interfaces of type "network" are reported as type "bridge"

[Hervé BRY]

On Ubuntu 16.04 and libvirt 1.3.1, libvirt wrongly reports the interfaces of type "network" as type "bridge".
This confuses virt-manager and thus does not allow for example to modify the interface portgroup once it has been created.

To reproduce, add a network interface to a domain, connected to an openvswitch bridge. You can then check that the interface reported by libvirt (through virsh, virt-manager or python-libvirt) has the type "bridge" and not "network" as it should.

The network is working nonetheless, only the reported configuration is wrong.

Versions :

root@virt6:~# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Release: 16.04

root@virt6:~# dpkg -l | grep libvirt
ii libvirt-bin 1.3.1-1ubuntu10.21 amd64 programs for the libvirt library
ii libvirt0:amd64 1.3.1-1ubuntu10.21 amd64 library for interfacing with different virtualization systems
ii python-libvirt 1.3.1-1ubuntu1.1 amd64 libvirt Python bindings

The domain configuration (irrelevant parts removed) :

root@virt6:~# cat /etc/libvirt/qemu/dev.xml
[ ... ]
    <interface type='network'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:eb:b2:b8'/>
      <source network='ovsbr0' portgroup='vlan1'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
[ ... ]

root@virt6:~# virsh dumpxml dev
[ ... ]
    <interface type='bridge'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:eb:b2:b8'/>
      <source network='ovsbr0' portgroup='vlan1' bridge='ovsbr0'/>
      <vlan>
        <tag id='1'/>
      </vlan>
      <virtualport type='openvswitch'>
        <parameters interfaceid='732763c6-78b7-40b2-a02a-0c2216952988'/>
      </virtualport>
      <target dev='vnet3'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <alias name='net0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
[ ... ]

And if it can be useful, the network definition :

root@virt6:~# virsh net-dumpxml ovsbr0
<network connections='6'>
  <name>ovsbr0</name>
  <uuid>49bd2303-ae07-4466-aff7-d6c33817b032</uuid>
  <forward mode='bridge'/>
  <bridge name='ovsbr0'/>
  <virtualport type='openvswitch'/>
  <portgroup name='vlan1' default='yes'>
    <vlan>
      <tag id='1'/>
    </vlan>
  </portgroup>
</network>

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

I agree that this still is the case:

xml:
        <interface type='network'>
                <source network='ovsbr0'/>
                <model type='virtio'/>
                <driver name='vhost' queues='4'/>
                <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/>
        </interface>

dumpxml from defined guest:
    <interface type='bridge'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:a5:a6:eb'/>
      <source network='ovsbr0' bridge='ovsbr0'/>
      <virtualport type='openvswitch'>
        <parameters interfaceid='f221387d-859a-4e2a-b159-6cdc75b92597'/>
      </virtualport>
      <target dev='vnet1'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <driver name='vhost' queues='4'/>
      <alias name='net1'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>

So far I've only seen this with OVS bridges.
E.g. a usual type network virtio device stays type network.

Per [1] it seems that type bridge is actually correct to attach to OVS.
That said I'd think it is a compat that cleans up for both of us and fixes it when instantiating the OVS attachment.

If you "virsh destroy" the guest it will be back to a type network.

I think this is all as it should be, in the moment it is attached it is considered a bridge then.
Otherwise I think we should discuss this with upstream instead of here.
If you report something there please add a link to the upstream discussion in the mail archive here.

[1]: https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html