Add a `--network` flag which replaces `--net` without deprecating it yet. The `--net` flag remains hidden and supported. Add a `--network-alias` flag which replaces `--net-alias` without deprecating it yet. The `--net-alias` flag remains hidden and supported. Signed-off-by: Arnaud Porterie (icecrime) <arnaud.porterie@docker.com>
33 KiB
Work with network commands
This article provides examples of the network subcommands you can use to interact with Docker networks and the containers in them. The commands are available through the Docker Engine CLI. These commands are:
docker network create
docker network connect
docker network ls
docker network rm
docker network disconnect
docker network inspect
While not required, it is a good idea to read Understanding Docker
network before trying the examples in this section. The
examples for the rely on a bridge
network so that you can try them
immediately. If you would prefer to experiment with an overlay
network see
the Getting started with multi-host networks instead.
Create networks
Docker Engine creates a bridge
network automatically when you install Engine.
This network corresponds to the docker0
bridge that Engine has traditionally
relied on. In addition to this network, you can create your own bridge
or
overlay
network.
A bridge
network resides on a single host running an instance of Docker
Engine. An overlay
network can span multiple hosts running their own engines.
If you run docker network create
and supply only a network name, it creates a
bridge network for you.
$ docker network create simple-network
69568e6336d8c96bbf57869030919f7c69524f71183b44d80948bd3927c87f6a
$ docker network inspect simple-network
[
{
"Name": "simple-network",
"Id": "69568e6336d8c96bbf57869030919f7c69524f71183b44d80948bd3927c87f6a",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "172.22.0.0/16",
"Gateway": "172.22.0.1/16"
}
]
},
"Containers": {},
"Options": {}
}
]
Unlike bridge
networks, overlay
networks require some pre-existing conditions
before you can create one. These conditions are:
- Access to a key-value store. Engine supports Consul, Etcd, and ZooKeeper (Distributed store) key-value stores.
- A cluster of hosts with connectivity to the key-value store.
- A properly configured Engine
daemon
on each host in the swarm.
The dockerd
options that support the overlay
network are:
--cluster-store
--cluster-store-opt
--cluster-advertise
It is also a good idea, though not required, that you install Docker Swarm to manage the cluster. Swarm provides sophisticated discovery and server management that can assist your implementation.
When you create a network, Engine creates a non-overlapping subnetwork for the
network by default. You can override this default and specify a subnetwork
directly using the --subnet
option. On a bridge
network you can only
specify a single subnet. An overlay
network supports multiple subnets.
Note
: It is highly recommended to use the
--subnet
option while creating a network. If the--subnet
is not specified, the docker daemon automatically chooses and assigns a subnet for the network and it could overlap with another subnet in your infrastructure that is not managed by docker. Such overlaps can cause connectivity issues or failures when containers are connected to that network.
In addition to the --subnet
option, you also specify the --gateway
,
--ip-range
, and --aux-address
options.
$ docker network create -d overlay \
--subnet=192.168.0.0/16 \
--subnet=192.170.0.0/16 \
--gateway=192.168.0.100 \
--gateway=192.170.0.100 \
--ip-range=192.168.1.0/24 \
--aux-address a=192.168.1.5 --aux-address b=192.168.1.6 \
--aux-address a=192.170.1.5 --aux-address b=192.170.1.6 \
my-multihost-network
Be sure that your subnetworks do not overlap. If they do, the network create fails and Engine returns an error.
When creating a custom network, the default network driver (i.e. bridge
) has
additional options that can be passed. The following are those options and the
equivalent docker daemon flags used for docker0 bridge:
Option | Equivalent | Description |
---|---|---|
com.docker.network.bridge.name |
- | bridge name to be used when creating the Linux bridge |
com.docker.network.bridge.enable_ip_masquerade |
--ip-masq |
Enable IP masquerading |
com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc |
--icc |
Enable or Disable Inter Container Connectivity |
com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4 |
--ip |
Default IP when binding container ports |
com.docker.network.mtu |
--mtu |
Set the containers network MTU |
The following arguments can be passed to docker network create
for any network driver.
