       and a port groups exist with the same name specified for entity.
       type must be either switch or port-group.

              [--type={switch | port-group}] [--log] [--meter=meter]
              [--severity=severity] [--name=name] [--label=label]
              [--may-exist] [--apply-after-lb] [--tier] acl-add entity
              direction priority match verdict
                     Adds the specified ACL to entity. direction must be
                     either from-lport or to-lport. priority must be
                     between 0 and 32767, inclusive. A full description
                     of the fields are in ovn-nb(5). If --may-exist is
                     specified, adding a duplicated ACL succeeds but the
                     ACL is not really created. Without --may-exist,
                     adding a duplicated ACL results in error.

                     The --log option enables packet logging for the
                     ACL. The options --severity and --name specify a
                     severity and name, respectively, for log entries
                     (and also enable logging). The severity must be one
                     of alert, warning, notice, info, or debug. If a
                     severity is not specified, the default is info. The
                     --meter=meter option is used to rate-limit packet
                     logging. The meter argument names a meter
                     configured by meter-add.

                     The --apply-after-lb option sets
                     apply-after-lb=true in the options column of the
                     ACL table. As the option name suggests, the ACL
                     will be applied after the logical switch load
                     balancer stage.

                     The --tier option sets the ACL’s tier to the
                     specified value. For more information about ACL
                     tiers, see the documentation for the ovn-nb(5)
                     database.

              [--type={switch | port-group}] [--tier] acl-del entity
              [direction [priority match]]
                     Deletes ACLs from entity. If only entity is
                     supplied, all the ACLs from the entity are deleted.
                     If direction is also specified, then all the flows
                     in that direction will be deleted from the entity.
                     If all the fields are given, then a single flow
                     that matches all the fields will be deleted.

                     If the --tier option is provided, then only ACLs of
                     the given tier value will be deleted, in addition
                     to whatever other criteria have been provided.

              [--type={switch | port-group}] acl-list entity
                     Lists the ACLs on entity.

   Logical Switch QoS Rule Commands
       [--may-exist] qos-add switch direction priority match [mark=mark]
       [dscp=dscp] [rate=rate [burst=burst]]
              Adds QoS marking and metering rules to switch. direction
              must be either from-lport or to-lport. priority must be
              between 0 and 32767, inclusive.

              If dscp=dscp is specified, then matching packets will have
              DSCP marking applied. dscp must be between 0 and 63,
              inclusive. If rate=rate is specified then matching packets
              will have metering applied at rate kbps. If metering is
              configured, then burst=burst specifies the burst rate
              limit in kilobits. dscp and/or rate are required
              arguments. If mark=mark is specified, then matching
              packets will be marked (through pkt.mark). mark must be a
              positive integer.

              If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated QoS rule
              succeeds but the QoS rule is not really created. Without
              --may-exist, adding a duplicated QoS rule results in
              error.

       qos-del switch [direction [priority match]]
              Deletes QoS rules from switch. If only switch is supplied,
              all the QoS rules from the logical switch are deleted. If
              direction is also specified, then all the flows in that
              direction will be deleted from the logical switch. If all
              the fields are supplied, then a single flow that matches
              the given fields will be deleted.

              If switch and uuid are supplied, then the QoS rule with
              specified uuid is deleted.

       qos-list switch
              Lists the QoS rules on switch.

   Meter Commands
       meter-add name action rate unit [burst]
              Adds the specified meter. name must be a unique name to
              identify this meter. The action argument specifies what
              should happen when this meter is exceeded. The only
              supported action is drop.

              The unit specifies the unit for the rate argument; valid
              values are kbps and pktps for kilobits per second and
              packets per second, respectively. The burst option
              configures the maximum burst allowed for the band in
              kilobits or packets depending on whether the unit chosen
              was kbps or pktps, respectively. If a burst is not
              supplied, the switch is free to select some reasonable
              value depending on its configuration.

              ovn-nbctl only supports adding a meter with a single band,
              but the other commands support meters with multiple bands.

              Names that start with "__" (two underscores) are reserved
              for internal use by OVN, so ovn-nbctl does not allow
              adding them.

       meter-del [name]
              Deletes meters. By default, all meters are deleted. If
              name is supplied, only the meter with that name will be
              deleted.

       meter-list
              Lists all meters.

   Logical Switch Port Commands
       [--may-exist] lsp-add switch port
              Creates on lswitch a new logical switch port named port.

