ovn-northd - Man Page

--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.

-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 configuration is required in order to use SSL 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 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 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 peers. (This may be the same certificate that SSL 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 peers. This introduces a security risk, because it means that certificates cannot be verified to be those of known trusted hosts.

--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.

You may run multiple OVN DB servers in an OVN deployment with:

• OVN DB servers deployed in active/passive mode with one active and multiple passive ovsdb-servers.
• ovn-northd also deployed on all these nodes, using unix ctl sockets to connect to the local OVN DB servers.

In such deployments, the ovn-northds on the passive nodes will process the DB changes and compute logical flows to be thrown out later, because write transactions are not allowed by the passive ovsdb-servers. It results in unnecessary CPU usage.

With the help of runtime management command pause, you can pause ovn-northd on these nodes. When a passive node becomes master, you can use the runtime management command resume to resume the ovn-northd to process the DB changes.

Ingress table 0 contains these logical flows:

• Priority 100 flows to drop packets with VLAN tags or multicast Ethernet source addresses.
• For each disabled logical port, a priority 100 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = 1; next;" so that the packets are dropped in the next stage.

• For each logical port that’s defined as a target of routing protocol redirecting (via routing-protocol-redirect option set on Logical Router Port), a filter is set in place that disallows following traffic exiting this port:

  • ARP replies
  • IPv6 Neighbor Discovery - Router Advertisements
  • IPv6 Neighbor Discovery - Neighbor Advertisements

  Since this port shares IP and MAC addresses with the Logical Router Port, we wan’t to prevent duplicate replies and advertisements. This is achieved by a rule with priority 80 that sets REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = 1; next;".

• For each (enabled) vtep logical port, a priority 70 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action next(pipeline=ingress, table=S_SWITCH_IN_L3_LKUP) = 1; to skip most stages of ingress pipeline and go directly to ingress L2 lookup table to determine the output port. Packets from VTEP (RAMP) switch should not be subjected to any ACL checks. Egress pipeline will do the ACL checks.
• For each enabled logical port configured with qdisc queue id in the options:qdisc_queue_id column of Logical_Switch_Port, a priority 70 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action set_queue(id); REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = check_in_port_sec(); next;".
• A priority 1 flow is added which matches on all packets for all the logical ports and applies the action REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = check_in_port_sec(); next; to evaluate the port security. The action check_in_port_sec applies the port security rules defined in the port_security column of Logical_Switch_Port table.

For each logical switch port P of type router connected to a gw router a priority-120 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ and eth.src == D && outport == P && flags.tunnel_rx == 1 where D is the peer logical router port RP mac address, swaps inport and outport and applies the action next.

For each logical switch port P of type router connected to a distributed router a priority-120 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ and eth.dst == D && flags.tunnel_rx == 1 where D is the peer logical router port RP mac address, swaps inport and outport and applies the action next(pipeline=S_SWITCH_IN_L2_LKUP).

For each logical switch port P a priority-110 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ and eth.src == D && outport == P && !is_chassis_resident("P") && flags.tunnel_rx == 1 where D is the logical switch port mac address, swaps inport and outport and applies the action next.

This table adds a priority-105 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ to drop the packet.

This table drops the packets if the port security check failed in the previous stage i.e the register bit REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP is set to 1.

Ingress table 1 contains these logical flows:

• A priority-50 fallback flow that drops the packet if the register bit REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP is set to 1.
• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

This table looks up the MAC learning table of the logical switch datapath to check if the port-mac pair is present or not. MAC is learnt for logical switch VIF ports whose port security is disabled and ’unknown’ address setn as well as for localnet ports with option localnet_learn_fdb. A localnet port entry does not overwrite a VIF port entry.

• For each such VIF logical port p whose port security is disabled and ’unknown’ address set following flow is added.

  • Priority 100 flow with the match inport == p and action reg0[11] = lookup_fdb(inport, eth.src); next;

• For each such localnet logical port p following flow is added.

  • Priority 100 flow with the match inport == p and action flags.localnet = 1; reg0[11] = lookup_fdb(inport, eth.src); next;
• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

This table learns the MAC addresses seen on the VIF logical ports whose port security is disabled and ’unknown’ address set as well as on localnet ports with localnet_learn_fdb option set if the lookup_fdb action returned false in the previous table. For localnet ports (with flags.localnet = 1), lookup_fdb returns true if (port, mac) is found or if a mac is found for a port of type vif.

• For each such VIF logical port p whose port security is disabled and ’unknown’ address set and localnet port following flow is added.

  • Priority 100 flow with the match inport == p && reg0[11] == 0 and action put_fdb(inport, eth.src); next; which stores the port-mac in the mac learning table of the logical switch datapath and advances the packet to the next table.
• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

This table prepares flows for possible stateful ACL processing in ingress table ACLs. It contains a priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table. If stateful ACLs are used in the logical datapath, a priority-100 flow is added that sets a hint (with reg0[0] = 1; next;) for table Pre-stateful to send IP packets to the connection tracker before eventually advancing to ingress table ACLs. If special ports such as route ports or localnet ports can’t use ct(), a priority-110 flow is added to skip over stateful ACLs. This priority-110 flow is not addd for router ports if the option enable_router_port_acl is set to true in options:enable_router_port_acl column of Logical_Switch_Port. Multicast, IPv6 Neighbor Discovery and MLD traffic also skips stateful ACLs. For "allow-stateless" ACLs, a flow is added to bypass setting the hint for connection tracker processing when there are stateful ACLs or LB rules; REGBIT_ACL_STATELESS is set for traffic matching stateless ACL flows.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match eth.dst == E for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.

This table prepares flows for possible stateful load balancing processing in ingress table LB and Stateful. It contains a priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table. Moreover it contains two priority-110 flows to move multicast, IPv6 Neighbor Discovery and MLD traffic to the next table. It also contains two priority-110 flows to move stateless traffic, i.e traffic for which REGBIT_ACL_STATELESS is set, to the next table. If load balancing rules with virtual IP addresses (and ports) are configured in OVN_Northbound database for a logical switch datapath, a priority-100 flow is added with the match ip to match on IP packets and sets the action reg0[2] = 1; next; to act as a hint for table Pre-stateful to send IP packets to the connection tracker for packet de-fragmentation (and to possibly do DNAT for already established load balanced traffic) before eventually advancing to ingress table Stateful. If controller_event has been enabled and load balancing rules with empty backends have been added in OVN_Northbound, a 130 flow is added to trigger ovn-controller events whenever the chassis receives a packet for that particular VIP. If event-elb meter has been previously created, it will be associated to the empty_lb logical flow

Prior to OVN 20.09 we were setting the reg0[0] = 1 only if the IP destination matches the load balancer VIP. However this had few issues cases where a logical switch doesn’t have any ACLs with allow-related action. To understand the issue lets a take a TCP load balancer - 10.0.0.10:80=10.0.0.3:80. If a logical port - p1 with IP - 10.0.0.5 opens a TCP connection with the VIP - 10.0.0.10, then the packet in the ingress pipeline of ’p1’ is sent to the p1’s conntrack zone id and the packet is load balanced to the backend - 10.0.0.3. For the reply packet from the backend lport, it is not sent to the conntrack of backend lport’s zone id. This is fine as long as the packet is valid. Suppose the backend lport sends an invalid TCP packet (like incorrect sequence number), the packet gets delivered to the lport ’p1’ without unDNATing the packet to the VIP - 10.0.0.10. And this causes the connection to be reset by the lport p1’s VIF.

We can’t fix this issue by adding a logical flow to drop ct.inv packets in the egress pipeline since it will drop all other connections not destined to the load balancers. To fix this issue, we send all the packets to the conntrack in the ingress pipeline if a load balancer is configured. We can now add a lflow to drop ct.inv packets.

This table also has priority-120 flows that punt all IGMP/MLD packets to ovn-controller if the switch is an interconnect switch with multicast snooping enabled.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match eth.dst == E for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match inport == I for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where I is the peer of a logical router port. This flow is added to skip the connection tracking of packets which enter from logical router datapath to logical switch datapath.

This table prepares flows for all possible stateful processing in next tables. It contains a priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

• Priority-120 flows that send the packets to connection tracker using ct_lb_mark; as the action so that the already established traffic destined to the load balancer VIP gets DNATted. These flows match each VIPs IP and port. For IPv4 traffic the flows also load the original destination IP and transport port in registers reg1 and reg2. For IPv6 traffic the flows also load the original destination IP and transport port in registers xxreg1 and reg2.
• A priority-110 flow sends the packets that don’t match the above flows to connection tracker based on a hint provided by the previous tables (with a match for reg0[2] == 1) by using the ct_lb_mark; action.
• A priority-100 flow sends the packets to connection tracker based on a hint provided by the previous tables (with a match for reg0[0] == 1) by using the ct_next; action.

This table consists of logical flows that set hints (reg0 bits) to be used in the next stage, in the ACL processing table, if stateful ACLs or load balancers are configured. Multiple hints can be set for the same packet. The possible hints are:

• reg0[7]: the packet might match an allow-related ACL and might have to commit the connection to conntrack.
• reg0[8]: the packet might match an allow-related ACL but there will be no need to commit the connection to conntrack because it already exists.
• reg0[9]: the packet might match a drop/reject.
• reg0[10]: the packet might match a drop/reject ACL but the connection was previously allowed so it might have to be committed again with ct_label=1/1.

The table contains the following flows:

Logical flows in this table closely reproduce those in the ACL table in the OVN_Northbound database for the from-lport direction without the option apply-after-lb set or set to false. The priority values from the ACL table have a limited range and have 1000 added to them to leave room for OVN default flows at both higher and lower priorities.

• This table is responsible for evaluating ACLs, and setting a register bit to indicate whether the ACL decided to allow, drop, or reject the traffic. The allow bit is reg8[16]. The drop bit is reg8[17]. All flows in this table will advance the packet to the next table, where the bits from before are evaluated to determine what to do with the packet. Any flows in this table that intend for the packet to pass will set reg8[16] to 1, even if an ACL with an allow-type action was not matched. This lets the next table know to allow the traffic to pass. These bits will be referred to as the "allow", "drop", and "reject" bits in the upcoming paragraphs.
• If the tier column has been configured on the ACL, then OVN will also match the current tier counter against the configured ACL tier. OVN keeps count of the current tier in reg8[30..31].
• allow ACLs translate into logical flows that set the allow bit to 1 and advance the packet to the next table. If there are any stateful ACLs on this datapath, then allow ACLs set the allow bit to one and in addition perform ct_commit; (which acts as a hint for future tables to commit the connection to conntrack). In case the ACL has a label then reg3 is loaded with the label value and reg0[13] bit is set to 1 (which acts as a hint for the next tables to commit the label to conntrack).
• allow-related ACLs translate into logical flows that set the allow bit and additionally have ct_commit { ct_label=0/1; }; next; actions for new connections and reg0[1] = 1; next; for existing connections. In case the ACL has a label then reg3 is loaded with the label value and reg0[13] bit is set to 1 (which acts as a hint for the next tables to commit the label to conntrack).
• allow-stateless ACLs translate into logical flows that set the allow bit and advance to the next table.
• reject ACLs translate into logical flows with that set the reject bit and advance to the next table.
• pass ACLs translate into logical flows that do not set the allow, drop, or reject bit and advance to the next table.
• Other ACLs set the drop bit and advance to the next table for new or untracked connections. For known connections, they set the drop bit, as well as running the ct_commit { ct_label=1/1; }; action. Setting ct_label marks a connection as one that was previously allowed, but should no longer be allowed due to a policy change.

This table contains a priority-65535 flow to set the allow bit and advance to the next table if the logical switch has no ACLs configured, otherwise a priority-0 flow to advance to the next table is added. This flow does not set the allow bit, so that the next table can decide whether to allow or drop the packet based on the value of the options:default_acl_drop column of the NB_Global table.

A priority-65532 flow is added that sets the allow bit for IPv6 Neighbor solicitation, Neighbor discover, Router solicitation, Router advertisement and MLD packets regardless of other ACLs defined.

If the logical datapath has a stateful ACL or a load balancer with VIP configured, the following flows will also be added:

• If options:default_acl_drop column of NB_Global is false or not set, a priority-1 flow that sets the hint to commit IP traffic that is not part of established sessions to the connection tracker (with action reg0[1] = 1; next;). This is needed for the default allow policy because, while the initiator’s direction may not have any stateful rules, the server’s may and then its return traffic would not be known and marked as invalid.
• A priority-1 flow that sets the allow bit and sets the hint to commit IP traffic to the connection tracker (with action reg0[1] = 1; next;). This is needed for the default allow policy because, while the initiator’s direction may not have any stateful rules, the server’s may and then its return traffic would not be known and marked as invalid.
• A priority-65532 flow that sets the allow bit for any traffic in the reply direction for a connection that has been committed to the connection tracker (i.e., established flows), as long as the committed flow does not have ct_mark.blocked set. We only handle traffic in the reply direction here because we want all packets going in the request direction to still go through the flows that implement the currently defined policy based on ACLs. If a connection is no longer allowed by policy, ct_mark.blocked will get set and packets in the reply direction will no longer be allowed, either. This flow also clears the register bits reg0[9] and reg0[10] and sets register bit reg0[17]. If ACL logging and logging of related packets is enabled, then a companion priority-65533 flow will be installed that accomplishes the same thing but also logs the traffic.
• A priority-65532 flow that sets the allow bit for any traffic that is considered related to a committed flow in the connection tracker (e.g., an ICMP Port Unreachable from a non-listening UDP port), as long as the committed flow does not have ct_mark.blocked set. This flow also applies NAT to the related traffic so that ICMP headers and the inner packet have correct addresses. If ACL logging and logging of related packets is enabled, then a companion priority-65533 flow will be installed that accomplishes the same thing but also logs the traffic.
• A priority-65532 flow that sets the drop bit for all traffic marked by the connection tracker as invalid.
• A priority-65532 flow that sets the drop bit for all traffic in the reply direction with ct_mark.blocked set meaning that the connection should no longer be allowed due to a policy change. Packets in the request direction are skipped here to let a newly created ACL re-allow this connection.

