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.TH ovs\-appctl 8 "November 2009" "Open vSwitch" "Open vSwitch Manual"
.ds PN ovs\-appctl
.
.SH NAME
ovs\-appctl \- utility for configuring running Open vSwitch daemons
.
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBovs\-appctl\fR [\fB\-\-target=\fItarget\fR | \fB\-t\fR \fItarget\fR]
\fIcommand \fR[\fIarg\fR...]
.br
\fBovs\-appctl\fR \-\-help
.br
\fBovs\-appctl\fR \-\-version
.SH DESCRIPTION
Open vSwitch daemons accept certain commands at runtime to control their
behavior and query their settings.  Every daemon accepts a common set of
commands documented under \fBCOMMON COMMANDS\fR below, and
\fBovs\-vswitchd\fR in particular accepts a number of additional
commands documented in \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR(8).
.PP
The \fBovs\-appctl\fR program provides a simple way to invoke these
commands.  The command to be sent is specified on \fBovs\-appctl\fR's
command line as non-option arguments.  \fBovs\-appctl\fR sends the
command and prints the daemon's response on standard output.
.PP
In normal use only a single option is accepted:
.IP "\fB\-t \fItarget\fR"
.IQ "\fB\-\-target=\fItarget\fR"
Tells \fBovs\-appctl\fR which daemon to contact.
.IP
If \fItarget\fR begins with \fB/\fR it must name a Unix domain socket
on which an Open vSwitch daemon is listening for control channel
connections.  By default, each daemon listens on a Unix domain socket
named \fB/var/run/openvswitch/\fIprogram\fB.\fIpid\fB.ctl\fR, where \fIprogram\fR
is the program's name and \fIpid\fR is its process ID.  For example,
if \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR has PID 123, it would listen on
\fB/var/run/openvswitch/ovs\-vswitchd.123.ctl\fR.
.IP
Otherwise, \fBovs\-appctl\fR looks for a pidfile, that is, a file
whose contents are the process ID of a running process as a decimal
number, named \fB/var/run/openvswitch/\fItarget\fB.pid\fR.  (The \fB\-\-pidfile\fR
option makes an Open vSwitch daemon create a pidfile.)
\fBovs\-appctl\fR reads the pidfile, then looks for a Unix socket
named \fB/var/run/openvswitch/\fItarget\fB.\fIpid\fB.ctl\fR, where \fIpid\fR is
replaced by the process ID read from the pidfile, and uses that file
as if it had been specified directly as the target.
.IP
The default target is \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR.
.
.SH COMMON COMMANDS
Every Open vSwitch daemon supports a common set of commands, which are
documented in this section.
.
.SS GENERAL COMMANDS
These commands display daemon-specific commands and the running version.
Note that these commands are different from the \fB\-\-help\fR and
\fB\-\-version\fR options that return information about the
\fBovs\-appctl\fR utility itself.
.
.IP "\fBhelp\fR"
Lists the commands supported by the target.
.
.IP "\fBversion\fR"
Displays the version and compilation date of the target.
.
.SS LOGGING COMMANDS
Open vSwitch has several log levels.  The highest-severity log level is:
.
.IP "\fBOFF\fR"
No message is ever logged at this level, so setting a logging
facility's log level to \fBOFF\fR disables logging to that facility.
.
.PP
The following log levels, in order of descending severity, are
available:
.
.IP "\fBEMER\fR"
A major failure forced a process to abort.
.IP "\fBERR\fR"
A high-level operation or a subsystem failed.  Attention is
warranted.
.IP "\fBWARN\fR"
A low-level operation failed, but higher-level subsystems may be able
to recover.
.IP "\fBINFO\fR"
Information that may be useful in retrospect when investigating
a problem.
.IP "\fBDBG\fR"
Information useful only to someone with intricate knowledge of the
system, or that would commonly cause too-voluminous log output.  Log
messages at this level are not logged by default.
.
.PP
Every Open vSwitch daemon supports the following commands for examining
and adjusting log levels.
.IP "\fBvlog/list\fR"
Lists the known logging modules and their current levels.
