G910 - Appendix 10 ~ Setting up virtual network with Open vSwitch.md

G910 - Appendix 10 ~ Setting up virtual network with Open vSwitch

Proxmox VE uses Linux bridge technology by default to set up the virtual network, but it also supports Open vSwitch (also known as OVS). Here I'll show you how to install OVS and replace the default bridge with an OVS one.

Installation

Open a shell in your Proxmox VE system as mgrsys and then execute:

$ sudo apt install -y openvswitch-switch

After the installation, OVS will have two daemons running: ovs-vswitchd and ovsdb-server. Check them out with htop, noticing also the increase in RAM usage. These services won't do anything to your network on their own: you have to setup OVS explicitly.

Replacing the Linux bridge with the OVS one

Log in the PVE web console and go to the System > Network tab of your pve node.

In the capture above you can see the initial setup on my PVE host, which I already explained (and reconfigured) in the G017 guide.

Backing up the current network interfaces configuration

Before going forward with the new OVS-based configuration, make a backup of your current network intefaces setup. To do so, open a shell on your PVE host with your mgrsys user and do the following.

$ sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.bkp

Setting up the OVS bridge

Go back to the web console and, again, in the System > Network screen of your PVE node do the following.

1. Select the vmbr0 interface and click on the Remove button.

   

   The web console will ask for your confirmation.

   

2. The vmbr0 interface should disappear from the list and a Pending changes read-only diff console will appear below.

   

   The diff console shows you how the affected configuration files are going to be modified with the change. In this case, only the /etc/network/interfaces file is affected by this reconfiguration.

   BEWARE!
   Don't click on the Apply Configuration button or reboot just yet! Wait till you've created and set your new OVS bridge up completely!

3. Now click on the Create button and select OVS Bridge from the list.

   

4. In the resulting window, just fill the Bridge ports field with the name of your main real and active network interface.

   

   In my case it's the enp2s0 interface, as it was for the removed Linux bridge. After clicking Create, you should see the new bridge appearing in the interfaces list.

   

5. The OVS bridge is created but lacks an in-band interface to have access to the Proxmox VE host itself. So, to create an OVS InPort for in-band management, click on Create and choose OVS IntPort.

   

6. In the new window, you'll have to fill up the Name, IPv4/CIDR and Gateway (IPv4) fields to set up your in-band.

   

   Regarding the relevant fields at this step.

   • Name : can be any strictly alphanumerical (only 'a-z', '_' and '0-9' are admitted) lower-cased string between 2 and 21 characters.
   • IPv4/CIDR : this is were you input the IP of your host, plus the subnet mask (/24 in my case). In other words, it's just the same IP you had in the previously removed Linux bridge.
   • Gateway (IPv4) : the IP of your network's gateway, which could be your home router.
   • OVS Bridge : to indicate to which bridge this IntPort has to be connected to. By default you'll have this field filled by the name of the only one OVS bridge you have now.
   • Comment : any string you might like to leave here.

   After filling the proper fields, click on Create, and find your new OVS IntPort in the interfaces list.

   

   Notice that it's not Active yet, and that it has been added to the Ports/Slaves list of your new vmbr0 OVS Bridge.

7. To organize (or partition) the traffic among your VMs and containers better, you can create VLANs. To create an VLAN, click on Create, choose OVS IntPort like you did for the in-band interface, and fill the form like below.

   

   You can type anything as the Name, but make it meaningful and don't use anything beyond alphanumeric characters. The VLAN Tag can only be a number, so just put any you prefer there between 1 and 4096. Click on Create after you've filled those values. In my case, I've created two VLANs that also have been automatically added as Ports/Slaves to the vmbr0 OVS bridge.

   

8. Now that you have everything ready, you can hit the Apply Configuration button.

   

   It will ask for your confirmation.

   

9. After applying the new configuration, you should see the in-band port and the vlans active in your Network screen.

   

   Also, with htop you'll see how, under the ovs-vswitchd daemon process, there are now several threads or subprocesses running.

   

Relevant system paths

Directories

• /etc/network

Files

• /etc/network/interfaces
• /etc/network/interfaces.bkp

References

Virtual networking with Open vSwitch (OVS)

• Open vSwitch
• Open vSwitch in Proxmox VE wiki
• Proxmox VE with Open vSwitch
• Proxmox – KimSufi, OVH, SoYouStart – IPv6 – Host Multiple Containers and Virtual Machines on a Single KimSufi Server using IPv6 and ProxMox

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