If the logical datapath has any ACL or a load balancer with VIP configured, the following flow will also be added:

• A priority 34000 logical flow is added for each logical switch datapath with the match eth.dst = E to allow the service monitor reply packet destined to ovn-controller that sets the allow bit, where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.

Logical flows in this table sample traffic matched by from-lport ACLs with sampling enabled.

• If no ACLs have sampling enabled, then a priority 0 flow is installed that matches everything and advances to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_new configured a priority 1100 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_est configured a priority 1200 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value for established traffic in the original direction. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_est configured a priority 1200 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value for established traffic in the reply direction. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table. Note: this flow is installed in the opposite pipeline (in the ingress pipeline for ACLs applied in the egress direction and in the egress pipeline for ACLs applied in the ingress direction).

Logical flows in this table decide how to proceed based on the values of the allow, drop, and reject bits that may have been set in the previous table.

• If no ACLs are configured, then a priority 0 flow is installed that matches everything and advances to the next table.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will advance the packet to the next table if the allow bit is set.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will run the drop; action if the drop bit is set.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will run the tcp_reset { output <-> inport; next(pipeline=egress,table=5);} action for TCP connections,icmp4/icmp6 action for UDP connections, and sctp_abort {output <-%gt; inport; next(pipeline=egress,table=5);} action for SCTP associations.
• If any ACLs have tiers configured on them, then three priority 500 flows are installed. If the current tier counter is 0, 1, or 2, then the current tier counter is incremented by one and the packet is sent back to the previous table for re-evaluation.

Logical flows in this table closely reproduce those in the QoS table with the action or bandwidth column set in the OVN_Northbound database for the from-lport direction.

• For every qos_rules entry in a logical switch with DSCP marking, packet marking or metering enabled a flow will be added at the priority mentioned in the QoS table.
• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

Load balancing affinity check table contains the following logical flows:

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a switch in OVN_Northbound database where a positive affinity timeout is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IP address VIP, a priority-100 flow is added. For IPv4 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip4.dst == VIP && P.dst == PORT. For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip6.dst == VIP&& P && P.dst == PORT. The flow’s action is reg9[6] = chk_lb_aff(); next;.
• A priority 0 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action next;.

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a switch in OVN_Northbound database where a positive affinity timeout is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IP address VIP, a priority-150 flow is added. For IPv4 VIPs, the flow matches reg9[6] == 1 && ct.new && ip && ip4.dst == VIP && P.dst == PORT . For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches reg9[6] == 1 && ct.new && ip && ip6.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT. The flow’s action is ct_lb_mark(args), where args contains comma separated IP addresses (and optional port numbers) to load balance to. The address family of the IP addresses of args is the same as the address family of VIP.
• For all the configured load balancing rules for a switch in OVN_Northbound database that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IP address VIP, a priority-120 flow is added. For IPv4 VIPs , the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip4.dst == VIP && P.dst == PORT. For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip6.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT. The flow’s action is ct_lb_mark(args) , where args contains comma separated IP addresses (and optional port numbers) to load balance to. The address family of the IP addresses of args is the same as the address family of VIP. If health check is enabled, then args will only contain those endpoints whose service monitor status entry in OVN_Southbound db is either online or empty. For IPv4 traffic the flow also loads the original destination IP and transport port in registers reg1 and reg2. For IPv6 traffic the flow also loads the original destination IP and transport port in registers xxreg1 and reg2. The above flow is created even if the load balancer is attached to a logical router connected to the current logical switch and the install_ls_lb_from_router variable in options is set to true.
• For all the configured load balancing rules for a switch in OVN_Northbound database that includes just an IP address VIP to match on, OVN adds a priority-110 flow. For IPv4 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip4.dst == VIP. For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip6.dst == VIP. The action on this flow is ct_lb_mark(args), where args contains comma separated IP addresses of the same address family as VIP. For IPv4 traffic the flow also loads the original destination IP and transport port in registers reg1 and reg2. For IPv6 traffic the flow also loads the original destination IP and transport port in registers xxreg1 and reg2. The above flow is created even if the load balancer is attached to a logical router connected to the current logical switch and the install_ls_lb_from_router variable in options is set to true.
• If the load balancer is created with --reject option and it has no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp) or an ICMP port unreachable packet (for all other kind of traffic) will be sent whenever an incoming packet is received for this load-balancer. Please note using --reject option will disable empty_lb SB controller event for this load balancer.

Load balancing affinity learn table contains the following logical flows:

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a switch in OVN_Northbound database where a positive affinity timeout T is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IP address VIP, a priority-100 flow is added. For IPv4 VIPs, the flow matches reg9[6] == 0 && ct.new && ip && ip4.dst == VIP && P.dst == PORT. For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches ct.new && ip && ip6.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT . The flow’s action is commit_lb_aff(vip = VIP:PORT, backend = backend ip: backend port, proto = P, timeout = T); .
• A priority 0 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action next;.

• If the logical switch has load balancer(s) configured, then a priority-100 flow is added with the match ip && ct.trk to check if the packet needs to be hairpinned (if after load balancing the destination IP matches the source IP) or not by executing the actions reg0[6] = chk_lb_hairpin(); and reg0[12] = chk_lb_hairpin_reply(); and advances the packet to the next table.
• A priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

• If the logical switch has load balancer(s) configured, then a priority-100 flow is added with the match ip && ct.new && ct.trk && reg0[6] == 1 which hairpins the traffic by NATting source IP to the load balancer VIP by executing the action ct_snat_to_vip and advances the packet to the next table.
• If the logical switch has load balancer(s) configured, then a priority-100 flow is added with the match ip && ct.est && ct.trk && reg0[6] == 1 which hairpins the traffic by NATting source IP to the load balancer VIP by executing the action ct_snat and advances the packet to the next table.
• If the logical switch has load balancer(s) configured, then a priority-90 flow is added with the match ip && reg0[12] == 1 which matches on the replies of hairpinned traffic (i.e., destination IP is VIP, source IP is the backend IP and source L4 port is backend port for L4 load balancers) and executes ct_snat and advances the packet to the next table.
• A priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

• If logical switch has attached logical switch port of vtep type, then for each distributed gateway router port RP attached to this logical switch and has chassis redirect port cr-RP, a priority-2000 flow is added with the match .IP

  reg0[14] == 1 && is_chassis_resident(cr-RP)

  and action next;.

  reg0[14] register bit is set in the ingress L2 port security check table for traffic received from HW VTEP (ramp) ports.

• If logical switch has attached logical switch port of vtep type, then a priority-1000 flow that matches on reg0[14] register bit for the traffic received from HW VTEP (ramp) ports. This traffic is passed to ingress table ls_in_l2_lkup.
• A priority-1 flow that hairpins traffic matched by non-default flows in the Pre-Hairpin table. Hairpinning is done at L2, Ethernet addresses are swapped and the packets are looped back on the input port.
• A priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

Logical flows in this table closely reproduce those in the ACL eval table in the OVN_Northbound database for the from-lport direction with the option apply-after-lb set to true. The priority values from the ACL table have a limited range and have 1000 added to them to leave room for OVN default flows at both higher and lower priorities. The flows in this table indicate the ACL verdict by setting reg8[16] for allow-type ACLs, reg8[17] for drop ACLs, and reg8[17] for reject ACLs, and then advancing the packet to the next table. These will be reffered to as the allow bit, drop bit, and reject bit throughout the documentation for this table and the next one.

Like with ACLs that are evaluated before load balancers, if the ACL is configured with a tier value, then the current tier counter, supplied in reg8[30..31] is matched against the ACL’s configured tier in addition to the ACL’s match.

Logical flows in this table sample traffic matched by from-lport ACLs (evaluation after LB) with sampling enabled.

• If no ACLs have sampling enabled, then a priority 0 flow is installed that matches everything and advances to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_new configured a priority 1100 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_est configured a priority 1200 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value for established traffic in the original direction. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table.
• For each ACL with sample_est configured a priority 1200 flow is installed that matches on the saved observation_point_id value for established traffic in the reply direction. This flow generates a sample() action and then advances the packet to the next table. Note: this flow is installed in the opposite pipeline (in the ingress pipeline for ACLs applied in the egress direction and in the egress pipeline for ACLs applied in the ingress direction).

Logical flows in this table decide how to proceed based on the values of the allow, drop, and reject bits that may have been set in the previous table.

• If no ACLs are configured, then a priority 0 flow is installed that matches everything and advances to the next table.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will advance the packet to the next table if the allow bit is set.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will run the drop; action if the drop bit is set.
• A priority 1000 flow is installed that will run the tcp_reset { output <-> inport; next(pipeline=egress,table=5);} action for TCP connections,icmp4/icmp6 action for UDP connections, and sctp_abort {output <-%gt; inport; next(pipeline=egress,table=5);} action for SCTP associations.
• If any ACLs have tiers configured on them, then three priority 500 flows are installed. If the current tier counter is 0, 1, or 2, then the current tier counter is incremented by one and the packet is sent back to the previous table for re-evaluation.

• A priority 100 flow is added which commits the packet to the conntrack and sets the most significant 32-bits of ct_label with the reg3 value based on the hint provided by previous tables (with a match for reg0[1] == 1 && reg0[13] == 1). This is used by the ACLs with label to commit the label value to conntrack.
• For ACLs without label, a second priority-100 flow commits packets to connection tracker using ct_commit; next; action based on a hint provided by the previous tables (with a match for reg0[1] == 1 && reg0[13] == 0).
• A priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

This table implements ARP/ND responder in a logical switch for known IPs. The advantage of the ARP responder flow is to limit ARP broadcasts by locally responding to ARP requests without the need to send to other hypervisors. One common case is when the inport is a logical port associated with a VIF and the broadcast is responded to on the local hypervisor rather than broadcast across the whole network and responded to by the destination VM. This behavior is proxy ARP.

ARP requests arrive from VMs from a logical switch inport of type default. For this case, the logical switch proxy ARP rules can be for other VMs or logical router ports. Logical switch proxy ARP rules may be programmed both for mac binding of IP addresses on other logical switch VIF ports (which are of the default logical switch port type, representing connectivity to VMs or containers), and for mac binding of IP addresses on logical switch router type ports, representing their logical router port peers. In order to support proxy ARP for logical router ports, an IP address must be configured on the logical switch router type port, with the same value as the peer logical router port. The configured MAC addresses must match as well. When a VM sends an ARP request for a distributed logical router port and if the peer router type port of the attached logical switch does not have an IP address configured, the ARP request will be broadcast on the logical switch. One of the copies of the ARP request will go through the logical switch router type port to the logical router datapath, where the logical router ARP responder will generate a reply. The MAC binding of a distributed logical router, once learned by an associated VM, is used for all that VM’s communication needing routing. Hence, the action of a VM re-arping for the mac binding of the logical router port should be rare.

Logical switch ARP responder proxy ARP rules can also be hit when receiving ARP requests externally on a L2 gateway port. In this case, the hypervisor acting as an L2 gateway, responds to the ARP request on behalf of a destination VM.

Note that ARP requests received from localnet logical inports can either go directly to VMs, in which case the VM responds or can hit an ARP responder for a logical router port if the packet is used to resolve a logical router port next hop address. In either case, logical switch ARP responder rules will not be hit. It contains these logical flows:

• If packet was received from HW VTEP (ramp switch), and this packet is ARP or Neighbor Solicitation, such packet is passed to next table with max proirity. ARP/ND requests from HW VTEP must be handled in logical router ingress pipeline.
• If the logical switch has no router ports with options:arp_proxy configured add a priority-100 flows to skip the ARP responder if inport is of type localnet advances directly to the next table. ARP requests sent to localnet ports can be received by multiple hypervisors. Now, because the same mac binding rules are downloaded to all hypervisors, each of the multiple hypervisors will respond. This will confuse L2 learning on the source of the ARP requests. ARP requests received on an inport of type router are not expected to hit any logical switch ARP responder flows. However, no skip flows are installed for these packets, as there would be some additional flow cost for this and the value appears limited.

• If inport V is of type virtual adds a priority-100 logical flows for each P configured in the options:virtual-parents column with the match

  inport == P && && ((arp.op == 1 && arp.spa == VIP && arp.tpa == VIP) || (arp.op == 2 && arp.spa == VIP))
  inport == P && && ((nd_ns && ip6.dst == {VIP, NS_MULTICAST_ADDR} && nd.target == VIP) || (nd_na && nd.target == VIP))

  and applies the action

  bind_vport(V, inport);

  and advances the packet to the next table.