              It is an error if a logical port named port already
              exists, unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of
              --may-exist, it is an error if the existing port is in
              some logical switch other than switch or if it has a
              parent port.

       [--may-exist] lsp-add switch port parent tag_request
              Creates on switch a logical switch port named port that is
              a child of parent that is identified with VLAN ID
              tag_request, which must be between 0 and 4095, inclusive.
              If tag_request is 0, ovn-northd generates a tag that is
              unique in the scope of parent. This is useful in cases
              such as virtualized container environments where Open
              vSwitch does not have a direct connection to the
              container’s port and it must be shared with the virtual
              machine’s port.

              It is an error if a logical port named port already
              exists, unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of
              --may-exist, it is an error if the existing port is not in
              switch or if it does not have the specified parent and
              tag_request.

       [--if-exists] lsp-del port
              Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist,
              unless --if-exists is specified.

       lsp-list switch
              Lists all the logical switch ports within switch on
              standard output, one per line.

       lsp-get-parent port
              If set, get the parent port of port. If not set, print
              nothing.

       lsp-get-tag port
              If set, get the tag for port traffic. If not set, print
              nothing.

       lsp-set-addresses port [address]...
              Sets the addresses associated with port to address. Each
              address should be one of the following:

              an Ethernet address, optionally followed by a space and
              one or more IP addresses
                     OVN delivers packets for the Ethernet address to
                     this port.

              unknown
                     OVN delivers unicast Ethernet packets whose
                     destination MAC address is not in any logical
                     port’s addresses column to ports with address
                     unknown.

              dynamic
                     Use this keyword to make ovn-northd generate a
                     globally unique MAC address and choose an unused
                     IPv4 address with the logical port’s subnet and
                     store them in the port’s dynamic_addresses column.

              router Accepted only when the type of the logical switch
                     port is router. This indicates that the Ethernet,
                     IPv4, and IPv6 addresses for this logical switch
                     port should be obtained from the connected logical
                     router port, as specified by router-port in
                     lsp-set-options.

              Multiple addresses may be set. If no address argument is
              given, port will have no addresses associated with it.

       lsp-get-addresses port
              Lists all the addresses associated with port on standard
              output, one per line.

       lsp-set-port-security port [addrs]...
              Sets the port security addresses associated with port to
              addrs. Multiple sets of addresses may be set by using
              multiple addrs arguments. If no addrs argument is given,
              port will not have port security enabled.

              Port security limits the addresses from which a logical
              port may send packets and to which it may receive packets.
              See the ovn-nb(5) documentation for the port_security
              column in the Logical_Switch_Port table for details.

       lsp-get-port-security port
              Lists all the port security addresses associated with port
              on standard output, one per line.

       lsp-get-up port
              Prints the state of port, either up or down.

       lsp-set-enabled port state
              Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or
              disabled. When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed
              into or out of the port.

       lsp-get-enabled port
              Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or
              disabled.

       lsp-set-type port type
              Set the type for the logical port. The type must be one of
              the following:

              (empty string)
                     A VM (or VIF) interface.

              router A connection to a logical router.

              localnet
                     A connection to a locally accessible network from
                     each ovn-controller instance. A logical switch can
                     only have a single localnet port attached. This is
                     used to model direct connectivity to an existing
                     network.

              localport
                     A connection to a local VIF. Traffic that arrives
                     on a localport is never forwarded over a tunnel to
                     another chassis. These ports are present on every
                     chassis and have the same address in all of them.
                     This is used to model connectivity to local
                     services that run on every hypervisor.

              l2gateway
                     A connection to a physical network.

              vtep   A port to a logical switch on a VTEP gateway.

       lsp-get-type port
              Get the type for the logical port.

       lsp-set-options port [key=value]...
              Set type-specific key-value options for the logical port.

       lsp-get-options port
              Get the type-specific options for the logical port.

       lsp-set-dhcpv4-options port dhcp_options
              Set the DHCPv4 options for the logical port. The
              dhcp_options is a UUID referring to a set of DHCP options
              in the DHCP_Options table.

       lsp-get-dhcpv4-options port
              Get the configured DHCPv4 options for the logical port.

       lsp-set-dhcpv6-options port dhcp_options
              Set the DHCPv6 options for the logical port. The
              dhcp_options is a UUID referring to a set of DHCP options
              in the DHCP_Options table.

       lsp-get-dhcpv6-options port
              Get the configured DHCPv6 options for the logical port.

       lsp-get-ls port
              Get the logical switch which the port belongs to.

       lsp-attach-mirror port m
              Attaches the mirror m to the logical port port.

       lsp-detach-mirror port m
              Detaches the mirror m from the logical port port.

