Docker secures the network by managing rules that block connectivity between different Docker networks.īehind the scenes, the Docker Engine creates the necessary Linux bridges, internal interfaces, iptables rules, and host routes to make this connectivity possible. External access is granted by exposing ports to containers.
#DOCKER NETWORK CONNECT DRIVER#
The bridge driver creates a private network internal to the host so containers on this network can communicate. It’s simple to understand, simple to use, and simple to troubleshoot, which makes it a good networking choice for developers and those new to Docker. The bridge networking driver is the first driver on our list. For a more in depth comparison and discussion of even more network drivers, check out the Docker Network Reference Architecture. Together they cover a very broad list of networking use cases and environments.
#DOCKER NETWORK CONNECT DRIVERS#
The most commonly used built-in network drivers are bridge, overlay and macvlan. There are built-in network drivers that come included with Docker Engine and there are also plug-in network drivers offered by networking vendors and the community. Naturally, the next question is which network driver should I use ? Each driver offers tradeoffs and has different advantages depending on the use case. These are pluggable interfaces for the Docker Engine, Swarm, and UCP that provide special capabilities like multi-host networking, network layer encryption, and service discovery. The result is portability and it comes from CNM’s powerful network drivers. It’s CNM that brokers connectivity for your Docker containers and also what abstracts away the diversity and complexity so common in networking. In between applications and the network sits Docker networking, affectionately called the Container Network Model or CNM. (We’re doing port 5000 specifically because that’s where our Docker image is listening, Flask’s default port.Applications requirements and networking environments are diverse and sometimes opposing forces. p 8080:80 would redirect traffic from port 8080 on all interfaces in the main network namespace to port 80 on the container’s external interface. To break it down explicitly: -p 5000:5000 means redirecting traffic from port 5000 on all interfaces in the main network namespace to the container’s port 5000 on its external interface. If we run docker run with -p 5000:5000, it will forward from all interfaces where the Docker daemon is running (for our purposes, the main network namespace) to the external IP address of the containter. Docker run port-forwarding (is not enough) How do we connect the two network namespaces? With Docker port-forwarding. The browser is connecting to 127.0.0.1 in the main, default network namespace.īut those are different interfaces, so no connection is made. Now it’s clear why there’s a connection refused: the server is listening on 127.0.0.1 inside the container’s network namespace. The resulting network setup looks like this: Your operating system has multiple network “interfaces”.įor example, on my computer (with output shortened for clarity): Docker runs on non-Linux OSes like macOS by running a Linux virtual machine, but the practical consequences are the same. I’m going to assume the main OS is Linux, for simplicity of explanation. Let’s start with our first scenario: you run a server directly inside your operating system, and then connect to it.