How to check Open vSwitch version

Last updated on July 9, 2020 by Dan Nanni

Open vSwitch (OVS) is an open-source virtual switch, featuring programmable switch forwarding capability. The forwarding plane of OVS can be dynamically controlled by an external network controller, such as OpenFlow controller, which enables key innovation called software-defined networking in large-scale virtual environments.

OVS is included in the Linux kernel 3.3 or higher. For earlier versions of Linux kernel, you can install OVS via standard package installation, or can build OVS from the official source tree at openvswitch.org.

If you have OVS already installed on your machine, you can check Open vSwitch version as follows.

$ ovs-vswitchd --version

ovs-vswitchd (Open vSwitch) 2.5.90
Compiled Feb  5 2016 17:51:13

The above output indicates that the OVS version is 2.5.90.

As OVS gets upgraded, the version of the OpenFlow protocol supported by OVS may also vary.

To find out supported OpenFlow protocol versions, use the following command.

$ ovs-ofctl --version

ovs-ofctl (Open vSwitch) 2.5.90
Compiled Feb  5 2016 17:50:54
OpenFlow versions 0x1:0x4

The output indicates that the installed Open vSwitch supports OpenFlow versions 1.0 (0x1) to 1.3 (0x4).

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