Docker network driver plugins

Engine network driver plugins

Docker Engine network plugins enable Engine deployments to be extended to support a wide range of networking technologies, such as VXLAN, IPVLAN, MACVLAN or something completely different. Network driver plugins are supported via the LibNetwork project. Each plugin is implemented as a “remote driver” for LibNetwork, which shares plugin infrastructure with Engine. Effectively, network driver plugins are activated in the same way as other plugins, and use the same kind of protocol.

Using network driver plugins

The means of installing and running a network driver plugin depend on the particular plugin. So, be sure to install your plugin according to the instructions obtained from the plugin developer.

Once running however, network driver plugins are used just like the built-in network drivers: by being mentioned as a driver in network-oriented Docker commands. For example,

$ docker network create --driver weave mynet

Some network driver plugins are listed in plugins

The mynet network is now owned by weave, so subsequent commands referring to that network will be sent to the plugin,

$ docker run --net=mynet busybox top

Write a network plugin

Network plugins implement the Docker plugin API and the network plugin protocol

Network plugin protocol

The network driver protocol, in addition to the plugin activation call, is documented as part of libnetwork: https://github.com/docker/libnetwork/blob/master/docs/remote.md.

To interact with the Docker maintainers and other interested users, see the IRC channel #docker-network.