Bash command-line completion scripts

There are two completion scripts available: ovs-appctl-bashcomp.bash and ovs-vsctl-bashcomp.bash.

ovs-appctl-bashcomp

ovs-appctl-bashcomp.bash adds bash command-line completion support for ovs-appctl, ovs-dpctl, ovs-ofctl and ovsdb-tool commands.

Features

  • Display available completion or complete on unfinished user input (long option, subcommand, and argument).

  • Subcommand hints

  • Convert between keywords like bridge, port, interface, or dp and the available record in ovsdb.

Limitations

  • Only supports a small set of important keywords (dp, datapath, bridge, switch, port, interface, iface).

  • Does not support parsing of nested options. For example:

    $ ovsdb-tool create [db [schema]]

  • Does not support expansion on repeated argument. For example:

    $ ovs-dpctl show [dp...]).

  • Only supports matching on long options, and only in the format --option [arg]. Do not use --option=[arg].

ovs-vsctl-bashcomp

ovs-vsctl-bashcomp.bash adds Bash command-line completion support for ovs-vsctl command.

Features

  • Display available completion and complete on user input for global/local options, command, and argument.

  • Query database and expand keywords like table, record, column, or key, to available completions.

  • Deal with argument relations like ‘one and more’, ‘zero or one’.

  • Complete multiple ovs-vsctl commands cascaded via --.

Limitations

Completion of very long ovs-vsctl commands can take up to several seconds.

Usage

The bashcomp scripts should be placed at /etc/bash_completion.d/ to be available for all bash sessions. Running make install will place the scripts to $(sysconfdir)/bash_completion.d/, thus, the user should specify --sysconfdir=/etc at configuration. If OVS is installed from packages, the scripts will automatically be placed inside /etc/bash_completion.d/.

If you just want to run the scripts in one bash, you can remove them from /etc/bash_completion.d/ and run the scripts via . ovs-appctl-bashcomp.bash or . ovs-vsctl-bashcomp.bash.

Tests

Unit tests are added in tests/completion.at and integrated into autotest framework. To run the tests, just run make check.