--- name: "ovs-brcompatd" section: "8" platform: "linux" package: "openvswitch-brcompat" version: "1.4.2+git20120612-9.1~deb7u1.1" release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/ovs-brcompatd" --- # ovs-brcompatd(8) Bridge compatibility front-end for ovs-vswitchd ## NAME ovs-brcompatd - Bridge compatibility front-end for ovs-vswitchd ## SYNOPSIS **ovs-brcompatd** \[*options*\] ## DESCRIPTION A daemon that provides a legacy bridge front-end for **ovs-vswitchd**. It does this by listening for bridge ioctl commands (e.g., those generated by the **brctl** program) to add or remove datapaths and the interfaces that attach to them. ## OPTIONS - **--appctl=***program* Sets the name to the program that **ovs-brcompatd** runs to communicate with **ovs-vswitchd**. The default is **ovs-appctl**. Unless *program* contains **/**, **ovs-brcompatd** will search the **PATH** environment variable to find it. - **--vsctl=***program* Sets the name to the program that **ovs-brcompatd** runs to communicate with **ovsdb-server**. The default is **ovs-vsctl**. Unless *program* contains **/**, **ovs-brcompatd** will search the **PATH** environment variable to find it. - **--pidfile**\[**=***pidfile*\] Causes a file (by default, **ovs-brcompatd.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 **/var/run/openvswitch**. - 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, **ovs-brcompatd** 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** Causes **ovs-brcompatd** to detach itself from the foreground session and run as a background process. - **--monitor** Creates an additional process to monitor the **ovs-brcompatd** daemon. If the daemon dies due to a signal that indicates a programming error (e.g. **SIGSEGV**, **SIGABRT**), then the monitor process starts a new copy of it. If the daemon die 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, **ovs-brcompatd** changes its current working directory to the root directory after it detaches. Otherwise, invoking **ovs-brcompatd** 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 **ovs-brcompatd** 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. - **-v***module*\[**:***facility*\[**:***level*\]\], **--verbose=***module*\[**:***facility*\[**:***level*\]\] Sets the logging level for *module* in *facility* to *level*: - • *module* may be any valid module name (as displayed by the **--list** action on [**ovs-appctl**(8)](/ovs-appctl/8.md)), or the special name **ANY** to set the logging levels for all modules. - • *facility* may be **syslog**, **console**, or **file** to set the levels for logging to the system log, the console, or a file respectively, or **ANY** to set the logging levels for both facilities. If it is omitted, *facility* defaults to **ANY**. - Regardless of the log levels set for **file**, logging to a file will not take place unless **--log-file** is also specified (see below). - • *level* must be one of **off**, **emer**, **err**, **warn**, **info**, or **dbg**, designating the minimum severity of a message for it to be logged. If it is omitted, *level* defaults to **dbg**. See [**ovs-appctl**(8)](/ovs-appctl/8.md) for a definition of each log level. - **-v**, **--verbose** Sets the maximum logging verbosity level, equivalent to **--verbose=ANY:ANY:dbg**. - **-vPATTERN:***facility***:***pattern*, **--verbose=PATTERN:***facility***:***pattern* Sets the log pattern for *facility* to *pattern*. Refer to [**ovs-appctl**(8)](/ovs-appctl/8.md) for a description of the valid syntax for *pattern*. - **--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/openvswitch/ovs-brcompatd.log**. - **-h**, **--help** Prints a brief help message to the console. - **-V**, **--version** Prints version information to the console. - **--check-leaks=***file* Logs information about memory allocation and deallocation to *file*, to allow for debugging memory leaks in **ovs-brcompatd**. This option slows down **ovs-brcompatd** considerably, so it should only be used when a memory leak is suspected. Use the **ovs-parse-leaks** script to interpret the leak file. - **--leak-limit=***size* Limits size of the leak file as specified by **--check-leaks** to *size* bytes. Finding leaks sometimes requires allowing the leak file to grow very large, up to 1GB. By default, files are limited to 10MB. ## NOTES **ovs-brcompatd** requires the **brcompat\_mod.ko** kernel module to be loaded. ## SEE ALSO [**ovs-appctl**(8)](/ovs-appctl/8.md), [**ovs-vsctl**(8)](/ovs-vsctl/8.md), [**ovs-vswitchd**(8)](/ovs-vswitchd/8.md), [**ovsdb-server**(1)](/ovsdb-server/1.md), **INSTALL.bridge** in the Open vSwitch distribution.