  Where VIP is the virtual ip configured in the column options:virtual-ip and NS_MULTICAST_ADDR is solicited-node multicast address corresponding to the VIP.

• Priority-50 flows that match only broadcast ARP requests to each known IPv4 address A of every logical switch port, and respond with ARP replies directly with corresponding Ethernet address E:

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  arp.op = 2; /* ARP reply. */
  arp.tha = arp.sha;
  arp.sha = E;
  arp.tpa = arp.spa;
  arp.spa = A;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  These flows are omitted for logical ports (other than router ports or localport ports) that are down (unless ignore_lsp_down is configured as true in options column of NB_Global table of the Northbound database), for logical ports of type virtual, for logical ports with ’unknown’ address set, for logical ports with the options:disable_arp_nd_rsp=true and for logical ports of a logical switch configured with other_config:vlan-passthru=true.

  The above ARP responder flows are added for the list of IPv4 addresses if defined in options:arp_proxy column of Logical_Switch_Port table for logical switch ports of type router.

• Priority-50 flows that match IPv6 ND neighbor solicitations to each known IP address A (and A’s solicited node address) of every logical switch port except of type router, and respond with neighbor advertisements directly with corresponding Ethernet address E:

  nd_na {
      eth.src = E;
      ip6.src = A;
      nd.target = A;
      nd.tll = E;
      outport = inport;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };

  Priority-50 flows that match IPv6 ND neighbor solicitations to each known IP address A (and A’s solicited node address) of logical switch port of type router, and respond with neighbor advertisements directly with corresponding Ethernet address E:

  nd_na_router {
      eth.src = E;
      ip6.src = A;
      nd.target = A;
      nd.tll = E;
      outport = inport;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };

  These flows are omitted for logical ports (other than router ports or localport ports) that are down (unless ignore_lsp_down is configured as true in options column of NB_Global table of the Northbound database), for logical ports of type virtual and for logical ports with ’unknown’ address set.

  The above NDP responder flows are added for the list of IPv6 addresses if defined in options:arp_proxy column of Logical_Switch_Port table for logical switch ports of type router.

• Priority-100 flows with match criteria like the ARP and ND flows above, except that they only match packets from the inport that owns the IP addresses in question, with action next;. These flows prevent OVN from replying to, for example, an ARP request emitted by a VM for its own IP address. A VM only makes this kind of request to attempt to detect a duplicate IP address assignment, so sending a reply will prevent the VM from accepting the IP address that it owns.

  In place of next;, it would be reasonable to use drop; for the flows’ actions. If everything is working as it is configured, then this would produce equivalent results, since no host should reply to the request. But ARPing for one’s own IP address is intended to detect situations where the network is not working as configured, so dropping the request would frustrate that intent.

• For each SVC_MON_SRC_IP defined in the value of the ip_port_mappings:ENDPOINT_IP column of Load_Balancer table, priority-110 logical flow is added with the match arp.tpa == SVC_MON_SRC_IP && && arp.op == 1 and applies the action

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  arp.op = 2; /* ARP reply. */
  arp.tha = arp.sha;
  arp.sha = E;
  arp.tpa = arp.spa;
  arp.spa = A;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  where E is the service monitor source mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column in the NB_Global table. This mac is used as the source mac in the service monitor packets for the load balancer endpoint IP health checks.

  SVC_MON_SRC_IP is used as the source ip in the service monitor IPv4 packets for the load balancer endpoint IP health checks.

  These flows are required if an ARP request is sent for the IP SVC_MON_SRC_IP.

  For IPv6 the similar flow is added with the following action

  nd_na {
      eth.dst = eth.src;
      eth.src = E;
      ip6.src = A;
      nd.target = A;
      nd.tll = E;
      outport = inport;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };

• For each VIP configured in the table Forwarding_Group a priority-50 logical flow is added with the match arp.tpa == vip && && arp.op == 1 and applies the action

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  arp.op = 2; /* ARP reply. */
  arp.tha = arp.sha;
  arp.sha = E;
  arp.tpa = arp.spa;
  arp.spa = A;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  where E is the forwarding group’s mac defined in the vmac.

  A is used as either the destination ip for load balancing traffic to child ports or as nexthop to hosts behind the child ports.

  These flows are required to respond to an ARP request if an ARP request is sent for the IP vip.

• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

This table adds the DHCPv4 options to a DHCPv4 packet from the logical ports configured with IPv4 address(es) and DHCPv4 options, and similarly for DHCPv6 options. This table also adds flows for the logical ports of type external.

• A priority-100 logical flow is added for these logical ports which matches the IPv4 packet with udp.src = 68 and udp.dst = 67 and applies the action put_dhcp_opts and advances the packet to the next table.

  reg0[3] = put_dhcp_opts(offer_ip = ip, options...);
  next;

  For DHCPDISCOVER and DHCPREQUEST, this transforms the packet into a DHCP reply, adds the DHCP offer IP ip and options to the packet, and stores 1 into reg0[3]. For other kinds of packets, it just stores 0 into reg0[3]. Either way, it continues to the next table.

• A priority-100 logical flow is added for these logical ports which matches the IPv6 packet with udp.src = 546 and udp.dst = 547 and applies the action put_dhcpv6_opts and advances the packet to the next table.

  reg0[3] = put_dhcpv6_opts(ia_addr = ip, options...);
  next;

  For DHCPv6 Solicit/Request/Confirm packets, this transforms the packet into a DHCPv6 Advertise/Reply, adds the DHCPv6 offer IP ip and options to the packet, and stores 1 into reg0[3]. For other kinds of packets, it just stores 0 into reg0[3]. Either way, it continues to the next table.

• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advances to table 16.

This table implements DHCP responder for the DHCP replies generated by the previous table.

• A priority 100 logical flow is added for the logical ports configured with DHCPv4 options which matches IPv4 packets with udp.src == 68 && udp.dst == 67 && reg0[3] == 1 and responds back to the inport after applying these actions. If reg0[3] is set to 1, it means that the action put_dhcp_opts was successful.

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  ip4.src = S;
  udp.src = 67;
  udp.dst = 68;
  outport = P;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  where E is the server MAC address and S is the server IPv4 address defined in the DHCPv4 options. Note that ip4.dst field is handled by put_dhcp_opts.

  (This terminates ingress packet processing; the packet does not go to the next ingress table.)

• A priority 100 logical flow is added for the logical ports configured with DHCPv6 options which matches IPv6 packets with udp.src == 546 && udp.dst == 547 && reg0[3] == 1 and responds back to the inport after applying these actions. If reg0[3] is set to 1, it means that the action put_dhcpv6_opts was successful.

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  ip6.dst = A;
  ip6.src = S;
  udp.src = 547;
  udp.dst = 546;
  outport = P;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  where E is the server MAC address and S is the server IPv6 LLA address generated from the server_id defined in the DHCPv6 options and A is the IPv6 address defined in the logical port’s addresses column.

  (This terminates packet processing; the packet does not go on the next ingress table.)

• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advances to table 17.

This table looks up and resolves the DNS names to the corresponding configured IP address(es).

• A priority-100 logical flow for each logical switch datapath if it is configured with DNS records, which matches the IPv4 and IPv6 packets with udp.dst = 53 and applies the action dns_lookup and advances the packet to the next table.

  reg0[4] = dns_lookup(); next;

  For valid DNS packets, this transforms the packet into a DNS reply if the DNS name can be resolved, and stores 1 into reg0[4]. For failed DNS resolution or other kinds of packets, it just stores 0 into reg0[4]. Either way, it continues to the next table.

This table implements DNS responder for the DNS replies generated by the previous table.

• A priority-100 logical flow for each logical switch datapath if it is configured with DNS records, which matches the IPv4 and IPv6 packets with udp.dst = 53 && reg0[4] == 1 and responds back to the inport after applying these actions. If reg0[4] is set to 1, it means that the action dns_lookup was successful.

  eth.dst <-> eth.src;
  ip4.src <-> ip4.dst;
  udp.dst = udp.src;
  udp.src = 53;
  outport = P;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  (This terminates ingress packet processing; the packet does not go to the next ingress table.)

Traffic from the external logical ports enter the ingress datapath pipeline via the localnet port. This table adds the below logical flows to handle the traffic from these ports.

• A priority-100 flow is added for each external logical port which doesn’t reside on a chassis to drop the ARP/IPv6 NS request to the router IP(s) (of the logical switch) which matches on the inport of the external logical port and the valid eth.src address(es) of the external logical port.

  This flow guarantees that the ARP/NS request to the router IP address from the external ports is responded by only the chassis which has claimed these external ports. All the other chassis, drops these packets.

  A priority-100 flow is added for each external logical port which doesn’t reside on a chassis to drop any packet destined to the router mac - with the match inport == external && eth.src == E && eth.dst == R && !is_chassis_resident("external") where E is the external port mac and R is the router port mac.

• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advances to table 20.

This table implements switching behavior. It contains these logical flows:

• A priority-110 flow with the match eth.src == E for all logical switch datapaths and applies the action handle_svc_check(inport). Where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.
• A priority-100 flow that punts all IGMP/MLD packets to ovn-controller if multicast snooping is enabled on the logical switch.
• A priority-100 flow that forwards all DHCP broadcast packets coming from VIFs to the logical router port’s MAC when DHCP relay is enabled on the logical switch.

• For any logical port that’s defined as a target of routing protocol redirecting (via routing-protocol-redirect option set on Logical Router Port), we redirect the traffic related to protocols specified in routing-protocols option. It’s acoomplished with following priority-100 flows:

  • Flows that match Logical Router Port’s IPs and destination port of the routing daemon are redirected to this port to allow external peers’ connection to the daemon listening on this port.
  • Flows that match Logical Router Port’s IPs and source port of the routing daemon are redirected to this port to allow replies from the peers.

  In addition to this, we add priority-100 rules that clone ARP replies and IPv6 Neighbor Advertisements to this port as well. These allow to build proper ARP/IPv6 neighbor list on this port.

• Priority-90 flows for transit switches that forward registered IP multicast traffic to their corresponding multicast group , which ovn-northd creates based on learnt IGMP_Group entries.
• Priority-90 flows that forward registered IP multicast traffic to their corresponding multicast group, which ovn-northd creates based on learnt IGMP_Group entries. The flows also forward packets to the MC_MROUTER_FLOOD multicast group, which ovn-nortdh populates with all the logical ports that are connected to logical routers with options:mcast_relay=’true’.
• A priority-85 flow that forwards all IP multicast traffic destined to 224.0.0.X to the MC_FLOOD_L2 multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with all non-router logical ports.
• A priority-85 flow that forwards all IP multicast traffic destined to reserved multicast IPv6 addresses (RFC 4291, 2.7.1, e.g., Solicited-Node multicast) to the MC_FLOOD multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with all enabled logical ports.
• A priority-80 flow that forwards all unregistered IP multicast traffic to the MC_STATIC multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with all the logical ports that have options :mcast_flood=’true’. The flow also forwards unregistered IP multicast traffic to the MC_MROUTER_FLOOD multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with all the logical ports connected to logical routers that have options :mcast_relay=’true’.
• A priority-80 flow that drops all unregistered IP multicast traffic if other_config :mcast_snoop=’true’ and other_config :mcast_flood_unregistered=’false’ and the switch is not connected to a logical router that has options :mcast_relay=’true’ and the switch doesn’t have any logical port with options :mcast_flood=’true’.
• Priority-80 flows for each IP address/VIP/NAT address owned by a router port connected to the switch. These flows match ARP requests and ND packets for the specific IP addresses. Matched packets are forwarded only to the router that owns the IP address and to the MC_FLOOD_L2 multicast group which contains all non-router logical ports.
• Priority-75 flows for each port connected to a logical router matching self originated ARP request/RARP request/ND packets. These packets are flooded to the MC_FLOOD_L2 which contains all non-router logical ports.
• A priority-72 flow that outputs all ARP requests and ND packets with an Ethernet broadcast or multicast eth.dst to the MC_FLOOD_L2 multicast group if other_config:broadcast-arps-to-all-routers=true.
• A priority-70 flow that outputs all packets with an Ethernet broadcast or multicast eth.dst to the MC_FLOOD multicast group.

• One priority-50 flow that matches each known Ethernet address against eth.dst. Action of this flow outputs the packet to the single associated output port if it is enabled. drop; action is applied if LSP is disabled. If the logical switch port of type VIF has the option options:pkt_clone_type is set to the value mc_unknown, then the packet is also forwarded to the MC_UNKNOWN multicast group.

  The above flow is not added if the logical switch port is of type VIF, has unknown as one of its address and has the option options:force_fdb_lookup set to true.

  For the Ethernet address on a logical switch port of type router, when that logical switch port’s addresses column is set to router and the connected logical router port has a gateway chassis:

  • The flow for the connected logical router port’s Ethernet address is only programmed on the gateway chassis.
  • If the logical router has rules specified in nat with external_mac, then those addresses are also used to populate the switch’s destination lookup on the chassis where logical_port is resident.

