Container Networking with vSphere Integrated Containers Engine

The following sections present examples of how to perform container networking operations when using vSphere Integrated Containers Engine as your Docker endpoint.

To perform certain networking operations on containers, your Docker environment and your virtual container hosts (VCHs) must be configured in a specific way.

NOTE: The default level of trust on VCH container networks is published. As a consequence, if the vSphere administrator did not configure --container-network-firewall on the VCH, you must specify -p 80 in docker run and docker create commands to publish port 80 on a container. Alternatively, the vSphere administrator can configure the VCH to set --container-network-firewall to a different level.

Publish a Container Port

Connect a container VM to an external mapped port on the public network of the VCH:

$ docker run -p 8080:80 --name test1 my_container my_app

Result: You can access Port 80 on test1 from the public network interface on the VCH at port 8080.

Container VM Port Forwarding

When a container VM is connected to a container-network as the primary network, you can forward a port on the container VM, in the same way you can via NAT on the endpoint VM:

$ docker run --net=published-container-net -p 80:8080 -d tomcat:alpine

The above example allows you to access the Tomcat webserver via port 80 on the container VM, via published-container-net, instead of being fixed to port 8080 as defined in the Tomcat Dockerfile. This makes it significantly simpler for you to expose services directly via container networks, without having to modify images.

For an example of port forwarding when a container VM is connected to both the bridge network and a container network, see Deploy Containers That Combine Bridge Networks with a Container Network.

Add Containers to a New Bridge Network

Create a new non-default bridge network and set up two containers on the network. Verify that the containers can locate and communicate with each other:

$ docker network create -d bridge my-bridge-network
$ docker network ls
...
NETWORK ID          NAME                DRIVER
615d565d498c        my-bridge-network   bridge
...
$ docker run -d --net=my-bridge-network \
                --name=server my_server_image server_app
$ docker run -it --name=client --net=my-bridge-network busybox
/ # ping server
PING server (172.18.0.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.073 ms
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.092 ms
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.088 ms

Result: The server and client containers can ping each other by name.

Note: Containers created on the default bridge network don't get name resolution by default in the way described above. This is consistent with docker bridge network behavior.

Bridged Containers with an Exposed Port

Connect two containers on a bridge network and set up one of the containers to publish a port via the VCH. Assume that server_app binds to port 5000.

$ docker network create -d bridge my-bridge-network
$ docker network ls
...
NETWORK ID          NAME                DRIVER
615d565d498c        my-bridge-network   bridge
...
$ docker run -d -p 5000:5000 --net=my-bridge-network \
                --name=server my_server_image server_app
$ docker run -it --name=client --net=my-bridge-network busybox
/ # ping -c 3 server
PING server (172.18.0.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.073 ms
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.092 ms
64 bytes from 172.18.0.2: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.088 ms
/ # telnet server 5000
GET /

Hello world!Connection closed by foreign host
$ telnet vch_public_interface 5000
Trying 192.168.218.137...
Connected to 192.168.218.137.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /

Hello world!Connection closed by foreign host.

Result: The server and client containers can ping each other by name. You can connect to server on port 5000 from the client container and to port 5000 on the VCH public network.

Deploy Containers on Multiple Bridge Networks

You can use multiple bridge networks to isolate certain types of application network traffic. An example may be containers in a data tier communicating on one network and containers on a web tier communicating on another. In order for this to work, at least one of the containers needs to be on both networks.

Docker syntax does not allow for the use of multiple --net arguments for docker run or docker create, so to connect a container to multiple networks, you need to use:

docker network connect [network-id] [container-id]

Note: With VIC containers, networks can only be added to a container when it's in its created state. They can't be added while the container is running.

Create two bridge networks, one for data traffic and one for web traffic

docker network create --internal bridge-db
docker network create bridge-web

Create and run the data container(s)

docker run -d --name db --net bridge-db myrepo/mydatabase

Create and run the web container(s) and make sure one is on both networks. Expose the web front end on port 8080 of the VCH.

docker create -d --name model --net bridge-db myrepo/web-model
docker network connect bridge-web web-model
docker start model
docker run -d -p 8080:80 --name view --net bridge-web myrepo/web-view

Result:

  • db and web-view cannot communicate with each other
  • web-model can communicate with both db and web-view
  • web-view exposes a service on port 8080 of the VCH

Note: A container on multliple bridge networks will not get a distinct network interface for each network, rather it will get multiple IP addresses on the same interface. Use ip addr to see the IP addresses.

