I don’t mind coding in Java (i.e. OpenDaylight) but I wanted something quick and easy, so I’m writing a utility-esque script that sacrifices extensibility for speed. And since Python is something I’ve been meaning to stretch my muscles in, I decided to throw this together.

Keep in mind that this can all be done by ovsdb-client natively via Linux command line, but I wanted to write it in Python to learn it, as well as provide it for a cool (technically) cross-platform language.

Simple idea, send an OVS echo function through JSON-RPC to the address and port of your choice. Assumes you’ve already set up OVS to listen passively on an interface for manager OVSDB requests:

ovs-vsctl set-manager ptcp:6634:10.12.0.30

Suggestions welcome.

import socket
import json
import time
 
def pingOVS(HOST, PORT):
    
    #Create socket
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
 
    #Establish TCP session via IP address and port specified
    s.connect((HOST, PORT))
 
    #Send JSON to socket
    print "Sending echo request =====>"
    s.send(json.dumps({'method':'echo','id':'echo','params':[]}))
 
    #Wait for response and print to console
    result = json.loads(s.recv(1024))
    print "<========" + str(result)
    time.sleep(2)
 
while True:
    pingOVS("10.12.0.30", 6634)
 
#Exit
s.close()