Neutron Open vSwitch vhost-user support

Neutron supports using Open vSwitch + DPDK vhost-user interfaces directly in the OVS ML2 driver and agent. The current implementation relies on a multiple configuration values and includes runtime verification of Open vSwitch’s capability to provide these interfaces.

The OVS agent detects the capability of the underlying Open vSwitch installation and passes that information over RPC via the agent ‘configurations’ dictionary. The ML2 driver uses this information to select the proper VIF type and binding details.

Platform requirements

• OVS 2.4.0+
• DPDK 2.0+

Configuration

[OVS]
datapath_type=netdev
vhostuser_socket_dir=/var/run/openvswitch

When OVS is running with DPDK support enabled, and the datapath_type is set to netdev, then the OVS ML2 driver will use the vhost-user VIF type and pass the necessary binding details to use OVS+DPDK and vhost-user sockets. This includes the vhostuser_socket_dir setting, which must match the directory passed to ovs-vswitchd on startup.

What about the networking-ovs-dpdk repo?

The networking-ovs-dpdk repo will continue to exist and undergo active development. This feature just removes the necessity for a separate ML2 driver and OVS agent in the networking-ovs-dpdk repo. The networking-ovs-dpdk project also provides a devstack plugin which also allows automated CI, a Puppet module, and an OpenFlow-based security group implementation.