OVS Changes #1 - Updating the ubuntuServer to use OVS bridges

One of the things that I wanted to do with my network was to be able to access multiple vlans while I was away on trips or from the office.  I hit upon the use of OpenVSwitch (OVS) as a means of connecting an Ubuntu VM running under VMWare on my Windows 10 laptop.  In addition, I wanted to be able to run a set of Docker containers from my Mac Mini server and have them connected to the ubuntuServer.  So, in effect I have a SDN within my house that can be connected to through my VPN server.

I had setup bridges to multiple Ethernet ports using the following template:

iface <ethernet-port-name> inet manual

auto <bridge-name>

iface <bridge-name> inet manual

        bridge_ports <ethernet-port-name>

The setup is in a number of bridge definition files located in /etc/network/interfaces.d/; one file per interface.  The only template that is in /etc/network/interfaces is the one that I have for my day-to-day network activities.  Again, I separate out vlans for different purposes making sure that the vlans do not talk to each other except in controlled instances.

What I did to use an OVS generated bridge was to remove the bridge definition file from /etc/network/interfaces.d/ and then delete the previous bridge using:

sudo ip link set <bridge-name> down

sudo brctl delbr <bridge-name>

sudo brctl show

and then perform the following command (note the ovs addition to differentiate it):

sudo ovs-vsctl add-br <bridge-name-ovs>

sudo ovs-vsctl add-port <bridge-name-ovs> <ethernet-port-name>
sudo ovs-vsctl show

Which is done for each port that I have defined, except for the day-to-day port.  It turns out that you can use the Virtual Machine Manager to pull up the VM, reset the bridge designations from the pull-down list, hit apply, then launch the VM.  Works very well with pfSense.  The interesting thing is that the <bridge-name-ovs> will now show up in an ifconfig command, where as before (when first created with OVS) would not.  Also, there are now tap devices that show up in ifconfig, like macvtap0 and macvtap1.  Those correspond to the tap device attached to the KVM VM; created from the use of Virtual Machine Manager.  I still need to figure out how to do this with Docker.

Anyway it works!  I am able to pull up the VMs on the correct vlan now.