just ovn nodes

Deploy OVN in minutes, independent of a Cloud Management System (aka CMS) such as OpenStack.

Normally, Open Virtual Network (aka OVN) works in conjunction with a CMS. OpenStack (aka O/S), a popular CMS that many companies use, implements OVN via module layer 2 plug-in for the Networking service (neutron).

I played a bit with OpenStack in past adventures, but recently shifted my focus to OVN. In order to improve my OVN skills, I found it more productive to divide and conquer by leaving the CMS, particularly OpenStack, out of the picture.

OVN in a Sandbox

You can easily deploy OVN using the sandbox, similar to the unit tests. For more information on the sandbox, see OVN-Tutorial.md. For an example of using OVN within the sandbox, see output below:

However, the sandbox has some limitations:

  • The fake (aka dummy) OVS datapath offers only a subset of the functionality available in the kernel, ACL and Conntrack, to name a few.

  • Unable to use Linux lxc to provide namespaces (isolated IP stack instances). OVS ports in the sandbox cannot be scoped by their own TCP/IP stack, thus preventing use of powerful tools like ping to generate traffic and see the rules in action. Similarly, isolated ARP and routing tables are not possible. Instead, you must use commands like ovs-appctl netdev-dummy/receive, as shown at the end of the sandbox example.

Making the Case for just-ovn-nodes

Thus, to provide something more realistic than the sandbox, but yet not as complex as an OVN + networking-ovn + O/S deployment, you can simply use just-ovn-nodes. Using Vagrant, this repository gives us an automated way of assembling all the pieces for a multi-node deployment with OVN which serves as a “throwaway” setup (cattle) for quickly trying something out or as a starting place for creating a (pet) cluster for OVN development. Bear in mind I’m not the only one who has reached this serendipity. :) Folks like Gurucharan Shetty – undoubtedly one of my awesome gurus – have a similar repository available. So be sure to look around too.

Prerequisites

Dependencies for using just-ovn-nodes:

  • Hypervisor (compatible with Vagrant)
  • Git
  • Vagrant
  • Vagrant plug-ins (see below)

Vagrant plug-ins

for p in vagrant-reload sahara vagrant-cachier ; do \
   vagrant plugin install $p
done

Vagrant plug-in vagrant-reload enables the provisioning process to reboot a VM after updating the kernel to a version that supports Geneve encapsulation and other features necessary for OVN operation.

Vagrant plug-in sahara is optional but highly recommended. It enables returning your cluster to a clean state after running the different OVN setup scripts. If using Vagrant 1.8.0 or newer, you can simply use the built-in vagrant snapshot commands instead of the ones that the sahara plug-in offers. However, I find sahara faster and works well on all versions of Vagrant. Life is full of choices, so I will explain how to use both.

Vagrant plug-in vagrant-cachier is optional and increases speed of the provisioning process.

Provisioning

$ git clone https://github.com/flavio-fernandes/just-ovn-nodes.git
$ cd just-ovn-nodes

Edit the file provisioning/virtualbox.conf.yml

Adjust the parameters ovn_repo and ovn_branch to pick up the appropriate version of OVS/OVN. If you use the default, it will pick up a branch from my forked GitHub OVS repository that is a replica of original OVS master, but not the latest and greatest. If you want the latter, simply use these values:

ovn_repo: https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs.git
ovn_branch: master

By default, the cluster contains one OVN database node and three compute nodes. However, node compute3 does not start automatically unless you change its autostart parameter or explicitly call vagrant up compute3. If you want more compute nodes, by all means, go ahead! The changes for accomplishing that are simple: perform a search for the word compute in the following two files and follow your intuition on what to modify. (1) Vagrantfile; (2) provisioning/virtualbox.conf.yml

If you also want to use the OVN database node as a compute node, set the install_ovn_controller parameter to yes.

Since we are not provisioning a CMS, the VMs require a lot less memory. In the provisioning steps, the OVN database VM (central) builds packages and stores them in the directory provisioning/pkgs. All other VMs simply install these packages instead of having to build OVN from scratch.

$ vagrant up
# or ...
$ time vagrant up central compute{1,2,3}

Congrats for making it this far! :) Just to give you a ballpark idea, with my Macbook Pro (late 2015 model), the initial provisioning takes a little over 12 minutes.

Optional: Install Wireshark

I find it fun to look at the packets as tenant ports talk to each other across different compute nodes. If you agree, go ahead and install Wireshark on the various nodes by invoking the script included in the repository that grabs the latest version from ppa:wireshark-dev/stable supporting Geneve encapsulation.

