ovs-tcpdump - Man Page

ovs-tcpdump -i <port> <tcpdump options>...

ovs-tcpdump creates switch mirror ports in the ovs-vswitchd daemon and executes tcpdump to listen against those ports. When the tcpdump instance exits, it then cleans up the mirror port it created.

ovs-tcpdump will not allow multiple mirrors for the same port. It has some logic to parse the current configuration and prevent duplicate mirrors.

The -i option may not appear multiple times.

It is important to note that under Linux-based kernels, tap devices do not receive packets unless the specific tuntap device has been opened by an application.  This requires CAP_NET_ADMIN privileges, so the ovs-tcpdump command must be run as a user with such permissions (this is usually a super-user).

• -h or --help

  Prints a brief help message to the console.

• -V or --version

  Prints version information to the console.

• --db-sock <socket>

  The Open vSwitch database socket connection string. The default is unix:<rundir>/db.sock.

• --dump-cmd <command>

  The command to run instead of tcpdump.

• -i or --interface

  The interface for which a mirror port should be created, and packets should be dumped.

• --mirror-to

  The name of the interface which should be the destination of the mirrored packets. The default is mi<port>.

• --span

  If specified, mirror all ports (optional).

• --filter <flow>

  If specified, only mirror packets that match the provided OpenFlow filter. The available fields are documented in ovs-fields(7).

ovs-appctl(8), ovs-vswitchd(8), ovs-pcap(1), ovs-fields(7), ovs-tcpundump(1), tcpdump(8), wireshark(8).

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