ovs-brcompatd(8) Open vSwitch Manual ovs-brcompatd(8)
NAME
ovs-brcompatd - Bridge compatibility front-end for ovs-vswitchd
SYNOPSIS
ovs-brcompatd [options]
DESCRIPTION
A daemon that provides a legacy bridge front-end for ovs-vswitchd. It does this by listening for bridge ioctl commands (e.g., those gener-
ated by the brctl program) to add or remove datapaths and the interfaces that attach to them.
OPTIONS
--appctl=program
Sets the name to the program that ovs-brcompatd runs to communicate with ovs-vswitchd. The default is ovs-appctl. Unless program
contains /, ovs-brcompatd will search the PATH environment variable to find it.
--vsctl=program
Sets the name to the program that ovs-brcompatd runs to communicate with ovsdb-server. The default is ovs-vsctl. Unless program
contains /, ovs-brcompatd will search the PATH environment variable to find it.
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, ovs-brcompatd.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 /var/run/openvswitch.
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pidfile already exists and is locked by a running process, ovs-brcompatd
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
Causes ovs-brcompatd to detach itself from the foreground session and run as a background process.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor the ovs-brcompatd daemon. If the daemon dies due to a signal that indicates a programming
error (e.g. SIGSEGV, SIGABRT), then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon die 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, ovs-brcompatd changes its current working directory to the root directory after it detaches.
Otherwise, invoking ovs-brcompatd 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 ovs-brcompatd 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.
-vmodule[:facility[:level]], --verbose=module[:facility[:level]]
Sets the logging level for module in facility to level:
o module may be any valid module name (as displayed by the --list action on ovs-appctl(8)), or the special name ANY to set the
logging levels for all modules.
o facility may be syslog, console, or file to set the levels for logging to the system log, the console, or a file respec-
tively, or ANY to set the logging levels for both facilities. If it is omitted, facility defaults to ANY.
Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file will not take place unless --log-file is also specified (see
below).
o level must be one of off, emer, err, warn, info, or dbg, designating the minimum severity of a message for it to be logged.
If it is omitted, level defaults to dbg. See ovs-appctl(8) for a definition of each log level.
-v, --verbose
Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --verbose=ANY:ANY:dbg.
-vPATTERN:facility:pattern, --verbose=PATTERN:facility:pattern
Sets the log pattern for facility to pattern. Refer to ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the valid syntax for pattern.
--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 /var/log/openvswitch/ovs-brcompatd.log.
-h, --help
Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V, --version
Prints version information to the console.
--check-leaks=file
Logs information about memory allocation and deallocation to file, to allow for debugging memory leaks in ovs-brcompatd. This
option slows down ovs-brcompatd considerably, so it should only be used when a memory leak is suspected. Use the ovs-parse-leaks
script to interpret the leak file.
--leak-limit=size
Limits size of the leak file as specified by --check-leaks to size bytes. Finding leaks sometimes requires allowing the leak file
to grow very large, up to 1GB. By default, files are limited to 10MB.
NOTES
ovs-brcompatd requires the brcompat_mod.ko kernel module to be loaded.
SEE ALSO
ovs-appctl(8), ovs-vsctl(8), ovs-vswitchd(8), ovsdb-server(1), INSTALL.bridge in the Open vSwitch distribution.
Open vSwitch March 2009 ovs-brcompatd(8)