7 - The "tutorial" directory contains a new tutorial for some advanced
9 - Stable bond mode has been removed.
10 - The autopath action has been removed.
11 - New support for the data encapsulation format of the LISP tunnel
12 protocol (RFC 6830). An external control plane or manual flow
13 setup is required for EID-to-RLOC mapping.
15 * The "dec_mpls_ttl" and "set_mpls_ttl" actions from OpenFlow
16 1.1 and later are now implemented.
17 * New "stack" extension for use in actions, to push and pop from
20 * New debugging commands "add-flow", "mod-flow", "del-flow".
21 - New syslog format, prefixed with "ovs|", to be easier to filter.
22 - RHEL: Removes the default firewall rule that allowed GRE traffic to
23 pass through. Any users that relied on this automatic firewall hole
24 will have to manually configure it. The ovs-ctl(8) manpage documents
25 the "enable-protocol" command that can be used as an alternative.
29 - Bridge compatibility support has been removed. Any uses that
30 rely on ovs-brcompatd will have to stick with Open vSwitch 1.9.x
31 or adapt to native Open vSwitch support (e.g. use ovs-vsctl instead
33 - The maximum size of the MAC learning table is now configurable.
34 - With the Linux datapath, packets for new flows are now queued
35 separately on a per-port basis, so it should no longer be
36 possible for a large number of new flows arriving on one port to
37 prevent new flows from being processed on other ports.
39 * Previously ovs-vsctl would retry connecting to the database forever,
40 causing it to hang if ovsdb-server was not running. Now, ovs-vsctl
41 only tries once by default (use --retry to try forever). This change
42 means that you may want to remove uses of --timeout to avoid hangs
44 * Many "ovs-vsctl" database commands now accept an --if-exists option.
45 Please refer to the ovs-vsctl manpage for details.
47 - Experimental support for newer versions of OpenFlow. See
48 the "What versions of OpenFlow does Open vSwitch support?"
49 question in the FAQ for more details.
50 - The OpenFlow "dp_desc" may now be configured by setting the
51 value of other-config:dp-desc in the Bridge table.
52 - It is possible to request the OpenFlow port number with the
53 "ofport_request" column in the Interface table.
54 - The NXM flow_removed message now reports the OpenFlow table ID
55 from which the flow was removed.
57 - New support for the VXLAN tunnel protocol (see the IETF draft here:
58 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mahalingam-dutt-dcops-vxlan-03).
59 - Tunneling requires the version of the kernel module paired with
60 Open vSwitch 1.9.0 or later.
61 - Inheritance of the Don't Fragment bit in IP tunnels (df_inherit)
62 is no longer supported.
63 - Path MTU discovery is no longer supported.
64 - CAPWAP tunneling support removed.
65 - Tunnels with multicast destination ports are no longer supported.
67 - The "dump-flows" and "del-flows" no longer require an argument
68 if only one datapath exists.
70 - New "vlog/disable-rate-limit" and "vlog/enable-rate-limit"
71 commands available allow control over logging rate limits.
72 - New "dpif/dump-dps", "dpif/show", and "dpif/dump-flows" command
73 that mimic the equivalent ovs-dpctl commands.
74 - The ofproto library is now responsible for assigning OpenFlow port
75 numbers. An ofproto implementation should assign them when
76 port_construct() is called.
77 - All dpif-based bridges of a particular type share a common
78 datapath called "ovs-<type>", e.g. "ovs-system". The ovs-dpctl
79 commands will now return information on that shared datapath. To
80 get the equivalent bridge-specific information, use the new
81 "ovs-appctl dpif/*" commands.
82 - Backward-incompatible changes:
83 - Earlier Open vSwitch versions treated ANY as a wildcard in flow
84 syntax. OpenFlow 1.1 adds a port named ANY, which introduces a
85 conflict. ANY was rarely used in flow syntax, so we chose to
86 retire that meaning of ANY in favor of the OpenFlow 1.1 meaning.
87 - Patch ports no longer require kernel support, so they now work
88 with FreeBSD and the kernel module built into Linux 3.3 and later.
89 - New "sample" action.
93 ------------------------
95 - Support for ipv6 set action.
96 - SKB mark matching and setting.