Note: When prompted about " Should non-superusers be able to capture packets? “, select " <yes> "

$ vagrant ssh central   # and also maybe compute{1,2,3}
vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/provisioning/setup-wireshark.sh
vagrant@central:~$ exit

Take a Snapshot Now

At this point, the VMs are ready to start the OVN (and OVS) processes, so you can do anything. I highly recommend taking a snapshot so you can easily revert back to this clean state.

# snapshot vms using sahara
$ vagrant sandbox on

# or ...

# snapshot vms using build in command
$ vagrant snapshot save freshAndClean

VM Topology

eth0: management, used by Vagrant
eth1: underlay network, interconnects tenant ports via tunnel
eth2: added as part of the provider network (br-provider)

By default, the topology is very simple. You can control the IP addresses for the eth1 and eth2 interfaces in each VM by modifying the values in provisioning/virtualbox.conf.yml

Start OVN Cluster

At this point, start OVN cluster by running the script from the OVN db VM (aka central):

# note: if you do not provide vagrant with the vm name, it
#       will connect to central, because it is configured
#       as primary in vagrantfile.
$ vagrant ssh
vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/scripts/setup-ovn-cluster.sh

The output looks like the following:

Note: A trick used to remotely configure and start OVS + OVN-controller on all the compute nodes from the central VM is defined in scripts/helper-functions. OVN-controller in each of the compute nodes knows the location of the Southbound database through external-ids:ovn-remote in the open_vswitch database. The ovs_open_vswitch_setup function in provisioning/ovn-common-functions sets this value:

ovs-vsctl set open_vswitch . external-ids:ovn-remote="$OVN_SB_REMOTE"

Connect to Each VM

Open separate terminal sessions and SSH to each VM so you can inspect the flow tables. You can obtain OVN information on the central VM. OVS ports representing tenant VMs use Linux namespaces, similar to OpenStack.

$ vagrant ssh compute1   ;  # or central, or compute2

At this point, you can try out the various scripts in /vagrant/scripts/tutorial from the central node.

Output of ovn-sbctl show

$ vagrant ssh 
vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-sbctl show
Chassis "compute1"
    hostname: "compute1.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.31"
Chassis "compute2"
    hostname: "compute2.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.32"
Chassis "compute3"
    hostname: "compute3.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.33"

Example output after executing setup.sh for the the env1 script:

$ vagrant ssh central
vagrant@central:~$ ls /vagrant/scripts/tutorial
env1  env4  env4_2vlans  l3_basic  l3_nat
vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/scripts/tutorial/env1/setup.sh

vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-nbctl show
switch 219d372b-07ea-459b-a639-f02c22d72055 (sw0)
    port sw0-port2
        addresses: ["00:00:00:00:00:02"]
    port sw0-port1
        addresses: ["00:00:00:00:00:01"]

vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-sbctl show
Chassis "compute1"
    hostname: "compute1.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.31"
    Port_Binding "sw0-port1"
Chassis "compute2"
    hostname: "compute2.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.32"
    Port_Binding "sw0-port2"
Chassis "compute3"
    hostname: "compute3.ovn.dev"
    Encap geneve
        ip: "192.168.33.33"

Getting Cluster Back to “Fresh and Clean” State

Assuming you created a snapshot after initial provisioning of the VMs, you can restore them to a fresh and clean state:

# snapshot vms using sahara
$ vagrant sandbox rollback

# or ...

# snapshot vms using build in command
$ vagrant snapshot restore --no-provision freshAndClean

show-ns-ports.sh

In order to quickly reveal the mappings of a namespace, the logical ports and their bindings, consider using the show-ns-ports.sh script. Example output after configuring the cluster with the l3_nat setup script:

$ vagrant sandbox rollback
$ vagrant ssh
vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/scripts/setup-ovn-cluster.sh
vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/scripts/tutorial/l3_nat/setup.sh

vagrant@central:~$ /vagrant/scripts/show-ns-ports.sh
ns3 in compute1 has eth0 with 192.168.2.2 matches lsp bar1
ns1 in compute1 has eth0 with 192.168.1.2 matches lsp foo1
ns2 in compute2 has eth0 with 172.16.1.2 matches lsp alice1

Inspecting Packets with Geneve Encapsulation

If you installed Wireshark, continue from the commands in show-ns-ports.sh and inspect the packets traversing the compute nodes.

# ssh with X11 forwarding
$ vagrant ssh compute1 -- -XY
# start Wireshark and ignore warnings about "swrast"
vagrant@compute1:~$ wireshark > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# there should be 2 namespaces in compute1, as mentioned in the
# output of the show-ns-ports.sh above. Start a shell inside ns1
# and start ping from there to alice1 (172.16.1.2)
vagrant@compute1:~$ sudo ip netns exec ns1 bash
root@compute1:~# ping 172.16.1.2

In the Wireshark window, start a capture on the eth1 interface in compute1. You should see the ICMP packets as follows:

The Geneve Portion of the Capture

As we capture a ping between foo1 and alice1, we can correlate the fields in the Geneve capture as follows. Note that this is the ICMP reply, from alice1 to foo1 through router R1.