  For the Ethernet address on a logical switch port of type router, when that logical switch port’s addresses column is set to router and the connected logical router port specifies a reside-on-redirect-chassis and the logical router to which the connected logical router port belongs to has a distributed gateway LRP:

  • The flow for the connected logical router port’s Ethernet address is only programmed on the gateway chassis.

  For each forwarding group configured on the logical switch datapath, a priority-50 flow that matches on eth.dst == VIP with an action of fwd_group(childports=args ), where args contains comma separated logical switch child ports to load balance to. If liveness is enabled, then action also includes liveness=true.

• One priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets with the action outport = get_fdb(eth.dst); next;. The action get_fdb gets the port for the eth.dst in the MAC learning table of the logical switch datapath. If there is no entry for eth.dst in the MAC learning table, then it stores none in the outport.

This table handles the packets whose destination was not found or and looked up in the MAC learning table of the logical switch datapath. It contains the following flows.

• Priority 50 flow with the match outport == P is added for each disabled Logical Switch Port P. This flow has action drop;.

• If the logical switch has logical ports with ’unknown’ addresses set, then the below logical flow is added

  • Priority 50 flow with the match outport == "none" then outputs them to the MC_UNKNOWN multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with all enabled logical ports that accept unknown destination packets. As a small optimization, if no logical ports accept unknown destination packets, ovn-northd omits this multicast group and logical flow.

  If the logical switch has no logical ports with ’unknown’ address set, then the below logical flow is added

  • Priority 50 flow with the match outport == none and drops the packets.
• One priority-0 fallback flow that outputs the packet to the egress stage with the outport learnt from get_fdb action.

This is similar to ingress table Pre-ACLs except for to-lport traffic.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match eth.src == E for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match outport == I for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where I is the peer of a logical router port. This flow is added to skip the connection tracking of packets which will be entering logical router datapath from logical switch datapath for routing.

This table is similar to ingress table Pre-LB. It contains a priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table. Moreover it contains two priority-110 flows to move multicast, IPv6 Neighbor Discovery and MLD traffic to the next table. If any load balancing rules exist for the datapath, a priority-100 flow is added with a match of ip and action of reg0[2] = 1; next; to act as a hint for table Pre-stateful to send IP packets to the connection tracker for packet de-fragmentation and possibly DNAT the destination VIP to one of the selected backend for already committed load balanced traffic.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match eth.src == E for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table. Where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table.

This table also has a priority-110 flow with the match outport == I for all logical switch datapaths to move traffic to the next table, and, if there are no stateful_acl, clear the ct_state. Where I is the peer of a logical router port. This flow is added to skip the connection tracking of packets which will be entering logical router datapath from logical switch datapath for routing.

This is similar to ingress table Pre-stateful. This table adds the below 3 logical flows.

• A Priority-120 flow that send the packets to connection tracker using ct_lb_mark; as the action so that the already established traffic gets unDNATted from the backend IP to the load balancer VIP based on a hint provided by the previous tables with a match for reg0[2] == 1. If the packet was not DNATted earlier, then ct_lb_mark functions like ct_next.
• A priority-100 flow sends the packets to connection tracker based on a hint provided by the previous tables (with a match for reg0[0] == 1) by using the ct_next; action.
• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advance to the next table.

This is similar to ingress table ACL hints.

This is similar to ingress table ACL eval except for to-lport ACLs. As a reminder, these flows use the following register bits to indicate their verdicts. Allow-type ACLs set reg8[16], drop ACLs set reg8[17], and reject ACLs set reg8[18].

Also like with ingress ACLs, egress ACLs can have a configured tier. If a tier is configured, then the current tier counter is evaluated against the ACL’s configured tier in addition to the ACL’s match. The current tier counter is stored in reg8[30..31].

Similar to ingress table, a priority-65532 flow is added to allow IPv6 Neighbor solicitation, Neighbor discover, Router solicitation, Router advertisement and MLD packets regardless of other ACLs defined.

In addition, the following flows are added.

• A priority 34000 logical flow is added for each logical port which has DHCPv4 options defined to allow the DHCPv4 reply packet and which has DHCPv6 options defined to allow the DHCPv6 reply packet from the Ingress Table 18: DHCP responses. This is indicated by setting the allow bit.
• A priority 34000 logical flow is added for each logical switch datapath configured with DNS records with the match udp.dst = 53 to allow the DNS reply packet from the Ingress Table 20: DNS responses. This is indicated by setting the allow bit.
• A priority 34000 logical flow is added for each logical switch datapath with the match eth.src = E to allow the service monitor request packet generated by ovn-controller with the action next, where E is the service monitor mac defined in the options:svc_monitor_mac column of NB_Global table. This is indicated by setting the allow bit.

This is similar to ingress table ACL sampling.

This is similar to ingress table ACL action.

This is similar to ingress table QoS except they apply to to-lport QoS rules.

This is similar to ingress table Stateful except that there are no rules added for load balancing new connections.

This is similar to the port security logic in table Ingress Port Security check except that action check_out_port_sec is used to check the port security rules. This table adds the below logical flows.

• A priority 100 flow which matches on the multicast traffic and applies the action REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = 0; next;" to skip the out port security checks.
• A priority 0 logical flow is added which matches on all the packets and applies the action REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP" = check_out_port_sec(); next;". The action check_out_port_sec applies the port security rules based on the addresses defined in the port_security column of Logical_Switch_Port table before delivering the packet to the outport.

This is similar to the ingress port security logic in ingress table A Ingress Port Security - Apply. This table drops the packets if the port security check failed in the previous stage i.e the register bit REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP is set to 1.

The following flows are added.

• For each port configured with egress qos in the options:qdisc_queue_id column of Logical_Switch_Port, running a localnet port on the same logical switch, a priority 110 flow is added which matches on the localnet outport and on the port inport and applies the action set_queue(id); output;".

• For each localnet port configured with egress qos in the options:qdisc_queue_id column of Logical_Switch_Port, a priority 100 flow is added which matches on the localnet outport and applies the action set_queue(id); output;".

  Please remember to mark the corresponding physical interface with ovn-egress-iface set to true in external_ids.

• A priority-50 flow that drops the packet if the register bit REGBIT_PORT_SEC_DROP is set to 1.
• A priority-0 flow that outputs the packet to the outport.

Logical router datapaths will only exist for Logical_Router rows in the OVN_Northbound database that do not have enabled set to false

This table drops packets that the router shouldn’t see at all based on their Ethernet headers. It contains the following flows:

• Priority-100 flows to drop packets with VLAN tags or multicast Ethernet source addresses.

• For each enabled router port P with Ethernet address E, a priority-50 flow that matches inport == P && (eth.mcast || eth.dst == E), stores the router port ethernet address and advances to next table, with action xreg0[0..47]=E; next;.

  For the gateway port on a distributed logical router (where one of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis), the above flow matching eth.dst == E is only programmed on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis. If LRP’s logical switch has attached LSP of vtep type, the is_chassis_resident() part is not added to lflow to allow traffic originated from logical switch to reach LR services (LBs, NAT).

  For each gateway port GW on a distributed logical router a priority-120 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ and eth.dst == D && !is_chassis_resident( cr-GW) where D is the gateway port mac address and cr-GW is the chassis resident port of GW, swap inport and outport and stores GW as inport.

  This table adds a priority-105 flow that matches ’recirculated’ icmp{4,6} error ’packet too big’ to drop the packet.

  For a distributed logical router or for gateway router where the port is configured with options:gateway_mtu the action of the above flow is modified adding check_pkt_larger in order to mark the packet setting REGBIT_PKT_LARGER if the size is greater than the MTU. If the port is also configured with options:gateway_mtu_bypass then another flow is added, with priority-55, to bypass the check_pkt_larger flow. This is useful for traffic that normally doesn’t need to be fragmented and for which check_pkt_larger, which might not be offloadable, is not really needed. One such example is TCP traffic.

• For each dnat_and_snat NAT rule on a distributed router that specifies an external Ethernet address E, a priority-50 flow that matches inport == GW && eth.dst == E, where GW is the logical router distributed gateway port corresponding to the NAT rule (specified or inferred), with action xreg0[0..47]=E; next;.

  This flow is only programmed on the gateway port instance on the chassis where the logical_port specified in the NAT rule resides.

• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

Other packets are implicitly dropped.

For ARP and IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets, this table looks into the MAC_Binding records to determine if OVN needs to learn the mac bindings. Following flows are added:

• For each router port P that owns IP address A, which belongs to subnet S with prefix length L, if the option always_learn_from_arp_request is true for this router, a priority-100 flow is added which matches inport == P && arp.spa == S/L && arp.op == 1 (ARP request) with the following actions:

  reg9[2] = lookup_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha);
  next;

  If the option always_learn_from_arp_request is false, the following two flows are added.

  A priority-110 flow is added which matches inport == P && arp.spa == S/L && arp.tpa == A && arp.op == 1 (ARP request) with the following actions:

  reg9[2] = lookup_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha);
  reg9[3] = 1;
  next;

  A priority-100 flow is added which matches inport == P && arp.spa == S/L && arp.op == 1 (ARP request) with the following actions:

  reg9[2] = lookup_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha);
  reg9[3] = lookup_arp_ip(inport, arp.spa);
  next;

  If the logical router port P is a distributed gateway router port, additional match is_chassis_resident(cr-P) is added for all these flows.

• A priority-100 flow which matches on ARP reply packets and applies the actions if the option always_learn_from_arp_request is true:

  reg9[2] = lookup_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha);
  next;

  If the option always_learn_from_arp_request is false, the above actions will be:

  reg9[2] = lookup_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha);
  reg9[3] = 1;
  next;

• A priority-100 flow which matches on IPv6 Neighbor Discovery advertisement packet and applies the actions if the option always_learn_from_arp_request is true:

  reg9[2] = lookup_nd(inport, nd.target, nd.tll);
  next;

  If the option always_learn_from_arp_request is false, the above actions will be:

  reg9[2] = lookup_nd(inport, nd.target, nd.tll);
  reg9[3] = 1;
  next;

• A priority-100 flow which matches on IPv6 Neighbor Discovery solicitation packet and applies the actions if the option always_learn_from_arp_request is true:

  reg9[2] = lookup_nd(inport, ip6.src, nd.sll);
  next;

  If the option always_learn_from_arp_request is false, the above actions will be:

  reg9[2] = lookup_nd(inport, ip6.src, nd.sll);
  reg9[3] = lookup_nd_ip(inport, ip6.src);
  next;

• A priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and applies the action reg9[2] = 1; next; advancing the packet to the next table.

This table adds flows to learn the mac bindings from the ARP and IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation/Advertisement packets if it is needed according to the lookup results from the previous stage.

reg9[2] will be 1 if the lookup_arp/lookup_nd in the previous table was successful or skipped, meaning no need to learn mac binding from the packet.

reg9[3] will be 1 if the lookup_arp_ip/lookup_nd_ip in the previous table was successful or skipped, meaning it is ok to learn mac binding from the packet (if reg9[2] is 0).

• A priority-100 flow with the match reg9[2] == 1 || reg9[3] == 0 and advances the packet to the next table as there is no need to learn the neighbor.
• A priority-95 flow with the match nd_ns && (ip6.src == 0 || nd.sll == 0) and applies the action next;
• A priority-90 flow with the match arp and applies the action put_arp(inport, arp.spa, arp.sha); next;
• A priority-95 flow with the match nd_na  && nd.tll == 0 and applies the action put_nd(inport, nd.target, eth.src); next;
• A priority-90 flow with the match nd_na and applies the action put_nd(inport, nd.target, nd.tll); next;
• A priority-90 flow with the match nd_ns and applies the action put_nd(inport, ip6.src, nd.sll); next;
• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

This table is the core of the logical router datapath functionality. It contains the following flows to implement very basic IP host functionality.

• For each dnat_and_snat NAT rule on a distributed logical routers or gateway routers with gateway port configured with options:gateway_mtu to a valid integer value M, a priority-160 flow with the match inport == LRP && REGBIT_PKT_LARGER && REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK == 0, where LRP is the logical router port and applies the following action for ipv4 and ipv6 respectively:

  icmp4_error {
      icmp4.type = 3; /* Destination Unreachable. */
      icmp4.code = 4;  /* Frag Needed and DF was Set. */
      icmp4.frag_mtu = M;
      eth.dst = eth.src;
      eth.src = E;
      ip4.dst = ip4.src;
      ip4.src = I;
      ip.ttl = 255;
      REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
      REGBIT_PKT_LARGER 0;
      outport = LRP;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };
  
  icmp6_error {
      icmp6.type = 2;
      icmp6.code = 0;
      icmp6.frag_mtu = M;
      eth.dst = eth.src;
      eth.src = E;
      ip6.dst = ip6.src;
      ip6.src = I;
      ip.ttl = 255;
      REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
      REGBIT_PKT_LARGER 0;
      outport = LRP;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };

  where E and I are the NAT rule external mac and IP respectively.