97 - support for Linux kernels up to 3.8
98 - FreeBSD is now a supported platform, thanks to code contributions from
99 Gaetano Catalli, Ed Maste, and Giuseppe Lettieri.
100 - ovs-bugtool: New --ovs option to report only OVS related information.
101 - New %t and %T log escapes to identify the subprogram within a
102 cooperating group of processes or threads that emitted a log message.
103 The default log patterns now include this information.
105 - Allow bitwise masking for SHA and THA fields in ARP, SLL and TLL
106 fields in IPv6 neighbor discovery messages, and IPv6 flow label.
107 - Adds support for writing to the metadata field for a flow.
109 - The tunneling code no longer assumes input and output keys are
110 symmetric. If they are not, PMTUD needs to be disabled for
111 tunneling to work. Note this only applies to flow-based keys.
112 - New support for a nonstandard form of GRE that supports a 64-bit key.
113 - Tunnel Path MTU Discovery default value was set to 'disabled'.
114 This feature is deprecated and will be removed soon.
115 - Tunnel header caching removed.
117 - Commands and actions that accept port numbers now also accept keywords
118 that represent those ports (such as LOCAL, NONE, and ALL). This is
119 also the recommended way to specify these ports, for compatibility
120 with OpenFlow 1.1 and later (which use the OpenFlow 1.0 numbers
121 for these ports for different purposes).
123 - Support requesting the port number with the "port_no" option in
124 the "add-if" command.
125 - ovs-pki: The "online PKI" features have been removed, along with
126 the ovs-pki-cgi program that facilitated it, because of some
127 alarmist insecurity claims. We do not believe that these claims
128 are true, but because we do not know of any users for this
129 feature it seems better on balance to remove it. (The ovs-pki-cgi
130 program was not included in distribution packaging.)
131 - ovsdb-server now enforces the immutability of immutable columns. This
132 was not enforced in earlier versions due to an oversight.
133 - The following features are now deprecated. They will be removed no
134 earlier than February 2013. Please email dev@openvswitch.org with
136 - Bridge compatibility.
138 - The autopath action.
139 - Interface type "null".
140 - Numeric values for reserved ports (see "ovs-ofctl" note above).
141 - Tunnel Path MTU Discovery.
142 - CAPWAP tunnel support.
143 - The data in the RARP packets can now be matched in the same way as the
148 ------------------------
149 *** Internal only release ***
150 - New FAQ. Please send updates and additions!
151 - Authors of controllers, please read the new section titled "Action
152 Reproduction" in DESIGN, which describes an Open vSwitch change in
153 behavior in corner cases that may affect some controllers.
155 - A new test utility that can create L3 tunnel between two Open
156 vSwitches and detect connectivity issues.
158 - New --sort and --rsort options for "dump-flows" command.
159 - "mod-port" command can now control all OpenFlow config flags.
161 - Allow general bitwise masking for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in
162 IPv4, IPv6, and ARP packets. (Previously, only CIDR masks
164 - Allow support for arbitrary Ethernet masks. (Previously, only
165 the multicast bit in the destination address could be individually
167 - New field OXM_OF_METADATA, to align with OpenFlow 1.1.
168 - The OFPST_QUEUE request now reports an error if a specified port or
169 queue does not exist, or for requests for a specific queue on all
170 ports, if the specified queue does not exist on any port. (Previous
171 versions generally reported an empty set of results.)
172 - New "flow monitor" feature to allow controllers to be notified of
173 flow table changes as they happen.
174 - Additional protocols are not mirrored and dropped when forward-bpdu is
175 false. For a full list, see the ovs-vswitchd.conf.db man page.
176 - Open vSwitch now sends RARP packets in situations where it previously
177 sent a custom protocol, making it consistent with behavior of QEMU and
179 - All Open vSwitch programs and log files now show timestamps in UTC,
180 instead the local timezone, by default.
184 ------------------------
185 - kernel modules are renamed. openvswitch_mod.ko is now
186 openvswitch.ko and brcompat_mod.ko is now brcompat.ko.
187 - Increased the number of NXM registers to 8.
188 - Added ability to configure DSCP setting for manager and controller
189 connections. By default, these connections have a DSCP value of
190 Internetwork Control (0xc0).
191 - Added the granular link health statistics, 'cfm_health', to an
194 - Added support to mask nd_target for ICMPv6 neighbor discovery flows.
