Hi I have a question that may be connected to OpenFlow, rather than with OVS. But I'd appreciate if you can help me, since I'm just starting with OF. The question is why do Group Tables not have timeout parameter?
Here is my use-case: For each new packet I want to install flow entry with group action as output (1 to 1). To keep the flow entries list as small as possible I'd like to remove unused ones, so I set idle timeout on them. However, when unused flow is wiped out from switch, the associated group is not. So I have three options: 1 If I generate groups on demand I need to follow the status of the flow with my service. Service has to be aware of idle timeout and issue group remove message; 2 If I assume groups to be permanent, not generated on demand, I still have to keep detail information on the controller (which output port, type of group etc.) 3 Implement idle timeout for group inside my service, since when I remove group from switch, the flows are removed as well If I just neglect this problem and generate new flow entry and group action after each packet in message (this is what I want), I will end up with huge group table (and most of the entries will remain unused). So again, if I can move switch flow table size management to the node, why can't I do similar with group tables? Instead of adding above functionalities in my service, it will be much easier if I can set idle timeout on group action, which is equal to flow entry timeout. Let me know if I missed something but I can't see anything simpler based on OFv1.5 documentation. Best regards, Adrian Alan Pol Technical University of Denmark
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