Power On Configuration

Connect with the console port of the PicOS switch as described in Initial Switch Access. Once the console connection is set up, power on the switch.

Figure 2 shows the console output. Do not not hit any keys until the booting choice menu appears. Enter 2 to boot into Open vSwitch mode. Next, the switch asks if the switch configuration should be done manually, enter no to enter the automatic mode. In this mode, the OVS processes will start automatically with default configuration such as log file, etc.

Next, the switch static IP address is entered. In this configuration, subnet 200.16.1.x is used. User can choose their own subnet address at this point. After the static IP address, a gateway IP address is entered. Next, an Open vSwitch configuration database name is required to store all the configuration information. In this example, ovs-vswitchd.conf.db database name is used. If the database name does not exist from previous configuration, it will be created in the default /ovs directory based on a database schema defined in /ovs/share/openvswitch/vswitch.ovsschema. Multiple databases can be created to provide different configurations; but only one database can be entered during this start up sequence. The OVS processes can be stopped and restarted manually, once the system is running. They can also be configured as cron processes. The database is persistent. The configuration stored in the database will be restored once the OVS processes start.

Figure 2 – Power on console output

In this example, the ovs-vswitchd.conf.db was used in a previous configuration. Therefore, the system found the database and created the initial configuration which will be shown later. In Figure 1, the management LAN port on the switch is eth0. eth0 is connected to the eth0 in the controller PC to allow the controller PC to telnet into the switch without the limitation of the console. In this configuration, all PCs are configured with static IP addresses to form an isolated environment for testing.

Next, the switch continues the boot sequence. Pay attention to the console messages regarding the ovsdb-server and ovs-vswitchd. They are the ovsdb server and ovs switch daemons. The IP address is the switch IP address and the 6633 is the default port number used to communicate with the ovs switch database server process. A different port number can be set through the manual configuration steps. Reference the PicOS Open vSwitch Configuration Guide for manual configuration steps.

Figure 3 – Switch processes and bridge information

The IP address and the port number is often used in the ovs-vsctl and ovs-ofctl commands discussed in later sections. The ovs-vswitchd.conf.db was used in a previous configuration, which contains a bridge br0 with 4 1GbE ports. After the ovs-vswitchd process started, a message on device br0 is shown to indicate the bridge has been created. At this point, the switch is up and running. The root level root@PicOS-OVS# shell prompt is shown and ready for user input. Multiple telnet windows can be started from the controller PC to login to the switch. The user id is root and the default password is pica8.