195 - Added support for OpenFlow 1.3 port description (OFPMP_PORT_DESC)
198 - Added the "dump-ports-desc" command to retrieve port
199 information using the new port description multipart messages.
201 - Added support for spawning ovs-test server from the client.
202 - Now ovs-test is able to automatically create test bridges and ports.
203 - "ovs-dpctl dump-flows" now prints observed TCP flags in TCP flows.
204 - Tripled flow setup performance.
205 - The "coverage/log" command previously available through ovs-appctl
206 has been replaced by "coverage/show". The new command replies with
207 coverage counter values, instead of logging them.
211 ------------------------
212 - Allow OFPP_CONTROLLER as the in_port for packet-out messages.
216 ------------------------
217 *** Internal only release ***
219 - LACP bonds no longer fall back to balance-slb when negotiations fail.
220 Instead they drop traffic.
221 - The default bond_mode changed from SLB to active-backup, to protect
222 unsuspecting users from the significant risks of SLB bonds (which are
223 documented in vswitchd/INTERNALS).
224 - Load balancing can be disabled by setting the bond-rebalance-interval
227 - Added support for bitwise matching on TCP and UDP ports.
228 See ovs-ofctl(8) for more information.
229 - NXM flow dumps now include times elapsed toward idle and hard
231 - Added an OpenFlow extension NXT_SET_ASYNC_CONFIG that allows
232 controllers more precise control over which OpenFlow messages they
233 receive asynchronously.
234 - New "fin_timeout" action.
235 - Added "fin_timeout" support to "learn" action.
236 - New Nicira action NXAST_CONTROLLER that offers additional features
237 over output to OFPP_CONTROLLER.
238 - When QoS settings for an interface do not configure a default queue
239 (queue 0), Open vSwitch now uses a default configuration for that
240 queue, instead of dropping all packets as in previous versions.
242 - Logging to console and file will have UTC timestamp as a default for
243 all the daemons. An example of the default format is
244 2012-01-27T16:35:17Z. ovs-appctl can be used to change the default
246 - The syntax of commands and options to set log levels was simplified,
247 to make it easier to remember.
248 - New support for limiting the number of flows in an OpenFlow flow
249 table, with configurable policy for evicting flows upon
250 overflow. See the Flow_Table table in ovs-vswitch.conf.db(5)
251 for more information.
252 - New "enable-async-messages" column in the Controller table. If set to
253 false, OpenFlow connections to the controller will initially have all
254 asynchronous messages disabled, overriding normal OpenFlow behavior.
255 - ofproto-provider interface:
256 - "struct rule" has a new member "used" that ofproto implementations
257 should maintain by updating with ofproto_rule_update_used().
259 - The new option --timestamp causes the "monitor" command to print
260 a timestamp with every update.
261 - CFM module CCM broadcasts can now be tagged with an 802.1p priority.
265 ------------------------
267 - Added support for querying, modifying, and deleting flows
268 based on flow cookie when using NXM.
269 - Added new NXM_PACKET_IN format.
270 - Added new NXAST_DEC_TTL action.
272 - Added daemonization support to the monitor and snoop commands.
274 - The "find" command supports new set relational operators
275 {=}, {!=}, {<}, {>}, {<=}, and {>=}.
276 - ovsdb-tool now uses the typical database and schema installation
277 directories as defaults.
278 - The default MAC learning timeout has been increased from 60 seconds
279 to 300 seconds. The MAC learning timeout is now configurable.
283 ------------------------
284 - Compatible with Open vSwitch kernel module included in Linux 3.3.
285 - New "VLAN splinters" feature to work around buggy device drivers
286 in old Linux versions. (This feature is deprecated. When
287 broken device drivers are no longer in widespread use, we will
288 delete this feature.) See ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5) for more
291 - Added ability to match on IPv6 flow label through NXM.
292 - Added ability to match on ECN bits in IPv4 and IPv6 through NXM.
293 - Added ability to match on TTL in IPv4 and IPv6 through NXM.
294 - Added ability to modify ECN bits in IPv4.
295 - Added ability to modify TTL in IPv4.
