This document describes how to build Debian packages for Open vSwitch. To install Open vSwitch on Debian without building Debian packages, see [INSTALL.md] instead.
These instructions should also work on Ubuntu and other Debian derivative distributions.
Before you begin, consider whether you really need to build packages yourself. Debian "wheezy" and "sid", as well as recent versions of Ubuntu, contain pre-built Debian packages for Open vSwitch. It is easier to install these than to build your own. To use packages from your distribution, skip ahead to "Installing .deb Packages", below.
You may build from an Open vSwitch distribution tarball or from an Open vSwitch Git tree with these instructions.
You do not need to be the superuser to build the Debian packages.
Install the "build-essential" and "fakeroot" packages, e.g. with
apt-get install build-essential fakeroot.
Obtain and unpack an Open vSwitch source distribution and cd into
its top level directory.
Install the build dependencies listed under "Build-Depends:" near
the top of debian/control. You can install these any way you like,
e.g. with apt-get install.
Check your work by running dpkg-checkbuilddeps in the top level of
your ovs directory. If you've installed all the dependencies
properly, dpkg-checkbuilddeps will exit without printing anything.
If you forgot to install some dependencies, it will tell you which ones.
Run:
fakeroot debian/rules binary
This will do a serial build that runs the unit tests. This will take approximately 8 to 10 minutes. If you prefer, you can run a faster parallel build, e.g.:
DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='parallel=8' fakeroot debian/rules binary
If you are in a big hurry, you can even skip the unit tests:
DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='parallel=8 nocheck' fakeroot debian/rules binary
The generated .deb files will be in the parent directory of the Open vSwitch source distribution.
These instructions apply to installing from Debian packages that you
built yourself, as described in the previous section, or from packages
provided by Debian or a Debian derivative distribution such as Ubuntu.
In the former case, use a command such as dpkg -i to install the
.deb files that you build, and in the latter case use a program such
as apt-get or aptitude to download and install the provided
packages.
You must be superuser to install Debian packages.
Start by installing an Open vSwitch kernel module. See debian/openvswitch-switch.README.Debian for the available options.
Install the "openvswitch-switch" and "openvswitch-common" packages. These packages include the core userspace components of the switch.
Open vSwitch .deb packages not mentioned above are rarely useful. Please refer to their individual package descriptions to find out whether any of them are useful to you.
Please report problems to bugs@openvswitch.org.