Argument | Equivalent | Description |
---|---|---|
--internal |
- | Restricts external access to the network |
--ipv6 |
--ipv6 |
Enable IPv6 networking |
For example, now let's use -o
or --opt
options to specify an IP address binding when publishing ports:
$ docker network create -o "com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4"="172.23.0.1" my-network
b1a086897963e6a2e7fc6868962e55e746bee8ad0c97b54a5831054b5f62672a
$ docker network inspect my-network
[
{
"Name": "my-network",
"Id": "b1a086897963e6a2e7fc6868962e55e746bee8ad0c97b54a5831054b5f62672a",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Options": {},
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "172.23.0.0/16",
"Gateway": "172.23.0.1/16"
}
]
},
"Containers": {},
"Options": {
"com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4": "172.23.0.1"
}
}
]
$ docker run -d -P --name redis --network my-network redis
bafb0c808c53104b2c90346f284bda33a69beadcab4fc83ab8f2c5a4410cd129
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
bafb0c808c53 redis "/entrypoint.sh redis" 4 seconds ago Up 3 seconds 172.23.0.1:32770->6379/tcp redis
Connect containers
You can connect containers dynamically to one or more networks. These networks can be backed the same or different network drivers. Once connected, the containers can communicate using another container's IP address or name.
For overlay
networks or custom plugins that support multi-host
connectivity, containers connected to the same multi-host network but launched
from different hosts can also communicate in this way.
Create two containers for this example:
$ docker run -itd --name=container1 busybox
18c062ef45ac0c026ee48a83afa39d25635ee5f02b58de4abc8f467bcaa28731
$ docker run -itd --name=container2 busybox
498eaaaf328e1018042c04b2de04036fc04719a6e39a097a4f4866043a2c2152
Then create an isolated, bridge
network to test with.
$ docker network create -d bridge --subnet 172.25.0.0/16 isolated_nw
06a62f1c73c4e3107c0f555b7a5f163309827bfbbf999840166065a8f35455a8
Connect container2
to the network and then inspect
the network to verify
the connection:
$ docker network connect isolated_nw container2
$ docker network inspect isolated_nw
[
{
"Name": "isolated_nw",
"Id": "06a62f1c73c4e3107c0f555b7a5f163309827bfbbf999840166065a8f35455a8",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "172.25.0.0/16",
"Gateway": "172.25.0.1/16"
}
]
},
"Containers": {
"90e1f3ec71caf82ae776a827e0712a68a110a3f175954e5bd4222fd142ac9428": {
"Name": "container2",
"EndpointID": "11cedac1810e864d6b1589d92da12af66203879ab89f4ccd8c8fdaa9b1c48b1d",
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:19:00:02",
"IPv4Address": "172.25.0.2/16",
"IPv6Address": ""
}
},
"Options": {}
}
]
You can see that the Engine automatically assigns an IP address to container2
.
Given we specified a --subnet
when creating the network, Engine picked
an address from that same subnet. Now, start a third container and connect it to
the network on launch using the docker run
command's --network
option:
$ docker run --network=isolated_nw --ip=172.25.3.3 -itd --name=container3 busybox
467a7863c3f0277ef8e661b38427737f28099b61fa55622d6c30fb288d88c551
As you can see you were able to specify the ip address for your container. As
long as the network to which the container is connecting was created with a
user specified subnet, you will be able to select the IPv4 and/or IPv6
address(es) for your container when executing docker run
and docker network connect
commands by respectively passing the --ip
and --ip6
flags for IPv4
and IPv6. The selected IP address is part of the container networking
configuration and will be preserved across container reload. The feature is
only available on user defined networks, because they guarantee their subnets
configuration does not change across daemon reload.
Now, inspect the network resources used by container3
.
$ docker inspect --format='{{json .NetworkSettings.Networks}}' container3
{"isolated_nw":{"IPAMConfig":{"IPv4Address":"172.25.3.3"},"NetworkID":"1196a4c5af43a21ae38ef34515b6af19236a3fc48122cf585e3f3054d509679b",
"EndpointID":"dffc7ec2915af58cc827d995e6ebdc897342be0420123277103c40ae35579103","Gateway":"172.25.0.1","IPAddress":"172.25.3.3","IPPrefixLen":16,"IPv6Gateway":"","GlobalIPv6Address":"","GlobalIPv6PrefixLen":0,"MacAddress":"02:42:ac:19:03:03"}}
Repeat this command for container2
. If you have Python installed, you can pretty print the output.
