Anyone tried to install openvswitch ?

N

naturlight

Member
Jan 2, 2011
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Hello everybody,
I read a post to monitor KVM host with sFlow and it's work perfectly !
But i read to Mass VM monitoring there is a script that could work with KVM
http://openvswitch.org/

Anybody tried this with proxmox ? It could be a good solution to monitor all VM i think

Regards,
QQ
 
I am also interested in integrating Openvswitch into our Proxmox environment. Just haven't had time to test it in our lab. The KVM devs have expressed their interest in working more closely with the Openvswitch community. I think it's going to be even very useful when Proxmox 2's HA features become available. Then we can have virtual switches migrate or HA respawn automatically.
 
Dietmar,

Sorry if I wasn't very clear. Migrations with Proxmox 1.x work great. You guys have done a terrific job.

Open vSwitch isn't needed for HA. I was thinking of how it could be utilized once Proxmox 2 is released. Having virtual switches will allow us to perform more complex networking within a Proxmox cluster. I can imagine having more network segments within the network fabric of the cluster supported by virtual switches. The future Proxmox HA features will make these vSwitches less risky for production environments.

Here's a nice blog about it by Simon Crosby.
http://community.citrix.com/display...h+-+Key+Ingredient+of+Enterprise+Ready+Clouds
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just managed to build and install Open vSwitch 1.1.0pre2 on a Proxmox server running the latest 2.6.35 kernel. Right now it's runinning in compatibility mode where vmbr0 is created as before, using brctl from the scripts.

The reason I'm looking at Open vSwitch is that I would like to leverage some of the features that come with it, for instance:
  • Port mirroring, to feed a SNORT sniffer interface (until now I've been using bridge_fd 0 and bridge_ageing 0 but that turns vmbr0 into a hub which I don't think is ideal)
  • VLAN functionality, to isolate groups of virtual servers
  • Visibility into inter-VM communication via sFlow
As a next step I would like to move away from the compatibility mode, which requires that I locate and replace/modify any script on the host that uses brctl. Not sure whether that is feasible or not, but there are KVM instructions on the openvswitch.org site so my hopes are still up. :)
 
mattmurdock said:
As a next step I would like to move away from the compatibility mode, which requires that I locate and replace/modify any script on the host that uses brctl. Not sure whether that is feasible or not, but there are KVM instructions on the openvswitch.org site so my hopes are still up. :)
Click to expand...

Hint: You need to modify '/var/lib/qemu-server/bridge-vlan'
 
mattmurdock said:
How about these?

  • /etc/kvm/kvm-ifup
Click to expand...

AFAIK, this is used when you start 'kvm' directly. You can also pass the script location as parameter (see 'man kvm'). But the 'qm' command always use '/var/lib/qemu-server/bridge-vlan'
 
naturlight said:
If you arrive to make it working , could create a "How to" step by step please :) !

Regards,
QQ
Click to expand...

OK, at the moment I have a pure vSwitch running vmbr0 without the brcompat_mod module. Before I embark on writing up a howto I'd like to ask Dietmar and any other Proxmox expert if what I've done is plain stupid. :)

You see, in order to compile and build the Open vSwitch sources I had to make some upgrades to the system. I ended up putting these lines into my /etc/apt/sources.list followed by apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.
Code: 
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian squeeze main
Am I skating on very thin ice running a system that eventually will explode in my face having done this? :confused: If not, I'd be more than happy to share how I built and installed Open vSwitch in my Proxmox environment.

In retrospect I understand that it probably would have been better to apply some Debian package management wizardry and limit the upgrades to the exact pieces needed for building, but I blame time pressure, lack of skills and the fact that I'm a reckless daredevil...
 
mattmurdock said:
I ended up putting these lines into my /etc/apt/sources.list followed by apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.
Code: 
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian squeeze main
Click to expand...

I never tested squeeze or backports - PVE 1.X is based on Lenny.
 
danwent said:
Hi folks, we from the openvswitch team are happy to answer questions on this. You can send questions to discuss < at > openvswitch.org : http://openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_openvswitch.org

It sounds like you folks are on the right track.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement. Do you know if there's a source package available that will build on Debian Lenny? The GIT snapshot I used (commit 15b619e29d20708d2ce6946f1c5ec9841c4c822b) had a few dependencies only available in Squeeze, which is still in testing. Given that Debian is extremely popular as a trusted production level Linux server distro, I'm certain many of us would applaud and appreciate sources that support the official stable Debian version at hand.
 
mattmurdock said:
Thanks for the encouragement. Do you know if there's a source package available that will build on Debian Lenny? The GIT snapshot I used (commit 15b619e29d20708d2ce6946f1c5ec9841c4c822b) had a few dependencies only available in Squeeze, which is still in testing. Given that Debian is extremely popular as a trusted production level Linux server distro, I'm certain many of us would applaud and appreciate sources that support the official stable Debian version at hand.
Click to expand...


If you think about you wouldn't really want them to spend their time on that seeing as Squeeze is due to be released any time soon and then becomes the new stable.
 
wetwilly said:
If you think about you wouldn't really want them to spend their time on that seeing as Squeeze is due to be released any time soon and then becomes the new stable.
Click to expand...
Sorry if I didn't do my homework. All I've been looking at is the statement "The next release of Debian is codenamed squeeze — no release date has been set" on http://www.debian.org/releases/
Also, if Proxmox 1.x (and other products released on top of Debian?) are bound to Lenny, forever or for an undefined time period, after a release of Squeeze stable I for one can still see value in supporting Lenny.

Before you say "Oh, but Proxmox 2.0 will be based on Squeeze" I'd like to remind you that production grade installations, such as PVE, almost never see an upgrade to a .0 release.

Jm2c on a topic that could very easily become an epic... :)
 
No need to get defensive.
mattmurdock said:
Before you say "Oh, but Proxmox 2.0 will be based on Squeeze" I'd like to remind you that production grade installations, such as PVE, almost never see an upgrade to a .0 release.
Click to expand...

Well, that's not entirely true, if you look at it in the long run all production servers either gets upgraded or replaced.

In the end it comes down to functionality. If you want/need x function that comes with release y, then you upgrade.
 
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