   Forwarding Group Commands
       [--liveness]fwd-group-add group switch vip vmac ports
              Creates a new forwarding group named group as the name
              with the provided vip and vmac. vip should be a virtual IP
              address and vmac should be a virtual MAC address to access
              the forwarding group. ports are the logical switch port
              names that are put in the forwarding group. Example for
              ports is lsp1 lsp2 ... Traffic destined to virtual IP of
              the forwarding group will be load balanced to all the
              child ports.

              When --liveness is specified then child ports are expected
              to be bound to external devices like routers. BFD should
              be configured between hypervisors and the external
              devices. The child port selection will become dependent on
              BFD status with its external device.

       [--if-exists] fwd-group-del group
               Deletes group. It is an error if group does not exist,
              unless --if-exists is specified.

       fwd-group-list [switch]
              Lists all existing forwarding groups, If switch is
              specified then only the forwarding groups configured for
              switch will be listed.

   Logical Router Commands
       lr-add Creates a new, unnamed logical router, which initially has
              no ports. The router does not have a name, other commands
              must refer to this router by its UUID.

       [--may-exist | --add-duplicate] lr-add router
              Creates a new logical router named router, which initially
              has no ports.

              The OVN northbound database schema does not require
              logical router names to be unique, but the whole point to
              the names is to provide an easy way for humans to refer to
              the routers, making duplicate names unhelpful. Thus,
              without any options, this command regards it as an error
              if router is a duplicate name. With --may-exist, adding a
              duplicate name succeeds but does not create a new logical
              router. With --add-duplicate, the command really creates a
              new logical router with a duplicate name. It is an error
              to specify both options. If there are multiple logical
              routers with a duplicate name, configure the logical
              routers using the UUID instead of the router name.

       [--if-exists] lr-del router
              Deletes router. It is an error if router does not exist,
              unless --if-exists is specified.

       lr-list
              Lists all existing routers on standard output, one per
              line.

   Logical Router Port Commands
       [--may-exist] lrp-add router port mac network... [peer=peer]
              Creates on router a new logical router port named port
              with Ethernet address mac and one or more IP
              address/netmask for each network.

              The optional argument peer identifies a logical router
              port that connects to this one. The following example adds
              a router port with an IPv4 and IPv6 address with peer lr1:

              lrp-add lr0 lrp0 00:11:22:33:44:55 192.168.0.1/24
              2001:db8::1/64 peer=lr1

              It is an error if a logical router port named port already
              exists, unless --may-exist is specified. Regardless of
              --may-exist, it is an error if the existing router port is
              in some logical router other than router.

       [--if-exists] lrp-del port
              Deletes port. It is an error if port does not exist,
              unless --if-exists is specified.

       lrp-list router
              Lists all the logical router ports within router on
              standard output, one per line.

       lrp-set-enabled port state
              Set the administrative state of port, either enabled or
              disabled. When a port is disabled, no traffic is allowed
              into or out of the port.

       lrp-get-enabled port
              Prints the administrative state of port, either enabled or
              disabled.

       lrp-set-gateway-chassis port chassis [priority]
              Set gateway chassis for port. chassis is the name of the
              chassis. This creates a gateway chassis entry in
              Gateway_Chassis table. It won’t check if chassis really
              exists in OVN_Southbound database. Priority will be set to
              0 if priority is not provided by user. priority must be
              between 0 and 32767, inclusive.

       lrp-del-gateway-chassis port chassis
              Deletes gateway chassis from port. It is an error if
              gateway chassis with chassis for port does not exist.

       lrp-get-gateway-chassis port
              Lists all the gateway chassis with priority within port on
              standard output, one per line, ordered based on priority.

   Logical Router Static Route Commands
       [--may-exist] [--policy=POLICY] [--ecmp] [--ecmp-symmetric-reply]
       [--bfd[=UUID]] lr-route-add router prefix nexthop [port]
              Adds the specified route to router. prefix describes an
              IPv4 or IPv6 prefix for this route, such as
              192.168.100.0/24. nexthop specifies the gateway to use for
              this route, which should be the IP address of one of
              router logical router ports or the IP address of a logical
              port. If port is specified, packets that match this route
              will be sent out that port. When port is omitted, OVN
              infers the output port based on nexthop. Nexthop can be
              set to discard for dropping packets which match the given
              route.