• For distributed logical routers or gateway routers with gateway port configured with options:gateway_mtu to a valid integer value, a priority-150 flow with the match inport == LRP && REGBIT_PKT_LARGER && REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK == 0, where LRP is the logical router port and applies the following action for ipv4 and ipv6 respectively:

  icmp4_error {
      icmp4.type = 3; /* Destination Unreachable. */
      icmp4.code = 4;  /* Frag Needed and DF was Set. */
      icmp4.frag_mtu = M;
      eth.dst = E;
      ip4.dst = ip4.src;
      ip4.src = I;
      ip.ttl = 255;
      REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
      REGBIT_PKT_LARGER 0;
      next(pipeline=ingress, table=0);
  };
  
  icmp6_error {
      icmp6.type = 2;
      icmp6.code = 0;
      icmp6.frag_mtu = M;
      eth.dst = E;
      ip6.dst = ip6.src;
      ip6.src = I;
      ip.ttl = 255;
      REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
      REGBIT_PKT_LARGER 0;
      next(pipeline=ingress, table=0);
  };

• For each NAT entry of a distributed logical router (with distributed gateway router port(s)) of type snat, a priority-120 flow with the match inport == P && ip4.src == A advances the packet to the next pipeline, where P is the distributed logical router port corresponding to the NAT entry (specified or inferred) and A is the external_ip set in the NAT entry. If A is an IPv6 address, then ip6.src is used for the match.

  The above flow is required to handle the routing of the East/west NAT traffic.

• For each BFD port the two following priority-110 flows are added to manage BFD traffic:

  • if ip4.src or ip6.src is any IP address owned by the router port and udp.dst == 3784 , the packet is advanced to the next pipeline stage.
  • if ip4.dst or ip6.dst is any IP address owned by the router port and udp.dst == 3784 , the handle_bfd_msg action is executed.

• For each logical router port configured with DHCP relay the following priority-110 flows are added to manage the DHCP relay traffic:

  • if inport is lrp and ip4.src == 0.0.0.0 and ip4.dst == 255.255.255.255 and ip4.frag == 0 and udp.src == 68 and udp.dst == 67, the dhcp_relay_req_chk action is executed.

                    reg9[7] = dhcp_relay_req_chk(lrp_ip,
                                                dhcp_server_ip);next

    if action is successful then, GIADDR in the dhcp header is updated with lrp ip and stores 1 into reg9[7] else stores 0 into reg9[7].

  • if ip4.src is DHCP server ip and ip4.dst is lrp IP and udp.src == 67 and udp.dst == 67, the packet is advanced to the next pipeline stage.
• L3 admission control: Priority-120 flows allows IGMP and MLD packets if the router has logical ports that have options :mcast_flood=’true’.

• L3 admission control: A priority-100 flow drops packets that match any of the following:

  • ip4.src[28..31] == 0xe (multicast source)
  • ip4.src == 255.255.255.255 (broadcast source)
  • ip4.src == 127.0.0.0/8 || ip4.dst == 127.0.0.0/8 (localhost source or destination)
  • ip4.src == 0.0.0.0/8 || ip4.dst == 0.0.0.0/8 (zero network source or destination)
  • ip4.src or ip6.src is any IP address owned by the router, unless the packet was recirculated due to egress loopback as indicated by REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK.
  • ip4.src is the broadcast address of any IP network known to the router.
• A priority-100 flow parses DHCPv6 replies from IPv6 prefix delegation routers (udp.src == 547 && udp.dst == 546). The handle_dhcpv6_reply is used to send IPv6 prefix delegation messages to the delegation router.

• ICMP echo reply. These flows reply to ICMP echo requests received for the router’s IP address. Let A be an IP address owned by a router port. Then, for each A that is an IPv4 address, a priority-90 flow matches on ip4.dst == A and icmp4.type == 8 && icmp4.code == 0 (ICMP echo request). For each A that is an IPv6 address, a priority-90 flow matches on ip6.dst == A and icmp6.type == 128 && icmp6.code == 0 (ICMPv6 echo request). The port of the router that receives the echo request does not matter. Also, the ip.ttl of the echo request packet is not checked, so it complies with RFC 1812, section 4.2.2.9. Flows for ICMPv4 echo requests use the following actions:

  ip4.dst <-> ip4.src;
  ip.ttl = 255;
  icmp4.type = 0;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  next;

  Flows for ICMPv6 echo requests use the following actions:

  ip6.dst <-> ip6.src;
  ip.ttl = 255;
  icmp6.type = 129;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  next;

• Reply to ARP requests.

  These flows reply to ARP requests for the router’s own IP address. The ARP requests are handled only if the requestor’s IP belongs to the same subnets of the logical router port. For each router port P that owns IP address A, which belongs to subnet S with prefix length L, and Ethernet address E, a priority-90 flow matches inport == P && arp.spa == S/L && arp.op == 1 && arp.tpa == A (ARP request) with the following actions:

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = xreg0[0..47];
  arp.op = 2; /* ARP reply. */
  arp.tha = arp.sha;
  arp.sha = xreg0[0..47];
  arp.tpa = arp.spa;
  arp.spa = A;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  For the gateway port on a distributed logical router (where one of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis), the above flows are only programmed on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis. This behavior avoids generation of multiple ARP responses from different chassis, and allows upstream MAC learning to point to the gateway chassis.

  For the logical router port with the option reside-on-redirect-chassis set (which is centralized), the above flows are only programmed on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis (if the logical router has a distributed gateway port). This behavior avoids generation of multiple ARP responses from different chassis, and allows upstream MAC learning to point to the gateway chassis.

• Reply to IPv6 Neighbor Solicitations. These flows reply to Neighbor Solicitation requests for the router’s own IPv6 address and populate the logical router’s mac binding table.

  For each router port P that owns IPv6 address A, solicited node address S, and Ethernet address E, a priority-90 flow matches inport == P && nd_ns && ip6.dst == {A, E} && nd.target == A with the following actions:

  nd_na_router {
      eth.src = xreg0[0..47];
      ip6.src = A;
      nd.target = A;
      nd.tll = xreg0[0..47];
      outport = inport;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  };

  For the gateway port on a distributed logical router (where one of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis), the above flows replying to IPv6 Neighbor Solicitations are only programmed on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis. This behavior avoids generation of multiple replies from different chassis, and allows upstream MAC learning to point to the gateway chassis.

• These flows reply to ARP requests or IPv6 neighbor solicitation for the virtual IP addresses configured in the router for NAT (both DNAT and SNAT) or load balancing.

  IPv4: For a configured NAT (both DNAT and SNAT) IP address or a load balancer IPv4 VIP A, for each router port P with Ethernet address E, a priority-90 flow matches arp.op == 1 && arp.tpa == A (ARP request) with the following actions:

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = xreg0[0..47];
  arp.op = 2; /* ARP reply. */
  arp.tha = arp.sha;
  arp.sha = xreg0[0..47];
  arp.tpa <-> arp.spa;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  IPv4: For a configured load balancer IPv4 VIP, a similar flow is added with the additional match inport == P if the VIP is reachable from any logical router port of the logical router.

  If the router port P is a distributed gateway router port, then the is_chassis_resident(P) is also added in the match condition for the load balancer IPv4 VIP A.

  IPv6: For a configured NAT (both DNAT and SNAT) IP address or a load balancer IPv6 VIP A (if the VIP is reachable from any logical router port of the logical router), solicited node address S, for each router port P with Ethernet address E, a priority-90 flow matches inport == P && nd_ns && ip6.dst == {A, S} && nd.target == A with the following actions:

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  nd_na {
      eth.src = xreg0[0..47];
      nd.tll = xreg0[0..47];
      ip6.src = A;
      nd.target = A;
      outport = inport;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      output;
  }

  If the router port P is a distributed gateway router port, then the is_chassis_resident(P) is also added in the match condition for the load balancer IPv6 VIP A.

  For the gateway port on a distributed logical router with NAT (where one of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis):

  • If the corresponding NAT rule cannot be handled in a distributed manner, then a priority-92 flow is programmed on the gateway port instance on the gateway chassis. A priority-91 drop flow is programmed on the other chassis when ARP requests/NS packets are received on the gateway port. This behavior avoids generation of multiple ARP responses from different chassis, and allows upstream MAC learning to point to the gateway chassis.

  • If the corresponding NAT rule can be handled in a distributed manner, then this flow is only programmed on the gateway port instance where the logical_port specified in the NAT rule resides.

    Some of the actions are different for this case, using the external_mac specified in the NAT rule rather than the gateway port’s Ethernet address E:

    eth.src = external_mac;
    arp.sha = external_mac;

    or in the case of IPv6 neighbor solicition:

    eth.src = external_mac;
    nd.tll = external_mac;

    This behavior avoids generation of multiple ARP responses from different chassis, and allows upstream MAC learning to point to the correct chassis.

• Priority-85 flows which drops the ARP and IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets.
• A priority-84 flow explicitly allows IPv6 multicast traffic that is supposed to reach the router pipeline (i.e., router solicitation and router advertisement packets).
• A priority-83 flow explicitly drops IPv6 multicast traffic that is destined to reserved multicast groups.
• A priority-82 flow allows IP multicast traffic if options:mcast_relay=’true’, otherwise drops it.

• UDP port unreachable. Priority-80 flows generate ICMP port unreachable messages in reply to UDP datagrams directed to the router’s IP address, except in the special case of gateways, which accept traffic directed to a router IP for load balancing and NAT purposes.

  These flows should not match IP fragments with nonzero offset.

• TCP reset. Priority-80 flows generate TCP reset messages in reply to TCP datagrams directed to the router’s IP address, except in the special case of gateways, which accept traffic directed to a router IP for load balancing and NAT purposes.

  These flows should not match IP fragments with nonzero offset.

• Protocol or address unreachable. Priority-70 flows generate ICMP protocol or address unreachable messages for IPv4 and IPv6 respectively in reply to packets directed to the router’s IP address on IP protocols other than UDP, TCP, and ICMP, except in the special case of gateways, which accept traffic directed to a router IP for load balancing purposes.

  These flows should not match IP fragments with nonzero offset.

• Drop other IP traffic to this router. These flows drop any other traffic destined to an IP address of this router that is not already handled by one of the flows above, which amounts to ICMP (other than echo requests) and fragments with nonzero offsets. For each IP address A owned by the router, a priority-60 flow matches ip4.dst == A or ip6.dst == A and drops the traffic. An exception is made and the above flow is not added if the router port’s own IP address is used to SNAT packets passing through that router or if it is used as a load balancer VIP.

The flows above handle all of the traffic that might be directed to the router itself. The following flows (with lower priorities) handle the remaining traffic, potentially for forwarding:

• Drop Ethernet local broadcast. A priority-50 flow with match eth.bcast drops traffic destined to the local Ethernet broadcast address. By definition this traffic should not be forwarded.
• Avoid ICMP time exceeded for multicast. A priority-32 flow with match ip.ttl == {0, 1} && !ip.later_frag && (ip4.mcast || ip6.mcast) and actions drop; drops multicast packets whose TTL has expired without sending ICMP time exceeded.

• ICMP time exceeded. For each router port P, whose IP address is A, a priority-31 flow with match inport == P && ip.ttl == {0, 1} && !ip.later_frag matches packets whose TTL has expired, with the following actions to send an ICMP time exceeded reply for IPv4 and IPv6 respectively:

  icmp4 {
      icmp4.type = 11; /* Time exceeded. */
      icmp4.code = 0;  /* TTL exceeded in transit. */
      ip4.dst = ip4.src;
      ip4.src = A;
      ip.ttl = 254;
      next;
  };
  
  icmp6 {
      icmp6.type = 3; /* Time exceeded. */
      icmp6.code = 0;  /* TTL exceeded in transit. */
      ip6.dst = ip6.src;
      ip6.src = A;
      ip.ttl = 254;
      next;
  };

• TTL discard. A priority-30 flow with match ip.ttl == {0, 1} and actions drop; drops other packets whose TTL has expired, that should not receive a ICMP error reply (i.e. fragments with nonzero offset).
• Next table. A priority-0 flows match all packets that aren’t already handled and uses actions next; to feed them to the next table.

This stage process the DHCP request packets on which dhcp_relay_req_chk action is applied in the IP input stage.

• A priority-100 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with DHCP relay that matches inport is lrp and ip4.src == 0.0.0.0 and ip4.dst == 255.255.255.255 and udp.src == 68 and udp.dst == 67 and reg9[7] == 1 and applies following actions. If reg9[7] is set to 1 then, dhcp_relay_req_chk action was successful.

  ip4.src=lrp ip;
  ip4.dst=dhcp server ip;
  udp.src = 67;
  next;

• A priority-1 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with DHCP relay that matches inport is lrp and ip4.src == 0.0.0.0 and ip4.dst == 255.255.255.255 and udp.src == 68 and udp.dst == 67 and reg9[7] == 0 and drops the packet. If reg9[7] is set to 0 then, dhcp_relay_req_chk action was unsuccessful.
• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advance to the next table.

This is for already established connections’ reverse traffic. i.e., SNAT has already been done in egress pipeline and now the packet has entered the ingress pipeline as part of a reply. It is unSNATted here.

Ingress Table 5: UNSNAT on Gateway and Distributed Routers

• If the Router (Gateway or Distributed) is configured with load balancers, then below lflows are added:

  For each IPv4 address A defined as load balancer VIP with the protocol P (and the protocol port T if defined) is also present as an external_ip in the NAT table, a priority-120 logical flow is added with the match ip4 && ip4.dst == A && P with the action next; to advance the packet to the next table. If the load balancer has protocol port B defined, then the match also has P.dst == B.

  The above flows are also added for IPv6 load balancers.

