Provided by: ovn-common_25.03.0-1_amd64 
NAME
ovn-ic - Open Virtual Network interconnection controller
SYNOPSIS
ovn-ic [options]
DESCRIPTION
ovn-ic, OVN interconnection controller, is a centralized daemon which communicates with global
interconnection databases IC_NB/IC_SB to configure and exchange data with local NB/SB for interconnecting
with other OVN deployments.
OPTIONS
--ovnnb-db=database
The OVSDB database containing the OVN Northbound Database. If the OVN_NB_DB environment variable
is set, its value is used as the default. Otherwise, the default is unix:/ovnnb_db.sock.
--ovnsb-db=database
The OVSDB database containing the OVN Southbound Database. If the OVN_SB_DB environment variable
is set, its value is used as the default. Otherwise, the default is unix:/ovnsb_db.sock.
--ic-nb-db=database
The OVSDB database containing the OVN Interconnection Northbound Database. If the OVN_IC_NB_DB
environment variable is set, its value is used as the default. Otherwise, the default is
unix:/ovn_ic_nb_db.sock.
--ic-sb-db=database
The OVSDB database containing the OVN Interconnection Southbound Database. If the OVN_IC_SB_DB
environment variable is set, its value is used as the default. Otherwise, the default is
unix:/ovn_ic_sb_db.sock.
database in the above options must be an OVSDB active or passive connection method, as described in
ovsdb(7).
Daemon Options
--pidfile[=pidfile]
Causes a file (by default, program.pid) to be created indicating the PID of the running process.
If the pidfile argument is not specified, or if it does not begin with /, then it is created in .
If --pidfile is not specified, no pidfile is created.
--overwrite-pidfile
By default, when --pidfile is specified and the specified pidfile already exists and is locked by
a running process, the daemon refuses to start. Specify --overwrite-pidfile to cause it to instead
overwrite the pidfile.
When --pidfile is not specified, this option has no effect.
--detach
Runs this program as a background process. The process forks, and in the child it starts a new
session, closes the standard file descriptors (which has the side effect of disabling logging to
the console), and changes its current directory to the root (unless --no-chdir is specified).
After the child completes its initialization, the parent exits.
--monitor
Creates an additional process to monitor this program. If it dies due to a signal that indicates a
programming error (SIGABRT, SIGALRM, SIGBUS, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGPIPE, SIGSEGV, SIGXCPU, or
SIGXFSZ) then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon dies or exits for another
reason, the monitor process exits.
This option is normally used with --detach, but it also functions without it.
--no-chdir
By default, when --detach is specified, the daemon changes its current working directory to the
root directory after it detaches. Otherwise, invoking the daemon from a carelessly chosen
directory would prevent the administrator from unmounting the file system that holds that
directory.
Specifying --no-chdir suppresses this behavior, preventing the daemon from changing its current
working directory. This may be useful for collecting core files, since it is common behavior to
write core dumps into the current working directory and the root directory is not a good directory
to use.
This option has no effect when --detach is not specified.
--no-self-confinement
By default this daemon will try to self-confine itself to work with files under well-known
directories determined at build time. It is better to stick with this default behavior and not to
use this flag unless some other Access Control is used to confine daemon. Note that in contrast to
other access control implementations that are typically enforced from kernel-space (e.g. DAC or
MAC), self-confinement is imposed from the user-space daemon itself and hence should not be
considered as a full confinement strategy, but instead should be viewed as an additional layer of
security.
--user=user:group
Causes this program to run as a different user specified in user:group, thus dropping most of the
root privileges. Short forms user and :group are also allowed, with current user or group assumed,
respectively. Only daemons started by the root user accepts this argument.
On Linux, daemons will be granted CAP_IPC_LOCK and CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICES before dropping root
privileges. Daemons that interact with a datapath, such as ovs-vswitchd, will be granted three
additional capabilities, namely CAP_NET_ADMIN, CAP_NET_BROADCAST and CAP_NET_RAW. The capability
change will apply even if the new user is root.
On Windows, this option is not currently supported. For security reasons, specifying this option
will cause the daemon process not to start.
Logging Options
-v[spec]
--verbose=[spec]
Sets logging levels. Without any spec, sets the log level for every module and destination to dbg.
Otherwise, spec is a list of words separated by spaces or commas or colons, up to one from each
category below:
• A valid module name, as displayed by the vlog/list command on ovs-appctl(8), limits the log
level change to the specified module.
• syslog, console, or file, to limit the log level change to only to the system log, to the
console, or to a file, respectively. (If --detach is specified, the daemon closes its
standard file descriptors, so logging to the console will have no effect.)
On Windows platform, syslog is accepted as a word and is only useful along with the
--syslog-target option (the word has no effect otherwise).
• off, emer, err, warn, info, or dbg, to control the log level. Messages of the given severity
or higher will be logged, and messages of lower severity will be filtered out. off filters
out all messages. See ovs-appctl(8) for a definition of each log level.
Case is not significant within spec.