$ docker inspect --format='{{json .NetworkSettings.Networks}}' container2 | python -m json.tool
{
"bridge": {
"NetworkID":"7ea29fc1412292a2d7bba362f9253545fecdfa8ce9a6e37dd10ba8bee7129812",
"EndpointID": "0099f9efb5a3727f6a554f176b1e96fca34cae773da68b3b6a26d046c12cb365",
"Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
"GlobalIPv6Address": "",
"GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
"IPAMConfig": null,
"IPAddress": "172.17.0.3",
"IPPrefixLen": 16,
"IPv6Gateway": "",
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:11:00:03"
},
"isolated_nw": {
"NetworkID":"1196a4c5af43a21ae38ef34515b6af19236a3fc48122cf585e3f3054d509679b",
"EndpointID": "11cedac1810e864d6b1589d92da12af66203879ab89f4ccd8c8fdaa9b1c48b1d",
"Gateway": "172.25.0.1",
"GlobalIPv6Address": "",
"GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
"IPAMConfig": null,
"IPAddress": "172.25.0.2",
"IPPrefixLen": 16,
"IPv6Gateway": "",
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:19:00:02"
}
}
You should find container2
belongs to two networks. The bridge
network
which it joined by default when you launched it and the isolated_nw
which you
later connected it to.
In the case of container3
, you connected it through docker run
to the
isolated_nw
so that container is not connected to bridge
.
Use the docker attach
command to connect to the running container2
and
examine its networking stack:
$ docker attach container2
If you look at the container's network stack you should see two Ethernet
interfaces, one for the default bridge network and one for the isolated_nw
network.
/ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:AC:11:00:03
inet addr:172.17.0.3 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::42:acff:fe11:3/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:9001 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:648 (648.0 B) TX bytes:648 (648.0 B)
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:AC:15:00:02
inet addr:172.25.0.2 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::42:acff:fe19:2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:648 (648.0 B) TX bytes:648 (648.0 B)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
On the isolated_nw
which was user defined, the Docker embedded DNS server
enables name resolution for other containers in the network. Inside of
container2
it is possible to ping container3
by name.
/ # ping -w 4 container3
PING container3 (172.25.3.3): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.3.3: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.3.3: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.3.3: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.3.3: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- container3 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
This isn't the case for the default bridge
network. Both container2
and
container1
are connected to the default bridge network. Docker does not
support automatic service discovery on this network. For this reason, pinging
container1
by name fails as you would expect based on the /etc/hosts
file:
/ # ping -w 4 container1
ping: bad address 'container1'
A ping using the container1
IP address does succeed though:
/ # ping -w 4 172.17.0.2
PING 172.17.0.2 (172.17.0.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.095 ms
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.075 ms
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.072 ms
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.101 ms
--- 172.17.0.2 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.072/0.085/0.101 ms
If you wanted you could connect container1
to container2
with the docker run --link
command and that would enable the two containers to interact by name
as well as IP.
Detach from a container2
and leave it running using CTRL-p CTRL-q
.
In this example, container2
is attached to both networks and so can talk to
container1
and container3
. But container3
and container1
are not in the
same network and cannot communicate. Test, this now by attaching to
container3
and attempting to ping container1
by IP address.
$ docker attach container3
/ # ping 172.17.0.2
PING 172.17.0.2 (172.17.0.2): 56 data bytes
^C
--- 172.17.0.2 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
You can connect both running and non-running containers to a network. However,
docker network inspect
only displays information on running containers.
Linking containers in user-defined networks
In the above example, container2
was able to resolve container3
's name
automatically in the user defined network isolated_nw
, but the name
resolution did not succeed automatically in the default bridge
network. This
is expected in order to maintain backward compatibility with legacy
link.
The legacy link
provided 4 major functionalities to the default bridge
network.
- name resolution
- name alias for the linked container using
--link=CONTAINER-NAME:ALIAS
- secured container connectivity (in isolation via
--icc=false
) - environment variable injection
Comparing the above 4 functionalities with the non-default user-defined
networks such as isolated_nw
in this example, without any additional config,
docker network
provides
- automatic name resolution using DNS
- automatic secured isolated environment for the containers in a network
- ability to dynamically attach and detach to multiple networks
- supports the
--link
option to provide name alias for the linked container
Continuing with the above example, create another container container4
in
isolated_nw
with --link
to provide additional name resolution using alias
for other containers in the same network.
$ docker run --network=isolated_nw -itd --name=container4 --link container5:c5 busybox
01b5df970834b77a9eadbaff39051f237957bd35c4c56f11193e0594cfd5117c
With the help of --link
container4
will be able to reach container5
using
the aliased name c5
as well.