Ingress Table 5: UNSNAT on Gateway Routers

• If the Gateway router has been configured to force SNAT any previously DNATted packets to B, a priority-110 flow matches ip && ip4.dst == B or ip && ip6.dst == B with an action ct_snat; .

  If the Gateway router is configured with lb_force_snat_ip=router_ip then for every logical router port P attached to the Gateway router with the router ip B, a priority-110 flow is added with the match inport == P && ip4.dst == B or inport == P && ip6.dst == B with an action ct_snat; .

  If the Gateway router has been configured to force SNAT any previously load-balanced packets to B, a priority-100 flow matches ip && ip4.dst == B or ip && ip6.dst == B with an action ct_snat; .

  For each NAT configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the source IP address of a packet from A to B, a priority-90 flow matches ip && ip4.dst == B or ip && ip6.dst == B with an action ct_snat; . If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be next;.

  A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Ingress Table 5: UNSNAT on Distributed Routers

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the source IP address of a packet from A to B, two priority-100 flows are added.

  If the NAT rule cannot be handled in a distributed manner, then the below priority-100 flows are only programmed on the gateway chassis.

  • The first flow matches ip && ip4.dst == B && inport == GW or ip && ip6.dst == B && inport == GW where GW is the distributed gateway port corresponding to the NAT rule (specified or inferred), with an action ct_snat; to unSNAT in the common zone. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be next;.

    If the NAT entry is of type snat, then there is an additional match is_chassis_resident(cr-GW) where cr-GW is the chassis resident port of GW.

  A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

This is to send packets to connection tracker for tracking and defragmentation. It contains a priority-0 flow that simply moves traffic to the next table.

For all load balancing rules that are configured in OVN_Northbound database for a Gateway router, a priority-100 flow is added for each configured virtual IP address VIP. For IPv4 VIPs the flow matches ip && ip4.dst == VIP. For IPv6 VIPs, the flow matches ip && ip6.dst == VIP. The flow applies the action ct_dnat; to send IP packets to the connection tracker for packet de-fragmentation and to dnat the destination IP for the committed connection before sending it to the next table.

If ECMP routes with symmetric reply are configured in the OVN_Northbound database for a gateway router, a priority-100 flow is added for each router port on which symmetric replies are configured. The matching logic for these ports essentially reverses the configured logic of the ECMP route. So for instance, a route with a destination routing policy will instead match if the source IP address matches the static route’s prefix. The flow uses the actions chk_ecmp_nh_mac(); ct_next or chk_ecmp_nh(); ct_next to send IP packets to table 76 or to table 77 in order to check if source info are already stored by OVN and then to the connection tracker for packet de-fragmentation and tracking before sending it to the next table.

If load balancing rules are configured in OVN_Northbound database for a Gateway router, a priority 50 flow that matches icmp || icmp6 with an action of ct_dnat;, this allows potentially related ICMP traffic to pass through CT.

Load balancing affinity check table contains the following logical flows:

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a logical router where a positive affinity timeout is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IPv4 or IPv6 address VIP, a priority-100 flow that matches on ct.new && ip && ip.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT (xxreg0 == VIP in the IPv6 case) with an action of reg0 = ip.dst; reg9[16..31] = P.dst; reg9[6] = chk_lb_aff(); next; (xxreg0 == ip6.dst in the IPv6 case)
• A priority 0 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action next;.

Packets enter the pipeline with destination IP address that needs to be DNATted from a virtual IP address to a real IP address. Packets in the reverse direction needs to be unDNATed.

Ingress Table 8: Load balancing DNAT rules

Following load balancing DNAT flows are added for Gateway router or Router with gateway port. These flows are programmed only on the gateway chassis. These flows do not get programmed for load balancers with IPv6 VIPs.

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a logical router where a positive affinity timeout is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IPv4 or IPv6 address VIP, a priority-150 flow that matches on reg9[6] == 1 && ct.new && ip && ip.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT with an action of ct_lb_mark(args) , where args contains comma separated IP addresses (and optional port numbers) to load balance to. The address family of the IP addresses of args is the same as the address family of VIP.
• If controller_event has been enabled for all the configured load balancing rules for a Gateway router or Router with gateway port in OVN_Northbound database that does not have configured backends, a priority-130 flow is added to trigger ovn-controller events whenever the chassis receives a packet for that particular VIP. If event-elb meter has been previously created, it will be associated to the empty_lb logical flow
• For all the configured load balancing rules for a Gateway router or Router with gateway port in OVN_Northbound database that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IPv4 or IPv6 address VIP, a priority-120 flow that matches on ct.new && !ct.rel && ip && ip.dst == VIP && P && P.dst == PORT with an action of ct_lb_mark(args), where args contains comma separated IPv4 or IPv6 addresses (and optional port numbers) to load balance to. If the router is configured to force SNAT any load-balanced packets, the above action will be replaced by flags.force_snat_for_lb = 1; ct_lb_mark(args; force_snat);. If the load balancing rule is configured with skip_snat set to true, the above action will be replaced by flags.skip_snat_for_lb = 1; ct_lb_mark(args; skip_snat);. If health check is enabled, then args will only contain those endpoints whose service monitor status entry in OVN_Southbound db is either online or empty.

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a router in OVN_Northbound database that includes just an IP address VIP to match on, a priority-110 flow that matches on ct.new && !ct.rel && ip4 && ip.dst == VIP with an action of ct_lb_mark(args), where args contains comma separated IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. If the router is configured to force SNAT any load-balanced packets, the above action will be replaced by flags.force_snat_for_lb = 1; ct_lb_mark(args; force_snat);. If the load balancing rule is configured with skip_snat set to true, the above action will be replaced by flags.skip_snat_for_lb = 1; ct_lb_mark(args; skip_snat);.

  The previous table lr_in_defrag sets the register reg0 (or xxreg0 for IPv6) and does ct_dnat. Hence for established traffic, this table just advances the packet to the next stage.

• If the load balancer is created with --reject option and it has no active backends, a TCP reset segment (for tcp) or an ICMP port unreachable packet (for all other kind of traffic) will be sent whenever an incoming packet is received for this load-balancer. Please note using --reject option will disable empty_lb SB controller event for this load balancer.
• For the related traffic, a priority 50 flow that matches ct.rel && !ct.est && !ct.new with an action of ct_commit_nat;, if the router has load balancer assigned to it. Along with two priority 70 flows that match skip_snat and force_snat flags, setting the flags.force_snat_for_lb = 1 or flags.skip_snat_for_lb = 1 accordingly.
• For the established traffic, a priority 50 flow that matches ct.est && !ct.rel && !ct.new && ct_mark.natted with an action of next;, if the router has load balancer assigned to it. Along with two priority 70 flows that match skip_snat and force_snat flags, setting the flags.force_snat_for_lb = 1 or flags.skip_snat_for_lb = 1 accordingly.

Ingress Table 8: DNAT on Gateway Routers

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the destination IP address of a packet from A to B, a priority-100 flow matches ip && ip4.dst == A or ip && ip6.dst == A with an action flags.loopback = 1; ct_dnat(B);. If the Gateway router is configured to force SNAT any DNATed packet, the above action will be replaced by flags.force_snat_for_dnat = 1; flags.loopback = 1; ct_dnat(B);. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.dst= (B).

  If the NAT rule has allowed_ext_ips configured, then there is an additional match ip4.src == allowed_ext_ips . Similarly, for IPV6, match would be ip6.src == allowed_ext_ips.

  If the NAT rule has exempted_ext_ips set, then there is an additional flow configured at priority 101. The flow matches if source ip is an exempted_ext_ip and the action is next; . This flow is used to bypass the ct_dnat action for a packet originating from exempted_ext_ips.

  For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the destination IP address of a packet from A to B, match M and priority P, a logical flow that matches ip && ip4.dst == A or ip && ip6.dst == A && (M) with an action flags.loopback = 1; ct_dnat(B);. The priority of the flow is calculated based as 300 + P. If the Gateway router is configured to force SNAT any DNATed packet, the above action will be replaced by flags.force_snat_for_dnat = 1; flags.loopback = 1; ct_dnat(B);. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.dst= (B).

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Ingress Table 8: DNAT on Distributed Routers

On distributed routers, the DNAT table only handles packets with destination IP address that needs to be DNATted from a virtual IP address to a real IP address. The unDNAT processing in the reverse direction is handled in a separate table in the egress pipeline.

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the destination IP address of a packet from A to B, a priority-100 flow matches ip && ip4.dst == B && inport == GW, where GW is the logical router gateway port corresponding to the NAT rule (specified or inferred), with an action ct_dnat(B);. The match will include ip6.dst == B in the IPv6 case. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.dst=(B).

  If the NAT rule cannot be handled in a distributed manner, then the priority-100 flow above is only programmed on the gateway chassis.

  If the NAT rule has allowed_ext_ips configured, then there is an additional match ip4.src == allowed_ext_ips . Similarly, for IPV6, match would be ip6.src == allowed_ext_ips.

  If the NAT rule has exempted_ext_ips set, then there is an additional flow configured at priority 101. The flow matches if source ip is an exempted_ext_ip and the action is next; . This flow is used to bypass the ct_dnat action for a packet originating from exempted_ext_ips.

  A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Load balancing affinity learn table contains the following logical flows:

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a logical router where a positive affinity timeout T is specified in options column, that includes a L4 port PORT of protocol P and IPv4 or IPv6 address VIP, a priority-100 flow that matches on reg9[6] == 0 && ct.new && ip && reg0 == VIP && P && reg9[16..31] == PORT (xxreg0 == VIP in the IPv6 case) with an action of commit_lb_aff(vip = VIP:PORT, backend = backend ip: backend port, proto = P, timeout = T);.
• A priority 0 flow is added which matches on all packets and applies the action next;.

• If ECMP routes with symmetric reply are configured in the OVN_Northbound database for a gateway router, a priority-100 flow is added for each router port on which symmetric replies are configured. The matching logic for these ports essentially reverses the configured logic of the ECMP route. So for instance, a route with a destination routing policy will instead match if the source IP address matches the static route’s prefix. The flow uses the action ct_commit { ct_label.ecmp_reply_eth = eth.src;" " ct_mark.ecmp_reply_port = K;}; commit_ecmp_nh(); next; to commit the connection and storing eth.src and the ECMP reply port binding tunnel key K in the ct_label and the traffic pattern to table 76 or 77.

• A priority-50 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with IPv6 ND RA options which matches IPv6 ND Router Solicitation packet and applies the action put_nd_ra_opts and advances the packet to the next table.

  reg0[5] = put_nd_ra_opts(options);next;

  For a valid IPv6 ND RS packet, this transforms the packet into an IPv6 ND RA reply and sets the RA options to the packet and stores 1 into reg0[5]. For other kinds of packets, it just stores 0 into reg0[5]. Either way, it continues to the next table.

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

This table implements IPv6 ND RA responder for the IPv6 ND RA replies generated by the previous table.

• A priority-50 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with IPv6 ND RA options which matches IPv6 ND RA packets and reg0[5] == 1 and responds back to the inport after applying these actions. If reg0[5] is set to 1, it means that the action put_nd_ra_opts was successful.

  eth.dst = eth.src;
  eth.src = E;
  ip6.dst = ip6.src;
  ip6.src = I;
  outport = P;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  output;

  where E is the MAC address and I is the IPv6 link local address of the logical router port.

  (This terminates packet processing in ingress pipeline; the packet does not go to the next ingress table.)

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

If a packet arrived at this table from Logical Router Port P which has options:route_table value set, a logical flow with match inport == "P" with priority 100 and action setting unique-generated per-datapath 32-bit value (non-zero) in OVS register 7. This register’s value is checked in next table. If packet didn’t match any configured inport (<main> route table), register 7 value is set to 0.

This table contains the following logical flows:

• Priority-100 flow with match inport == "LRP_NAME" value and action, which set route table identifier in reg7.

  A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions reg7 = 0; next;.

A packet that arrives at this table is an IP packet that should be routed to the address in ip4.dst or ip6.dst. This table implements IP routing, setting reg0 (or xxreg0 for IPv6) to the next-hop IP address (leaving ip4.dst or ip6.dst, the packet’s final destination, unchanged) and advances to the next table for ARP resolution. It also sets reg1 (or xxreg1) to the IP address owned by the selected router port (ingress table ARP Request will generate an ARP request, if needed, with reg0 as the target protocol address and reg1 as the source protocol address).

For ECMP routes, i.e. multiple static routes with same policy and prefix but different nexthops, the above actions are deferred to next table. This table, instead, is responsible for determine the ECMP group id and select a member id within the group based on 5-tuple hashing. It stores group id in reg8[0..15] and member id in reg8[16..31]. This step is skipped with a priority-10300 rule if the traffic going out the ECMP route is reply traffic, and the ECMP route was configured to use symmetric replies. Instead, the stored values in conntrack is used to choose the destination. The ct_label.ecmp_reply_eth tells the destination MAC address to which the packet should be sent. The ct_mark.ecmp_reply_port tells the logical router port on which the packet should be sent. These values saved to the conntrack fields when the initial ingress traffic is received over the ECMP route and committed to conntrack. If REGBIT_KNOWN_ECMP_NH is set, the priority-10300 flows in this stage set the outport, while the eth.dst is set by flows at the ARP/ND Resolution stage.

