First development version of OpenNode OS with Open vSwitch is available for public testing from opennode-dev yum repository - replacing older linux bridge code and introducing new exciting features.

We have temporarily setup a separate opennode-ovs yum repository - http://opennodecloud.com/CentOS/6/opennode-dev/ - for OpenNode OS with Open vSwitch (OpenNode-OVS) development process.

What is Open vSwitch?

Open vSwitch is a production quality, multilayer virtual switch licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. It is designed to enable massive network automation through programmatic extension, while still supporting standard management interfaces and protocols (e.g. NetFlow, sFlow, SPAN, RSPAN, CLI, LACP, 802.1ag). In addition, it is designed to support distribution across multiple physical servers similar to VMware’s vNetwork distributed vswitch or Cisco’s Nexus 1000V. See the full feature list here

Major features included in the release

• Managed “Bind Mounts” - which can be used to make directories on the hardware node visible to the container. OpenNode-TUI supports setting custom ON_BMOUNT VEID.conf parameter in VM create and edit forms. Parameter format inside VEID.conf file (for manual usage): ON_BMOUNT=src1,dst1;src2,dst2

• Initial VETH management support - allowing to describe veth device parameters inside VEID.conf file and auto creating containers OS network configuration files on VM start. No opennode-tui support yet - this is still work in progress. Manual configuration can be done by adding ON_NETIF parameter string into VEID.conf file.

Parameter example inside VEID.conf file (for manual usage): ON_NETIF=”ifname=eth0,ipaddr=192.168.100.10,mask=255.255.255.0,gw= 192.168.100.1,managed=yes,default=yes,vlan=10,ingress_policing_rate=1000, ingress_policing_burst=100;ifname=eth1,dhcp=yes,managed=yes”

Currently limited to creating (overwriting) containers (veth) network devices configuration. You must set “managed=yes” in the ON_NETIF parameter string in order to activate configuration creation for particular device. “default=yes” sets gw as container VM default gateway. Also you must activate veth devices for container with “vzctl set $VEID –netif_add ethX –save” - before you can use this feature.

• Open vSwitch replacing standard linux bridge - support for VLANs, VM rate policing, GRE tunnels, etc.

Install/upgrade instructions

OpenNode-OVS is currently available only as OpenNode OS yum upgrade from opennode-ovs repository. For activating opennode-ovs repository please edit /etc/yum.repos.d/opennode.repo file - by changing opennode-test repo URL final part to opennode-ovs and setting repo section enable parameter to 1 (and disabling opennode stable repo). Then please execute: “yum clean all && yum update”.

NB! After yum update system reboot is needed in order to activate openvswitch (you may safely ignore openvswitch related errors on first shutdown).

Happy betatesting,

Team OpenNode