ovn.central-ips

Key	ovn.central-ips
Type	String
Scope	Cluster
Description	Comma-separated list of IP addresses of the OVN central cluster
Example	10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2,10.0.0.3

By default, MicroOVN assumes that it manages the whole OVN stack from the OVN Northbound database down to the Open vSwitch. This option can be used to change that. It instructs MicroOVN to connect to an external OVN central cluster (OVN Northbound and OVN Southbound databases). Setting this option causes:

• ovn-controller on all nodes with chassis service enabled to connect and register to the OVN Southbound database specified by this option

• ovn-nbctl and ovn-sbctl client commands to connect to their respective database specified by this option.

This option is applied cluster-wide. Setting it on any of the nodes will apply necessary changes across the whole MicroOVN cluster.

Prerequisites

There are few things that need to be taken into consideration when applying this configuration option.

Certificate Authority match

Since MicroOVN enforces encrypted communication between clients and services, the external OVN central cluster needs to use SSL/TLS on its database and API endpoints. The certificates used by the external cluster also need to be trusted by the clients in the MicroOVN cluster (and vice versa). In practice this means obtaining an intermediate CA certificate and key from the CA that issued certificates for the external cluster, and setting it as a CA certificate/key in the MicroOVN. See Working with TLS about how to set user-provided CA certificate and key in the MicroOVN.

(Optional) Disable internal OVN central cluster

While it’s not strictly necessary, if the MicroOVN deployment is using an external OVN central cluster, it is usually unnecessary for any of the internal nodes to actually run the central service. If any of your nodes still run the central service, you can disable it. See MicroOVN services and Service Control about how to do it.