              --policy describes the policy used to make routing
              decisions. This should be one of "dst-ip" or "src-ip". If
              not specified, the default is "dst-ip".

              The --ecmp option allows for multiple routes with the same
              prefix POLICY but different nexthop and port to be added.

              The --ecmp-symmetric-reply option makes it so that traffic
              that arrives over an ECMP route will have its reply
              traffic sent out over that same route. Setting
              --ecmp-symmetric-reply implies --ecmp so it is not
              necessary to set both.

              --bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN
              route. If the BFD session UUID is provided, it will be
              used for the OVN route otherwise the next-hop will be used
              to perform a lookup in the OVN BFD table. If the lookup
              fails and port is specified, a new entry in the BFD table
              will be created using the nexthop as dst_ip and port as
              logical_port.

              It is an error if a route with prefix and POLICY already
              exists, unless --may-exist, --ecmp, or
              --ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified. If --may-exist is
              specified but not --ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply, the
              existed route will be updated with the new nexthop and
              port. If --ecmp or --ecmp-symmetric-reply is specified, a
              new route will be added, regardless of the existed route.,
              which is useful when adding ECMP routes, i.e. routes with
              same POLICY and prefix but different nexthop and port.

       [--if-exists] [--policy=POLICY] lr-route-del router [prefix
       [nexthop [port]]]
              Deletes routes from router. If only router is supplied,
              all the routes from the logical router are deleted. If
              POLICY, prefix, nexthop and/or port are also specified,
              then all the routes that match the conditions will be
              deleted from the logical router.

              It is an error if there is no matching route entry, unless
              --if-exists is specified.

       lr-route-list router
              Lists the routes on router.

   Logical Router Policy Commands
       [--may-exist] [--bfd] lr-policy-add router priority match action
       [nexthop[,nexthop,...]] [options key=value]]
              Add Policy to router which provides a way to configure
              permit/deny and reroute policies on the router.
              Permit/deny policies are similar to OVN ACLs, but exist on
              the logical-router. Reroute policies are needed for
              service-insertion and service-chaining. nexthop is an
              optional parameter. It needs to be provided only when
              action is reroute. Multiple nexthops can be specified for
              ECMP routing. A policy is uniquely identified by priority
              and match. Multiple policies can have the same priority.
              options sets the router policy options as key-value pair.
              The supported option is : pkt_mark.

              If --may-exist is specified, adding a duplicated routing
              policy with the same priority and match string is not
              really created. Without --may-exist, adding a duplicated
              routing policy results in error.

              --bfd option is used to link a BFD session to the OVN
              reroute policy. OVN will look for an already running BFD
              session using next-hop as lookup key in the BFD table. If
              the lookup fails, a new entry in the BFD table will be
              created using the nexthop as dst_ip.

              The following example shows a policy to lr1, which will
              drop packets from192.168.100.0/24.

              lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 drop.

               lr-policy-add lr1 100 ip4.src == 192.168.100.0/24 allow
              pkt_mark=100 .

       [--if-exists] lr-policy-del router [{priority | uuid} [match]]
              Deletes polices from router. If only router is supplied,
              all the polices from the logical router are deleted. If
              priority and/or match are also specified, then all the
              polices that match the conditions will be deleted from the
              logical router.

              If router and uuid are supplied, then the policy with
              specified uuid is deleted. It is an error if uuid does not
              exist, unless --if-exists is specified.

       lr-policy-list router
              Lists the polices on router.

   NAT Commands
       [--may-exist] [--stateless] [--gateway-port=GATEWAY_PORT]
       [-portrange] lr-nat-add router type external_ip logical_ip
       [logical_port external_mac] [external_port_range]
              Adds the specified NAT to router. The type must be one of
              snat, dnat, or dnat_and_snat. The external_ip is an IPv4
              address. The logical_ip is an IPv4 network (e.g
              192.168.1.0/24) or an IPv4 address. The logical_port and
              external_mac are only accepted when router is a
              distributed router (rather than a gateway router) and type
              is dnat_and_snat. The logical_port is the name of an
              existing logical switch port where the logical_ip resides.
              The external_mac is an Ethernet address.

