What Is Container Networking Interface

There are two proposed standards for configuring network interfaces for linux containers.

What is container networking interface.

Container network interface cni cni exposes a simple set of interfaces for adding and removing a container from a network. To put it succinctly it is an interface between a network namespace and network plugin. This enables a container to attach to your host s network meaning the configuration inside the container matches the configuration outside the container. Defined by a json schema its templated code makes it straight forward to create a cni plugin for an existing container networking project or a good framework for creating a new container networking project from scratch.

Endpoints join exactly one network and multiple endpoints can exist within a single. Cni the container network interface what is cni. These slides are from the cloud native computing foundation s webinar and explain what cni is how you use it and what lies ahead on the roadmap. This offers a container specific network stack that lacks a network interface.

Cni the container network interface is a standard api between container runtimes and container network implementations. The container network model cnm and the container network interface cni. Cni stands for container networking interface and it s goal is to create a generic plugin based networking solution for containers. A network interface that typically comes in pairs one end of the pair sits in the network sandbox while the other sits in a designated network.

Containers in enterprise environments are often used as part of a microservices architecture. Container networking interface aka cni. Cni container network interface a cloud native computing foundation project consists of a specification and libraries for writing plugins to configure network interfaces in linux containers along with a number of supported plugins cni concerns itself only with network connectivity of containers and removing allocated resources when the. Cni assumes that the network configuration is in json format that can be stored in a file.

Cni is defined by a spec read it now its not very long that has some interesting language in it. A container runtime eg. This model is common for large web applications where many different applications handle individual tasks and communicate with one another via traditional ip networking. How is container networking helpful in web scale application deployments.

The plugins support the addition and removal of container network interfaces to and from networks. Unlike cnm cni doesn t require a distributed key value store like etcd or consul.