Please note that while creating container4
, we linked to a container named
container5
which is not created yet. That is one of the differences in
behavior between the legacy link in default bridge
network and the new
link functionality in user defined networks. The legacy link is static in
nature and it hard-binds the container with the alias and it doesn't tolerate
linked container restarts. While the new link functionality in user defined
networks are dynamic in nature and supports linked container restarts including
tolerating ip-address changes on the linked container.
Now let us launch another container named container5
linking container4
to
c4.
$ docker run --network=isolated_nw -itd --name=container5 --link container4:c4 busybox
72eccf2208336f31e9e33ba327734125af00d1e1d2657878e2ee8154fbb23c7a
As expected, container4
will be able to reach container5
by both its
container name and its alias c5 and container5
will be able to reach
container4
by its container name and its alias c4.
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 c5
PING c5 (172.25.0.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- c5 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
/ # ping -w 4 container5
PING container5 (172.25.0.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- container5 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
$ docker attach container5
/ # ping -w 4 c4
PING c4 (172.25.0.4): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.065 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.067 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms
--- c4 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.065/0.070/0.082 ms
/ # ping -w 4 container4
PING container4 (172.25.0.4): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.065 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.067 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.4: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms
--- container4 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.065/0.070/0.082 ms
Similar to the legacy link functionality the new link alias is localized to a
container and the aliased name has no meaning outside of the container using
the --link
.
Also, it is important to note that if a container belongs to multiple networks, the linked alias is scoped within a given network. Hence the containers can be linked to different aliases in different networks.
Extending the example, let us create another network named local_alias
$ docker network create -d bridge --subnet 172.26.0.0/24 local_alias
76b7dc932e037589e6553f59f76008e5b76fa069638cd39776b890607f567aaa
let us connect container4
and container5
to the new network local_alias
$ docker network connect --link container5:foo local_alias container4
$ docker network connect --link container4:bar local_alias container5
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 foo
PING foo (172.26.0.3): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- foo ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
/ # ping -w 4 c5
PING c5 (172.25.0.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.5: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- c5 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
Note that the ping succeeds for both the aliases but on different networks. Let
us conclude this section by disconnecting container5
from the isolated_nw
and observe the results
$ docker network disconnect isolated_nw container5
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 c5
ping: bad address 'c5'
/ # ping -w 4 foo
PING foo (172.26.0.3): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.3: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- foo ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
In conclusion, the new link functionality in user defined networks provides all the benefits of legacy links while avoiding most of the well-known issues with legacy links.
One notable missing functionality compared to legacy links is the injection
of environment variables. Though very useful, environment variable injection is
static in nature and must be injected when the container is started. One cannot
inject environment variables into a running container without significant
effort and hence it is not compatible with docker network
which provides a
dynamic way to connect/ disconnect containers to/from a network.
Network-scoped alias
While links provide private name resolution that is localized within a container, the network-scoped alias provides a way for a container to be discovered by an alternate name by any other container within the scope of a particular network. Unlike the link alias, which is defined by the consumer of a service, the network-scoped alias is defined by the container that is offering the service to the network.
Continuing with the above example, create another container in isolated_nw
with a network alias.
$ docker run --network=isolated_nw -itd --name=container6 --network-alias app busybox
8ebe6767c1e0361f27433090060b33200aac054a68476c3be87ef4005eb1df17
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 app
PING app (172.25.0.6): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- app ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
/ # ping -w 4 container6
PING container5 (172.25.0.6): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- container6 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
Now let us connect container6
to the local_alias
network with a different
network-scoped alias.
$ docker network connect --alias scoped-app local_alias container6
container6
in this example now is aliased as app
in network isolated_nw
and as scoped-app
in network local_alias
.
Let's try to reach these aliases from container4
(which is connected to both
these networks) and container5
(which is connected only to isolated_nw
).
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 scoped-app
PING foo (172.26.0.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.26.0.5: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.5: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.5: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.26.0.5: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- foo ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
$ docker attach container5
/ # ping -w 4 scoped-app
ping: bad address 'scoped-app'
As you can see, the alias is scoped to the network it is defined on and hence only those containers that are connected to that network can access the alias.
In addition to the above features, multiple containers can share the same
network-scoped alias within the same network. For example, let's launch
container7
in isolated_nw
with the same alias as container6
$ docker run --network=isolated_nw -itd --name=container7 --network-alias app busybox
3138c678c123b8799f4c7cc6a0cecc595acbdfa8bf81f621834103cd4f504554
When multiple containers share the same alias, name resolution to that alias will happen to one of the containers (typically the first container that is aliased). When the container that backs the alias goes down or disconnected from the network, the next container that backs the alias will be resolved.