This table contains the following logical flows:

• Priority-10550 flow that drops IPv6 Router Solicitation/Advertisement packets that were not processed in previous tables.
• Priority-10550 flows that drop IGMP and MLD packets with source MAC address owned by the router. These are used to prevent looping statically forwarded IGMP and MLD packets for which TTL is not decremented (it is always 1).
• Priority-10500 flows that match IP multicast traffic destined to groups registered on any of the attached switches and sets outport to the associated multicast group that will eventually flood the traffic to all interested attached logical switches. The flows also decrement TTL.
• Priority-10460 flows that match IGMP and MLD control packets, set outport to the MC_STATIC multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with the logical ports that have options :mcast_flood=’true’. If no router ports are configured to flood multicast traffic the packets are dropped.
• Priority-10450 flow that matches unregistered IP multicast traffic decrements TTL and sets outport to the MC_STATIC multicast group, which ovn-northd populates with the logical ports that have options :mcast_flood=’true’. If no router ports are configured to flood multicast traffic the packets are dropped.

• IPv4 routing table. For each route to IPv4 network N with netmask M, on router port P with IP address A and Ethernet address E, a logical flow with match ip4.dst == N/M, whose priority is the number of 1-bits in M, has the following actions:

  ip.ttl--;
  reg8[0..15] = 0;
  reg0 = G;
  reg1 = A;
  eth.src = E;
  outport = P;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  next;

  (Ingress table 1 already verified that ip.ttl--; will not yield a TTL exceeded error.)

  If the route has a gateway, G is the gateway IP address. Instead, if the route is from a configured static route, G is the next hop IP address. Else it is ip4.dst.

• IPv6 routing table. For each route to IPv6 network N with netmask M, on router port P with IP address A and Ethernet address E, a logical flow with match in CIDR notation ip6.dst == N/M, whose priority is the integer value of M, has the following actions:

  ip.ttl--;
  reg8[0..15] = 0;
  xxreg0 = G;
  xxreg1 = A;
  eth.src = E;
  outport = inport;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  next;

  (Ingress table 1 already verified that ip.ttl--; will not yield a TTL exceeded error.)

  If the route has a gateway, G is the gateway IP address. Instead, if the route is from a configured static route, G is the next hop IP address. Else it is ip6.dst.

  If the address A is in the link-local scope, the route will be limited to sending on the ingress port.

  For each static route the reg7 == id && is prefixed in logical flow match portion. For routes with route_table value set a unique non-zero id is used. For routes within <main> route table (no route table set), this id value is 0.

  For each connected route (route to the LRP’s subnet CIDR) the logical flow match portion has no reg7 == id && prefix to have route to LRP’s subnets in all routing tables.

• For ECMP routes, they are grouped by policy and prefix. An unique id (non-zero) is assigned to each group, and each member is also assigned an unique id (non-zero) within each group.

  For each IPv4/IPv6 ECMP group with group id GID and member ids MID1, MID2, ..., a logical flow with match in CIDR notation ip4.dst == N/M, or ip6.dst == N/M, whose priority is the integer value of M, has the following actions:

  ip.ttl--;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  reg8[0..15] = GID;
  select(reg8[16..31], MID1, MID2, ...);

• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

This table implements the second part of IP routing for ECMP routes following the previous table. If a packet matched a ECMP group in the previous table, this table matches the group id and member id stored from the previous table, setting reg0 (or xxreg0 for IPv6) to the next-hop IP address (leaving ip4.dst or ip6.dst, the packet’s final destination, unchanged) and advances to the next table for ARP resolution. It also sets reg1 (or xxreg1) to the IP address owned by the selected router port (ingress table ARP Request will generate an ARP request, if needed, with reg0 as the target protocol address and reg1 as the source protocol address).

This processing is skipped for reply traffic being sent out of an ECMP route if the route was configured to use symmetric replies.

This table contains the following logical flows:

• A priority-150 flow that matches reg8[0..15] == 0 with action next; directly bypasses packets of non-ECMP routes.

• For each member with ID MID in each ECMP group with ID GID, a priority-100 flow with match reg8[0..15] == GID && reg8[16..31] == MID has following actions:

  [xx]reg0 = G;
  [xx]reg1 = A;
  eth.src = E;
  outport = P;

• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

This table adds flows for the logical router policies configured on the logical router. Please see the OVN_Northbound database Logical_Router_Policy table documentation in ovn-nb for supported actions.

• For each router policy configured on the logical router, a logical flow is added with specified priority, match and actions.

• If the policy action is reroute with 2 or more nexthops defined, then the logical flow is added with the following actions:

  reg8[0..15] = GID;
  reg8[16..31] = select(1,..n);

  where GID is the ECMP group id generated by ovn-northd for this policy and n is the number of nexthops. select action selects one of the nexthop member id, stores it in the register reg8[16..31] and advances the packet to the next stage.

• If the policy action is reroute with just one nexhop, then the logical flow is added with the following actions:

  [xx]reg0 = H;
  eth.src = E;
  outport = P;
  reg8[0..15] = 0;
  flags.loopback = 1;
  next;

  where H is the nexthop defined in the router policy, E is the ethernet address of the logical router port from which the nexthop is reachable and P is the logical router port from which the nexthop is reachable.

• If a router policy has the option pkt_mark=m set and if the action is not drop, then the action also includes pkt.mark = m to mark the packet with the marker m.

This table handles the ECMP for the router policies configured with multiple nexthops.

• A priority-150 flow is added to advance the packet to the next stage if the ECMP group id register reg8[0..15] is 0.

• For each ECMP reroute router policy with multiple nexthops, a priority-100 flow is added for each nexthop H with the match reg8[0..15] == GID && reg8[16..31] == M where GID is the router policy group id generated by ovn-northd and M is the member id of the nexthop H generated by ovn-northd. The following actions are added to the flow:

  [xx]reg0 = H;
  eth.src = E;
  outport = P
  "flags.loopback = 1; "
  "next;"

  where H is the nexthop defined in the router policy, E is the ethernet address of the logical router port from which the nexthop is reachable and P is the logical router port from which the nexthop is reachable.

• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

This stage process the DHCP response packets coming from the DHCP server.

• A priority 100 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with DHCP relay that matches ip4.src is DHCP server ip and ip4.dst is lrp IP and ip4.frag == 0 and udp.src == 67 and udp.dst == 67 and applies dhcp_relay_resp_chk action. Original destination ip is stored in reg2.

          reg9[8] = dhcp_relay_resp_chk(lrp_ip,
                                        dhcp_server_ip);next

  if action is successful then, dest mac and dest IP addresses are updated in the packet and stores 1 into reg9[8] else stores 0 into reg9[8].

• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advance to the next table.

This stage process the DHCP response packets on which dhcp_relay_resp_chk action is applied in the previous stage.

• A priority 100 logical flow is added for each logical router port configured with DHCP relay that matches ip4.src is DHCP server ip and reg2 is lrp IP and udp.src == 67 and udp.dst == 67 and reg9[8] == 1 and applies following actions. If reg9[8] is set to 1 then, dhcp_relay_resp_chk was successful.

  ip4.src = lrp ip;
  udp.dst = 68;
  outport = lrp port;
  output;

• A priority 1 logical flow is added for the logical router port on which DHCP relay is enabled that matches ip4.src is DHCP server ip and reg2 is lrp IP and udp.src == 67 and udp.dst == 67 and reg9[8] == 0 and drops the packet. If reg9[8] is set to 0 then, dhcp_relay_resp_chk was unsuccessful.
• A priority-0 flow that matches all packets to advance to the next table.

Any packet that reaches this table is an IP packet whose next-hop IPv4 address is in reg0 or IPv6 address is in xxreg0. (ip4.dst or ip6.dst contains the final destination.) This table resolves the IP address in reg0 (or xxreg0) into an output port in outport and an Ethernet address in eth.dst, using the following flows:

• A priority-500 flow that matches IP multicast traffic that was allowed in the routing pipeline. For this kind of traffic the outport was already set so the flow just advances to the next table.
• Priority-200 flows that match ECMP reply traffic for the routes configured to use symmetric replies, with actions push(xxreg1); xxreg1 = ct_label; eth.dst = xxreg1[32..79]; pop(xxreg1); next;. xxreg1 is used here to avoid masked access to ct_label, to make the flow HW-offloading friendly.

• Static MAC bindings. MAC bindings can be known statically based on data in the OVN_Northbound database. For router ports connected to logical switches, MAC bindings can be known statically from the addresses column in the Logical_Switch_Port table. (Note: the flow is not installed for IPs of logical switch ports of type virtual, and dynamic MAC binding is used for those IPs instead, so that virtual parent failover does not depend on ovn-northd, to achieve better failover performance.) For router ports connected to other logical routers, MAC bindings can be known statically from the mac and networks column in the Logical_Router_Port table. (Note: the flow is NOT installed for the IP addresses that belong to a neighbor logical router port if the current router has the options:dynamic_neigh_routers set to true)

  For each IPv4 address A whose host is known to have Ethernet address E on router port P, a priority-100 flow with match outport === P && reg0 == A has actions eth.dst = E; next;.

  For each IPv6 address A whose host is known to have Ethernet address E on router port P, a priority-100 flow with match outport === P && xxreg0 == A has actions eth.dst = E; next;.

  For each logical router port with an IPv4 address A and a mac address of E that is reachable via a different logical router port P, a priority-100 flow with match outport === P && reg0 == A has actions eth.dst = E; next;.

  For each logical router port with an IPv6 address A and a mac address of E that is reachable via a different logical router port P, a priority-100 flow with match outport === P && xxreg0 == A has actions eth.dst = E; next;.

• Static MAC bindings from NAT entries. MAC bindings can also be known for the entries in the NAT table. Below flows are programmed for distributed logical routers i.e with a distributed router port.

  For each row in the NAT table with IPv4 address A in the external_ip column of NAT table, below two flows are programmed:

  A priority-100 flow with the match outport == P && reg0 == A has actions eth.dst = E; next;, where P is the distributed logical router port, E is the Ethernet address if set in the external_mac column of NAT table for of type dnat_and_snat, otherwise the Ethernet address of the distributed logical router port. Note that if the external_ip is not within a subnet on the owning logical router, then OVN will only create ARP resolution flows if the options:add_route is set to true. Otherwise, no ARP resolution flows will be added.

  Corresponding to the above flow, a priority-150 flow with the match inport == P && outport == P && ip4.dst == A has actions drop; to exclude packets that have gone through DNAT/unSNAT stage but failed to convert the destination, to avoid loop.

  For IPv6 NAT entries, same flows are added, but using the register xxreg0 and field ip6 for the match.

• If the router datapath runs a port with redirect-type set to bridged, for each distributed NAT rule with IP A in the logical_ip column and logical port P in the logical_port column of NAT table, a priority-90 flow with the match outport == Q && ip.src === A && is_chassis_resident(P), where Q is the distributed logical router port and action get_arp(outport, reg0); next; for IPv4 and get_nd(outport, xxreg0); next; for IPv6.

• Traffic with IP destination an address owned by the router should be dropped. Such traffic is normally dropped in ingress table IP Input except for IPs that are also shared with SNAT rules. However, if there was no unSNAT operation that happened successfully until this point in the pipeline and the destination IP of the packet is still a router owned IP, the packets can be safely dropped.

  A priority-2 logical flow with match ip4.dst = {..} matches on traffic destined to router owned IPv4 addresses which are also SNAT IPs. This flow has action drop;.

  A priority-2 logical flow with match ip6.dst = {..} matches on traffic destined to router owned IPv6 addresses which are also SNAT IPs. This flow has action drop;.

  A priority-0 logical that flow matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).

• Dynamic MAC bindings. These flows resolve MAC-to-IP bindings that have become known dynamically through ARP or neighbor discovery. (The ingress table ARP Request will issue an ARP or neighbor solicitation request for cases where the binding is not yet known.)

  A priority-0 logical flow with match ip4 has actions get_arp(outport, reg0); next;.

  A priority-0 logical flow with match ip6 has actions get_nd(outport, xxreg0); next;.

• For a distributed gateway LRP with redirect-type set to bridged, a priority-50 flow will match outport == "ROUTER_PORT" and !is_chassis_resident ("cr-ROUTER_PORT") has actions eth.dst = E; next;, where E is the ethernet address of the logical router port.

For distributed logical routers or gateway routers with gateway port configured with options:gateway_mtu to a valid integer value, this table adds a priority-50 logical flow with the match outport == GW_PORT where GW_PORT is the gateway router port and applies the action check_pkt_larger and advances the packet to the next table.

REGBIT_PKT_LARGER = check_pkt_larger(L); next;

where L is the packet length to check for. If the packet is larger than L, it stores 1 in the register bit REGBIT_PKT_LARGER. The value of L is taken from options:gateway_mtu column of Logical_Router_Port row.

If the port is also configured with options:gateway_mtu_bypass then another flow is added, with priority-55, to bypass the check_pkt_larger flow.