              When --stateless is specified then it implies that we will
              be not use connection tracker, i.e internal ip and
              external ip are 1:1 mapped. This implies that --stateless
              is applicable only to dnat_and_snat type NAT rules. An
              external ip with --stateless NAT cannot be shared with any
              other NAT rule.

              --gateway-port option allows specifying the distributed
              gateway port of router where the NAT rule needs to be
              applied. GATEWAY_PORT should reference a
              Logical_Router_Port row that is a distributed gateway port
              of router. When router has multiple distributed gateway
              ports and the gateway port for this NAT can’t be inferred
              from the external_ip, it is an error to not specify the
              GATEWAY_PORT.

              If the --portrange option is specified, then a range of
              ports may be specified in the external_port_range part of
              the lr-nat-add command. If this option is omitted, then an
              external port range may not be specified. The format of
              the port range is port_low-port_high, where port_low is a
              lower number than port_high. When the packet is NATted, a
              random port from the range will be selected as the source
              port. The range for the external_port_range is 1-65535.

              When type is dnat, the externally visible IP address
              external_ip is DNATted to the IP address logical_ip in the
              logical space.

              When type is snat, IP packets with their source IP address
              that either matches the IP address in logical_ip or is in
              the network provided by logical_ip is SNATed into the IP
              address in external_ip.

              When type is dnat_and_snat, the externally visible IP
              address external_ip is DNATted to the IP address
              logical_ip in the logical space. In addition, IP packets
              with the source IP address that matches logical_ip is
              SNATed into the IP address in external_ip.

              When the logical_port and external_mac are specified, the
              NAT rule will be programmed on the chassis where the
              logical_port resides. This includes ARP replies for the
              external_ip, which return the value of external_mac. All
              packets transmitted with source IP address equal to
              external_ip will be sent using the external_mac.

              It is an error if a NAT already exists with the same
              values of router, type, external_ip, logical_ip and
              GATEWAY_PORT (in case of multiple distributed gateway
              ports), unless --may-exist is specified. When --may-exist,
              logical_port, and external_mac are all specified, the
              existing values of logical_port and external_mac are
              overwritten.

       [--if-exists] lr-nat-del router [type [ip] [gateway_port]]
              Deletes NATs from router. If only router is supplied, all
              the NATs from the logical router are deleted. If type is
              also specified, then all the NATs that match the type will
              be deleted from the logical router. If ip is also
              specified without specifying gateway_port, then all the
              NATs that match the type and ip will be deleted from the
              logical router. If gateway_port is specified without
              specifying ip, then all the NATs that match the type and
              gateway_port will be deleted from the logical router. If
              all the fields are given, then a single NAT rule that
              matches all the fields will be deleted. When type is snat,
              the ip should be logical_ip. When type is dnat or
              dnat_and_snat, the ip should be external_ip.

              It is an error if both ip and gateway_port are specified
              and there is no matching NAT entry, unless --if-exists is
              specified.

       lr-nat-list router
              Lists the NATs on router.

   Load Balancer Commands
       [--may-exist | --add-duplicate | --reject | --event] lb-add lb
       vip ips [protocol]
              Creates a new load balancer named lb with the provided vip
              and ips or adds the vip to an existing lb. vip should be a
              virtual IP address (or an IP address and a port number
              with : as a separator). Examples for vip are 192.168.1.4,
              fd0f::1, and 192.168.1.5:8080. ips should be comma
              separated IP endpoints (or comma separated IP addresses
              and port numbers with : as a separator). ips must be the
              same address family as vip. Examples for ips are
              10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2or [fdef::1]:8800,[fdef::2]:8800.

              The optional argument protocol must be either tcp, udp or
              sctp. This argument is useful when a port number is
              provided as part of the vip. If the protocol is
              unspecified and a port number is provided as part of the
              vip, OVN assumes the protocol to be tcp.

              It is an error if the vip already exists in the load
              balancer named lb, unless --may-exist is specified. With
              --add-duplicate, the command really creates a new load
              balancer with a duplicate name.

              If the load balancer is created with --reject option and
              it has no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp)
              or an ICMP port unreachable packet (for all other kind of
              traffic) will be sent whenever an incoming packet is
              received for this load-balancer. Please note using
              --reject option will disable empty_lb SB controller event
              for this load balancer.

              If the load balancer is created with --event option and it
              has no active backends, whenever the lb receives traffic,
              the event is reported in the Controller_Event table in the
              SB db. Please note --event option can’t be specified with
              --reject one.