Deploy Containers That Combine Bridge Networks with a Container Network

A "container" network is a vSphere port group that a container can be connected to directly and which allows the container to have an external identity on that network. This can be combined with one or more private bridge networks for intra-container traffic.

NOTE: Multiple bridge networks are backed by the same port group as the default bridge, segregated via IP address management. Container networks are strongly isolated from all other networks.

A container network is specified when the VCH is installed using vic-machine --container-network [existing-port-group] and should be visible when you run docker network ls from a Docker client.

$ docker network ls
NETWORK ID          NAME                DRIVER              SCOPE
baf6919f5721        ExternalNetwork     external            
fc41d9a86514        bridge              bridge

The three main advantages of using a container network over exposing a port on the VCH are that:

1) The container can get its own external IP address. 2) The container is not dependent on the VCH control plane being up for network connectivity. This allows the VCH to be powered down or upgraded with zero impact on the network connectivity of the deployed container. 3) This avoids the use of NAT, which will benefit throughput performance

Let's take the above example with the web and data tiers and show how it could be achieved using a container network.

Create one private bridge network for data traffic

docker network create --internal bridge-db

Create and run the data container(s)

docker run -d --name db --net bridge-db myrepo/mydatabase

Create and run the web container(s) and make sure one is on both networks. In this example, we only want the web-view container to have an identity on the ExternalNetwork, so the web-model container is only in the data network.

docker run -d --name model --net bridge-db myrepo/web-model
docker create -d -p 80 --name view --net bridge-db myrepo/web-view
docker network connect ExternalNetwork view
docker start view

Result:

  • All the containers can communicate with each other.
  • db and web-model cannot communicate externally
  • web-view has its own external IP address and its service is available on port 80 of that IP address

NOTE: Given that a container network manifests as a vNIC on the container VM, it has its own distinct network interface in the container.

If you implement port forwarding when a container VM is connected to both the bridge network and a container network, the port mapping applies to the network that you use on the create command. It does not apply to networks that are connected after creation.

The following example example shows mapping in the container VM and serving to the container network:

$ docker create -p 80:8080 --net=public tomcat:alpine
50ca681655326775da27462ee062f3a74c4157ff04470fcfda9b176470270d6a
$ docker network connect bridge 50
$ docker start 50
50
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                         NAMES
50ca68165532        tomcat:alpine       "catalina.sh run"   7 minutes ago       Up 5 minutes        192.168.78.159:80->8080/tcp   priceless_tesla

Create a Bridge Network with Non-Default Subnet Mask

To override the default subnet mask, you can specify a new value by using the docker network create --subnet option.

$ docker network create --subnet value

By default, user-defined bridge networks in VCHs have a subnet mask value of 16. The vSphere administrator can also configure a VCH with a different default subnet mask by using the --bridge-network-width option when they deploy the VCH.

Deploy a Container with a Static IP Address

Deploy a container that has a static IP address on the container network. For you to be able to deploy containers with static IP addresses, the vSphere administrator must have specified the --container-network-ip-range option when they deployed the VCH. The IP address that you specify in docker network connect --ip must be within the specified range. If you do not specify --ip, the VCH assigns an IP address from the range that the vSphere administrator specified in --container-network-ip-range.

$ docker network connect --ip ip_address container-net container1

Result: The container container1 runs with the specified IP address on the container-net network.

Deploy a Network Container that supports DHCP

Deploy a container that supports DHCP by specifying the DHCP network in the docker run command.

The adminstrator must have specified the --container-network option when they deployed the VCH. For the container to get an IP address from DHCP server., you must specify the DNS server in the --dns option of the docker run command. If you do not specify a DNS server, the command times out with the following error:

docker: Error response from daemon: Server error from portlayer: unable to wait for process launch status

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