.
.IP "\fBvlog/set\fR \fImodule\fR[\fB:\fIfacility\fR[\fB:\fIlevel\fR]]"
Sets the logging level for \fImodule\fR in \fIfacility\fR to
\fIlevel\fR.  The \fImodule\fR may be any valid module name (as
displayed by the \fB\-\-list\fR option) or the special name \fBANY\fR to
set the logging levels for all modules.  The \fIfacility\fR may be
\fBsyslog\fR or \fBconsole\fR to set the levels for logging to the
system log or to the console, respectively, or \fBANY\fR to set the
logging levels for both facilities.  If it is omitted,
\fIfacility\fR defaults to \fBANY\fR.  The \fIlevel\fR must be one of
\fBoff\fR, \fBemer\fR, \fBerr\fR, \fBwarn\fR, \fBinfo\fR, or
\fBdbg\fR, designating the
minimum severity of a message for it to be logged.  If it is omitted,
\fIlevel\fR defaults to \fBdbg\fR.
.
.IP "\fBvlog/set PATTERN:\fIfacility\fB:\fIpattern\fR"
Sets the log pattern for \fIfacility\fR to \fIpattern\fR.  Each time a
message is logged to \fIfacility\fR, \fIpattern\fR determines the
message's formatting.  Most characters in \fIpattern\fR are copied
literally to the log, but special escapes beginning with \fB%\fR are
expanded as follows:
.
.RS
.IP \fB%A\fR
The name of the application logging the message, e.g. \fBovs\-vswitchd\fR.
.
.IP \fB%c\fR
The name of the module (as shown by \fBovs\-appctl \-\-list\fR) logging
the message.
.
.IP \fB%d\fR
The current date and time in ISO 8601 format (YYYY\-MM\-DD HH:MM:SS).
.
.IP \fB%d{\fIformat\fB}\fR
The current date and time in the specified \fIformat\fR, which takes
the same format as the \fItemplate\fR argument to \fBstrftime\fR(3).
.
.IP \fB%m\fR
The message being logged.
.
.IP \fB%N\fR
A serial number for this message within this run of the program, as a
decimal number.  The first message a program logs has serial number 1,
the second one has serial number 2, and so on.
.
.IP \fB%n\fR
A new-line.
.
.IP \fB%p\fR
The level at which the message is logged, e.g. \fBDBG\fR.
.
.IP \fB%P\fR
The program's process ID (pid), as a decimal number.
.
.IP \fB%r\fR
The number of milliseconds elapsed from the start of the application
to the time the message was logged.
.
.IP \fB%%\fR
A literal \fB%\fR.
.RE
.
.IP
A few options may appear between the \fB%\fR and the format specifier
character, in this order:
.
.RS
.IP \fB\-\fR
Left justify the escape's expansion within its field width.  Right
justification is the default.
.
.IP \fB0\fR
Pad the field to the field width with \fB0\fRs.  Padding with spaces
is the default.
.
.IP \fIwidth\fR
A number specifies the minimum field width.  If the escape expands to
fewer characters than \fIwidth\fR then it is padded to fill the field
width.  (A field wider than \fIwidth\fR is not truncated to fit.)
.RE
.
.IP
The default pattern for console output is \fB%d{%b %d
%H:%M:%S}|%05N|%c|%p|%m\fR; for syslog output, \fB%05N|%c|%p|%m\fR.
.
.IP "\fBvlog/reopen\fR"
Causes the daemon to close and reopen its log file.  (This
is useful after rotating log files, to cause a new log file to be
used.)
.IP
This has no effect if the target application was not invoked with the
\fB\-\-log\-file\fR option.
.
.SH OPTIONS
.
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Prints a brief help message to the console.
.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
Prints version information to the console.
.
.SH BUGS
.
The protocol used to speak to Open vSwitch daemons does not contain a
quoting mechanism, so command arguments should not generally contain
white space.
.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.
\fBovs\-appctl\fR can control the following daemons:
.BR ovs\-vswitchd (8),
.BR ovs\-controller (8),
.BR ovs\-brcompatd (8).