297 - Don't require the "normal" action to use mirrors. Traffic will
298 now be properly mirrored for any flows, regardless of their
300 - Track packet and byte statistics sent on mirrors.
301 - The sFlow implementation can now usually infer the correct agent
302 device instead of having to be told explicitly.
304 - New "fdb/flush" command to flush bridge's MAC learning table.
306 - A new distributed testing tool that allows one to diagnose performance
307 and connectivity issues. This tool currently is not included in RH or
309 - RHEL packaging now supports integration with Red Hat network scripts.
311 - Post 1.4.*, OVS will be changing the default bond mode from balance-slb
312 to active-backup. SLB bonds carry significant risks with them
313 (documented vswitchd/INTERNALS) which we want to prevent unsuspecting
314 users from running into. Users are advised to update any scripts or
315 configuration which may be negatively impacted by explicitly setting
316 the bond mode which they want to use.
320 ------------------------
322 - Added an OpenFlow extension which allows the "output" action to accept
324 - Added an OpenFlow extension for flexible learning.
325 - Bumped number of NXM registers from four to five.
327 - New "version" command to determine version of running daemon.
328 - If no argument is provided for "cfm/show", displays detailed
329 information about all interfaces with CFM enabled.
330 - If no argument is provided for "lacp/show", displays detailed
331 information about all ports with LACP enabled.
333 - New "set-if" command to modify a datapath port's configuration.
335 - The software switch now supports 255 OpenFlow tables, instead
336 of just one. By default, only table 0 is consulted, but the
337 new NXAST_RESUBMIT_TABLE action can look up in additional
338 tables. Tables 128 and above are reserved for use by the
339 switch itself; please use only tables 0 through 127.
340 - Add support for 802.1D spanning tree (STP).
341 - Fragment handling extensions:
342 - New OFPC_FRAG_NX_MATCH fragment handling mode, in which L4
343 fields are made available for matching in fragments with
345 - New NXM_NX_IP_FRAG match field for matching IP fragments (usable
346 via "ip_frag" in ovs-ofctl).
347 - New ovs-ofctl "get-frags" and "set-frags" commands to get and set
348 fragment handling policy.
349 - CAPWAP tunneling now supports an extension to transport a 64-bit key.
350 By default it remains compatible with the old version and other
351 standards-based implementations.
352 - Flow setups are now processed in a round-robin manner across ports
353 to prevent any single client from monopolizing the CPU and conducting
354 a denial of service attack.
355 - Added support for native VLAN tagging. A new "vlan_mode"
356 parameter can be set for "port". Possible values: "access",
357 "trunk", "native-tagged" and "native-untagged".
358 - test-openflowd has been removed. Please use ovs-vswitchd instead.
361 ------------------------
362 - New "ofproto" abstraction layer to ease porting to hardware
364 - Packaging for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 and 6.0.
365 - Datapath support for Linux kernels up to 3.0.
367 - New "bundle" and "bundle_load" action extensions.
369 - Implement table unique constraints.
370 - Support cooperative locking between callers.
372 - New "-s" option for "show" command prints packet and byte
373 counters for each port.
375 - New "--readd" option for "replace-flows".
377 - New "show" command to print an overview of configuration.
378 - New "comment" command to add remark that explains intentions.
379 - ovs-brcompatd has been rewritten to fix long-standing bugs.
380 - ovs-openflowd has been renamed test-openflowd and moved into the
381 tests directory. Its presence confused too many users. Please
382 use ovs-vswitchd instead.
383 - New ovs-benchmark utility to test flow setup performance.
384 - A new log level "off" has been added. Configuring a log facility
385 "off" prevents any messages from being logged to it. Previously,
386 "emer" was effectively "off" because no messages were ever logged at
387 level "emer". Now, errors that cause a process to exit are logged
389 - "configure" option --with-l26 has been renamed --with-linux, and
390 --with-l26-source has been renamed --with-linux-source. The old
391 names will be removed after the next release, so please update
393 - The "-2.6" suffix has been dropped from the datapath/linux-2.6 and
394 datapath/linux-2.6/compat-2.6 directories.
396 - Dropped support for "tun_id_from_cookie" OpenFlow extension.
397 Please use the extensible match extensions instead.
398 - Removed the Maintenance_Point and Monitor tables in an effort
399 to simplify 802.1ag configuration.