This table adds one priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

For distributed logical routers or gateway routers with gateway port configured with options:gateway_mtu to a valid integer value, this table adds the following priority-150 logical flow for each logical router port with the match inport == LRP && outport == GW_PORT && REGBIT_PKT_LARGER && !REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK, where LRP is the logical router port and GW_PORT is the gateway port and applies the following action for ipv4 and ipv6 respectively:

icmp4 {
    icmp4.type = 3; /* Destination Unreachable. */
    icmp4.code = 4;  /* Frag Needed and DF was Set. */
    icmp4.frag_mtu = M;
    eth.dst = E;
    ip4.dst = ip4.src;
    ip4.src = I;
    ip.ttl = 255;
    REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
    REGBIT_PKT_LARGER = 0;
    next(pipeline=ingress, table=0);
};

icmp6 {
    icmp6.type = 2;
    icmp6.code = 0;
    icmp6.frag_mtu = M;
    eth.dst = E;
    ip6.dst = ip6.src;
    ip6.src = I;
    ip.ttl = 255;
    REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
    REGBIT_PKT_LARGER = 0;
    next(pipeline=ingress, table=0);
};

• Where M is the (fragment MTU - 58) whose value is taken from options:gateway_mtu column of Logical_Router_Port row.
• E is the Ethernet address of the logical router port.
• I is the IPv4/IPv6 address of the logical router port.

This table adds one priority-0 fallback flow that matches all packets and advances to the next table.

For distributed logical routers where one or more of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis, this table redirects certain packets to the distributed gateway port instances on the gateway chassises. This table has the following flows:

• For all the configured load balancing rules that include an IPv4 address VIP, and a list of IPv4 backend addresses B0, B1 .. Bn defined for the VIP a priority-200 flow is added that matches ip4 && (ip4.src == B0 || ip4.src == B1 || ... || ip4.src == Bn) with an action outport = CR; next; where CR is the chassisredirect port representing the instance of the logical router distributed gateway port on the gateway chassis. If the backend IPv4 address Bx is also configured with L4 port PORT of protocol P, then the match also includes P.src == PORT. Similar flows are added for IPv6.
• For each NAT rule in the OVN Northbound database that can be handled in a distributed manner, a priority-100 logical flow with match ip4.src == B && outport == GW && is_chassis_resident(P), where GW is the distributed gateway port specified in the NAT rule and P is the NAT logical port. IP traffic matching the above rule will be managed locally setting reg1 to C and eth.src to D, where C is NAT external ip and D is NAT external mac.
• For each dnat_and_snat NAT rule with stateless=true and allowed_ext_ips configured, a priority-75 flow is programmed with match ip4.dst == B and action outport = CR; next; where B is the NAT rule external IP and CR is the chassisredirect port representing the instance of the logical router distributed gateway port on the gateway chassis. Moreover a priority-70 flow is programmed with same match and action drop;. For each dnat_and_snat NAT rule with stateless=true and exempted_ext_ips configured, a priority-75 flow is programmed with match ip4.dst == B and action drop; where B is the NAT rule external IP. A similar flow is added for IPv6 traffic.
• For each NAT rule in the OVN Northbound database that can be handled in a distributed manner, a priority-80 logical flow with drop action if the NAT logical port is a virtual port not claimed by any chassis yet.
• A priority-50 logical flow with match outport == GW has actions outport = CR; next;, where GW is the logical router distributed gateway port and CR is the chassisredirect port representing the instance of the logical router distributed gateway port on the gateway chassis.
• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

In the common case where the Ethernet destination has been resolved, this table outputs the packet. Otherwise, it composes and sends an ARP or IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation request. It holds the following flows:

• Unknown MAC address. A priority-100 flow for IPv4 packets with match eth.dst == 00:00:00:00:00:00 has the following actions:

  arp {
      eth.dst = ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff;
      arp.spa = reg1;
      arp.tpa = reg0;
      arp.op = 1;  /* ARP request. */
      output;
  };

  Unknown MAC address. For each IPv6 static route associated with the router with the nexthop IP: G, a priority-200 flow for IPv6 packets with match eth.dst == 00:00:00:00:00:00 && xxreg0 == G with the following actions is added:

  nd_ns {
      eth.dst = E;
      ip6.dst = I
      nd.target = G;
      output;
  };

  Where E is the multicast mac derived from the Gateway IP, I is the solicited-node multicast address corresponding to the target address G.

  Unknown MAC address. A priority-100 flow for IPv6 packets with match eth.dst == 00:00:00:00:00:00 has the following actions:

  nd_ns {
      nd.target = xxreg0;
      output;
  };

  (Ingress table IP Routing initialized reg1 with the IP address owned by outport and (xx)reg0 with the next-hop IP address)

  The IP packet that triggers the ARP/IPv6 NS request is dropped.

• Known MAC address. A priority-0 flow with match 1 has actions output;.

This table checks if the packet needs to be DNATed in the router ingress table lr_in_dnat after it is SNATed and looped back to the ingress pipeline. This check is done only for routers configured with distributed gateway ports and NAT entries. This check is done so that SNAT and DNAT is done in different zones instead of a common zone.

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions REGBIT_DST_NAT_IP_LOCAL = 0; next;.

This is for already established connections’ reverse traffic. i.e., DNAT has already been done in ingress pipeline and now the packet has entered the egress pipeline as part of a reply. This traffic is unDNATed here.

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

• For IPv6 Neighbor Discovery or Router Solicitation/Advertisement traffic, a priority-100 flow with action next;.
• For all IP packets, a priority-50 flow with an action flags.loopback = 1; ct_dnat;.

• For all the configured load balancing rules for a router with gateway port in OVN_Northbound database that includes an IPv4 address VIP, for every backend IPv4 address B defined for the VIP a priority-120 flow is programmed on gateway chassis that matches ip && ip4.src == B && outport == GW, where GW is the logical router gateway port with an action ct_dnat;. If the backend IPv4 address B is also configured with L4 port PORT of protocol P, then the match also includes P.src == PORT. These flows are not added for load balancers with IPv6 VIPs.

  If the router is configured to force SNAT any load-balanced packets, above action will be replaced by flags.force_snat_for_lb = 1; ct_dnat;.

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database that asks to change the destination IP address of a packet from an IP address of A to B, a priority-100 flow matches ip && ip4.src == B && outport == GW, where GW is the logical router gateway port, with an action ct_dnat;. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be next;.

  If the NAT rule cannot be handled in a distributed manner, then the priority-100 flow above is only programmed on the gateway chassis with the action ct_dnat.

  If the NAT rule can be handled in a distributed manner, then there is an additional action eth.src = EA;, where EA is the ethernet address associated with the IP address A in the NAT rule. This allows upstream MAC learning to point to the correct chassis.

• A priority-70 logical flow is added that initiates CT state for traffic that is configured to be SNATed on Distributed routers. This allows the next table, lr_out_snat, to effectively match on various CT states.
• A priority-50 logical flow is added that commits any untracked flows from the previous table lr_out_undnat for Gateway routers. This flow matches on ct.new && ip with action ct_commit { } ; next; .
• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Packets that are configured to be SNATed get their source IP address changed based on the configuration in the OVN Northbound database.

• A priority-120 flow to advance the IPv6 Neighbor solicitation packet to next table to skip SNAT. In the case where ovn-controller injects an IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation packet (for nd_ns action) we don’t want the packet to go through conntrack.

Egress Table 3: SNAT on Gateway Routers

• If the Gateway router in the OVN Northbound database has been configured to force SNAT a packet (that has been previously DNATted) to B, a priority-100 flow matches flags.force_snat_for_dnat == 1 && ip with an action ct_snat(B);.
• If a load balancer configured to skip snat has been applied to the Gateway router pipeline, a priority-120 flow matches flags.skip_snat_for_lb == 1 && ip with an action next;.

• If the Gateway router in the OVN Northbound database has been configured to force SNAT a packet (that has been previously load-balanced) using router IP (i.e options:lb_force_snat_ip=router_ip), then for each logical router port P attached to the Gateway router, a priority-110 flow matches flags.force_snat_for_lb == 1 && outport == P with an action ct_snat(R); where R is the IP configured on the router port. If R is an IPv4 address then the match will also include ip4 and if it is an IPv6 address, then the match will also include ip6.

  If the logical router port P is configured with multiple IPv4 and multiple IPv6 addresses, only the first IPv4 and first IPv6 address is considered.

• If the Gateway router in the OVN Northbound database has been configured to force SNAT a packet (that has been previously load-balanced) to B, a priority-100 flow matches flags.force_snat_for_lb == 1 && ip with an action ct_snat(B);.

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the source IP address of a packet from an IP address of A or to change the source IP address of a packet that belongs to network A to B, a flow matches ip && ip4.src == A && (!ct.trk || !ct.rpl) with an action ct_snat(B);. The priority of the flow is calculated based on the mask of A, with matches having larger masks getting higher priorities. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.src= (B).

  For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the source IP address of a packet from an IP address of A or to change the source IP address of a packet that belongs to network A to B, match M and priority P, a flow matches ip && ip4.src == A && (!ct.trk || !ct.rpl) && (M) with an action ct_snat(B); . The priority of the flow is calculated based as 300 + P. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.src=(B).

• If the NAT rule has allowed_ext_ips configured, then there is an additional match ip4.dst == allowed_ext_ips . Similarly, for IPV6, match would be ip6.dst == allowed_ext_ips.
• If the NAT rule has exempted_ext_ips set, then there is an additional flow configured at the priority + 1 of corresponding NAT rule. The flow matches if destination ip is an exempted_ext_ip and the action is next; . This flow is used to bypass the ct_snat action for a packet which is destinted to exempted_ext_ips.
• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Egress Table 3: SNAT on Distributed Routers

• For each configuration in the OVN Northbound database, that asks to change the source IP address of a packet from an IP address of A or to change the source IP address of a packet that belongs to network A to B, two flows are added. The priority P of these flows are calculated based on the mask of A, with matches having larger masks getting higher priorities.

  If the NAT rule cannot be handled in a distributed manner, then the below flows are only programmed on the gateway chassis increasing flow priority by 128 in order to be run first.

  • The first flow is added with the calculated priority P and match ip && ip4.src == A && outport == GW, where GW is the logical router gateway port, with an action ct_snat(B); to SNATed in the common zone. If the NAT rule is of type dnat_and_snat and has stateless=true in the options, then the action would be ip4/6.src=(B).

  If the NAT rule can be handled in a distributed manner, then there is an additional action (for both the flows) eth.src = EA;, where EA is the ethernet address associated with the IP address A in the NAT rule. This allows upstream MAC learning to point to the correct chassis.

  If the NAT rule has allowed_ext_ips configured, then there is an additional match ip4.dst == allowed_ext_ips . Similarly, for IPV6, match would be ip6.dst == allowed_ext_ips.

  If the NAT rule has exempted_ext_ips set, then there is an additional flow configured at the priority P + 2 of corresponding NAT rule. The flow matches if destination ip is an exempted_ext_ip and the action is next; . This flow is used to bypass the ct_snat action for a flow which is destinted to exempted_ext_ips.

• An additional flow is added for traffic that goes in opposite direction (i.e. it enters a network with configured SNAT). Where the flow above matched on ip4.src == A && outport == GW, this flow matches on ip4.dst == A && inport == GW. A CT state is initiated for this traffic so that the following table, lr_out_post_snat, can identify whether the traffic flow was initiated from the internal or external network.
• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Packets reaching this table are processed according to the flows below:

• Traffic that goes directly into a network configured with SNAT on Distributed routers, and was initiated from an external network (i.e. it matches ct.new), is committed to the SNAT CT zone. This ensures that replies returning from the SNATed network do not have their source address translated. For details about match rules and priority see section "Egress Table 3: SNAT on Distributed Routers".
• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and action next;.

For distributed logical routers where one of the logical router ports specifies a gateway chassis.

While UNDNAT and SNAT processing have already occurred by this point, this traffic needs to be forced through egress loopback on this distributed gateway port instance, in order for UNSNAT and DNAT processing to be applied, and also for IP routing and ARP resolution after all of the NAT processing, so that the packet can be forwarded to the destination.

This table has the following flows:

• For each NAT rule in the OVN Northbound database on a distributed router, a priority-100 logical flow with match ip4.dst == E && outport == GW && is_chassis_resident(P), where E is the external IP address specified in the NAT rule, GW is the distributed gateway port corresponding to the NAT rule (specified or inferred). For dnat_and_snat NAT rule, P is the logical port specified in the NAT rule. If logical_port column of NAT table is NOT set, then P is the chassisredirect port of GW with the following actions:

  clone {
      ct_clear;
      inport = outport;
      outport = "";
      flags = 0;
      flags.loopback = 1;
      reg0 = 0;
      reg1 = 0;
      ...
      reg9 = 0;
      REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK = 1;
      next(pipeline=ingress, table=0);
  };

  flags.loopback is set since in_port is unchanged and the packet may return back to that port after NAT processing. REGBIT_EGRESS_LOOPBACK is set to indicate that egress loopback has occurred, in order to skip the source IP address check against the router address.

• A priority-0 logical flow with match 1 has actions next;.

Packets that reach this table are ready for delivery. It contains:

• Priority-110 logical flows that match IP multicast packets on each enabled logical router port and modify the Ethernet source address of the packets to the Ethernet address of the port and then execute action output;.
• Priority-100 logical flows that match packets on each enabled logical router port, with action output;.
• A priority-0 logical flow that matches all packets not already handled (match 1) and drops them (action drop;).