To understand the output, see the tunnel encapsulations section of ovn-architecture. This content may move to a separate file (ovn/OVN-DESIGN.md) according to this patch.

 VNI: 00 00 03  <== tunnel key ; should be LS foo
 class: 01 02 
 type: 00 
 len: 01 (8 bytes, including class + type + len + ingress + egress)
 00 01  <== ingress port (logical) ; should be the patch port from R1 to foo
 00 02  <== egress port (logical) ; should be foo1

So, does it look right? To find out, we need to ensure that tunnel key 3 belongs to the logical switch containing foo1 (aka foo):

vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-nbctl show
    switch 051478a4-6a2c-4ed7-9a10-cf71e26a8bb5 (foo)
        port foo1
            addresses: ["f0:00:00:01:02:03 192.168.1.2"]
        port rp-foo
            addresses: ["00:00:01:01:02:03"]
...

vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-sbctl list Datapath_Binding
...
_uuid               : 5c770508-c892-43ff-bd75-4b1406865667
external_ids        : {logical-switch="051478a4-6a2c-4ed7-9a10-cf71e26a8bb5"}
tunnel_key          : 3  <=== yeah!
...

Next, see what logical ports 1 and 2 for logical switch foo mean. Nothing particularly exciting because logical switch foo only contains two ports: foo1 and rp-foo.

vagrant@central:~$ sudo ovn-sbctl list Port_Binding
...
_uuid               : 14d97a99-82fb-44e0-8ad0-f0132ca5afca
chassis             : []  <== distributed L3, belongs to no chassis
datapath            : 5c770508-c892-43ff-bd75-4b1406865667  <== foo
logical_port        : rp-foo
mac                 : ["00:00:01:01:02:03"]
options             : {peer=foo}
parent_port         : []
tag                 : []
tunnel_key          : 1  <=== yeah!
type                : patch    <=== patch port from R1
...
_uuid               : a7dde17e-f438-43ea-9b9a-2a2183e3b153
chassis             : ac722b9f-7e81-4ffe-b0f0-94ab9e43c2b1  <== compute1
datapath            : 5c770508-c892-43ff-bd75-4b1406865667  <== foo
logical_port        : "foo1"
mac                 : ["f0:00:00:01:02:03 192.168.1.2"]
options             : {}
parent_port         : []
tag                 : []
tunnel_key          : 2  <=== yeah!
type                : ""
...


vagrant@central:~$ OVS_DBDIR=${OVS_DBDIR:-/var/run/openvswitch} ; sudo ovsdb-client dump unix:${OVS_DBDIR}/ovnsb_db.sock

Chassis table
_uuid                                encaps                                 external_ids             hostname           name       nb_cfg vtep_logical_switches
------------------------------------ -------------------------------------- ------------------------ ------------------ ---------- ------ ---------------------
ac722b9f-7e81-4ffe-b0f0-94ab9e43c2b1 [473b8b74-1b40-4f1d-9fc0-13b21a4c0953] {ovn-bridge-mappings=""} "compute1.ovn.dev" "compute1" 0      []
34538460-514f-4a95-83a0-a20eafa07816 [b6a37b5c-ab01-484f-824d-61fa1bb7f814] {ovn-bridge-mappings=""} "compute2.ovn.dev" "compute2" 0      []
66ce0b20-d3a8-4756-afdd-5e18c12a11e2 [fa48a4db-ccf8-4da6-8930-dba78a1d817c] {ovn-bridge-mappings=""} "compute3.ovn.dev" "compute3" 0      []
...

Connecting a Port from a Namespace to br-int

Lastly, I want spend some time discussing the various ways that namespaces can scope OVS ports and how OVN can map a logical port to an OVS port on any given compute node (chassis).

First, read this page to see the variations on how this is accomplished. Next, look at the script create-ns-port.sh. After creating an internal port in OVS, I found using veth more practical for debugging because we can easily attach Wireshark to it.

To map a logical port to a physical OVS port, OVN relies on the external-ids:iface-id field, set during the port creation and shown here.

To have a unique id for the namespaces used, the script requires you to use the central VM because it can leverage the file lock API through the function get_next_counter_value.

Closing Blurb

All in all, I hope this content provides an easy way into the vast world of OVN in a simple fashion. The OVN+OVS community contains many extremely smart and friendly people. As I learn from them and do OVN experiments of my own, I shall post more blogs, particularly a deeper dive into the various logical and OpenFlow rules. I appreciate your feedback. The about link at the top of this page should provide a bunch of ways to can reach me.