400 - Performance and scalability improvements
404 ------------------------
405 - Ability to define policies over IPv6
408 - Support for extensible match extensions to OpenFlow
410 - Support for HFSC qdisc.
411 - Queue used by in-band control can now be configured.
413 - Kernel<->userspace interface has been reworked and should be
414 close to a stable ABI now.
415 - "Port group" concept has been dropped.
416 - GRE over IPSEC tunnels
418 - New active backup bonding mode.
419 - New L4 hashing support when LACP is enabled.
420 - Source MAC hash now includes VLAN field also.
422 - Greatly improved handling of large flow tables
424 - "show" command now prints full vport configuration.
425 - "dump-groups" command removed since kernel support for
426 port groups was dropped.
428 - New commands for working with the new Managers table.
429 - "list" command enhanced with new formatting options and --columns
431 - "get" command now accepts new --id option.
432 - New "find" command.
434 - New "queue-stats" command for printing queue stats.
435 - New commands "replace-flows" and "diff-flows".
436 - Commands to add and remove flows can now read from files.
437 - New --flow-format option to enable or disable NXM.
438 - New --more option to increase OpenFlow message verbosity.
439 - Removed "tun-cookie" command, which is no longer useful.
440 - ovs-controller enhancements for testing various features.
441 - New ovs-vlan-test command for testing for Linux kernel driver VLAN
442 bugs. New ovs-vlan-bug-workaround command for enabling and
443 disabling a workaround for these driver bugs.
445 - "Resubmit" actions now update flow statistics.
446 - New "register" extension for use in matching and actions, via NXM.
447 - New "multipath" experimental action extension.
448 - New support for matching multicast Ethernet frames, via NXM.
449 - New extension for OpenFlow vendor error codes.
450 - New extension to set the QoS output queue without actually
451 sending to an output port.
452 - Open vSwitch now reports a single flow table, instead of
453 separate hash and wildcard tables. This better models the
454 current implementation.
455 - New experimental "note" action.
456 - New "ofproto/trace" ovs-appctl command and associated utilities
457 to ease debugging complex flow tables.
459 - Schema documentation now includes an entity-relationship diagram.
460 - The database is now garbage collected. In most tables,
461 unreferenced rows will be deleted automatically.
462 - Many tables now include statistics updated periodically by
463 ovs-vswitchd or ovsdb-server.
464 - Every table now has an "external-ids" column for use by OVS
466 - There is no default controller anymore. Each bridge must have its
467 controller individually specified.
468 - The "fail-mode" is now a property of a Bridge instead of a Controller.
469 - New versioning and checksum features.
470 - New Managers table and manager_options column in Open_vSwitch table
471 for specifying managers. The old "managers" column in the
472 Open_vSwitch table has been removed.
473 - Many "name" columns are now immutable.
475 - Dropped support for XenServer pre-5.6.100.
476 - Dropped support for Linux pre-2.6.18.
477 - Dropped controller discovery support.
478 - Dropped "ovs-ofctl status" and the OpenFlow extension that it used.
479 Statistics reporting in the database is a rough equivalent.
480 - Dropped the "corekeeper" package (now separate, at
481 http://openvswitch.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=corekeeper).
482 - Performance and scalability improvements
485 v1.1.0pre2 - 13 Sep 2010
486 ------------------------
489 v1.1.0pre1 - 31 Aug 2010
490 ------------------------
491 - OpenFlow 1.0 slicing (QoS) functionality
492 - Python bindings for configuration database (no write support)
493 - Performance and scalability improvements
498 - New "patch" interface type
503 - Configuration database with remote management
506 - Support for XenServer 5.5 and 5.6
507 - Performance and scalability improvements
510 v0.99.2 - 18 Feb 2010
511 ---------------------
514 v0.99.1 - 25 Jan 2010
515 ---------------------
516 - Add support for sFlow(R)
517 - Make headers compatible with C++
520 v0.99.0 - 14 Jan 2010
521 ---------------------
522 - User-space forwarding engine
525 v0.90.7 - 29 Nov 2009
526 ---------------------
527 - Add support for NetFlow active timeouts
534 v0.90.5 - 21 Sep 2009
535 ---------------------
536 - Generalize in-band control to more diverse network setups