Let us ping the alias app
from container4
and bring down container6
to
verify that container7
is resolving the app
alias.
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 app
PING app (172.25.0.6): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.080 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.6: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
--- app ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.070/0.081/0.097 ms
$ docker stop container6
$ docker attach container4
/ # ping -w 4 app
PING app (172.25.0.7): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.25.0.7: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.095 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.7: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.075 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.7: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.072 ms
64 bytes from 172.25.0.7: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.101 ms
--- app ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.072/0.085/0.101 ms
Disconnecting containers
You can disconnect a container from a network using the docker network disconnect
command.
$ docker network disconnect isolated_nw container2
$ docker inspect --format='{{json .NetworkSettings.Networks}}' container2 | python -m json.tool
{
"bridge": {
"NetworkID":"7ea29fc1412292a2d7bba362f9253545fecdfa8ce9a6e37dd10ba8bee7129812",
"EndpointID": "9e4575f7f61c0f9d69317b7a4b92eefc133347836dd83ef65deffa16b9985dc0",
"Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
"GlobalIPv6Address": "",
"GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
"IPAddress": "172.17.0.3",
"IPPrefixLen": 16,
"IPv6Gateway": "",
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:11:00:03"
}
}
$ docker network inspect isolated_nw
[
{
"Name": "isolated_nw",
"Id": "06a62f1c73c4e3107c0f555b7a5f163309827bfbbf999840166065a8f35455a8",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "172.21.0.0/16",
"Gateway": "172.21.0.1/16"
}
]
},
"Containers": {
"467a7863c3f0277ef8e661b38427737f28099b61fa55622d6c30fb288d88c551": {
"Name": "container3",
"EndpointID": "dffc7ec2915af58cc827d995e6ebdc897342be0420123277103c40ae35579103",
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:19:03:03",
"IPv4Address": "172.25.3.3/16",
"IPv6Address": ""
}
},
"Options": {}
}
]
Once a container is disconnected from a network, it cannot communicate with
other containers connected to that network. In this example, container2
can
no longer talk to container3
on the isolated_nw
network.
$ docker attach container2
/ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:AC:11:00:03
inet addr:172.17.0.3 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::42:acff:fe11:3/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:9001 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:648 (648.0 B) TX bytes:648 (648.0 B)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
/ # ping container3
PING container3 (172.25.3.3): 56 data bytes
^C
--- container3 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
The container2
still has full connectivity to the bridge network
/ # ping container1
PING container1 (172.17.0.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.119 ms
64 bytes from 172.17.0.2: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.174 ms
^C
--- container1 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.119/0.146/0.174 ms
/ #
There are certain scenarios such as ungraceful docker daemon restarts in
multi-host network, where the daemon is unable to cleanup stale connectivity
endpoints. Such stale endpoints may cause an error container already connected to network
when a new container is connected to that network with the same
name as the stale endpoint. In order to cleanup these stale endpoints, first
remove the container and force disconnect (docker network disconnect -f
) the
endpoint from the network. Once the endpoint is cleaned up, the container can
be connected to the network.
$ docker run -d --name redis_db --network multihost redis
ERROR: Cannot start container bc0b19c089978f7845633027aa3435624ca3d12dd4f4f764b61eac4c0610f32e: container already connected to network multihost
$ docker rm -f redis_db
$ docker network disconnect -f multihost redis_db
$ docker run -d --name redis_db --network multihost redis
7d986da974aeea5e9f7aca7e510bdb216d58682faa83a9040c2f2adc0544795a
Remove a network
When all the containers in a network are stopped or disconnected, you can remove a network.
$ docker network disconnect isolated_nw container3
docker network inspect isolated_nw
[
{
"Name": "isolated_nw",
"Id": "06a62f1c73c4e3107c0f555b7a5f163309827bfbbf999840166065a8f35455a8",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "172.21.0.0/16",
"Gateway": "172.21.0.1/16"
}
]
},
"Containers": {},
"Options": {}
}
]
$ docker network rm isolated_nw
List all your networks to verify the isolated_nw
was removed:
$ docker network ls
NETWORK ID NAME DRIVER
72314fa53006 host host
f7ab26d71dbd bridge bridge
0f32e83e61ac none null