              The following example adds a load balancer.

              lb-add lb0 30.0.0.10:80
              192.168.10.10:80,192.168.10.20:80,192.168.10.30:80 udp

       [--if-exists] lb-del lb [vip]
              Deletes lb or the vip from lb. If vip is supplied, only
              the vip will be deleted from the lb. If only the lb is
              supplied, the lb will be deleted. It is an error if vip
              does not already exist in lb, unless --if-exists is
              specified.

       lb-list [lb]
              Lists the LBs. If lb is also specified, then only the
              specified lb will be listed.

       [--may-exist] ls-lb-add switch lb
              Adds the specified lb to switch. It is an error if a load
              balancer named lb already exists in the switch, unless
              --may-exist is specified.

       [--if-exists] ls-lb-del switch [lb]
              Removes lb from switch. If only switch is supplied, all
              the LBs from the logical switch are removed. If lb is also
              specified, then only the lb will be removed from the
              logical switch. It is an error if lb does not exist in the
              switch, unless --if-exists is specified.

       ls-lb-list switch
              Lists the LBs for the given switch.

       [--may-exist] lr-lb-add router lb
              Adds the specified lb to router. It is an error if a load
              balancer named lb already exists in the router, unless
              --may-exist is specified.

       [--if-exists] lr-lb-del router [lb]
              Removes lb from router. If only router is supplied, all
              the LBs from the logical router are removed. If lb is also
              specified, then only the lb will be removed from the
              logical router. It is an error if lb does not exist in the
              router, unless --if-exists is specified.

       lr-lb-list router
              Lists the LBs for the given router.

   DHCP Options commands
       dhcp-options-create cidr [key=value]
              Creates a new DHCP Options entry in the DHCP_Options table
              with the specified cidr and optional external-ids.

       dhcp-options-list
              Lists the DHCP Options entries.

       dhcp-options-del dhcp-option
              Deletes the DHCP Options entry referred by dhcp-option
              UUID.

       dhcp-options-set-options dhcp-option [key=value]...
              Set the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.

       dhcp-options-get-options dhcp-option
              Lists the DHCP Options for the dhcp-option UUID.

   Port Group commands
       pg-add group [port]...
              Creates a new port group in the Port_Group table named
              group with optional ports added to the group.

       pg-set-ports group port...
              Sets ports on the port group named group. It is an error
              if group does not exist.

       pg-del group
              Deletes port group group. It is an error if group does not
              exist.

   HA Chassis Group commands
       ha-chassis-group-add group
              Creates a new HA chassis group in the HA_Chassis_Group
              table named group.

       ha-chassis-group-del group
              Deletes the HA chassis group group. It is an error if
              group does not exist.

       ha-chassis-group-list [ha-chassis-group]
              Lists all HA chassis groups along with the HA chassis if
              any associated with it. If ha-chassis-group is also
              specified, then only the specified ha-chassis-group will
              be listed.

       ha-chassis-group-add-chassis group chassis priority
              Adds a new HA chassis chassis to the HA Chassis group
              group with the specified priority. If the chassis already
              exists, then the priority is updated. The chassis should
              be the name of the chassis in the OVN_Southbound.

       ha-chassis-group-remove-chassis group chassis
              Removes the HA chassis chassis from the HA chassis group
              group. It is an error if chassis does not exist.

   Control Plane Protection Policy commands
       These commands manage meters configured in Copp table linking
       them to logical datapaths through copp column in Logical_Switch
       or Logical_Router tables. Protocol packets for which CoPP is
       enforced when sending packets to ovn-controller (if configured):

              •      ARP

              •      ND_NS

              •      ND_NA

              •      ND_RA

              •      ND

              •      DNS

              •      IGMP

              •      packets that require ARP resolution before
                     forwarding

              •      packets that require ND_NS before forwarding

              •      packets that need to be replied to with ICMP Errors

              •      packets that need to be replied to with TCP RST

              •      packets that need to be replied to with DHCP_OPTS

              •      packets that trigger a reject action

              •      packets that trigger a SCTP abort action

              •      controller_events

              •      BFD

              copp-add name proto meter
                     Adds the control proto to meter mapping to the
                     control plane protection policy name. If no policy
                     exists yet, it creates one. If a mapping already
                     existed for proto, this will overwrite it.

              copp-del name [proto]
                     Removes the control proto mapping for the name
                     control plane protection policy. If proto is not
                     specified, the whole control plane protection
                     policy is destroyed.

              copp-list name
                     Display the current control plane protection policy
                     for name.

              ls-copp-add name switch
                     Adds the control plane protection policy name to
                     the logical switch switch.

              lr-copp-add name router
                     Adds the control plane protection policy name to
                     the logical router router.