Regardless of the log levels set for file, logging to a file will not take place unless --log-file
is also specified (see below).
For compatibility with older versions of OVS, any is accepted as a word but has no effect.
-v
--verbose
Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to --verbose=dbg.
-vPATTERN:destination:pattern
--verbose=PATTERN:destination:pattern
Sets the log pattern for destination to pattern. Refer to ovs-appctl(8) for a description of the
valid syntax for pattern.
-vFACILITY:facility
--verbose=FACILITY:facility
Sets the RFC5424 facility of the log message. facility can be one of kern, user, mail, daemon, auth,
syslog, lpr, news, uucp, clock, ftp, ntp, audit, alert, clock2, local0, local1, local2, local3,
local4, local5, local6 or local7. If this option is not specified, daemon is used as the default for
the local system syslog and local0 is used while sending a message to the target provided via the
--syslog-target option.
--log-file[=file]
Enables logging to a file. If file is specified, then it is used as the exact name for the log file.
The default log file name used if file is omitted is /var/log/ovn/program.log.
--syslog-target=host:port
Send syslog messages to UDP port on host, in addition to the system syslog. The host must be a
numerical IP address, not a hostname.
--syslog-method=method
Specify method as how syslog messages should be sent to syslog daemon. The following forms are
supported:
• libc, to use the libc syslog() function. Downside of using this options is that libc adds
fixed prefix to every message before it is actually sent to the syslog daemon over /dev/log
UNIX domain socket.
• unix:file, to use a UNIX domain socket directly. It is possible to specify arbitrary message
format with this option. However, rsyslogd 8.9 and older versions use hard coded parser
function anyway that limits UNIX domain socket use. If you want to use arbitrary message
format with older rsyslogd versions, then use UDP socket to localhost IP address instead.
• udp:ip:port, to use a UDP socket. With this method it is possible to use arbitrary message
format also with older rsyslogd. When sending syslog messages over UDP socket extra
precaution needs to be taken into account, for example, syslog daemon needs to be configured
to listen on the specified UDP port, accidental iptables rules could be interfering with
local syslog traffic and there are some security considerations that apply to UDP sockets,
but do not apply to UNIX domain sockets.
• null, to discard all messages logged to syslog.
The default is taken from the OVS_SYSLOG_METHOD environment variable; if it is unset, the default is
libc.
PKI Options
PKI configuration is required in order to use SSL/TLS for the connections to the Northbound and
Southbound databases.
-p privkey.pem
--private-key=privkey.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the private key used as identity for outgoing SSL/TLS
connections.
-c cert.pem
--certificate=cert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing a certificate that certifies the private key specified on -p
or --private-key to be trustworthy. The certificate must be signed by the certificate
authority (CA) that the peer in SSL/TLS connections will use to verify it.
-C cacert.pem
--ca-cert=cacert.pem
Specifies a PEM file containing the CA certificate for verifying certificates presented to
this program by SSL/TLS peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL/TLS peers use to
verify the certificate specified on -c or --certificate, or it may be a different one,
depending on the PKI design in use.)
-C none
--ca-cert=none
Disables verification of certificates presented by SSL/TLS peers. This introduces a security
risk, because it means that certificates cannot be verified to be those of known trusted
hosts.
Other Options
--unixctl=socket
Sets the name of the control socket on which program listens for runtime management commands (see
RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS, below). If socket does not begin with /, it is interpreted as
relative to . If --unixctl is not used at all, the default socket is /program.pid.ctl, where pid
is program’s process ID.
On Windows a local named pipe is used to listen for runtime management commands. A file is created
in the absolute path as pointed by socket or if --unixctl is not used at all, a file is created as
program in the configured OVS_RUNDIR directory. The file exists just to mimic the behavior of a
Unix domain socket.
Specifying none for socket disables the control socket feature.
-h
--help
Prints a brief help message to the console.
-V
--version
Prints version information to the console.
RUNTIME MANAGEMENT COMMANDS
ovs-appctl can send commands to a running ovn-ic process. The currently supported commands are described
below.
exit Causes ovn-ic to gracefully terminate.
pause Pauses the ovn-ic operation from processing any database changes. This will also instruct
ovn-ic to drop any lock on SB DB.
resume Resumes the ovn-ic operation to process database contents. This will also instruct ovn-
northd to aspire for the lock on SB DB.
is-paused
Returns "true" if ovn-ic is currently paused, "false" otherwise.
status Prints this server’s status. Status will be "active" if ovn-ic has acquired OVSDB lock on
SB DB, "standby" if it has not or "paused" if this instance is paused.
ACTIVE-STANDBY FOR HIGH AVAILABILITY
You may run ovn-ic more than once in an OVN deployment. When connected to a standalone or clustered DB
setup, OVN will automatically ensure that only one of them is active at a time. If multiple instances of
ovn-ic are running and the active ovn-ic fails, one of the hot standby instances of ovn-ic will
automatically take over.
OVN 25.03.0 ovn-ic ovn-ic(8)