   Mirror commands
       mirror-add m type [index] filter dest
              Creates a new mirror in the Mirror table with the name m
              with the below mandatory arguments.

              type specifies the mirror type - gre , erspan or local.

              index specifies the tunnel index value (which is an
              integer) if the type is gre or erspan.

              filter specifies the mirror source selection. Can be
              from-lport, to-lport or both.

              dest specifies the mirror destination IP (v4 or v6) if the
              type is gre or erspan. For a type of local, this field
              defines a local interface on the OVS integration bridge to
              be used as the mirror destination. The interface must
              possess external-ids:mirror-id that matches this string.

       mirror-del m
              Deletes the mirror m.

       mirror-list
              Lists the mirrors.

   Synchronization Commands
       sync   Ordinarily, --wait=sb or --wait=hv only waits for changes
              by the current ovn-nbctl invocation to take effect. This
              means that, if none of the commands supplied to ovn-nbctl
              change the database, then the command does not wait at
              all. With the sync command, however, ovn-nbctl waits even
              for earlier changes to the database to propagate down to
              the southbound database or all of the OVN chassis,
              according to the argument to --wait.

   Remote Connectivity Commands
       These commands manipulate the connections column in the NB_Global
       table and rows in the Connection table. When ovsdb-server is
       configured to use the connections column for OVSDB connections,
       this allows the administrator to use ovn-nbctl to configure
       database connections.

              get-connection
                     Prints the configured connection(s).

              del-connection
                     Deletes the configured connection(s).

              [--inactivity-probe=msecs] set-connection target...
                     Sets the configured manager target or targets. Use
                     --inactivity-probe=msecs to override the default
                     idle connection inactivity probe time. Use 0 to
                     disable inactivity probes.

   SSL Configuration Commands
       get-ssl
              Prints the SSL configuration.

       del-ssl
              Deletes the current SSL configuration.

       [--bootstrap] set-ssl private-key certificate ca-cert [ssl-
       protocol-list [ssl-cipher-list]]
              Sets the SSL configuration.

   Database Commands
       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 ovn-nbctl 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, which may be abbreviated
       to its first 4 (or more) hex digits, as long as that is unique.
       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.

       For a list of tables and their columns, see ovn-nb(5) or see the
       table listing from the --help option.

       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. d or dhcp is
       sufficient to identify the DHCP_Options 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
                     ovs-vsctl 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.

       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.

                     The following operators are available only in Open
                     vSwitch 2.16 and later:

                     {in}   Selects records in which every element in
                            column[:key] is also in value. (This is the
                            same as {<=}.)

                     {not-in}
                            Selects records in which every element in
                            column[:key] is not in value.

                     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
                     ovs-vsctl 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
                     ovs-vsctl 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|uuid)] 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 \*(PN invocation in contexts where a UUID
                     is expected. Such references may precede or follow
                     the create command.

                     If a valid uuid is specified, then it is used as
                     the UUID of the new row.

                     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. This command supports the same operators and
                     semantics described for the find command above.

                     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 ovs-vsctl from terminating
                     after waiting only at most 5 seconds.

              comment [arg]...
                     This command has no effect on behavior, but any
                     database log record created by the command will
                     include the command and its arguments.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       OVN_NB_DAEMON
              If set, this should name the Unix domain socket for an
              ovn-nbctl server process. See Daemon Mode, above, for more
              information.

       OVN_NBCTL_OPTIONS
              If set, a set of options for ovn-nbctl to apply
              automatically, in the same form as on the command line.

       OVN_NB_DB
              If set, the default database to contact when the --db
              option is not used.

EXIT STATUS         top

       0      Successful program execution.

       1      Usage, syntax, or network error.

SEE ALSO         top

       ovn-nb(5), ovn-appctl(8).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the Open Virtual Network (Daemons for Open
       vSwitch that translate virtual network configurations into
       OpenFlow) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨https://www.ovn.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/ovn-org/ovn⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2024-06-12.)  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 improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

OVN 24.03.90                    ovn-nbctl                   ovn-nbctl(8)

Pages that refer to this page: ovn-detrace(1)ovsdb(7)ovn-controller(8)